Whatever you're sellin, I'm not buyin

Turns out this stranger, Caelia, took the fact that Jasper was an absolute nut job remarkably well. Jasper could barely hear her reply over the blood roaring in her ears, but it was clear the older she-wolf wasn't following the script. No bared teeth or hissed insults, and she was staying put rather than lunging forward... What the hell was up with that? Jasper blinked a few times, fast and hard as if they were hoping to wipe this whole scene from their eyes and start fresh... But when she opened them again and again, Caelia still stood there, still giving no indicaiton she wanted to run her off or press her into pack service.

It took longer than it should have for Jasper to get herself back on a more rational track, and all the while voices from home whispered in her ear, calling her 'Freak,' calling her 'Coward.' After them came other unsavory individuals she'd had the misfortune of crossing paths with after she left, but by the end there was just one pale stranger, now resting on her haunches. It was probably some kind of ploy...

But as panic began to ebb away, exhaustion quickly took its place leaving Jasper wobbly-legged and quick to sit down as well. So quick she hardly noticed she'd done it.

With a steadier heartbeat Jasper began to retroactively parse out what Caelia had said while she was too busy losing her shit to properly take it in, and one phrase stood out in particular. ... With how things have been.. Jasper's curiosity peered cautiously out of the cave within her mind, not quite certain yet if the Panic Monster was done making a scene. "I'd heard a few stories about the sickness from refugees," she remarked quietly. "I've never heard of anything like it." She cleared her throat.

Jasper still wanted pretty desperately to be anywhere other than right there at that moment, but the other woman had been exceedingly placable in the face of all her nonsense. Maybe some good manners were due. "I'm Jasper, by the way. It's... Good to meet you?"

The lingering uncertainty definitely made that seem like a question in all the wrong ways, but it was out there now. Jasper let the woman's surname drift in one ear and out the other, ignoring how she said it like it ought to mean something. Jasper left hers off as well. It was a dusty thing she never used, something given to her by the woman who'd died hours after arriving at the pack's borders. She was having a bad enough day already without tossing that in the mix.

"Talk" "Listen" Think