the bitter pills you just have to swallow
#1
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Hopefully it's okay in that the raven spots him; Ves hasn't seen him yet. +3

“I thought you didn’t want to spy,” Vesper muttered, her voice only barely audible as she leaped from one rocky outcropping onto another. Melted snow made the stones slick, but her pale paws quickly found traction on the dirt and grass covering the adjacent slope. She skidded a few feet before breaking out into a short lope toward the next horizontal plane, doing her best to keep moving so she wouldn’t tumble down the mountainside.

“Stark not saying spying,” came the cawing correction from overhead. “Stark saying watching silly boy. Doing, no?”

She snorted, blue eyes rolling as she made the next leap. This section of the mountains was not particularly treacherous, but travelers needed to either know the land instinctively or be extremely attentive in order to cross. Luckily, both during her time as a loner and as a scout of the coyote clan, the female had grown to know Halcyon like the back of her paw. She knew the different forest landmarks on the foothills, the paths through shrubbery in the mountains, and the places were streams crossed through rock.

She was headed toward one of the streams now, ready for a break after her climb. As much as she was growing fond of Inferni territory and its members, she’d stayed inside the borders for too long, and her wanderer’s legs were dying to be stretched. She doubted she would be traveling for more than a day and night, as she had no objectives in mind to accomplish while she was out here, but it was nice to explore familiar yet fresh scenery. While Inferni was never-changing, the same faces popping up in the same places, the neutral territories were host to a multitude of new smells and traces of strangers going about their own mysterious lives.

The mountain brook was reached, babbling quickly as it trickled over rocks, dipping in miniature waterfalls. It wound serpentine around some shrubs, one of which had been recently marked by a virile wolfdog. She gave that man-reeking bush a wide berth and dipped her muzzle close to the water, allowing her pale eyes to shut as she lapped the refreshingly cold liquid into her mouth.

The raven croaked suddenly from a nearby tree; she had all but forgotten about his presence but now lifted her head with irritation sharpening her angular features. Its wings were half unfurled, however, as if frozen in preparation to take off. “Wolf coming,” it informed her, and she turned her head quickly, large ears swiveling.

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#2
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Its okay by me!

He had wandered away again. His ache was growing stronger, the butterflies getting harder and harder to ignore. Even sleeping with his mate in his arms, knowing how much she loved and trusted him, he couldn't ignore them any longer. He had to get away, had to release the tension, the anger. He was coiled so tightly, he didn't know if he could ever relax again.

The pace he set was quick and punishing, aiming to get as far away from the pack and the woman who trusted him as possible. He crossed quickly into the ashen wastes, his two legged pace carrying him further from the ones who made him feel trapped. The river came into view and he let himself slow down, breathing somewhat heavily from the fairly long traipse.

His mind was replaying the hunt, the chastisement from Aeron, the secret slyly mocking smiles he was certain were coming from each an every member of Anathema. And now Amy was a member, and he hated it. She had nearly tried to kill him, had fought with several members of the pack, and still... the stupid woman leader had let her in. Maybe Naniko was a lesbian, maybe that was why she had let the assassin into the lands. (Oh, how little he knew of the past, of Naniko's former association with the Rhiannon family. Lucifer, especially.)

He knelt by the river, splashing the cool water on his face, his ears swiveling to catch the sounds around him. He was upwind of the stranger, though there wasn't all that much wind, so he'd yet to notice the coyote.

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#3
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Sorry for the atrocious wait. x__x +3

Vesper was too conditioned by seasons as a loner to remit her vigilant behavior, and so she continued to listen and watch and sniff. She was sure that the raven had spoken for a reason, for as much as she was annoyed by the bird, she trusted its judgment. She trusted most (oh, but not all) creatures within the fire clan territory, and Stark had proven himself sound when it came to his duty so like hers.

The she-yote finally caught a whiff of scent—male, wolf, Anatheman. There was a mood in the odor’s tale as well, but she was not sure what kind of mood; it was simply something to watch out for. She was about to dip her mouth back into the water for another quick drink, but she realized that she had not heard much of Anathema. It would be wise to see if she could collect some information from him; anything helped, and anything would keep her mind stimulated and her wandering purposeful.

She yipped quietly to Stark, who croaked at the same volume and flapped down from his perch. One of his feet came down to pinch her ear, and she smothered a growl. Were she in optime form, she might have reached up to grab him, but she was sure he was smart enough to fly out of reach then, too.

On four quiet paws, she navigated along the creek toward the scent to find it growing wider, close in size to a more proper river. The bipedal shape of the brown wolf came into view, and she waited for Stark to circle and caw before approaching him. She trusted her own senses, but if the bird saw other cave-wolves coming from the east, she would want to keep this interrogation of sorts as shot as possible.

Vesper knocked a pebble into the water to announce her presence, if the raven’s cry hadn’t woken the wolf to his surroundings. “Hello,” she began simply.

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