Mojito had told Nao where he was going. Now that spring had sprung he wanted to go looking at the old Armada lands and see what he might be able to scrounge up. He very much doubted that much remained but maybe his garden had grown over, sprung up in his absence. The man picked his way across lands that felt at once all too familiar and yet somehow like the memories they summoned were someone else's. He'd been a child when he'd been here, barely even a man when his daughter had been born here... He couldn't help but wish his new litter could have grown up here, this place had been where he'd been at his happiest... He hoped that wouldn't be true forever and he wasn't sure his lover would agree with that sentiment. Mojito sighed, dropping his head to root around the ground around the hold shed he'd once used as a den. Maybe he should see if he'd left anything useful inside. He was pretty sure he'd grabbed everything when they'd left... No he wasn't ready for that yet, he wasn't sure he could weather the reminders of what he'd lost if he went inside it, for now he'd have to be happy outside. ”Speech”  ’Thought’

She was still a little paranoid about being out. Being out in the open, especially after what happened the last time. Looking over her shoulder as she crosses into the Plains, Jael finds herself that she won't have to sacrifice another one of the glass jars. The one that had been left splintered in the feet of the man that had tried to eat her the last time she'd left the safety of the Raiders... she shouldn't be out here. Still-healing injuries were sore enough to remind Jael just how close she'd come to a more certain fate. Fuck, dude.

It wasn't enough to stop her. Slipping from the safety of her home, knowing that it wouldn't go wholly unnoticed by Gilgamesh. Well, not for long at least. He'd been too busy to take her to the market, so she'd have to go out for her own crafting supplies. In her mind it was that simple. If he wasn't going to give her a job, she'd make one for herself. This time, she's wondering if she can track down some indigo. Hopeful.

Hopeful but paranoid. Right, getting through this one without an attempt on her life would be preferable. That lunatic couldn't still be around here, right? She could hear rooting around, rummaging, at least. Jael stiffened. No, fuck it, she had to at least say something. "Hello? Are you going to threaten to kill me too, so at least I can just... leave instead?" Though she'd started standoffish and assertive, Jael realizes that she sounds a bit silly. The words become halfhearted near the end, instead punctuating her question with a sigh. Better to get that out there, first.

The scent of another was what reached him first. A pack scent he was vaugely familiar with. He'd not had much to do with the majority of the hostilities between the pirates and Armada so he had little reason to recognize the former pirates newer pack smell, he just knew it as one he'd caught around here and there. Mojito suppressed a sigh and kept an ear perked, or well lifted slightly, but kept on his work. He'd managed to find a small patch where some Lamb's Ear was growing and he was gonna get his paws on it! It wasn't until a voice reached him that Mojito finally gave his company further attention. He frowned as he mulled over the words. Had whoever was speaking up been randomly threatened before? Mojito was no stranger to assholes, he could think of one who seemed the type but it wasn't like the majority of the company he kept was nice. Still usually they were at least able to be reasoned with, even if he thought most of his extended family's reasoning to be shakey at best. Mojito looked over his shoulder, then the other, then he spun fully around, trying to peer through the thick tall grasses. "I wasn't planning on it..." He finally responded, slowly pushing his way towards where he thought the voice had come from, well aware if this was a trap he was falling for it. "Not sure why anyone would assu-" But he didn't get to finish that thought, pushing several stalks of grass out of the way he finally could put a face to the voice and her warrines made immediate sense to him. First of all she was tiny. Mojito was not big, not by most standards even taking out the land of giants he'd been born into; and yet somehow she was smaller. But that wasn't what got his attention. No rather it was the things about her that he'd seen in his kids, in his siblings, his father... Himself. "Or... I guess I can understand your caution." For a moment he considered the possibility that shortly after disappearing his parents had had yet more children but she didn't fit the look, and she seemed a little to close to his own age for the time line to match up. But the thought did cross his mind, as he stood there, eyes wide more in shock and recognition than anything else. It made sense, Mojito had never known the world to be one that looked at wolves like him, like her, like them and leave them in peace. The curse of being a wolf-dog was that nearly everyone seemed threatened by what their existence implied and then they lashed out about it. So yeah maybe he did understand her caution. Better than he could know now but they could burn that bridge when they got to it. ”Speech”  ’Thought’

She isn't threatening-- not more than she needs to be. Jael is deeply, eerily bitter. Her recent run-in has left her rather sour on her experiences outside the pack. No one within the Raiders had treated her poorly. It wasn't them she needed to worry about. It was... pretty much everyone else so far. No, this voice didn't sound like it was attached to something that wished her harm. The fact that he sounded like someone who was upset by the idea of hurting a stranger was further proof that the bar is so low that it's a tavern in hell. Disregard the borrowed line, it's just. Come on now.

As she has the barest of comforts, Jael pushes through the tall grass. She won't be rude for any longer than she needs to be. Coming through and nearly bumping into the man-- "Oh." Startled by the things she sees in him. Jael's eyes went wide, her ears flattening back against her head. Though she recovers quickly (rock solid temperament in those cattle lines baby, even if she's got some trauma for spice), the recognition is clear. "Sorry," Jael takes a deep breath, swallowing hard. Trying to compose herself.

Right, he should know about the source of her anxiety. "I had a run in with a big bastard, black and sorta blue, stripes through his eye-- just to the south of here. Threatened to kill me, ran me off, the whole nine. Just be careful." She offered her experience as a cautionary tale, having softened from her original abrasive approach. Was she wrong to assume that just because he looked like her, she could let herself relax? Probably. But Jael didn't care about that so much. In this moment, she'll take the strange comfort in familiarity where she can get it.

"I'm Jael." Sure, she'd offer him that much too. She can't help it.