The sea of sand spread out beneath the dune she was perched upon, glittering like velvet in the low light of the red sun. Makara was perturbed. She wasn't quite ready to say that she was afraid, as she generally considered herself quite brave, but the earthquakes that had shaken the land where those spires had emerged had finally cast her out of that place. They now had to be studied from a safe distance away. Her heart tugged north, settling her final resolve to call on the Armada after she had some time to gather her thoughts. She just needed more information. Something to chew on. Someone had to know something. The only wolf she'd encountered that had been wary and hedged his bets was that huge brute with the bat-like wings. He had the weariness of a man who had seen something they could not forget and his eyes were troubled when he looked upon the spires. Was he hiding something?

Makara sighed and flipped her goggles down over her eyes, settling slowly to the sand and tucking her legs beneath her. The blood red sun was beginning to set. From here she could see those spires, stretching threateningly into the sky, from what she presumed was a safe distance. Occasionally she could feel a deep, distant thrum beneath the land - but the ground held fast. Curiouser and curiouser.

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Back home it all made sense. Ronan's kind lived within and picked at the ruins of those who came before, he knew what fucked up shit they'd been up to had probably brought on their own end. That they had no one else to blame. But this? It just didn't make sense, he'd scoured this place when he'd first arrived, had even poked a local alpha with questions, searched deep underground and- This shouldn't be happening, beyond it simply just not being fucking fair it just... none of this worked like it was meant to.

The desert was quiet at least, the world had a stillness to it he didn't like, as though waiting on a held breath. The dread of realising something terrible was just about to happen, only for the moment to stretch out like sinew; the roller coaster drop that never came. Further proof that he just like everyone else knew nothing.

In this lighting it was hard to tell she was white at all, all pink and red, stupid goggles pulled down over her eyes as she stared in the general direction of The Prominence. It made sense everyone had pulled away to a safe distance but of course, her sense of curiosity meant she couldn't quite leave, couldn't turn away. Itched to know more.

For all they knew, the world very well might be coming to an end.

"Shouldn't you be with your family?" He asked, well before he'd reached the summit of the dune, his voice carrying far enough. Wide paws took him the rest of the way, shoulders hunched and angular, could never shake the tension that had settled there.

Makara was always the sort that welcomed company. It usually meant an audience, willing or unwilling, for her torrential thoughts. Now, though, they had slowed to a trundle, two ideas worrying at her: go or stay. Go meant going home, back to the Armada, and facing whatever waited for her. Stay meant... what, exactly? It was the promise of knowledge, and that used to excite her more than anything else...

When she heard the somewhat familiar voice cresting up the ridge behind her, she didn't flinch. Makara turned slowly, flipped her goggles up off of her eyes, and gave him an appraising glance - slower and more muted now than she'd been down among the spires, her normally grating personality tempered some by the gravity of the situation. She noticed the tension he carried high in his shoulders and imagined the tight ropes of muscle coiled there, held so long in that position it would likely feel uncomfortable to relax.

"You sound so sure that I have family," she mused aloud. Did she? She wasn't sure what waited in the north or if she would be welcomed. "And by that measure, I could ask you the same, but I won't - I don't think you'd tell me about them if you had them, or you'd talk around it but not quite answer the question," Makara continued, the red sun beginning to set fully and turning the sands almost purple in its half-light. "Sorry, that might be rude, I spent quite a long time underground and I'm afraid I've forgotten my manners, though I'm not sure I ever really had them to begin with. Once those quakes started, I wasn't keen on ending up back there again, so I headed for higher ground. You do seem like you know more than you let on down there. Ronan, was it?" She angled her head down at the Prominence, turned inky and obfuscated in the dark evening sky, but those spires still stretched upwards towards the barely visible stars. Sharp like blades. "Please, tell me. I love a good story."

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Ronan bristled, not anticipating the-admittedly well deserved-jab she threw in his direction. His tongue flicked against his teeth, the urge to snap back and be cruel was more than second nature by that point. It was an instinctive, almost mechanical part of him, like if you cut open his belly meanness would slide out alongside his guts. Ronan didn't like that, he didn't want to be like this.

And yet she apologised, earnestly enough that with a sharp exhale he decided to drop it. Her keen observation was not a hill he wanted to die on. Following her line of sight, he wondered if he ought to speak, because he doubted he had the answers she sought. Naturally, he still thought he knew better, but more?

"It's not a good story." He was quick to pick apart her choice of phrasing, because stories were just strings of sentences, a life was just words, easily dismissed and forgotten. It ached to think all the lives he'd cut short with choices he'd been forced to make were so far removed from this place, the retelling would never do it justice. None of it would ever cut deep enough.

He wanted to pace, agitated energy had his wings twitching as he spoke, dragged the words out from between his teeth.

"You've probably seen somewhere like it in your travels, ruins of those who came before. All metal and rock." Massive and sprawling, laid to waste by their end. "Dogs'd been living there for as long as we could remember, it was never a good place, so I was told, with the overcrowding, lack of food, the gangs. But the wastelands beyond the walls were worse, and it was easier to stick with what they knew, can't blame them for not wanting to risk it." He squinted in thought as he dragged his paw backwards, digging a groove into the sand.


"A big tower of metal came crashing down one day, everything shook like it did here, now I think about it. Dunno how many died." But he did remember seeing mangled bodies beneath twisted steel and broken glass. "Started slow after that, few animals that were worth eating started acting weird, looked unwell. Not uncommon, water got contaminated all the time, but this was different. Then it wasn't just the animals, it was dogs I'd seen before and- it was everywhere. No running from it, no hiding. Just these worms sticking out of every hole you can think of."

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At last, she could see his resolve wear away. Makara hid her fiendish pleasure at winning this particular battle behind a neutral expression, her eyes calm and expectant behind the lenses of her goggles. Knowledge was all she'd ever wanted, really. Not in so far as to use it against anyone else, or to better herself... but simply to hoard it, maybe, like some ancient beast. It was the only armor she had in this world that had already decided to make her weaker than the rest.

She listened patiently, only interrupting a few times (which for her was quite good). Once after he grunted it's not a good story, she said: "Important stories - interesting ones, really, any that have value - rarely are." But she quieted down, as he seemed suffused with an anxious energy that was simmering beneath the surface. Twitchy and volatile, like the shimmering surface of a pot just before it boiled. Makara did love to poke a fire, get embers spitting, but she had him where she thought she wanted him, and so she listened.

"I never came close... but I saw them at great distance, and heard some other, less compelling stories," she murmured when he insinuated she must have seen them in her travels. Cutting through the distant skies she had occasionally seen jagged structures, but the land was barren for miles around and any creature with a voice had warned her away. It was just after she'd come up from the surface and she had been starving and half mad from isolation. Even her curiosity hadn't been enough to overcome common sense, and it usually was.

She nodded slowly as he finished his tale, turning her gaze back over to the spires in the distance. "There are plenty of horrors hidden underground. Certain bacteria, bugs, and even some small creatures that have never seen the light of day. They have everything they need down there. Maybe this is simply what happens when they're forced to the surface. It's difficult to say. It's certainly as if something has been disturbed - but how? Or by what means?" Her voice grew more animated and slightly bitter towards the end. She was chasing her tail, and she knew it. "Thank you for sharing your story," Makara added. "As penance, I will tell you that I do - I did - have a family here. If there was ever a time to go home..." she stared sullenly out at the sand stretching between her and the spires, then angled her gaze further north where she knew the Armada still lay in wait. "It would be now, but hard to make that choice when you don't know what lies in store. You can't un come home - and returning, in many ways, seems more complicated than having disappeared in the first place..."

She shuddered to think of what may have been left behind in a barren wasteland like what he had described. "And you? Is there anyone awaiting your homecoming?"

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Ronan shrugged, wings tightening to his sides. He didn't like talking about it to be honest, though who would? But he realised-even if begrudgingly- that there was merit in it, holding the truth close to his chest like a secret helped no one but could harm many. More than he cared to even start thinking about, because he was always this close to losing it. Often wondered if to just walk out into the desert, keep walking and walking till he died. Or maybe throw himself off a cliff, or piss off a giant bear. He had options, some days was painfully aware of said options.

His ears tilted to the side slightly, his expression tense as his muzzle wrinkled in an exaggerated show of disinterest. But he was listening and found himself a little baffled by her wish-washy nature, how she couldn't just commit to what was clearly important to her. To some degree at least, because if they didn't matter it wouldn't trouble her so, she wouldn't have that look on her face. Pensive like, eyes all distant.

"Sort of."It was complicated, because he was always aware of the possibly that he was a father-but it was now a fact he couldn't ignore. He never stayed long, but they knew him, he cared as much as his bitter heart could.

"Go back to your family, Makara."He insisted, his eyebrow twitching. "Don't care about your quest for knowledge or meaning, whatever that's about. It isn't worth dying for."

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She huffed a sigh. You'd think she would be used to being told what to do now by gruff males, but it still rankled her. "Bossy, aren't you?" Makara said. "I will go, on my own time. It's just a bell that cannot be unrung, and I imagine they'll keep me for a while." Whether I want to be kept or not. It would be duty, too, that would tie her to the Armada. She was old enough to reconcile with that and know it for what it was. She'd always been a free spirit, bound by no one's whims but her own, and it would be a shift to put all of that aside.

"No, I don't think it's worth dying for, you're right in that regard," she added idly. "But I could just as easily die on my long walk home. We never know when death is coming for us - it simply does, whether we like it or not. Whether we are with family or not. I could say the same to you - go, be with your family, or whoever is waiting, and would you listen? Obediently, like you seem to expect me to?" She quirked a brow at him, even as a strange sinking feeling filled her chest: she sounded an awful lot like her mother. Maybe everyone turned into their parents eventually, and she supposed of the two she would rather be Hanako.

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Ronan was bossy, there was no denying that, but as far as he was concerned he had every reason to be. Still, her choice of wording made his frown falter for a brief moment, because he was alluding to more. He knew very little about the packs at large in this place and what he did know wasn't anything of a personal level- still, point being he thought she was being needlessly reckless. And frankly, was a bit of an insufferable know it all. He'd seen hounds with her sort of attitude before and it always came back to bite them, not a matter of it but when.

He snorted out of his wide set nose, his paws thumping against the sand as he shifted.

"Don't be fractious." He scolded, with a sharp tsk."You know full well things were not as dangerous before," because it had been baffling to him how at ease everyone had seemed when he first arrived. That the dangers he was familiar with were nowhere to be seen. And yet now they were, things had changed and he wished they hadn't, that he'd just been wrong.

Contrary to his prickly attitude, Ronan didn't like to argue; he didn't like doing a lot of things he did. He just couldn't stop biting.

"If your family is anything like you, no doubt they're intolerable."

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Her eyes sparkled behind those goggles at his words. Fractious? It sounded like he'd stolen a page out of her father's handbook. "Unfortunately, I have always been fractious and likely will remain so until my death - whether timely or untimely," she said drily, "And yes, while things are certainly more dangerous now, there is always some small element of danger to the matter of living. Otherwise, it would be no fun at all, but I'm starting to guess you're a big fan of no fun," she mused, turning away to gaze back at the distant, glowing sun. Dangerous. That was one word for it. It was also strange, unpredictable, and entirely new. Not many things in life were this sharp of a departure from the norm. If only she had more information...

"... no doubt they're intolerable." At this, she finally let out a true, sparkling laugh. Makara turned to look at him, a pert smirk on her face, looking for all the world like she'd break out into laughter at any moment with each passing word: "Well, I'll be damned, how'd you guess? I'm not sure how everyone is getting along up in the great north, but last time I was home my brothers were being militantly trained under the exacting eye of my father while he broke my sister's toes and struck mortal fear into us all every single day. As for my mother, well... she wouldn't want to get her coat ruffled by intervening, now, would she? But - " she grew just a touch more serious, sucking in a deep breath. "So much time has passed. It's possible things have changed more than I'd anticipated, and how could I die peacefully if I don't give them the chance to turn their backs on me one final time? I'm an optimist, really, at the heart of it all, and I do think you are quite the opposite. A pessimist, although you'd argue pragmatist."

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Ronan arched his brow at her flippant laughter. Makara's optimism was the opposite of infectious, it was grating, somehow worse than the grains of sand that scratched at his eyes when the wind picked up. Was that how she did it, held it all at arms length and pretended she didn't care? It felt like he was watching a performance; though no doubt she was intentionally making digs at him, it felt more than that. Not quite so pointed as denial or that she was lying to herself, but something close, a level of self awareness Ronan would likely never achieve.

She was tiring to be around, emotional labour was the worst kinda labour. And the fact she'd willing put herself through that to deal with a family she herself admitted was difficult?

"Not the word I'd use. Naive, more like it." And more than that, he hated he'd been dragged into a conversation about detangling the complex mess of her family unit. Felt like his nose was being rubbed into it; though she made barbed comments she didn't strike him as being that insensitive.

They had only met just twice, and she was already overly familiar in a way that was biting. Not an old friend, but a nuisance.

"Don't you ever get tired of the sound of your voice?"Now he was just being mean. Juvenile, even and he knew it too. She just talked so much.

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They resumed their strange ballet of verbal sparring and Makara fell easily into the needling pattern. It was like she was reenacting scenes from her childhood, except he was much larger than her Levi and not quite big enough to be Basilisk. Yuck. This whole situation was turning into a mock family reunion, anyhow (although nothing would prepare her for the way her stomach would bottom out when she saw Bas again). "Naiveté is reserved for the young and innocent, of which I am regretfully neither," she added, her eyes flicking to him for a moment and then away again. The lenses of her goggles provided some much needed emotional distance. He was prying, prying, digging and wheedling...

"Don't you ever get tired of the sound of your voice?"

It was as if the oxygen between them had suddenly been spirited away and the silence left in its absence ached like the old wound it was. She was made young again, her father seething at her: Spit it out. Do not speak unless spoken to. You are dismissed. You are dismissed. You are dismissed. Makara stood up slowly, eyes set north. Was she truly going to return there? Even a beaten dog knows its way home when it finally slips its chain.

"No," she said softly, turning back to look at him once more. "My voice is my oldest, dearest, and singular friend. Goodbye, Ronan. I hope you find what you're looking for - or that what's looking for you will darken your doorstep soon enough." Makara skidded down the side of the dune and began the trudge north unless he chose to intervene.

"speech"

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That was mean, uncalled for even and Ronan knew it. He should have apologised and genuinely felt like he should, was knocking on the door of wanting to, but said nothing as she left. Scaled down the sand dune having had the last word. Ronan started after her for a moment, his jaw tight as he felt blood upon his tongue. Stupid teeth.

Shaking his head, he turned to leave as well, though he didn't know where he was going. Where he ought to be. Couldn't let himself linger on this too long, already had enough to feel bad about. Maybe he'd see her again, maybe not.