Quaking Vale steady feet

For @Astrid <3

Patchy rain possible
58 ° F, 15 ° C

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Maybe this leader thing wasn't so bad. When it became apparent that she wasn't going to burn down the forest in her first week, Cas became a bit more confident in herself. Her old, timid self from before the Lore had begun to whisper in her ear that she wasn't at all good enough for the position, but so far she'd invited one new member in, and nobody had died. That was a plus. There were no explosions, no floods, no real chaos of any kind.

Yeah, she was pretty sure she could do this until Sahalie decided to come back. It wasn't all that bad.

Besides, she was feeling better physically than she'd felt since before she'd ever found the Lore. In fact, for the time being, her disease was one of the last things on her mind. She could focus on the pack and spend her energy on more important things. She was finally, for the first time in her entire life, living like a normal wolf. And she absolutely loved it - she honestly hadn't known what she was missing out on beforehand. Was this how everybody felt, every single day of their lives?

This was amazing.

She had decided to visit a cache for some breakfast that day, humming slightly as she made her selection. The smallest thing they had was a marmot, and she couldn't eat all of that by herself. She frowned, selecting it anyway, and wondering how she was going to go about eating it. If Niles were there, she could probably just trust him to eat whatever she didn't, but he wasn't around at the moment. A sigh pulled from her lips as she nudged it back, intending to go find a different cache - one that perhaps had a rabbit or something that she wouldn't waste half of.

Astrid wasn't entirely sure what it was she was supposed to be doing. Everything had been so straightforward when she and Mathuin were still adventurers. The objective then had been clear: discover as much of the world as they could and try not to get hurt in the process. And now they were stuck in this one place. It wasn't all that bad, but still she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with her time. Perhaps a more assiduous wolf occupy their waking hours with meaningful tasks that improved the well-being of the pack, hunting or scouting or some other worthwhile endeavor. 

But instead the golden girl resumed with her usual scatterbrained antics, playing in the golden summer rays that streamed through the aspen canopy, or splashing in the stream. Truth be told, Astrid was rather useless as far as pack wolves went.

As Astrid gallivanted through the territory, shed spied Castel digging about, unearthing something only to push it back into the ground. Ah, now this was something she could help with! Astrid bounded forward, golden tail swishing merrily behind her. A sunny grin beamed on her face, "No, no, I got it!" She told the little russet wolf. White paws squared over the hole, Astrid shoved her face down into the ground and started to shovel the loose soil back over the marmot with her nose.

Astrid + Mathuin

Two Pure Peanuts

There is a rabbit's nest nearby. +1 Health

It seemed like, out of nowhere, a pelt of honey gold appeared in Cas' direct view. She stepped back when the newer girl - Astrid, Cas remembered - attempted to take over the makeshift alpha's job of burying the marmot. Sky-colored eyes lit up with amusement as the larger wolf gallantly started to bury the prey back underground.

"How kind of you," she chirped, tail wagging behind her. "Actually, I was just burying it back so I could go find something smaller. But now that there's two of us, we can finish up that marmot no problem!" It was always a special treat to meet someone as outgoing and carefree as herself, and she had a feeling Astrid would not disappoint on that front - if Mathuin was anything to go by. "That is, if you're hungry, of course."

She couldn't very well force feed the poor girl, but maybe she'd want to eat anyway. It'd be a good way for the both of them to get off their feet and relax - Cas knew damn well that she, herself, needed rest. She wasn't so knowledgeable about the newer member's state of being, but it didn't matter, really. Sharing food also provided a good opportunity for her to get to know the golden girl. She knew little of her, aside from the fact she came with Mathuin and joined not long ago, and that her name was Astrid. What kind of second - alpha - female did it make her if she didn't even know her own packmates?

@Castel

"Oh!" Astrid squeaked, her tail swishing as Castel informed her exactly why she had been burying the marmot in the first place. Come to think of it, she was pretty hungry as she hadn't eaten yet that day. Marmot sounded good, and then Castel would be able to eat too without having to find something else. "Sure!" She agreed, "A little feast!" Why not make it a little more festive?

She reversed directions, her chin pulling away the dirt she had previously shoved inwards and her paws scraping the ground to re-exhume the marmot. Fortunately she hadn't covered too much yet, and soon the dead rodent was unearthed for the second time that day. Astrid grabbed a mouthful of fur near the animal's head, lifting it from the cache and shaking it back and forth to loosen the dirt that had worked into its brown fur. Setting it on a patch of grass, she braced her pale white paws against the marmot and tugged, tearing the hide open. With a big chomp she sank her teeth in and pulled, ripping a chunk of meat free. She stepped aside, allowing Castel some space to get at the marmot as she chewed down her chunk.

Astrid + Mathuin

Two Pure Peanuts

She quite liked this girl. Though Cas outranked her within the pack, Astrid wasn't afraid to start eating first, having taken a chunk of the marmot after she dug it back up. And Castel certainly wasn't some highfalutin alpha who would give a crap about those kinds of pleasantries. A smile found its way onto the blue-eyed girl's face, and she crouched down to take her own bite of the meat. And, because she had absolutely no manners and also didn't care whatsoever what anyone else would think of her, she spoke whilst chewing.

"How are you fitting in with Quaking Vale?" she asked, voice slightly muffled by the food behind her cheeks. It was important to know how the newer members felt about the pack, and Cas made a mental note to seek out Tikhon and maybe Mathuin again, to check and see how they were doing. If there was something wrong, she'd do her best to right it. "Has everyone been welcoming to you?"

Larkspur came, unbidden, to the forefront of her thoughts. If anyone would target new, young, seemingly-carefree members of the pack, it would be that dickbag. She wasn't sure why she hated him so much, when she'd liked a certain dark-pelted man up north with similar behaviors. Perhaps it was just that Cas was older now, and had much less tolerance for that kind of treatment.