Sparrow had found her when she was making her way home, sending her back to the meadows to see her ma, but mom and Darragh were missing! And Aisling! So after a brief stay, she went out into the world again, checking north first.

It was a freedom she's been wanting for so long, to explore, to set out into the world like her viking blood demanded. Staying around the meadows was fine and all, a day or two away was plenty when you were growing up in a small pack that needed bodies, but now? Now Fable is back, with others that can manage without one young warden who hasn't even been properly titled that yet. Now, she could go further, stay away longer.

She's proven it too, finding her way back mostly on her own, and now that she's back in the alpines she can do it all on her own!

The gilded yearling...doubted, that her missing family was up here, but a day or two of not looking would be fine, right? She had heard from her big brother that his grandpa was buried on the mountain near the peak, and she's been wanting to go see for herself since she was a little babe, but scents stopped the yearling in her tracks. This seemed...like scent markings?

Someone was trying to claim this mountain, neat!

....was she supposed to howl at the border when the border wasn't all that strong?

....yeeeesss? No?

Maybe?

Ksyusha allowed the caution to win, howling out a greeting and plopping her butt down into the grass, tail thumping the ground as she waited. 15 minutes with no response and she'll go right on in, she told herself. Mammy would be proud!

---

gjalla had been walking the lower teeth of the mountain since morning, patrolling through the alpine with single-minded focus, nose low now and again to test the beginning of their claim. their scent-markers were young still, thin in places where wind and weather worried them down to ghosts. the land was not yet strong enough to speak for itself, so she spoke for it, renewing their presence with diligence—shoulder to bark, claw to earth, piss to snow.

she had just lifted her head to mark a leaning pine when the howl rose across the slope. it's singer is young, female. gjalla does not wait to join them.

by the time the gilded yearling came into sight, seated with her tail beating at the ground. a harmless thing, upon first glance. gjalla’s expression settled then into something austere as she stopped only some paces from her.

hail. gjalla said at last, cool as meltwater. you skirt close to claimed land. what business brings you to my mountain?