The cyclops, knowing his place, stopped at where he perceived the borders to be; a yawn and a stretch of his back were his greeting to the land. Instead of howling, he simply sat down on the ground, repositioned the sling for his arm and hissed at the sting, and simply waited. Dawali or Ember would surely appear eventually.

She laughed as she dodged yet another of Hemming's snowballs, the sounds of their game traveling across the frozen mass that Aniwaya now was. Her snowshoes had been such a great and lucky find; Ember had chanced upon them on her last trip to Halifax and had brought them home with her on a whim. It wasn't until after the first snow that she had realized what they were for, after seeing a picture in a book of a human using them. She was a bit heavy for them and had made a few adjustments to their size, adding on to accommodate her.

The dark, cloaked wolf darted from tree to tree as her friend followed behind, avoiding most of his hits. They were heading for the borders, and she wondered how much longer he could run after her. She had trained each and every morning, morning after morning after morning of running and such...and she had the snowshoes! Would he follow her out?

Just as she was reaching the fence and going through a snowball got her square in the back of the head, and she fell forward. The fall knocked the wind out of her and she gasped for breath, trying to sit up. She hadn't been paying attention to anything besides Hemming, and hadn't noticed the strange scent on the breeze until now. It was really close, this smell! She tried to catch her breath as she walked a few steps farther, trying to see over the next hill.

!

     

Hemming had managed to run fairly gracefully through the snow for a while, his long legs making it slightly easier than another might find it, but it was exhausting work. As Ember made her way away from him he admired the way the snowshoes kept her from sinking down and made plans to attempt to make a pair of his own. If that didn't work, he could look around the city for a pair pre-made by the humans. In the meantime, he stood almost hip-deep in a snowdrift he had been unfortunate enough to find himself in, and rolled snowballs out of the stuff that trapped him. He was a poor shot, but that didn't stop him from sending many snowballs towards the dark female as she escaped. Eventually, the sheer number that he had thrown would make it inevitable that he should hit her, but despite the growing odds he was immensely surprised when one of his projectiles made contact with Ember's head. He paused in his snowball throwing for a moment, eyes wide in a rather pleased sort of surprise. As she fell, he struggled to escape the snowbank and hobbled towards her. "Uh, sorry!" he exclaimed, but she was up and walking away before he had even shortened the distance between them by a quarter.



     

He hustled to catch up to her, leaping above the snow rather like an elephant attempting to pirouette. He reached her side just as they climbed the crest of the hill, and spotted the other almost immediately. It had caught the male off guard; had they really reached the borders so quickly? Then again, the wolf felt as if he had been wandering for days, the effort of lifting his feet out of the snow during the snowball fight much more than he had expected.


     

This other wolf was unfamiliar to Hemming, but it was clear that he was from Phoenix Valley. The last time that the Gatlvska had been to the borders was when the puppies had been dropped off by an old coyote - it had been a strange time. Smiling a little and raising a hand to the air in a tired wave, Hemming called across the bit of snow that separated them, "Hello!"

Yay!

He'd made no sound to announce his arrival, but the appearance of AniWayans was momentary and fast. The sound of excitement reached his ears before their figures met the gaze of his eyes; giggles and chuckles, echoing over the bounds of snow and ice that coated the territory. His tattered ears focused briefly, listening to the chortles until he finally concluded that he could not put a face to giggles alone, at which point the one-armed cyclops bent down and retrieved a small twig from the ground and placed it between his teeth. As he always did when he was idle, Jefferson chewed thoughtfully at the twig's end and waited, noticing only that the playful banter was growing closer.

It came as a surprise to him to see Ember nearly fly into view; in watching her he remembered their brief game of tag, or something similar, when the two had first met on his territory. He smiled, knowing the girl to be a playful but kindly type; despite this, however, the subleader rank she had recently announced to him made sense and he had little doubt that she served Dawali and AniWaya well. Jefferson quickly noticed the foreign contraptions attached to her feet; his brows furrowed some, clearly unsure as to their purpose but unimpressed by their appearance. A second male came into view before Ember had the chance to notice him; he was surprised when the stranger waved and greeted him openly and without hesitation. AniWaya and Phoenix Valley were allied, after all; perhaps that knowledge granted the foreign leader some leeway around their clan.

He slightly raised his good arm and twitched his fingers some in a rather effortless attempt at a responding wave before calling jovially over the snow. "What the hell is on your feet?"

You guys have such pretty tables ... but then again, so do I!

Perhaps he was just unused to leaders being so amiable with their members, but the relationship between the two facing him -- Ember and this stranger, Hemming -- struck him as almost odd. He smiled, however, delighted to see that she was fine and well even though the time lapse since their last meeting was so short that it hardly worth worrying about. He could not accuse her of anything, of course; perhaps this was the way packs were supposed to be. AniWaya was thriving just as Phoenix Valley was, and within his smile was the pride he had that their two packs were allied and he could safely call these happy people 'friends.'

His green eye gazed down at the snowshoes questionably as she spoke. They made only slight sense to him; obviously their odd design would be overlooked should they actually suit a purpose, but the damn things were so funny looking that he could hardly put it past them. "Snow shoes... right." The cyclops scratched his head, somewhat overwhelmed by the odd concept. "Well, you won't catch me wearing a pair of those monstrosities, snow or not."

That said, he was properly introduced to the stranger and smiled accordingly; Hemming seemed friendly enough. "Likewise. A friend of Ember's is a friend of mine." Jefferson took a step back and looked over the land briefly before shooting them both a look of slight sarcasm, "So this is what AniWayans do in their free time? Frolic in the snow?"

     

What others did in their respective packs was never something that Hemming had wondered about. It was only once the one-eyed wolf questioned the behaviour of the AniWayans that Hemming realized that this type of life might not be so typical. The AniWayans were, perhaps, a little more eccentric in their activites than other packs might be, and the Gatlvska wondered what he might be doing at the moment if it wasn't AniWaya he had stumbled on. Apparently it wasn't likely to be frolicking, which was a sad thought. Every wolf should know the joy of leaping through the snow like some strange breed of bird.


     

Hemming had recently made a horse friend of his own, but the creature wasn't old enough to ride yet, and frankly, the male would be nervous to do so. The stallion was a rather hoppy, kicky kind of beast, and until he calmed down Hemming would remain rather nervous in his presence. For now, snowshoes would do, and he would take Ember up on her offer even if she didn't mean it.


     

The female's description of life in AniWaya was somewhat accurate, even if she meant it as a joke. The gray male did spend a large amount of his time frolicking in some way or another, and he knew that she spent a lot of her time tending to the horses. He continued to smile, and as the two friends talked he brushed the snow from his fur, and for a moment lifted a foot to pull with considerable force a ball of ice from the fur in between his toes.

He shrugged his shoulders some, smile widening. "I figured you bunch had visited us enough, it was about time I came to see AniWaya for myself. I don't know a hell of a lot about what you guys focus on, but I've heard some interesting things about spirits and shit." He grinned, a level of curiosity evident in his eye.

     

Grinning as he took the snow shoes, Hemming bent down to tie them to his feet. They were a little small, and his toes poked against the rim, but after just a few steps walking in them he could see that they made the deep snow much more manageable. His legs, tired from the walk out, were at least getting a bit of rest. Smiling, the male nodded in thanks, and walked alongside his two companions. As they moved towards the village he thought of the town hall he had helped Dawali construct, of the warmth of the ceremonial fire and of the beauty of the horses.


     

It had been a while since Hemming had last explained what the spirit guides were. He still didn't really understand them at all, and his own, Dagrun, was remarkably stubborn and told him few stories despite his coaxing. Anyway, as he had done previously, he would cough up a half-baked explanation that was vague enough to be correct in some sort of way while not necessarily saying anything outright wrong. In fact, Hemming didn't even know what could be wrong with his description, as he wasn't sure what was possible with them. It was all a very airy concept to him, and so he felt a little unqualified when Ember asked him to explain. "Erh, well," he started, "They're a physical manifestation of spirits of other creatures, each one taking a different form depending on the wolf it accompanies. And, I suppose, because of its age it is wise, and can provide advice and guidance." That about covered Hemming's understanding - anything else seemed much too mystical and odd to him.

"So, let's say I got one, then," Jefferson smirked, though his voice lacked its typical sarcasm and bitterness. For now, he was simply just curious of their thoughts. "What would I get? A squirrel? Deer? Heaven forbid, a mother bear." His arm, in its sling across his chest, throbbed just briefly. Like I haven't dealt with enough bears already. The brute shook his head, however, and turned his eye back to Hemming. "Advice and guidance sounds like something for kids by their parents. Where are these 'spirits' coming from?"

     

Hemming smiled softly as he pondered what Jefferson's spirit guide might be. One of the things that most astounded the Gatlvska was the ability of the spirit guides to take the shape of animals that none of the AniWayan wolves had likely ever seen. He recalled the strange African snake that had been Catherine's companion with, admittedly, a bit of apprehension. It did seem like most of the spirit guides were animals that were native to Nova Scotia, and it seemed like most of them were birds, as well. Dagrun was a rather plain and unassuming creature, resembling the sparrows that lighted in the barren trees. She didn't give him much advice or guidance, it seemed, but she was adept at scoffing at whatever silly action he might carry out and carrying on chirpy conversations about the clouds or something else equally insignifcant.

     
Hemming wasn't capable of forming a hypothesis for why a particular spirit would pick a given wolf, or why a spirit would take a certain form. Ember's correction made him even more confused, and he turned his head towards her. "Where do the spirits come from, then?" This was all rather undecipherable to the wolf, who found pleasure mainly in the real, empirical things in life. He hadn't understood the spirit guides before he had one, and now that he did he still failed to comprehend what they were, where they came from, or why they existed. It was all very strange.

Hemming, however, had said nothing of his own little spirit creature, and Jefferson chose not to question it. He did, however, match Hemming's questioning gaze and looked at Ember, equally as curious to find their interpretation of how animal ghosts came about. War heroes? Did they die tragic, animal deaths? Had they not moved on to the afterlife? Damn, he was an asshole. He strained to keep an innocent face. Clearly, he would never fit in here -- but he didn't mind their culture. It sure as hell made them more interesting than Phoenix Valley, he supposed.