Nomads Pass Unfinished Business

RE: There is a small landslide on the mountain

She had left the meeting on a mission and could only hope Rhysis was following her train of thought after the earthquake that had just rocked their Pass. After her initial nudge, she didn’t look to see if he followed but hoped to any gods that were listening that she wouldn’t be taking this journey back to the other side alone. Long strides ate the earth beneath her as she travelled to the far end of their territory and the sight and scents that met her there caused her heart to sink a little. Heavy head dropped low to examine them closer. Romanis, and Valiant... under a scattered trail of rocks and rubble that had once been a small wall blocking their access to over there now lay in a rocky trail and into the unknown.

Hair prickled to stand up on the back of her neck and a wild look was painted to her face. Was she ready for this? Did she have a choice? A deep breath was drawn and a howl thrown into the wilderness beyond. A plea, a cry. If her pack mates were down there, she would go... but what would she find? Silent moments passed before a familiar answer came, from a wolf she never thought she would be happy to hear from. Her own short, almost frantic call was given in response. We are coming. Stay put. We are coming.

Her heart beat erratically as she took the first steps forward and the hazy forest came into sight to the south. It sent a chill down her spine to think of what lurked amongst those trees (whether real of imagined in her own maddened state), but the call had come from the north, and with a steadying breath she began to pick her way carefully down the unstable path, relieved to hear the tell-tale rattle of another following in her wake.

The meeting was over as rapidly as it had started. Each of the wolves slipping off to execute their duties and he had an inkling that none of them would slack off. Whilst he had yet to really get to know the group, he felt as if they were bonded by the very fact that no one else wanted them around and as mismatched as they were, they might actually continue to pull this off this glued together pack.
Naira was one of the first to slip away; the expression on her face was clear as day- she was on the hunt and not for food. No doubt she was off to seek out Valiant and he supposed he should follow... she had a foul temper and Valiant was a bit of a sap. Rhysis owed him yet again, so would most likely intervene if a fight broke out between the two. He should probably think it funny, that a wolf like Valiant might need his protection, but that guy wasn't the most strategic fighter and Naira had a pretty nasty bite.

Her scent moved across the terrain, her pace must have been swift but he would have expected nothing less from a woman on a mission. His legs made short work of the dips and falls, mountain turned to forest and he ducked through the shadows, trailing her scent like breadcrumbs. By the time he left the forest, the sun had moved in the sky and it would be nightfall soon- their terrain was vast to say the least. Yet he did not falter, if Naira was this set to travel their entire home then she clearly had murder on the mind and as much as he didn’t care for the female who came with Valiant, he couldn’t let his best puppet be melted down for parts.
Her trail continued up to the very borders of the far side, a place they rarely travelled because they simply had no business to… and the trip down to the land below was unsafe and they had yet to find a reason to venture this far away from their home… still, Naira had gone this way and her trail lead down the steep cliff towards the foggy ground below.

From the mist, her call came; like an echo he heard Valiant reply- his tone a little frantic and so very far away. Clearly they were on the right path toward finding him. He picked up the pace, running as carefully as he could down the thinning path until he saw Naira’s tawny figure up ahead. The path was not wide enough to walk alongside her so for now he simply followed her in line and hoped that they would make it back up this path later.

(This post was last modified: Mar 20, 2013, 10:59 AM by Rhysis.)

The path was narrow, lined with loose pebbles and long drops into nothingness, the failing light only adding to the darkness of the chasms that opened up below. She contented herself by focusing on the parts of the path that remained and not for the first time cursed the eastern side of the mountain. More than once the edges of the path crumbled beneath her paws and she had to wonder what on earth had possessed the two wolves to travel so far? She muttered under her breath as she travelled, turning once or twice to throw a brave smile over her shoulder at the dark wolf that followed in an attempt to break up any of the remaining awkwardness between them.

She sagged in relief as the path widened before them unaware of just how much tension she had been carrying. The chasm was eaten up by the narrow canyon that opened up between two cliffs. It would allow them to walk side by side, but it was awfully dark in there... Once she was on solid ground again, she slowed her steps so that she might walk by Rhysis’s side if he would allow it. She was still adjusting to this new life and while she reveled in some of the challenges, there were others that would take her longer to get used to... like being in a partnership again.

There was a feral look in her eye, somewhere caught between fear and paranoia. The silence was deafening and she couldn’t help but muse aloud... "We never came this far north..." The shakiness in her voice betrayed just how conflicted she truly felt being back outside of the safety of her home. What if the path fell away behind them? What if she had to go through all of it again? Her nose was working overtime, it was a perfect place to hold an ambush and who knew what wild things made their homes this side of the mountain?

The path began to open up. His instincts were relieved for the journey so far had been pretty tough, even for wolves like themselves who were no stranger to the tricks and traps of the mountain, it had been a tough trek. The silence that fell between them was no uncomfortable, it was necessary as the ground beneath them kept vanishing, made riskier for himself with Naira losing the ground as she walked and him having to keep pace behind her with what little ground was left. There had been a few near misses, but he wasn’t going to admit to the panic that bubbled up inside him as his instincts told him to go back… not that there was any room to turn around, the option was down or down, but that didn’t calm the storm inside him that told him how wrong this was and how very unnatural it felt to be so close to the edge.

Naira moved over, allowing him space to move alongside her which he took up. Perhaps not for safety reasons, after all things were still frost between them at best, but because it meant he could take the lead if the path should thin again – he didn’t like being at the back. Ever.
They moved in silence, but not for long. Her voice broke through the monotonous clicking of claws upon the stone terrain and he glanced to her from the corner of her eye. She spoke with a shaky voice, something that sounded both conflicted and frightened. He didn’t even think of their time away, he found it better to block out his past else he would never have a future, but not everyone was as resilient to hard luck. He pondered in silence for a moment, trying to find words that would not further upset her (for no man liked a crying woman, it made them uncomfortable) or that would appear that he didn’t just want to dismiss the topic. ”I think I went south, but it all starts to look the same after a while I suppose.”

Her memories of her time on the ‘other side’ were vague at best, half real, half imagined, she wasn’t exactly in a stable state of mind when she had been here, but she had seen things she wouldn’t wish on anyone but Athena. As hard as her time on the outside had been, it was coming back to her former kingdom that had taken the heaviest toll on her. She hadn’t spoken to Rhysis of all that had befallen her, and although she had mentioned it to Triell, and in a moment of weakness to Valiant, she was yet to open up to the one wolf that it really mattered had any sort of understanding of exactly what she had been through to make her so cold.

She thought he would find the story of her challenge most amusing of all her tales, although it would mean admitting her true standing within their former pack to retell it. For now the path was unchanging, steady and secure, there was no need to focus as closely as they had needed to with a chasm at their flank. Casually she brushed against him, like they used to. She would try to make this work. Really she would.

"She stuck me as the lowest when we got back, refused to tell the kids who I was to them..." There was no bitterness in her retelling, she was simply relaying facts for now. "I challenged Chantille." she recalled with a somewhat savage smile. "Apparently mauling her shoulder was excessive... despite the fact she had me by the head." Her tale trailed off with a small laugh, it sounded so foreign in the closed in space in which they wandered. "We should do something once we all get back."

She didn’t even allow herself to think for a moment that they may not make it back with all their members in tow. "The caches are still exactly where we left them. Maybe we should do a raid?" there was a mischievous glint to her eye and a tease in her tone. After the non-event of reclaiming her children she was intent to make their very existence upon the mountain little more than a living hell.

He fell silent as she spoke, listening to her words whilst he navigated the path. Valiant had given him the rough details, but hearing her confirm the story did nothing to ease the fire of hatred that burned for the wolves who had taken over his home. "Excessive? They're such weaklings. Honestly, I bet they think a stubbed toe would require a healer lest they face certain death." he mused, though there was no humour in his tone. His mood was not in the place to do anything more than make a sarcastic comment. The show he had witnessed upon the mountain as the stupid wolf who was marked by Athena, decided to try and outrun a freakin' avalanche. Yeah, he was pretty sure they were all missing some pretty vital brain cells.

Her idea at revenge was not perhaps as dark as his. He was thinking more along the lines of murder rather than stealing, though it was no surprise she wanted a slightly more peaceful approach, especially with the changing in season being just around the corner; not that it was something he was thinking about, but just something he was very aware of and had to take into consideration. "Sounds like a plan. Though we'd be better hitting sooner rather than later - let them struggle as winter comes to an end." he said, though his mind was elsewhere with images of strangling the very last breath from them one by one instead.

Life is not a song, sweetling

• NAIRA AQUILA •

You may learn that one day to your sorrow

She could not help but wonder if his quip about healers for stubbed toes was some sort of jab at her knowledge, although she had never been one to brandish the skill unless needed (with the exception of her almost obsessive hoarding of various leaves and flowers, which had all but evaporated with her return). Beyond a confused hint of a grin, she shrugged the comment off. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking anyway.

Her smile broadened at his acceptance of her casual suggestion. She could not know he had far more violent thoughts on his mind (although similar had crossed her own on more than one occasion), for he had never really allowed his darker side to show in her presence. A master of control he had always been, with the exception of their one encounter near the Heartleaf Creek, and even then he had been ill. She could not hold that against him, nor allow a single encounter to tarnish her perception of all the time they had been together. Even now, she had herself convinced that she knew him, and that they - despite all their differences would work things out, because they were meant to be together, like the stories her mother had told her as a child. They just needed time.

Up ahead, despite the failing light, brightness loomed. The split in the mountain through which they walked began to open up as the ground leveled beneath their paws. Treacherous the path may have been to this point, but she took a moment to pause and consider, just how much worse it could be once they were free.

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