She was patrolling a little further afield today, outside of pack bounds. She'd been seeing far too much of the inside of those walls since long before the pups were born, and alpha or no she needed to get out for a breath of fresh air. She had let the other warriors know so that they would know where to look for her if there was trouble, but she wouldn't be gone for terribly long and would be nearby.

The borders were well-marked from patrols already, so she didn't pause on her way out to renew the scent. Without the need to renew scent markers as they did on a normal patrol, she would be able to cover a lot more ground more quickly, which she did in a zigzag fashion moving outward from the border of their territory into the loner lands next to them.

As she did, she thought, and she worried, and she planned. She knew that Aurielle wanted to do away with assigning mentors to pups herself, but she also knew that the pack was already quiet as it was, and without prompting they'd likely never choose apprentices for themselves. She had five pups of her own to see to raising, and while she could manage the fight training just fine on her own if she needed to, she knew that Viviane and Geoffrey, at least, weren't interested in learning to fight any more than they had to. Paladin had left to seek out the nomads, which left the pack without a trained healer to teach the two of them, or even Justice for that matter, who she knew was still untrained in her chosen field. Solveiga was a healer, but she had just returned from an ordeal of her own and had not interacted with the pack since then, so Gwenevere didn't know if she was or would be capable of teaching.

Gwen gave a sigh and paused before she would switch directions again, lifting her nose to sample the wind for any scents. Hm, was that a lynx? She sniffed again, noting the freshness of the scent. Yes, she would need to keep an eye out for the cat to make certain it didn't come too close to Celestial's territory. The smallish wildcat could prove dangerous for the pups, even as large as they were getting now.

The healer had been to wolfpaw lake before, and liked the tranquility there. It had been in winter and had proved to be a good sanctuary in the harsher months. She had used a den not far from the water as her main camp for a time, and as she found her paws returning her here today, she noticed the scent of herbs still lingered around the mouth of the den. She gave a soft smile and ducked her head inside, herbs she had dried but been unable to carry with her where still there, and with a little extra space available to her, she was able to grab some of them now.

She rolled them into a sturdy leaf and tucked them into her ribbon with well-practiced motions. That they had survived on their own for a time pleased her, she had after all taken pains to preserve them, and she exited the den with a smile on her lips.

She skirted around the lake a few steps, before she noticed the shape of another across the water. The tan-fawn markings of the lady stood out from the cool-blue of the lake, and she tilted her head as she changed direction to intercept the other. Her tail wagged lightly behind her in a friendly manner, and her brilliant blue eyes sought the turquoise of the stranger.


"Speech"

Gwen's ears pricked up, her attention momentarily diverted from the problems of raising a litter of pups, towards the approach of a stranger with a fluttering blue cloth tied at their ankle. The Adravendi paused her own zigzagging course when it became clear that the stranger had changed their direction towards her, politely waiting rather than continuing on her path. "Hello," she called out as the wolf came close enough for speech. The other wolf, after a quick examination, seemed friendly enough, and Gwenevere matched the wag of the stranger's tail with one of her own, a friendly smile shaping her muzzle. The stranger was female, young, and smelled of herbs. Strongly of herbs, actually, which puzzled Gwen a moment since the girl didn't seem to be carrying any in any obvious manner.

The stranger saw her approach moments after she changed direction, and took a seat to wait for her arrival. Riva didn’t dwardle and was close to the wolf after a moment. The lighter-toned wolf wagged her tail in response to Riva’s gesture, and the healers maw parted in a welcoming smile. The wolf before her was much older, though still a long ways off from being an old wolf. She smelt strongly of other wolves in a way that associated with a pack, and still managed to tower over Riva, through not with as much advantage as most wolves she had seen since coming to this land.

“Hello” Riva said back, tilting her head slightly in friendly curiosity. “I’m Riva. I hope I haven’t disturbed you, I just haven’t seen anyone for a while, so I was surprised to catch a glimpse of you” she admitted, and her own scent wolf make it clear that she was a loner, with no ties to any of the packs of this land. If Gwenevere listened closely, she might catch a glimpse of loneliness in the others voice. Well for the most part she was accustomed to the life of a loner, she was still young, and the absolute silence of being alone was still new to her.



"Speech"

The young thing was friendly, and well-spoken, and - if Gwen had to hazard a guess - lonely. Even friendly wolves would rarely go out of their way to cross the path of a stranger unless they were. Well, Gwen at least wouldn't begrudge the company, not with as quiet as the pack had been. She was somewhat starved for adult conversation herself. Well, the girl was only a yearling, but she was well passed the age of "but why mama" and had clearly been living on her own for some time now, so young as she was she was still clearly an adult. "Not at all," Gwen assured her. "I live in a pack fairly near here and was just out to see how things were in the lands around us. It can be rather dangerous to focus on your own borders too much and never lift your eyes to the horizon, after all. I'm certainly glad to find friendly faces in the lands beyond Celestial." She smiled at the girl as she said the last. She tilted her head to indicate the land around them, lake and all. "Do you live here, then?"

The stranger seemed welcoming and friendly, and wasn’t at all fussed that Riva had intruded upon her time. She didn’t give her name in return for Riva’s, but it seemed more accidental with other things on her mind, then any sort of actual slight.
As Riva had already assumed, the stranger came from pack lands very near here. She had caught a stray scent every now and then from a pack, but had steered clear enough that she wouldn’t have recognised the scent on the light-toned wolf.

“That makes sense” Riva agreed, through she had never been a part of pack lands before, she did value information, and gathered what she could in her wanderings. “I lived here in winter, I’ve moved on a few times since then, but my paws took me back here today” she hadn’t had any true purpose to her wondering, and sometimes she let that happen. “I actually just collected the last of my herbs from the den I stayed in through the colder months”



"Speech"

Gwen smiled at the girl. "I used to travel," she reminisced. "I'm afraid I grew a little too old for that, so I returned home. It's a good way of life to get experience." Her nomadic early life were bittersweet memories, travelling with her mate before he got too ill to travel any longer. "Well, Riva, I'm glad you happened by today. It is a pleasure to have been able to meet you, and since I don't leave Celestial much these days we may never have met." She tilted her head slightly, gesturing back towards the far distant pack borders. "You know, if you need any help carrying your herb stores, I can have one of our younger pack members help you. They're always itching to get out on adventures."