Mithwyth :D

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Skill — Ranger

The red moon had vanished. Which, Nate supposed, if it was the work of a giant and gluttonous frog-spirit, meant someone else was out there making noise enough to scare it off... and he'd find people, eventually.

Right now he was going North. Mostly because it was the direction Ko-Ga wanted to go in.

Two days he reckoned, more or less, and not a single stranger. Only old tracks, and distant-smelling things he hadn't gotten used enough to himself to make sense of.

In spite of the overwhelming newness of it all, he was starting to get hungry. Ko-Ga had caught some mice, and offered him one, but Nate hadn't the stomach for it. Even without any better options, he found the wherewithal to be picky.

I'm fine.

"Aa-Aa!" Ko-Ga answered.

No.

Ko-Ga buzzed his ears, and Nate flinched, Hey!

Landing on a snow-laden deciduous some distance ahead, the crow preened irritably. A dead mouse was still clutched in his talons and hung limply like a gallowed man from the branch.

Look, bud, even if I did, that would be like... what, a mouthful of beans? Nate called up at him, following, Why don't you find yourself a lady-crow to go impress with it? Then at least one of us won't have to be lonesome.

Ko-Ga expressed his opinion by projectile shitting on the ground directly in front of Nate's paws.

He rolled his eyes, grimacing, Look, I'm sure her friends are less likely to murder you for the effort than mine was.

Snow dusts the forest the forest woman marches through, light layers of off-white coating the branches of pine. It felt less like autumn's slow embrace and more like the frigid onset of winter. Mithwyth shakes her head as a flake lands on her lashes, huffing while trotting forward.

The coastline that she'd searched for here was grand, impending, but felt so. . . vast, lonesome. Nothing like Harbor's. Nothing like Fellfang's. She thinks back to the prince before shutting the memory out. Childhood nostalgia was maddening. Nothing was as dreamlike as when she was young!

A caw breaks out over the forest and she perks in expectation. It'd been quiet but now- she hears a voice. Between the trees she can see another wolf, blue like the fading mountains in the distant sky, speaking to another soul in the trees. Pushing forward, but giving the stranger berth, her tail wags (a constant thing that she can never stop, really!) before she clears her throat, loudly.

"Hi there," she says, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "Are you from around here?"

Skill - Orator

Nate's head turned sharply at the sudden voice. It still took a moment for his eyes to fix on the she-wolf, dressed in the colours of autumn. With some amusement, he noticed the white across her breast reminded him of a bird on the wing. That was pretty cool!

It took a close second-place to the relief of understanding her words, and the realization those words were friendly.

He blinked. Then smiled, automatically — a wide and welcoming thing. Tilting his head, he flicked an ear in the same sweep — the closest approximation he could think of to tipping his hat. How d'you do, miss?

With an excitable ca!, Ko-Ga swept down from his perch to land between Nate's shoulders.

Glancing briefly at his companion before fixing attention back to her, Nate tried a slow wag of his tail in mimicry. We're ah, well — new in town, actually. Real new. This is Ko-Ga. And I'm Nate Ronan, at your service...? He trailed off, hoping she'd grace him with a name to go by. If not, he could come up something flattering to nickname her in the meantime.

The pause makes her wonder if she's offended him. Something she was unintentionally good at, n her youth. Then he smiles, tips his head like a gentleman and she approaches.

A crow, looking as if it's been half struck by the falling snow, bounces down from its branch to position itself between the blue wolf's shoulder. It caws out and she giggles, amused by the bird's energy before the newcomer's friendly voice eases the air between them.

"Nate," she repeats, before her own muzzle softens with a smile. "I'm Mithwyth!" Bowing her head, she affixes her eye on the white mottled companion. He looks at her with an inquisitive face, but it's not the same all-knowing gaze her father's messenger of Tengri once had. He looks. . . Well, like a crow.

"It's nice to meet you too! And you, Ko-Ga." They make a good pair, and it must be nice to have a friend who can fly where they can't. "If it helps, I'm new too." She hasn't been in this land for long, just enough to grow familiar with the mountain range and hills she has settled in. Not enough to know what had brought her here, though by the etia, she wishes she did.

Skill - Hunter

Ko-Ga felt himself to be an excellent judge of character. Birds knew these things. When Mithwyth greeted not just Nate-Dog, but also crow, his feathers fluffed up in decisive approval.

Aaa-Aa! He answered.

The thought occurred to him, then, that maybe Nate-Dog would be more inspired to eat if another dog was around to encourage it. Nate had never eaten mice Before, but he had eaten deer and prairie chicken (fat, stupid birds, not at all like crows) and fish. Ko-Ga couldn't catch these things, and Nate-Dog was clumsy. But Mithwyth looked capable enough!

Ko-Ga just needed to figure out how to ask her for help, when he did not yet know dog words for these things. Frustrating! He pecked at his dead mouse thoughtfully.

Skill - Orator

A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Mithwyth. Nate replied, the wag of his tail becoming more instinctive.

Just Mithwyth. He tilted his head. She said she was new, but she didn't seem terribly out of sorts. He hoped that meant she knew something he didn't. Must admit, I was starting to think Ko-Ga and I might be alone out here. It's nice to see a friendly face. Especially one as pretty as yours. He winked.

Then glanced around, So, uh, how new, are you, exactly? Do you know where we are?

And have you always been a wolf?, he wanted to ask, but it was such a foreign question to even have to think about, he was a little worried about how well he could expect it to be received. Maybe her answer to the other questions would render it obsolete and save him the trouble of deciding how to broach it.

As Ko-Ga picks the fur of its mouse, her stomach half-turns. From hunger or revolt of seeing its glazed eye, she doesn’t know. Her stomach isn’t made for such little things.

Attention back on the blue-pelted man, a heat runs to her ears as he throws a compliment her way and she laughs. If she were younger, she would be abashed and stumble over her words.

“Aren’t you a smooth tongue?” Enough to put him in her good graces. She flattens her cowl which had threatened to rise, before looking at Nate with a furrowed brow. “Here? I’ve been here a few months. I’m not sure where, but I don’t think I’m near my home.” Jerking her head to the east, she huffs. “I woke up near the lake- I met a nice boy, but there’s a pack there now. He was friendly, and the other wolf I met from there wasn’t too bad. But I’d still be cautious! Some wolves get very defensive of their territories.” A remembrance of Fellfang and the prince’s acceptance of her while the pack displayed hostility to other strangers and even their own. Nate seems too kind for that, in her eyes, and she would hate to see his pelt cut up over a misstep.

He smiled a little wider to see her laugh, glad to break apart any lingering tension. A silvered voice had gotten him out of plenty troubles. Except, he supposed, the very last one.

Throat bobbing, he followed the direction of her nose towards the promise of strangers. He knew he ought to seek out civilization, scrape together some sense out of where he was and why, but now that he knew where to find it, reluctance bubbled up. I'll take care, then. Appreciate the warning.

Blue eyes drifted back to her. He wondered if she'd died, like him, and sleeping was just euphemism. Nate didn't want to force her to relive anything that pained her, and still need for answers drove him onward, You said you've been here for months. Do you... remember anything, from before you woke up? Hint enough, he hoped, that if she hadn't just woken up somewhere new, but as something new, she might reciprocate the subtlety.

Woke up?

Mithwyth cocks her head. She woke every morning, no different than the rest. Anything before. . ?

Before she walked in, of course!

"I didn't exactly wake up," she admits, flicking her tail and motioning forward, hoping Nate would get the gist to follow her. The snow falls lightly on her nose and she sneezes, warm breath visible in the air. Tracks of rabbit and quail were beginning to disappear in the white. "I was roaming like I always do, just. . . following my old path to the plains and it got misty, and cold, and then: lake!" Bouncing forward, the forest woman looks over her shoulder. "I remember everything. I—"

His hesitance to be forthcoming makes her hesitate. Does he not remember everything? A guilt washes over her, hoping that not to be the case.

Tilting his head at the start of her explanation, Nate took the hint and followed with Ko-Ga in tow, swiveling an ear back in curious uncertainty. He smiled a little at her sneeze, a silent singular laugh shaking his chest before fading out, muted like so much else in the snowy landscape.

It grew cold in his belly as she explained all the rest.

She was a wolf. She had always been a wolf... If she remembered it all, if changing her shape had been any kind of surprise, he felt certain she would have said so. If she had died or even thought she had died, there might have been a flash of something mournful in the relaying.

Instead she pranced like a wild, free thing, and he knew then he couldn't tell her the truth of his own sorry tale. She might not believe it, for one. But even if he thought he could convince her of the reality of it, and not frighten her... it seemed it would be wrong to place the burden on Mithwyth. Her knowing wouldn't change things. Besides. Dead men weren't really meant to speak at all.

Quiet long enough to realize it was rudeness, he lit his face with a warm grin that he hoped relayed nothing of the chill behind it. Sorry, I was listening. And he tried to mimic her prance, encouraging her to go on. Sounds like you're a real rover, then. Bet you've seen some pretty sights?