Rogue Outcrop being young and feeling old

@Mako || Late afternoon, Partly Cloudy, 38°F (3°C) || note to self: keepin some things vague

She headed north in the slightest bit. She had kept herself cooped up for too long and she knew if she didn't take care of a bit of wanderlust now then it would only grow over time. The dove knew she could not make Lorcán put up with her wandering when they were supposed to have a future together. What kind of partner was she if she was absent as a well-worked scout?

A few hours of wandering on and off paths unknown led her to an interesting sight. It was a large outcrop that seemed practically unclimbable. She imagined it must have been warm from the sun that had managed to appear today and that tempted her to move closer to the wall of the stone figure. The Santoro did not intend to climb it but lean into it instead. For a minute she could pretend it was far warmer than it really was. Piety was becoming terribly impatient for true warmth to return.

She supposed that this little bit of heated stone would do for now.

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Mako hated to admit it, it was awfully dull without Rissy around to keep him entertained. He also hated to admit that she was his only real friend in the pack. He wasn't very good at the whole social thing, and the little girl had sort of forcibly dragged him out of his shell by virtue of her bubbly demeanor. None of the others in the pack were quite as effervescent as the kid was, and if Mako wasn't forced to interact with others, he just wouldn't. The Coho was more like a shadow than anything else, something always there but silent and easy to forget.

So he figured nobody probably noticed when the surly youth scaled up the mountainside, relishing the purposeful ache in his muscles as he hauled his body up the incline, eyes settled on a dark spire of stone jutting from the slopes of the Dire. Even despite the chill in the cold mountain air, the effort had his breath leaving his mouth in steady puffs of steam. It was good for him though, he had a physique to keep up.

Mako hadn't expected to run into somebody else up here, and the warm feeling of accomplishment as he finally made it to the rocky outcropping was quickly dampened to see that someone else had already made it up here. Gods, she didn't even look like she'd broken a sweat. She hadn't even said or done anything yet, but Mako couldn't help but stare sourly as his spit-frothed tongue flapped out in the cold air.

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

It was the heavy breathing that caught her attention, followed by the somewhat dark form in the corner of her eye. Her head turned to take the heavy-breather in full view. He easily topped her size with grandness but that had never been anything to Piety. She usually surrounded herself with large creatures.

"That bad of a climb or just not used to the place?" Sure the climb hadn't been just a breeze for her but she looked nothing like the stranger. Perhaps staying here had given her an advantage and time spent in rugged terrains had been helpful as well.

She didn't bother budging from the wall of the outcrop. The dove craved the warmth that seeped from the stone into her thinning fur. Would the stranger care to join her in sunbathing or was he going to stand there looking as sour as a salmonberry?

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Mako smacked his lips and shook out his coat, trying to make himself look less like some big ol' buffalo that couldn't even climb up a hill without keeling over. Maybe this lady'd just come up an easier way... At least he could tell himself that. Was she trying to insult him? Honestly, he couldn't tell either way from the remark, his ears folding back sullenly. Either she was being a dick, or he was being a dick, or they both were. He felt like such a fish out of water sometimes. Usually he'd just smooth it over with pithy, snarky comments. What would Rissy do if she were here? Try and make friends, in all likelyhood. 

He snuffed, trying to lift his nose up a little. He'd made it all the way up here, he wasn't gonna let this tiny white juggernaut make him feel like a slug about it. "I'm new here. Kinda." He huffed. He was born here, but he didn't feel like he was from here. Or anywhere else for that matter. Stuck in some weird limbo. Whatever. "Think I just took the wrong way 'round." He huffed, padding over and flopping his rump on the ground, at least letting himself enjoy the view he'd earned with sore paw pads.

(This post was last modified: Mar 18, 2018, 02:01 AM by Mako.)

"I'm new here. Kinda."

Piety could take that kind of answer. She was new here kinda too. Sure she had lingered on the mountain for a bit now but originally it was the forest below and before that, it was more places than she could count. Perhaps the stranger was something like herself.

Her head gave a small nod as she settled on her rear. "I don't think I've been that way." Mentioning he had seemingly come from the northeast. She had been north and even in the southeast some but overall that side was still a bit of a mystery to her. Not that she had any plans to change that. Piety was happy where she was. "Where are you coming from?" She asked with a pale brow raising, scarred face giving a bit of a warm expression. It was nice to see a new face. Especially since she couldn't remember the last time she had met a stranger.

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Well, for all the juggernaut's faults -- which currently just amounted to not looking like fish gaping its gills out of water like Mako was -- she was atleast gracious enough to take his terrible excuse. He didn't even know if there was any other way up here, but he supposed there had to be. He hadn't noticed her scent on the way up, anyways. 

He shifted his gaze from the vista that stretched out before them, focusing on the female as she asked him a question and letting a little bit of the sullen glare melt away when he realized she was just being nice and not rubbing his nose in anything. Looking at her, the two long scars snaking down her pretty face barely registered. After all, his mother was almost more scar than fur at this point. 

Mako chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought her question over for a bit. Like where he was living now? Or before? Or where he'd been born? Or where his family had come from before he'd even been conceived but held all the weight and meaning of his past? Fuck, probably not all that garbage. She was just trying to make polite conversation.

"Uhh," he started, awkwardly filling some space with the useless sound and buying himself some time before he answered. "I guess right now I'm living with a pack down by the lake just east of here... Ya know, the big one with all the islands stickin' out of it like turtles?" Did she know? He blinked, maybe she didn't know and he just sounded like an idiot going on about turtles.

The place he described was foreign to her. She had never come across such a lake. It sounded...interesting. "Can't say I do know it but it does sound nice." Despite the strange description of islands coming out of the water like turtles. She couldn't even begin to imagine what that meant.

"I'm Piety." The pale female said with a small wave of her tail. Introductions were far easier, they didn't require prior knowledge about places one might or might know. "I'm settled down on the lower elevations of the mountain, just to the west." Her head tipped back to point in the vast direction. It was only fair she shared that information mentioning she had made him share it.

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Mako bobbed his head the slightest amount at the word 'nice'. Yeah, he supposed it was in a way. There were a lot worse places the pack could have settled down in. Whether or not he could actually call the sea his home, the Coho boy definitely thrived with water around.

As the female gave her name, Mako stared, brow furrowing as her name echoed in his head. She said something else after that, but the words sort of filtered in one ear and oozed out the other without really registering. Piety. Piety. Piety. That sounded... It itched something in his brain, but he'd moved around so much in his short life it was hard to connect the dots. His jaw hung open, still staring as she pointed with her nose out West. 

He was aware that social conventions deemed that he should say something in response, she'd said something after he totally zoned out, but what it was had totally escaped him. "Umm," he started, finally closing his mouth and jaw working as he tried to piece together blurry memories. 

"Sorry," He blurted out, not even sure if she noticed him staring. "You seem familiar," He explained, his ears crumpling alongside his head. "I'm Mako Coho?" he said in almost a questioning tone. 

lemme know if you want me to change anything

His name was familiar too, not in a personal way but she was positive she had heard it before. Certainly not a name from the south that was riddled with Archers. Right? Which really only left her with one place to guess from.

"The Monadnock? Whitestone Monadnock." She mused out loud, wondering if that was it. There had been so many faces before things crumbled beneath them. Perhaps he had been one of those faces or maybe he was even of a neighboring northern pack. There was the chance she could have bumped into the boy scouting the lowlands.

"Either way it's nice to meet you, Mako." Her tail gave a few gentle sways behind him. The large male certainly wasn't bad company.

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