Velo en Cascada i got so many theories and suspicions

All welcomed || Light snow, 33 ° F, 1 ° C, Afternoon

He had just meant to go out hunting for brunch and got lost along the way. A wrong turn down the wrong stream and suddenly he wasn't sure where he was. There were no familiar scents or fallen logs with makeshift dens underneath them. His head swung around with two hares in his jaws. One was for him and one had intended to be for @Astrid but now that he was lost he wasn't sure if he'd make it back to her. It made him nervous to think that one wrong turn had driven him away from his honeyed friend. It wasn't intentionally and surely she'd understand once he made it back 'home'.

Large paws shuffled through the fresh snow. He really wished that the weather of spring was here already. The cold weather only made him worry more. The sunflower girl was out in the cold alone while he fumbled about. While he had been looking for adventure, this didn't exactly feel like the adventure he had been in search of.

As he crept onwards he found a falls like structure. It seemed like all hope was lost for the large boy. That was until he spots something hiding behind the falls. He tried his best to miss any cold, slippery stones but was a bit unsuccessful. Claws scratching and clicking to find traction where there was none. Before he fell he managed to make it behind the stones. It was as if some magical being heard his cries. This was shelter from the snow. He could rest and try to think things through before heading back into the unknown. The large yearling tucked himself into a corner and set down the hares. A sigh left his lips as his large form curled up and looking out. Where was his honey friend and how was she doing? Did she miss him too?

hihi, i hope you don't mind me joining and the fact that this post is all tf over the place :X

She had really hoped winter had been moving towards a swift end.  It had seemed that way, all things pointing towards the growth of greenery and warmer climes to visit.  But now the young flowers that had sprung up were frozen and wilted, or at least as frozen and wilted as they could have been.  In some cases, Vesper only discovered their existence by turning over the snow that clung in place of soft earth.

She followed the stream out of habit, at least thankful that she had found a decent water source.  Where there was water, there was bound to be food, and well, potentially others.  She hadn't gone entirely without the company of others in her travels, but it had been a good while since she had seen a familiar face.  Her bullheaded brothers had scattered to the winds, leaving her behind in the proverbial dust, and somewhere along that same stretch of earth she had wandered off course.

The story from there was more or less the present, but at least she had come to partial terms with the fact that she had most definitely ended up somewhere else other than where she thought everyone else was going.  A brief pause for a drink and she was off again, the cold haven't not quite squashed her spirit yet.  Crisscrossing over the mountain however was another story entirely, but nothing a good stretch of rest hadn't fixed.  But she was hungry and in that mindset, it was more than the stream she followed.  It was hard to miss the smell of something dead and fresh.

But of course, as her run of luck had been of late, she lost the scent just as quickly as it brought her to follow it.  Vesper crossed the stream once, eyes scanning ferevently along the underbrush and snow.  She spied out the tracks and was crestfallen immediately; someone else had gotten there, presumably, and taken off.  Her hopes of an easy meal were dashed along the rocks... and as she crossed back over, she went down on them too.  Note to self, theme of the day: if it weren't for bad luck.

With a hiss of pain and a reaction not unlike a cat being baptized in a tub, she soon found herself more damp and a little banged up.  Luckily for her, a scrape across a paw pad was minor, but she still didn't avoid tending to it as though it were world-ending.  One set back was enough, but as soon as they started piling up it was anyone's guess as to how the rest would play out.

@Vesper <3

He could have dozed off had it not been for the horrendous sound not too far away. Mathuin let out a series of barks before trying to find out what the culprit of such a sound could be. A large cat? Wolf? Another skunk? The thought of a skunk worried him more than anything. That gross scent had just started to wear out of his pelt.

Green eyes spotted a wolf with earth colors. Young like himself but smaller and certianly thinner. "What the hell was that?" He asked with concern as his head whipped around to see if anything was near them. It seemed like they were alone but he wouldn't put it past some kook to be hiding behind the rocks or under the water. "Are you alright?" The large yearling's voice had grown less demanding and more soft as he lowered his height to make him seem less tree-like as Astrid put it. "Any injuries or anything? I mean, I'm not a healer but I have a friend and she might know something." It would require him trying to go out and find her but maybe with the motivation that someone's life could or might depend on it he was sure he could get them to his honey friend.

"I'm Mathuin." He finally gave her his name after his most important questions had been asked.

"speech"

mathuin whitebark

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Astrid & Mathuin
The Adventuring Peanuts

The water ran off her coat in rivulets as she looked over the paw pad; her tongue flicked out to brush across it.  She tasted no blood and that much was good.  Vesper was thankful for that, if nothing else, and shook out her coat.  She had no more moved to finish out her cross of the stream when someone else emerged on the scene -- at first just a voice, distant and echoing -- and her eyes snapped to his larger figure immediately as he spoke.  Her frame sagged with uncertainty; where had he come from?  Had she been so caught up with hunger and worry that she had missed someone of his stature midst the scenery?

It was possible, she supposed, but at least he seemed concerned.

But still, she wondered if he hadn't come appearing out of thin air.

"No, it's fine," she started off.  "Just a little scrape.  Nothing to worry about."  Vesper offered him a small wave of her tail, as though it would be reassuring to her case.  It did nothing to brush off the embarrassment she felt for a good moment, because what if he had seen her take that spill?  Well, he wasn't laughing... and it dawned on her that she hadn't done anything crucial beyond trying to assure him.  Instead that seized her and the lull between her words seemed to take minutes instead of the actual seconds in reality.

"Thank you, though.  I'm Vesper.  Sorry if I disturbed you, I didn't mean to.  It's just that I thought I smelled something and... I slipped," she went on to say with a laugh that sounded a touch more nervous than it should have.  "It was stupid really, I should have been paying attention."  Her gaze went back to the patch of rocks that unsurprisingly did not suggest how slick they were.  But it had gotten colder since she had set foot in the Lore, and that was the surprising part.  Of course hindsight, being twenty-twenty, also told her she should have put the two together instead of having a lacuna in the middle of her logical thought.

so heckin sorry bout the wait :C @Vesper

Just a little scrape.

Wasn't that how all injuries started off? Just a little cut or bruise, then an infection and then death. Maybe that wasn't exactly how it worked but Mathuin was almost positive it worked close to that. Then again he wasn't a healer he had only heard stories about injuries being so fatal. Regardless, her own wavering of it being fine did nothing to soothe the nerves now riled in the boy's body. He did his best to hide it. No use in making things possibly worse.

"Just startled was all." He hadn't really been that disturbed. "Sounded like someone was trying to wash a mountain lion." The large yearling snorted softly at the thought of a feline being dunked into water. But she mentioned smelling something and instantly he felt a little bad. The hares he had hiding away had been the culprit of her pain. "I, uh, found this place behind the waterfall." He gestured softly. "I was stopping for a rest after hunting. Two hares." His shoulders awkwardly rolled. "Sorry if that's what you smelt and caused all of this." Maybe he ought to offer her one.

Green eyes looked around for a moment before returning to Vesper. "You kind of earned one," He offered a stiff and awkward chuckle. "you want one?"

Astrid & Mathuin
The Adventuring Peanuts

quite alright fren, no bamboozles!  though on that note if this is ten kinds of weird it's because i'm spaced out tired.  adjusting to a new schedule this week oh no halp pls

There was a flash of a smile across her features then at the consideration of someone trying to bathe a mountain lion.  The mental image was just absurd, but it was enough to take her mind off of the embarrassment of her own mishap.  Plus there may have been a little amusement in the notion that she had startled him, but it was soon replaced with the passing curiosity of whether or not she should have been thinking about other predators.  Mountain lions were no joke, after all.  They'd had their way with other less suspecting true-blue wolves out there.

Of course, the same could have been said about other wolves too.

Vesper didn't linger there on that thought long at all though, instead taken aback by his offer.  Never had the knots in her stomach seemed so intense then and it would have only been more embarrassing at that point if it had a mind of its own to growl audibly.  Thankfully, such didn't happen. She felt warmth rise in her slender cheeks and her ears folded back gently; being lead there by the scent of the hares would explain half of what had gotten her into this mess of course, but for a total stranger to offer her part of their catch?

"Sure," she started off almost without thought only to catch herself.  While her brain stalled, her mouth had no problems going off. "But are you sure?  I don't want to take from your hard work, I'm sure there's something around here that I could try and catch." And besides, what if he had more important things to tend to than feeding the strays?  Even while the niceties had come rolling out, the rest of her actions threatened to betray her as she licked her lips.  The conflict therein had already started... but she was hungry...