Another one

Vanta hadn't quite made the decision to return home just yet, but that didn't mean she couldn't slink around the borders and reassure herself that the pack was still okay... at least until she could confront the rogue who had stolen from her. Deprived of her bracers she felt an unsettling nakedness at her wrists, an absence that seemed to disturb not only her emotional equilibrium but also her usual physical grace. Wet and miserable, Vanta found herself weaving through the redwoods in what must have been circles.  

She was lost in a terrain once so familiar that she could navigate it with her eyes closed - literally! It should have been easier without the disability of blindness, but Vanta's memory of these northern lands had begun to fade seasons ago. She had anticipated the plains would soon reveal themselves, yet at every turn, there was only relentless repetition of trees.

Then, something caught her eye. A grizzly bear, immense and absorbed, sharpening it's claws upon the bark of a particularly thick tree. Vanta let her lithe form wrap behind the nearest trunk as she observed it, remaining hidden while she planned her next move. Taking on such a beast alone would be quite a feat, but it was marking it's territory awfully close to the Armada.

A snarl tore through the silence, originating from beyond the bear. It seemed she was not the only wolf who thought the predator had wandered into the wrong woods. The voice was not one she recognized, however, nor did she smell the familiar scent of an Armada member anywhere nearby. A happy coincidence, then.

Without breaking her gaze from the wolf, Vanta began to cautiously close the gap towards their hulking prey. She expected the stranger to have her back in the combat to come - especially as he had been the one to draw the bear's attention first - but she had been burned by strange men before. While she stalked across the forest floor with clear intent to strike, Vanta was holding off on her initiating lunge. She would wait to trade blows with the beast until she was certain that this stranger was as committed to the kill as she was. It was simply the sensible thing to do.