Evening had claimed this landscape in it's glorious grip. Where it's talons tore into the land color had bloomed and spread and ran together until a masterpiece had been created for his eyes to behold. Hyder took in a deep breath, filling the barrel of his chest cavity with it's sweet essence. The grasses had past their prime, but the smell of earth and the remnants of a dream of summer still called to him. Below him the valley spread out, bathed in reds and oranges and golds and purples, in hues he could not remember appreciating in the evening sky before. Clouds, puffy and thick with precipitation hung on the horizon, adding another skew of scarlets and blood orange and gold. Above them, stars had begun to twinkle in the pure indigo. It was not quite warm, but neither was it bitterly cold. Hyder thanked the grasses around him for absorbing some of the wind which drifted lazily, yet incessantly, across the plains. Other than a passing herd of mule deer does and the earliest of fawns bound for their sleeping grounds, he had been alone there, and uncertain if he was grateful that no one else was there to spoil such a marvelous evening, or disappointed that there was no other witness to it marvel. He lacked the words to describe it, so it was inevitable that it be lost to time. At that he frowned, and continued to watch the clouds drift towards the horizon. "Talk" "You" Think

Báine padded slowly through the grasses, her pale pink gaze looking up at the wide expanse of stars above her. She had decided that traveling at night was much more pleasant than trying to go any kind of distance during the day. She had gotten way too many sunburns in her short life to make being in the sun for any length of time worth it. She envied her siblings sometimes. They didn't have to worry about sunburns, at least not like she did. Well, she envied them for a lot of different reasons, but that was one of them. She paused so she could look up at the stars more fully without accidently tripping or running into something. She wondered how the sky could be so big and wide and how their could possibly be that many stars in the universe. The breeze that kept shifting the grasses around her brought a scent to her and her pale ears perked with interest. She glanced around both curiously and with a bit of worry. Her mother had of course taught her the basics of fighting, but she didn't really want to defend herself tonight. Her mother wouldn't let her leave the Celestial territory for months if she came back from one of her little adventures wounded. Besides, the scent didn't smell like a wolf... It was strangely familiar. Her curiosity drove her toward the source of it. Soon enough she saw white fur poking out over the top of the grass and she padded closer till she finally saw the pale lion it was attached to. Why did he look so familiar... It probably wasn't the wisest thing to just walk up to a lion, but she couldn't help this feeling that they had met before. Just as she was about to greet him, a memory rushed to her head and she gasped, her eyes widening. "Hyder?" "Talk" "You" Think

Hyder was reasonably surprised to find his rest interrupted. It wasn't often other creatures dared to disturb a peaceful lion. He was at first irked, but he recognized his name and at once became curious instead. It took his pale eyes a moment to focus in the gilded evening light. He found a pale ghost, a spector among the grasses. Her voice was light and sweet but hardly familiar. He had not heard it's tenor since her puphood but in the moment it was a struggle to remember. Then again, how many albino wolves had he met? Two males to memory, but only one female and quite long ago. He blinked at her. "Much time has passed since I saw you last. You have grown," he rumbled, his tone neutral. It was hardly hostile, but the monotone note mayhaps conveyed his uncertainty on the matter of her presence. He was not about to run her off, he didn't have the energy at the moment, but she was still essentially a stranger. An unknown. All memory of her was foggy, indeed he struggled even to remember the land they had met in. Wolves were not of much consequence to him these days, and he found himself tending the memories of his past less and less. He waited to see what she would make of him. "Talk" "You" Think