Solulfur yawned as she trod across the mountainside. She'd had an altogether pleasant midday nap, one of the first ones in recent memory not plagued by nightmares. Her list of things to-do was ever-growing - check in on their newest Pillar, check in on the other two, and Sol wanted to hunt down Dalmatia to determine the supply the woman had of fermented berries. Solulfur was preparing, however surreptitiously, for that first bloom of spring. And once it hit, a celebration would be in order. The pack needed something to bring them together besides tragedy, and she was looking forward to putting something together. On top of that, the Mediator had at the back of her mind an idea to seek out their local allies, reaffirm alliances or form new ones if needed. Spring's plenty would put the whole of Mythris in a charitable mood, and she was sure that would be the wise time to strike at the hearts and minds of foreign packs.

It was a lot, and somewhere in there was a simple desire to sunbathe with Sølvi , spar with Tiberii , or find some worthy excuse or another to seek out Aurelia . Solulfur wondered idly if the caribou would have wandered close by the pack's borders enough to try another hunt. Perhaps she could get the raven to investigate.

Solulfur paid her surroundings minimal attention as she walked, focused on sorting through her schemes and providing herself the appropriate amount of deserved praise for her cleverness as she plotted. Until her paw did not sink down into snow, but instead on something...firmer, that made an unpleasantly leaf-y crunch under the Black Sun's paw. She glanced down, only to stare at the bruised form of some kind of sprout amidst a small patch of cleared snow. The fresh dirt around the sprout's base betrayed that it had been planted here, recently, and the Sun-wolf grimaced slightly.

Oops? Was this Solvi's? Sol wasn't actually sure where the woman kept her garden, if she did so at all. The greyscale she-wolf lowered her head, sniffing at the plant tentatively. Yes, a Dawnbreaker's scent was upon the crushed leaves, but it was also a stranger's scent. Solulfur must have missed someone.

She glanced around herself. "Hallo?"

Alizée

Avoidance.

It was ever so easy to fall back on a routine that sent her to the fringes of the pack. She had adapted the simple life. Waking at dawn, shaking off cobwebs of memory that spun silver through her dreams. A freezing dunk in a nearby pool to where she’d sequestered herself. Then, it was out into the fields.

Spring was coming, new shoots pressing through the snow even here, and Alizée was intent on learning everything there was to learn about the skill of farming. Her first attempts failed miserably, despite her efforts, and the second hadn’t been much better. The little plot of land she meticulously cleared had yet to yield much, but her third attempt seemed to be the one to stick. Spring was swinging ever closer, trodding down a path like a plow horse. Never in a hurry, frequently slowing to eat a bit of greenery.

Perhaps the metaphor was getting away from her.

With her shoots planted, and not much else to do, Alizée had taken to trying to farm other things. Namely, game birds that couldn’t fly far. Her first attempt, geese, had failed miserably, and ended with her treating several hashing stinging wounds and cursing the day the first goose took its very first breath. The next, rabbits. They’d just dug out from under her little ring of bushes, secured with thorns around its edges and a thorny “gate” she could lift without spiking herself in the face. The last time was somewhat more successful.

Quail. She was trying to farm quail. It helped that she’d found a particularly bold one who plopped on the top of her paw and refused to move. It had quickly become her Judas goat, leading the other quail into the safety of the bushes. Since, she’d been trying her absolute hardest to care for them.

But they often got away from her. As they did now.

Tomate, concombre, non! (Tomato, Cucumber, no!) Away the two went, with Aubergine hot on their trail and Alizée trying to push the thorny gate into place behind her so the other quail didn’t get out as well. She trusted her little friend, but goodness, those two were trouble!

The gentle crunch of a leaf underfoot made adrenaline thrill up her spine, her head raising and whipping around to stare at the wolf who dare tromp all over her crops. If it was a wolf. Perhaps it was a deer, or some other plant eater come to try and eat what she planted. Maybe it was even that doe from last time, who had just stared at her almost placidly while it chewed the fruits of her labor. She ground her teeth together, blue seeking, until they landed on what was decidedly not that blasted doe.

A woman. Tall and dark, with eyes like the sun. Alizée felt like she was punched in the gut. She blamed it on a mix of indigestion, and not speaking to anyone for several weeks.

Ah..hello?

Pah-lease tell me you didn’t see that.

The scene before her was....preposterous.

Solulfur shuffled her paws, digging one of her claws into the front of her paw to try to assess if this were a dream. Before her lay a patch of mostly cleared land, the plants in the earth clearly mostly placed there with intention, a set of hedges that had naturally grown into an odd little grove visibly bristling with thorns, and amidst all this...Strangeness was a silvery woman, small and tailless, chasing after a set of young quail without a weary cry.

The Sun-wolf stared at the quail scuttling about for a long second, a predator's cunning sharp within her gaze as she considered them and their tantalizing, erratic movements. Finally, she brought her attention back to the stranger at paw. Molten gold trailed across the woman's body, sizing up her frail size and frame. She wore a pelt of white dashed through with silver points, and Solulfur wondered if she was distantly related to the Shakti-Vaes clan with their traditionally monochrome colors. The same sharpness that had pinned the quail down eventually shifted up to meet the unnamed stranger's bright blue eyes.

Size and shape meant little in the long run. It would be spirit that determined this stranger's worthiness of the mountain she was...shaping.

Surely, this little wolf had been the one to clear the natural plants from this strip of land and replace them with her selection of sprouts? A curious move, one Solulfur was eager to question. Greetings. Solulfur suddenly remembered the plant she'd stepped on, and winced just slightly. I am sorry, I did not know there was a...garden being cultivated here. Are you another of our Menders? I didn't realize we'd had another join our ranks.

And, in case whatever reputation she'd garnered for herself preceded her; and in case the fra Nordri name was familiar to this silver and blue-eyed bob-tail, Solulfur continued: I am Solulfur fra Nordri-Crane, Mediator.

The stranger was tall, to her at least, well muscled and hardened by what must have been hours of training. Well, that would have been Alizée’s guess. When she wasn’t quaking in her boots, maybe. Those eyes, staring out from under the tilt of the woman’s brow, felt like the full force of the sun had been turned to her. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and was relegated to a mix of hot and cold that burned through her like a weird fire. Was this how mice felt, when confronted by a cat? She could only imagine it, and let a sharp throb of pity course through her.

And pity for herself, because she had seen the absolutely ridiculous scene front to back. Alizée bemoaned her reputation for just a moment, before trying to scrape herself together.

I-I know it looks funny but they’re still pretty wild! Aubergine will get them, the uh, the one with the- And she sat back on her heels, raising one leg up to dangle over her head to mimic the feather crest atop her quail’s head. She tried very, very hard not to die of embarrassment in the process. But how couldn’t she? The sun was staring at her from the black fur of the woman’s face.

A-Anyway,-anything to distract from this absolute embarrassment-no, I’m actually not. I’m angling to be a caretaker, the um, the garden is for crops. And the quail are for food and eggs. Or, they will be, when I manage to tame them. Give or take a few generations. She really would have to figure that out when the time came. How on earth was she supposed to incubate the eggs? Could she maybe do it herself? No, her weight would crush them.

She felt like if she could sweat, she would be pouring buckets.

Alizée. Baudelaire. Resident? She sounded so unsure.

Wait, Crane? Oh dear gods, not another one! This was one she’d never met, she would have remembered those eyes, but it was another of the family regardless.

The young woman's defense was stammered and mostly nonsense. Aubergine would get them? The quail? And then the silver she-wolf sat back on her haunches to use her paw to mime a feathered crest, and Solulfur observed all of this with as neutral an expression as she could muster.

She didn't understand, and she was not going to be made to look a fool because she didn't.

Apparently, one of the quail was more...hunter than prey, or was perhaps Awakened like Bjarki. Evidently, he was going to fetch the rogue quail without harming them, which seemed pointless to Solulfur. If they were not Awakened, they were prey. If this she-wolf could not catch her own meals, she wouldn't last on the mountain. Sol shifted an unconvinced glance toward the scattered quail, most of which were doing their best to find bushes or mounds of snow to hide behind. Which one was the woman's companion, she couldn't tell.

I'm angling to be a caretaker, she began. Solulfur pasted a warm, mild smile across her features briefly, seeking to ease the obvious nervousness tangled in the woman's words. Oh, I see. A guardian, then, of the Courage Pillar. A good choice; it would help round out their ranks and maintain balance.

When I'm able to tame them...give or take a few generations, Solulfur's brow arched, a faint frown creasing her features. Tame them? In a few generations of trying to keep her Awakened quail alive and corralling the things? They will repopulate if not over-hunted. Solulfur delivered the statement precisely, clearly under the impression the little she-wolf simply didn't comprehend how the world worked. Can you not catch your meals if they are not led to you? She spoke quietly, evenly; kindly, perhaps, but Solulfur's kindness was rarely offered clothed in the softness she wove around her insult now.

Alizee introduced herself; naming herself a Resident. Sol supposed there was room within Dawnbreak for a wolf to remain unranked for a time, as they proved capable of the rank they desired or decided what Pillar they wished to pursue. Still, her faltering opinion of Alizee meant Solulfur interpreted the admission as a sign of lack of commitment, another indication of a potential weak link amongst their ranks.

The mountain would deal with those unworthy of its gifts and tests, Solulfur knew. But until the mountain took its due, she did not have the luxury of allowing the unworthy to poison the pack.

Still. Such thoughts were drastic, considering this was only a first meeting. And then, Alizee mentioned Solulfur's surname - one of the two, the one she rarely heard acknowledged. Her snow-filled ears pricked, interest resurging in her golden gaze. Yes, on my father's side, and his mother before him. How are you familiar with the name?

There was something in the woman’s face she didn’t like. Her sweating and stammering cooled, until she found herself readily irritated. Could she not catch her own meals? Of course she could! Alizée was a capable hunter, maybe not one of the best, but her helter-skelter approach to most things didn’t lend well to stalking and patiently waiting. She made a face like sucking on a particularly tart lemon, the corners of her eyes narrowing.

I am quite aware. She looked sheepish for a moment after the snappish tone left her, but for all intents and purposes, Solulfur had tripped a wire she didn’t know she had. One that sneered rabbit in that cockamamy accent. Alizée dug her claws into the ground, and tried to breathe through the steadily growing panic.

These quail are meant for the infirm, the injured, the young. To teach a child to hunt. To provide as much food as I can in the lean times, when winter comes, if a famine were to hit or an illness struck the larger prey populations. Their eggs are good protein, their shell good for your coat. They don’t require much space, they can’t fly away, and they’re rather ditzy. Should I gather enough, they can be used to teach a child responsibility by taking one of the quail and keeping it safe as possible for a week or two. Admittedly, she was still workshopping that one.

They are more than just prey led to me. I hope they will be able to be farmed, and provide a steady source of nutrition in case we ever have none. Call it paranoia. Call it as hare brained a scheme as she could ever imagine. But Alizée would not allow her pet project to be looked down upon, not even by sun-gold eyes and a voice that rolled through her ears in a smooth, now familiar lilt.

I was in a pack with several of them, a lifetime ago. In a place known as Gossamer, in a valley named after the dawn. Solulfur carried that Crane arrogance she remembered so well, but something more wrapped her voice into a velveteen hammer. Perhaps the other part of her bloodline.

Who is your father? Had she known him, a life ago?

And, quick as a blink, all of the silver woman's stammering anxiety seemed to disappear once Solulfur tried to question the logic of her attempts to keep the quail. A steely edge entered her demeanor, one that was not missed by the keen fra Nordri as she let Alizee brusquely deliver her explanation for the quail's presence.

The sentiment was sound, the actual goal theoretically achievable, but it still chafed at Solulfur's sensibilities. Firstly, because she had been raised to firmly believe in a connection between herself and the land she lived upon. The mountain would provide what the wolves required to live, to even thrive, if they proved worthy of its harsh nature. If they were not worthy of the mountain, it would take its due and remove them one way or another. The pack's collaboration, the strong helping the weak and the weak finding their own kinds of strength, was one - and Solulfur would claim it was the best - way to survive the land's tests of those who tried to sample its generosity.

Solulfur did not expect the silver she-wolf to believe in these things, nor understand Solulfur's own opinion on the subject. Sol narrowed her eyes at the young woman slightly as she spoke; the Black Sun had already come to a decision regarding her opinion of the quail-shepherd, as she was prone to, and it was not favorable. Her sour thoughts were not helped by a mild annoyance that Alizee had not, as expected, buckled beneath the weight of her insult but instead stood her ground.

Solulfur schooled her features into stoic neutrality, giving the tip of her tail a genial flick. Fascinating, She said, cold and without much interest at all. You are very confident that my packmates and I will prove ourselves incapable of properly providing for our pack, recruit. Solulfur didn't shift her gaze from Alizee's face, even as one of the quail started to warble and wander through the crop field. Solulfur did not brook insults against her honor or her capabilities well, not with so many legacies and responsibilities upon her shoulders. Failure was never an option, and this roundabout implication that she might do so - that Alizee, a newcomer, needed to put in effort to solve a problem borne of Solulfur's failures - was an insult that tasted bitter on her tongue. It would not slip by without retribution.

Solulfur bobbed her head in a sharp nod, confirming she knew of where Alizee spoke. Gossamer Pool is where my father is from. I was born in the mountain range to the south. The Sun-Wolf lifted her chin, proud of her bloodline, eager to pull more information about her much-absent side of the family. Hades Crane is my father, brother to Fortuna, son of Minerva. Which Cranes did you know?