Deciding perhaps the best place to start was the Hallows, Whisper turned about and went back south, across the weather whipped land bridge and into the... unnaturally cold southern continent. A fist gripped her heart and she had decided to approach the shore instead, taking a moment to gather herself before she went calling for the Hallows wolves.
What she hadn't expected was the way the frost-bitten ground would sink under her feet, like the bones of the earth had been broken in all the shaking that had been going on. Violet hued eyes narrowed, and she looked about, to see if there was any way to get some elevation, to get a better view... The castle walls were the only high point in sight.
As a Scout for the Armada, it was his duty to go looking around the land for things that were unusual. Of course, his proper title was that of the hunter, but with hunting came scouting, and dammit Wilder was great at both. When the tremors began and the spires rose from the earth, wolves had congregated there in Boreas. It was not soon after that whispers were spreading about something odd in Auster. He had avoided Auster for awhile now and while he wasn't sure about his feelings toward the Warlord, Wilder was finding himself to be quite the loyal wolf.
Arriving on the sandy shores, purposefully not looking at the looming castle, Wilder approaches the top of a dune. Grass tickles his legs as a calm wind shifts toward him. Cold, salty air greets him as he lifts his chin to look across toward the knolls of Fossil Ridge. Between there and where he stood on the shore, he saw something he'd never seen before. Winding rivulets of raised earth almost like if a cat had drug its claws down the dirt to make scratch marks.
Before he could investigate even more, a familiar, but not familiar wolf caught his attention. Far smaller than Oleander, but far closer in appearance, this wolf surely must be a Fatalis. Walking toward the small girl, Wilder lifts a brow. "Who're you?" He asks, nerves alight with uncertainty as he avoids stepping on the raised earth.
So distracted by the distant lights of the Castle, Whisper missed the wolf approaching her until he asked who she was. Holding her ground quite well, all things considered, she craned her neck to consider the giant wolf. Her nostrils flared as she took in the scent, so familiar and yet so changed...
"Whisper, Mortis is my dad and Halo is my mum... I've been... away with my mother and brother." She held herself steadier than she would have prior to her journey, shoulders back, not trying to hide her scars from the strange lava cavern. "W- Is gramps still... alive?" She couldn't bite back the question, lavender eyes searching red. Why was Bas's scent so heavy in the mix and not Seers? How much had she missed?
At least his height would solve her vantage problem, "And what is going on here? Mind giving me a boost up so I can get a better view?"
The words from the tiny wolf leave Wilder speechless. A sibling of Oleander's that suddenly appeared out of thin air? Here of all places? His brow furrows as he looks down at her, lips tightening into a thin line that doesn't want to pry open. His mind rattles around because he's never heard of this gramps before but maybe the Warlord hasn't mentioned him on purpose. How was he to respond to the question?
"Never met yer gramps so I ain' sure," Wilder chooses to answer honestly because why lie? He didn't know Sirius was alive or that he was the previous Warlord. The old wolf had handed over reign and moved to the Hollows in Auster a season before Wilder had showed on the Armada's doorstep. "We can fin' him after we figure this shit out," his teeth clamp together tightly as his gaze flicks from the tiny girl to the raised channels. Another wolf to protect, great.
"Yeah, hop on," it didn't take Wilder longer to accept her offer. With her on his back, at least she would be safe up there. Laying down onto his belly, he waits for the white-coated girl to scramble up onto his back before he rises back to his paws. "As ya can see, these winding channels are newer. They 'aven't always been 'ere," Wilder comments as he begins to walk calmly along one of them.
Whisper couldn't imagine her grandfather not being around, so the big guy's words only make her more confused. She supposed she had been gone for about a year, and a lot could change in that time.
It wasn't lost on her that he didn't introduce himself in turn, but maybe he was a bit like the Archers and just didn't go around giving out his name willy nilly incase the fairies stole it. She supposed with her short stature she might be mistaken for other (and had been for quite a few weeks despite Sedna's insistence otherwise). She was not quite what one expected to see when they thought of a wolf, but that didn't stop him from letting her climb up on his back to get a better view.
She took in the snaking trails and pursed her lips. She wobbled when he began to walk with her still perched on his back and she allowed herself to slide down, wrapping her paws around the thick fur about his neck with a giggle. "I have legs you know!" Not that she was making any effort to get down. Clods that would have come half-way up her leg barely made it to his ankle, and he didn't seem like the sort that wanted to be slowed down by her shorter stride. "It kinda looks like it branches out from over that way... like a rabbit warren but... bigger..." Was it some sort of cave in?
The warmth of the girl holding onto his fur was comforting in these unusual times. He'd never really had family to rely on so having someone, even someone he barely knew, was better than nothing. Content to allow Whisper (that was her name, right?) to take a ride on his back, nestled neatly between her shoulders, Wilder continued to lead them along the winding channels.
"There does seem to be quite a few of them," he mentions curiously as his ruby gaze moves from one to the next. They spread over over the strip of land between Fossil Ridge and Shimmering Shore. "Think maybe it could be badgers or foxes?" Wilder asks as he continues to study the winding tunnels. If it had been a collapse, wouldn't the earth have gone inward not raised above the surface? This just seemed... too odd to explain.
As the big guy kept striding across the upturned earth, she allowed herself to smile despite the strangeness of it all. He smelled like home, and a few times she caught herself before she buried her nose in the thick fur about his neck. There were a few times she didn't too.
Her head tipped when he queried whether it might be badgers or foxes, "They'd have to be pretty huge to rip up the ground like that... what about... wombats? OR maybe it's bears?" She wasn't sure what out there was much bigger than bears. "Is it just me, or does it look like they... might meet up over that way?" She gestured with her paw, her chin resting on the top of his head, so it wouldn't be much more than a waving in his peripheral.
In a sense, Wilder enjoyed the warm that Whisper's body spread throughout his own. He hadn't necessarily thought he was cold, but now that his neck was warmer than the rest, he silently wished she was a tad larger. Now wasn't the time to go asking for hugs though. He was actually probably cold from the weird things happening around them. The unsettled knot that formed in his stomach spreading uncertainty and nervousness throughout his nerves. He wouldn't admit he was scared though... Nope, not one bit.
Her comment about the channels meeting up a ways down has him pulling from inside his mind back to the rose-tinted world around them. "Let's check it out," Wilder says gruffly, picking up the pace until they approach the spot she had pointed at. Indeed, right here, the winding channels seemed to convene into a single point before spreading out again. "I guess only one way to find out what'll happen," he comments, his teeth grinding for a moment before leaning down to give Whisper a chance to hop off.
"Let's get diggin'," Wilder grimaces before he begins to dig cautiously into the closest channel.
As if the addition of her weight as she slid off Wilder's shoulder was all that was needed, she didn't even get a chance to start digging before the world rocked beneath her paws and she fell right through the earth and into a tunnel. She'd landed on her hip pretty heavily and her scared leg was grazed, stinging as blood welled to the surface. "Fershitsake!" She barked in a very Archer and not very Fatalis way as she scrambled to get her feet back beneath her. It was just fortunate that Wilder hadn't fallen on top of her. She wasn't even sure the hole was wide enough for him to fall through too, but her eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet.
Finding her feet and shaking off, she peered about. Gods it stunk down here... "Y'ok big guy?" She called out tentatively, unsure she wanted to draw attention to her herself in such a... big hole.
She had expected Whisper to make her way north, so when she crossed her scent on her way to Tojo-Kai, Sedna diverted her course. She crested the rise just in time to see her jump down of the back of a brown pelted man and fall right through the earth.
If the red tinged sky didn't already have her on edge, that alone was enough to tip her over. "WHISPER!" She had survived the witches hut, the fireflies and the statues, like hell she was going to let Halo's child come to harm before she was back in the fold of the Armada. Upturned earth was eaten up beneath her paws as she charged towards the man, skidding as she spotted the hole and frantically digging to widen it enough that the two dire wolves could jump down there with her. "Can't take m' damn eyes off yer fer a second can I?"
![[Image: mangomouse.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/L6xQbV4/mangomouse.jpg)