Abby gazed emptily at the clusters of young flowers at feet, elsewhere. She knew that she of all things, she wasn't at her best when she was alone. She sought validation, craved the support that came with having friends, or a family. She was far away from both now.

She had recognised the scent wafting from the grass as scent marks. Admittedly, she was regretful she hasn't walked further. Maybe she would've found Meadow's pack? It would've been nice to have someone, anyone she knew within the community. But she had felt the familiar tug of loneliness, so this group would have to do.

She had gathered a few stalks of agrimony, which lay at her feet in case she would have to prove her value, which would be exceptionally difficult due to her pitiful self esteem. If worse came to worst, she was ready to beg. Or run. Either of the two.

Tyrian was mindlessly patrolling the border when an unusual spot of color in an otherwise green landscape caught his eye. There, on the other side of the border, was a woman. Even from a distance he could could make out the feminine shape of her, and her colors, while not as bright as say, some of his relatives, contrasted sharply with the Range's verdent hills. He had no idea what she was doing, but seeing as it was his border of course he had to investigate. So he trotted over. Once within speaking distance, he called, "You stand on the border of Fireside. My name is Tyrian and I'm the alpha here." Bluntly, but not deliberately unkindly, he followed up with, "You want something or just...taking a peek?"

Abby nearly jumped out of her skin at the polite greeting, suddenly dragged back to the quite frightening reality of the large man with long fangs before her. It didn't take long for her to adjust, but she couldn't help but laugh at herself. In her daydreaming she had briefly forgotten why she was there in the first place.

"Erm," She started, taking another moment to collect herself. "Hello Tryian, er, sir? I'm Abby. Or Abilene." Her own name felt sour on her tongue. Better get straight to the point. "I wish to join your pack." She quickly picked up the neat pile of flowers at her feet. "I brought Agrimony." Her voice was slightly garbled by the flowers stalks in her mouth. It wasn't a strong case for her acceptance, but it was worth a try.

She was a very cute little thing. Her coat reminded him a bit of the woman he'd skipped stones with at the river. He studied her and the plant for a second, and rolled over in his head how odd it was she'd stood at the border without saying anything. He was shallow enough for her looks to give him a reason to consider her and besides, she was the second woman to just kinda...stand there and wait so maybe it was a woman thing. Something he needed to get used to, maybe. Not being a woman he couldn't claim to be an expert on how they thought.

"Nice to meet you, Abilene. If you're thinking about joining I have some questions for you and I bet you have some for me too." Tyrian considered the plant again, then asked, "I take it you're a healer? How much training do you have?" They could use another healer. Hopefully she had another interest as well; Tyrian was hoping to push more of his wolves into a secondary rank. The current wolves being able to fill in any gaps they have would go a long way to strengthen the pack.

The girl breathed a sigh of relief, audible but barely. She hadn't been eaten on sight, which had been a possibility in her frazzled brain. Tyrian didn't exactly look like a cannibal though, save for the large fangs which her eyes flickered to several times out of anxiety, before settling back into his gaze once she was sure they wouldn't pierce her throat.

Now that they had established that murder wasn't on either of their minds, She took the time to attempt to sell herself as a potential pack member.
"Yep! Err, I haven't got any real field experience, but I think I can recall most herbs." Her voice was still muffled by the bundle in her mouth, as she didn't know whether she should put it down or not.

She wondered if she should bring up her navigation skills, but she figured she didn't want to push herself to hard lest she appear overconfident, plus she felt more familiar with plants anyways.

Tyrian was still sizing her up. It felt like they'd snagged the interest of a lot of "raw potential" wolves as of late. He wouldn't complain about the interest Fireside was getting, but he was keen on shifting the demographic so that the pack wasn't responsible for all of the heavy lifting when it came to training. Skill honing, sure, that was given, but the basics were so...well, basic. Since meeting Aryn, Tyrian wasn't too surprised at the amount of adults running around without real training, but it was something he still struggled to wrap his head around. That was life, he supposed. Variety and all of that. Not everyone had parents who pushed those things.

From what little she'd said, Tyrian got the feeling he was dealing with another "raw material" type. That was all well and good; he supposed her training could be tailored to the pack's needs. Still, there was a lot he wanted to nail down before welcoming her in. She may have been a nearly blank canvas for Fireside to do with as it liked, but the quality of that canvas had yet to be established.

"Hmmm," he rumbled thoughtfully. "We have a couple healer types, but the bulk of their work here is simple wound tending and the like for the wolves, and general well being type work for the livestock." She would probably end up doing a lot of castrations if she stuck to healing. "If you don't mind, tell me a bit about yourself." He wasn't expecting a life history or anything, but a general idea of where she saw herself going with her training and the like would help give him an idea of what to do with her.

Knowing what he'd just asked was a difficult request, he chuckled, then added, "Sorry to put you on the spot like that, but I need to have an idea of who I'm considering, you know?" She wasn't looking for something as minor as a meal; this was a big deal both for Fireside and for her. Tyrian needed to make sure she would add to the pack, not take away from it. There was one exception to that rule that he had yet to try out, though, and she was pretty enough for him to consider it. His father had told him he'd kept a harem in Imperium and the idea had a certain appeal to the young hedonist. "I don't mind telling you about Fireside or myself either, so if you have any questions, ask away."

Livestock? that was a surprise. She hadn't expected for the packs here to be organised at all, let alone grow their own food.
The idea of helping taking care of such a large animals in such large numbers was daunting to say the least, but it wouldn't drive her away.

'If you don't mind, tell me a bit about yourself.' I'm sad. I'm paranoid. I can't trust myself. I'm a mess. She didn't say anything aloud yet, but her brain was filled with a thousand different ways to describe herself quite unflatteringly. His reassurance helped a little bit. It put a little less pressure on her to respond quickly and concisely, so she took a little more time to think.

"Uhm... I like books. I used to read dictionaries for fun." The last bit was unnessecary, but she couldn't resist poking fun at her younger self. She was quite a weird pup. "I'm... good at healing." She didn't really have anyone to compare to yet, except maybe the brown wolf she'd talked to a few seasons ago, and she was what, 5? It wouldn't have been a fair comparison. "Herbs 'n stuff. I don't exactly know how to put guts back in the right place." She hope she wouldn't have to.

"What should I expect from here?" She asked in reply. It was a general question, and she'd accept any answer.

Her response was intriguing. He'd never heard of a wolf reading before. It was a thing among primates; Tashi mentioned once having a elder who recorded history and took care of the troop's library of knowledge. But wolves? This was a first for him. "Books, you say? I've never heard of any of our kind reading before." He wondered about the applications of such a thing. Why bother learning to interpret the symbols, read the symbols, and then memorize them when simply memorizing them from word of mouth would cut out all that time in the beginning? It was an odd concept that was for sure. "What are dictionaries?"

As for her comment about putting guts back together in the right order, it instantly brought to mind his brother, Alarr, who he was sure would find that to be an easy task. Tyrian chuckled appreciatively. He didn't know if she'd meant that as a joke but nonetheless it was funny. It also gave him a better idea of her skills and honestly he was relieved to hear she was more skilled than he first thought.

"What should I expect from here?" A very good question. One Tyrian was eager to answer. "For the first few weeks you could expect a life of menial tasks as I want you to appreciate all that it is we do here before making Fireside your home. If, at the end of that time you like it here and we are certain we'd benefit from your presence, you'll get a rank that matches your skill level and interest. So, say you want to be a healer and you earn that healer rank. A lot of your time will be spent taking care of the livestock. Worming, illness, castration, breeding, birthing, the whole shebang. You'll take care of our injured should something happen to our workers in the field, and you'll treat our raiders when they return home." That's right, raiders. If she had a problem with that, now was the time to bail.

"In return you can expect to never go hungry. You'll live among very capable, highly independent wolves who come and go as they please, and work for the betterment of the whole. Some of them while being very..." Jupiter, Ashmedai, Sparrow... "Unique. It's fair to say that as a whole we buck tradition. Don't expect to find very many socially conservative wolves here."

"Oh. Uhm..." It hadn't really occured to Abby that the people here were different from the ones back home. I mean, it should've. This was an entirely new continent, of course they'd do things differently. Now she'd have to attempt to explain what dictionaries were. "Where I used to live, scholars were common place. I guess it was important to leave something behind if we got wiped out suddenly, it wasn't the safest place to live." She looked down at her feet briefly, reminiscing. Were she lived, no where was safe. it was flashfloods and large sharks by the coast, and nothing but harsh desert and snakes inland.
"Dictionaries are... collections of words and symbols. Wolves have so many words for things, so we needed a big book to remember them all." She didn't expect the large king to not know about dictionaries, nor did she expect it was she who would have to tell him about them. These were strange, strange times.

At least she'd made him laugh. She liked making other people laugh, it let her know that she wasn't a complete waste of time.

"Don't get the wrong idea though." She quickly added. "I'm no scholar. I think better on my feet." She didn't want to be stuck in a dank den recording things, though even if she was an intellectual she didn't expect that kind of work from this pack. From first impressions, she had a feeling there would be a lot of good, hard labour involved. She was fine with that, she needed to build those nonexistent muscles.

This was quickly confirmed by Tyrian. All of it sounded managable, though castration made a wince a little. Poor rams.

She laughed a little as he briefly summarised the overall personality of the packmembers. "I'd ask unique how, but I don't think I'd like the answer." She jested. It did make her a little nervous, but with a fellow so outwardly polite as Tyrian, how bad could they be?

Tyrian digested her explanation quietly. That made sense and it was such a simple explanation. If you were going to read and introduce a whole new layer of complexity to words, it made sense that you would need something to help manage and record all of this new complexity. Again, he wasn't sure the added difficulty was worth it, but it was an interesting concept and he couldn't fault her for having a hobby even if it wasn't one he would have picked for himself. "Hmm," he murmured finally. "Learn something new every day."

She didn't shy away from his description of her potential packmates, which he took as a good sign but given the nervous vibes he was getting from her, Tyrian wasn't convinced she was as prepared for them as she should have been. Poor wee lamb. She'd learn. Or, she'd find the brawling, sheep chasing, soon-to-be-raiding ruffians too 'unique' for her liking and they'd part on - hopefully - reasonable terms. They could stand here and talk all day, but it didn't really matter too much if they both thought she was a fit for the pack. Time would tell. She could walk in convinced she belonged only to nope right out the moment something unsavory and unforeseen happened. Tyrian too could have one of those moments. "Guess you'll just have to find out for yourself."

"Well," he offered with a knowing smile. "I think enough of my questions have been answered to give you a trial period. If the threat of 'unique' wolves hasn't thrown you off, are you ready for the tour?"

The king's cryptic response to her half-joke made her a little bit uneasy. She didn't want to walk into something she'd run straight out of. She didn't have any real worries about her wellbeing, but she promised herself to stick to her descision with the stubborness of an ass, so she wouldn't have to feel ashamed of herself if she left. It'd be a character building experience! Well, if she didn't die gruesomely first.

Her paws danced with comfortable enthusiasm. A tour sounded good, hopefully the walk would put her worries to rest. "Sure!" she agreed to the offer, reinvigorated at the chance to briefly escape her doubts.