Riddle Heights dye the water green

@Skoll @Sahalie Let me know if anything needs to be changed! Kind of the northern end of Riddle Heights I guess?

The touch of spring was upon the air, the steady turn to a warmer season that Spieden wasn't particularly sure she was ready for. She had started to feel better, at least well enough that she could hold down her breakfast through the queasiness of the morning. Maybe it was just a fluke, a virus or something else... Oh she sure hoped it was, even if all the other females seemed to be giving her knowing looks. Keeping her head in the sand was the only option, confronting the reality of it was just too much to handle. She still couldn't sleep worth anything, tossing and turning between what snippets of sleep she could catch, and even in her dreams it seemed she could not rest. 

The forests and its rivers were her domain, yet she found herself scaling the rocky heights regardless. @Triell had mentioned offhand that perhaps it was time they check in with their lakeside allies, and Spieden practically threw herself in volunteering for the task. She'd remembered the last time she had tried to visit Fallen Tree Cove during autumn, that journey thwarted by some poorly-considered apples. It really hadn't been the trip that she or Sahalie had been planning for. Not only could she make amends for the previously failed visit, but give herself a little breathing room before her body decided to pull anymore tricks. She had to stuff down the tiny voice in the back of her mind that whispered that this might be her last chance to travel for some time...

And so up the foothills she and Sahalie went. All things considered, Spieden really was quite flat footed, and the easiest route had proven to be a winding path of switchbacks through a snaking mountain pass.  She supposed the name "lost lake" was all too apt, the sort of looming sense that she was indeed getting them lost imparting itself upon her thoughts. But she had been told the way, and as she'd anticipated a snowmelt fed stream trickled down over the rocks, cutting across their path in a timely reminder to rest. Spieden toed the edge of the cool water, dipping her head down to drink deeply.

@Skoll feel free to jump in! :D

Fallen Tree Cove! The last attempt the get their had been a near disaster, but now they were finally going! Sahalie was much older now, fit for the journey and more familiar with the landscapes and, in particular, the rising, uneven ground that was their destination. Sahalie regaled her caretaker with the tale of meeting @Cernan up by the hot springs, for she wanted to make sure Spieden knew that she had been making every attempt to be good allies with the mountain pack. Sahalie hadn't been neglecting anything, even though the adults probably thought her education was lacking and piecemeal. Spieden, she was sure, wouldn't be surprised to find that she had yet another friend. "I'll warn you, though," the girl drawled in a haughty tone, "He's really shy so you probably shouldn't look directly at him or put him on the spot or anything for knowing me. You'd just scare him dumb." She also considered mentioning how tubby the boy was, and the possibility that other wolves from Fallen Tree Cove were similarly "well-fed" but thought the better of it. She had only met one of them, after all. Maybe he was eating all the food and the other ones were skinny like trees.

"So how much father?" The girl quipped, coming up beside the smelly woman. Truth be told, she was still very suspicious of Spieden's scent and behavior lately. Despite the "upset-stomach" illness fading away, the scent had not. It was, primarily, for this reason that Sahalie had volunteered to go. Secondarily it was to invite the other Cove pups to the cub club gathering. But mostly Spieden. She figured that, perhaps, away from the pack the woman would speak more freely with her, like she had last time. And also she wanted to keep an eye on her in case anything else funny happened.

Only took me about a month to get around to this. xC  Sorry, Skoll's here now. Let the story-telling (or something like it) commence~

The stone underfoot was different than the usual soft forest floor that he was well-acquainted with. Up here there was no moss or tree debris or even grass. The gravel in some places were even sharp and some parts of his mindless wandering consisted of him gritting his teeth up and down the rock shelves. He had stopped to rest along a decent-sized landing when the voice of a young girl seemed to be carried to him by the wind. Judging by how he could barely make out whatever she was mumbling, he figured they were not too far away, but he was able to discern that last bit: "So how much farther?"

His pointy ears perked up and he climbed up to where he would have a more stable footing, where all four of his feet could firmly be planted somewhere in actual dirt without any worries of being, say, punted off the face of the mountain. He stared in their direction until he finally saw them. A dark-coated woman with an even darker-coated cub. He regarded them curiously, eyes partially squinted as he began his assumptions. Mother/daughter duo? Aunt/niece? Yearling? ...if anything, the girl seemed to be just about Sven's age.

"Hello?" he called out to them, his tone curling upward in more of a question rather than a greeting. His interests piqued as he continued to assess them from afar, "You ladies lost?"

i'm a dreamer, i'm a man

i'm doing whatever i can to make the bad things go away