Drooping Willows every claim you stake

February 5th; Morning; Clear; -11 ° F, -24 ° C

Surprisingly enough, settling down on the heights of Silent Moon Plateau had been both uneventful and actually rather comfortable so far. Apart from keeping in close contact with Heigen (since their little... scuffle...) and minding Phineas' orders (of minding the borders, filling the caches, and keeping an eye out on Takis and the girls), he kept to himself. For the most part, he traversed about the rocky ledges with a gait that constantly suggested he was slinking about, looking for something to steal. Even if he had his head low, ears back, tail tucked, and chest nearly touching the ground as he went, Tannis was certainly not looking for trouble. In fact, he was looking for a new way to safely head down to the forest floor on the western side of the mountain.

Careful steps, unfortunately, did not sometimes make for safe, easy landings. One unsteady step of his paw onto a slick, gravel-covered stone and there went Tannis like an tan- and auburn-tinted slinky - head over heels with his tail flailing about as he went down... down... down the side of the mountain until...

"Oof!" He landed with a heavy thump on the forest floor, grateful for the thick blanket of snow that served as a cushion of sorts. A shake of his coat and a string of coughs later, the man from the Plateau was back on his feet, wheezing as he went along the foothills before heading into the tree line of the Drooping Willows. At least nothing was broken... bruised, perhaps, but he was not going to let a thorough inspection or a rapidly beating heart keep him from completing the mission he had set out for himself this morning. His goldenrod eyes scoured the trees, on the lookout for anything out of place since the last time he had been down on this side of Relic Lore.

So far, so good. Nothing foreign in the air and nothing too startling in immediate sight.

His stomach rumbled and he wrinkled his nose; he had just had a bit of snow on top of a couple bites of whatever he had found laying around somewhere near the edges of the plateau. His best guess was that it had probably been someone's leftovers, a gristle-like part of a meal that was thought to be inedible. Regardless, he had enjoyed it in its frostbitten state. It filled his gut enough to stave off the hunger pangs and made him feel energized enough to continue on his way, looking for anything of value or practical use for the pack.

sound of the drums

Morganna Archer

beatin' in my heart

With the sun making its glaring presence known, the dark princess debated turning in for the night. Truly she should have sought her bed hours ago, but the confines of the pack den and all the scents that gathered there were not nearly as tempting as a small hollow dug out at the base of a willow tree close to the base of the mountain. She decided she would much prefer basking in what little sun managed to work its way through the naked whips of willow branches, away from all the thoughts that would plague her if she went all the way home.

Lids had just begun to drift close over peachy eyes when her relative peace was interrupted by a series of bangs and crashes that would usually signify a small avalanche. Her heart stopped thundering when it was followed up with an Oof! clearly not a boulder or wall of snow sent to swallow her up but a stranger sent to try her patience. Or so she assumed.

She was relatively concealed at the base of the tree and the wind was in her favour so she decided to wait and see just who was foolish enough to interrupt her beauty sleep. Whoever it was clearly hadn’t met their demise in the fall because the flapping and fluttering sound that followed a shake came to her ears and she smirked. Clueless.

She watched as the stranger roamed about, seemingly with no particular target in mind, her brows drew together before a mirthful smile worked its way onto her face. Once he had passed she bought herself to her paws and stalked after the brown wolf for a short while before she couldn’t hold her laughter anymore. Schooling her face to something far more serious than the bubbling glee she felt inside she barked his name in a commanding tone. “Tannisss!” fulling expecting the man to flee she drew herself up to her full height, looking down her muzzle at the larger wolf. “Where ’ave you been?”

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"Tannisss!”

The rather abrupt bark, quite frankly, had startled him and if it had been any other word besides his first name, he would have run for the hills. All the way back up to where he belonged on the Plateau on the side of the mountain. The fact that he had remembered the voice that had called for him by name was quick to cancel out the fear and replace his head with a sense of wonderment and awe. He might have initially locked all his joints and his fur might have stood up on edge everywhere along his spine, but as quickly as he had frozen, he relaxed and spun around. Even his skinny brush of a tail gave an excited wag when she had asked where he had been.

"M-Mistress," he stuttered with a smile as he beamed into her face. "Princess Morganna." He gave her a meager smile as he lowered his head to a more respectful position closer to the ground, utterly displeased with himself for not being able to prepare for her arrival. He probably should have tried to dig up something for her - a bit of scrub pine bark, an interesting twig, a frozen rabbit corpse, or a morsel from some of the abandoned kill sites he had recently found at the foot of the mountain - just to show that he had been thinking of her, hoping that she would show up again after having missed her for so long.

"Nowhere," he replied after an airy cough, "Or, well, maybe everywhere; I was jus' on the other side of the mountain, lost... I think. I-I was looking for you." Meekly, he twitched his tail, the tip of it grazing the underside of his belly, "I thought I'd never see you again." He crouched down in the snow, his ears flattening as a whine whistled through his nostrils. "Have you been well? Is... Is that other woman with you, the Guard?"

don't need reason

Morganna Archer

don't need rhyme

It would seem that he remembered her and she barely contained a smirk as he shrunk before her. Slowly she moved, her tail inching higher as she closed in on the other wolf, drawing close enough to lower her head and sniff at the fur around the nape of his neck. “I smell a lie Outlaw.” she spoke quietly by his ear, allowing her teeth to click together close to his face before she rose up again.

When he went on to question the location of her guard she growled her displeasure. The interloper that had cut their last encounter short was long since gone, like so many before her. It didn’t mean she couldn’t twist the truth to her advantage. She began to walk a circle around the wolf, looking him up and down before she chose her words. “I got rid o’ her.” she spoke quietly, as if sharing a secret between friends. “She upset me, bargin’ in like she did, an’ now she’s gone.” She slowed her steps as she drew back near his head. Her head dropped again to whisper in his ear, unable to keep the grin that pulled at the corner of her lips shining through in her tone.

“Ye upset me too Tannis,” there could have been an underlying tone of displeasure if she could only get the damn smirk off her face. Her head lifted again and she tried to paint a heartbroken look on her face, “I wasn’ finished with yer and ye left…” Her voice lowered considerably as she continued, her face becoming far more serious. “Now how are we gonna make tha’ right?”

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Basically Tannis right now....

His greeting was not returned in kind. She thought he was lying and that, alone, made the eagerness and distress melt away. His nose wriggled, uneasy now as he sunk even lower into the snow, laying flat on the ground as though he were a newborn fawn being instructed to wait for his mother's return. He wheezed and flinched as Morganna told him that he had upset her. "I-I-I'm sorry," he stammered under his breath, staring at the forelimbs.

She told him that the two of them had unfinished business; and, though he knew he had seemingly abandoned the Willow Ridge royal out of fear and a want to save his own scruffy hide, he was well aware that he owed her something more than his words. Morganna asked him then about how they were going to make everything all right and Tannis' teeth chattered. The hammering rhythm of his heart, paired with his need to both hold his breath and fill his lungs to control his cough, made it hard to speak. "I... I-yiiiiiiiiiii..." he started, seemingly struck dumb.

"Your HIGH-nessss," a loud cough emphasized his next sentence unexpectedly and he immediately turned away, cowering in her presence. "I-I don't... I'll... I'll do anything you want." Another fearful, low-pitched whine, "I've been- I've been gather-ing infor- information for... for you." His mind imagined @Phineas and @Heigen staring daggers at the back of his skull. His ears burned and his nostrils stung with every inhaled breath. Could he lie? Would she believe him? If he told her the truth, would she spare him any spite or malice?

He shook his head as if to answer his own question, continuing to shake it for several minutes before stopping with a plunk of his chin into the ground. For sometime it seemed like he was staring at something just beyond the treetops, even when there was nothing but branches and clouds to look at. When he finally came to, he blinked twice and grimaced, "I'm under the spell of a noble king, Mistress-" That's it, there ya go, not outlandish at all... "Where he has me care for his son and daughters like their servant." Tannis stopped to steal a glance into her lofty face, what small pieces of warm amber he could see of her irises. He hoped it wasn't too much; it was barely a lie. A half-truth, perhaps, and he was already fighting with himself to maintain loyalty to both the Argyris' and the Archer woman before him. "It made me miss you."

"I-I-I promise," his voice was becoming raspy now and he had to clear his throat a few times in order to speak comprehensibly, "I needed them, Princess... when I could not find you; and, oh, how I tried to find you. I've climbed and fallen from the heights, walked in circles day and night, bruised myself, and shivered for you." All too suddenly, he found himself not wanting to be torn away from the wolves of Silent Moon Plateau. Even if he felt like they paid him no mind, a part of him felt obligated to stay. What protection could the Lady Morganna offer him alone versus the fearsome battalion that Phineas' pack created in the face of a threat? "I'll give you anything you want, anything at all, but you must let me stay with this mountain king. He has promised me protection, sanctuary, refuge." His ears quivered, wondering if that was enough to make the Archer woman make a better counter offer. "I cannot leave."

don't need reason

Morganna Archer

don't need rhyme

Perhaps she was a better actress than she thought. As Tannis struggled to string a sentence together she took a step back out of his personal space and lifting her head to look at the branches that gently swayed overhead. She even found herself going so far as to feel slightly sorry for the quivering wreck at her paws. His promise of information however, bought her attention back to his face, listening carefully to his tale of a noble king. She did not suppose that this King may have been a former member of her mothers pack, nor that he may be considered an ally. Information made his absence worthwhile and she lowered her nose to gently touch the cowering wolf’s temple.

“Shh. She cooed gently, the air stirring from her breath caressing his pale cheek. “Yer did good Tannis.” she praised before removing her nose from his temple and stepping back once again. She had her back turned when she told him to “Get up.” She had to admit it was a little disappointing to discover that her plaything was loyal to another, and for the first time she felt sympathy for @Skoll and the torment he must have endured every time she or @Asriel managed to steal his maowse. It did make her wonder though, the power of Willow Ridge was evident, even this far from the borders it was evident that a number of wolves called the Willows home. “This King…” she began, deciding to test her luck, “Where does ‘e rule?” She supposed even if he lied she could simply follow him home. For surely any information she could gather would help to put her in @Elettra’s good books.

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She hushed him in the sort of way a well-practiced mother might have in order to get her sleepy cubs to settle down at her side for the night. Then, she praised him, which made his eyes dart to her face, looking for the authenticity of it all. He couldn't stare for long, though, being too submissive for his own good. His eyes closed briefly as Morganna's nose came to graze his temple before she completely withdrew from him. A pup-like mewl came from him and he did as he was told.

He pushed himself upwards with his forelimbs at first before his rump rose to make his back parallel to the ground. Instinctively, he braced himself, somehow half-expecting her to subtly coil back and snap at his face without warning. His jaw quivered as he stared at her chest and paws, taking note of her every move while avoiding the possibly demanding and still-intimidating stare in her warm-hued eyes.

“This King…” Tannis nearly jumped out of his skin, looking quickly into her eyes once before hastily turning his head away so that she spoke directly into his right ear, “Where does ‘e rule?”

The tawny beast's canines clicked against one another and he repeated quietly, "The Mountain, mistress... Up on the mountain. A plateau overlooking the whole of Relic Lore." As much as he wanted to bite his tongue, he cursed at himself as he impulsively added, "You cannot touch him. To do so would be the end of you, mistress, he has guards and sentinels... They call him The Whitewalker, he, himself, is beast that looks as though it were borne of the winter frost. Much larger than you..." It was a little bit too bold, even for the likes of Tannis, but he added for good measure, as if it had been necessary to crawl his way back onto her good side, "I wouldn't know what to do with myself if he managed to get a hold of you. I wouldn't-- I couldn't forgive myself." He winced, deciding to toss her a bit of advice; and, oh, how he hoped she would heed it. Otherwise, he was going to have to take it upon himself to look after Morganna as well, "Stay away from Riddle Heights. Please. You want something, you search for me."

He took a deep breath and held it for a while before releasing it in a wisp of moisture, also hoping that she would ask nothing else of him. While he liked to believe that he had something of a future or an alliance with the princess Morganna and her kin, he knew that he could not turn around and dig his teeth into his Leader's back. This was all a little charade - his best one yet. "I need them to survive," his voice stabilized at last and he quietly looked into the fullness of her comely face, seeing the true shape of her eyes and the elegance of her muzzle for the first time, "If you want me and my word, you cannot harm them."

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

don't need reason

Morganna Archer

don't need rhyme

She resisted the urge to raise her head and seek out the location of this mountain plateau through the canopy of willows for although they occasionally afforded the girl a peek at the panorama view to the east she really doubted it could be so obvious from here. She resisted snorting at the description the timid wolf gave, she was yet to meet a fully grown wolf that was smaller than her. When he went on to express concern should this Whitewalker get a hold of her she had to wonder what sort of company the earth hued man kept? Far from deterring her it only made her more determined to seek this strange pack out.

Perhaps he gave away more than he had intended in divulging the area that made up the heights, and she held her silence, finding it so far a much more effective tool for extracting information from the nervous… Then suddenly his story seemed to change. They were strong and to be feared but he was worried she would harm them? She let it slide, not drawing attention to the apparent contradiction, her tongue passing over her nose as she contemplated the possibilities. “I’m afraid that isn’t my call to make.” She answered, a serious expression painted on her face. “But… I will do what I can. Go home Tannis. Tell your king to expect an envoy shortly. I will do what I can to convince my mother and her consort that perhaps it would be in our best interests to approach peaceably.”

Of course she had every intention of mentioning the existence of a pack so near to both @“Elettra” and @Angier. Whether she wound up doing so before or after investigating for herself was yet to be determined.

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“I’m afraid that isn’t my call to make,” she informed him. Tannis, in response, let out a whimper as if to plead her to stay away from Heights as well as to be careful. In barely knowing Phineas, the tawny brute truly had no ideas as to what the Argyris would do if Tannis abandoned them or, perhaps, somehow led each pack to believe he held something so valuable that either would need to end him as a means to obtain peace. Her words continued to sting his ears, her command to go home prompting more waves of uneasiness to wash over him.

"Yes, ma'am," he breathed, trying so hard to keep his body in check, that he did not lose his words in an onslaught of wheezes or coughs. "I will." Briefly, he wondered if she would say anything more, but when he believed she wouldn't, he slowly backed away from her with his head held low and his tail looking almost non-existent at his back. He cast her a rather longing look over his shoulder after he took four uneven steps. His quivering lip grew still and hesitantly, he began to ascend up the foothills before taking on the stony slope. He would tell @Phineas about the reverent princess of the Willows and suffer for it if he had to. He would do his mistress' bidding at her request if only because she had struck his fancy first, the prospects of becoming her advisor and well-sheltered subordinate tempting him with only what could be.

By the time he had drawn up along the familiar path that led up to the Plateau, he searched the forest floor below to no avail. He scraped his nails into the hard ground once he drew his sight away from the dizzying drop and up to where the Plateau was waiting for his return. Once he had a solid footing, he crept about the flat surface in search of his Leader, eager to share what had just come about from the edges of the Drooping Willows...

(Fade.)