OOC: he's done with all his gathering and I already reached my word goal so I'm just opening it up to AW now that he's done.

Tornach raised his nose to the winter wind, breathing in the crisp, clear scents despite the nip of cold at his nose. Behind him he pulled a temporary sledge, made of a hide that he had folded and shaped and stitched with sinew into a something of a half-bowl-shaped front, open at the back with the remainder of the hide trailing behind the protective bowed front. It wasn't particularly efficient compared to, say, a travois or a real sled, but it bobbed along behind him atop the snow easily enough and the single loop of leather that ringed his neck in front of his shoulders was easier to get off and on than a travois or a real harness. He didn't want to fight with his gear every time he wanted to stop to gather anything. In past years he had pulled a sled along by a leather piece gripped between his teeth, but that was much more tiring and hard on his neck muscles. He wasn't getting any younger, and he didn't bounce back from the wear and tear of normal life like he used to.

Aiden wasn't with him - she was back watching the stock. Though he had taken the deal offered to him by the dark, long-fanged alpha in order to save his life's work, he was wary of trusting the male to keep to his end of the bargain. The falcon was staying behind to make sure that none of the Legion wolves decided to take a bite of his stock themselves when they were supposed to be protecting them. He needed to stock up more on certain items that were best to get in the fall and winter, and while he'd have preferred to do it during the fall he'd been reluctant to leave his stock at Legion's dubious mercies, and it had been difficult to force himself to leave the range in order to find what he needed.

Tornach sighed. He had worked so hard to avoid getting caught up in packs, going so far as to leave his family when his mother had created Celestial and he had seen what atrocities leading a pack had made her willing to accept as inevitable. Maiming or enslaving trespassers. Sieging. It had made him heartsick to think of his mother, his hero, stooping to such lows when they could have been protecting people and making the world better. But now he had to ally himself with a pack far worse than Celestial had looked to become, else he lose all he'd been working towards for most of his life. He was not a member of that pack and never would be, but the "tribute" he paid went towards supporting that foul gang of pirates and murderers. It made his stomach twist in disgust... but was it really any different than healing anyone who needed it regardless of their affiliations? He had healed the Hellstrom wolves when they'd been injured in the siege, and berated those who had not wanted him to. The fact that Enigma might later go on to do terrible things had not deterred him, though the idea saddened him. Everyone deserved a chance to change. So, while he hated the idea of what Chaos' pack was capable of, he could not really begrudge the trade that fed the packmembers and gave them the chance to make something more of themselves. Wasn't that the reason he had set out to do what he had? So that he could help provide for the packs and the loners so there would be less reason for raiding and wars and killing?

He huffed out another sigh, then brightened when he saw what he was looking for. A wild rose bush climbing in a magnificent tangle up the side of a tree - bright rosehips stood out along its branches like little drops of blood. Birds were already hard at work on bounty, but there were plenty left and the whole flock took off with a noisy clatter of wings when he trotted up with his sledge. He began to carefully pluck the false fruits from the thorny stems, but even being careful his nose and muzzle quickly acquired a lacework of scratches.

Oh well - it was worth it. The little red bundles were anti-inflammatory and immune boosters, so they'd come in especially handy over the winter when close proximity to others and the body constantly working to stay warm would depress immune systems and allow disease to spread more rapidly, and the cold made old injuries inflamed and painful. The seeds inside would need to be removed since they were poisonous, of course, though... he was for a moment childishly tempted towards putting the itching powder he knew could be made from the seeds of rose hips into Chaos Saxe's bedding. He wouldn't actually do it, of course, but one could take some guilty satisfaction from the thought.

He dropped them one by one into the bottom of the hide sledge, then took a moment to pin up the trailing part of the hide by sliding a stick all the way through holes previously cut through both sides of the open bow and both sides of the trailing hide, so that the stick supported the hide from behind and the rosehips couldn't fall out. Sliding the leather rope back around his neck, he continued on to search for more rose bushes, slowly filling the sledge with them. They were easy enough to brew as a tea or to simply eat, but he had it in mind to try his paw at cooking them down into a strong syrup that you could simply add to water instead of needing to figure out a way to heat water every time you needed it. He simply did not have the time to waste trying to keep a fire going with what sticks and branches were small enough he could snap them in his jaws to the correct lengths, but getting one started every time was a pain in the tail as well. You could start a fire with spark from certain old human tools he'd found in the barn and the black rock called flint, or you could use a piece of glass or ice polished in just such a way that it focused the light in a hot little beam - in fact he'd once had to put out a fire in the barn that a polished icicle had started accidentally, which was how he'd figured it out to begin with - but those methods were frustrating and chancy at best so he would definitely prefer to avoid needing a fire very often.

Finally the little sledge filled completely with the small roundish red false fruits but rather than leave immediately he found his gaze drawn to the sight of the mountains that loomed distantly over the grove. Zuriel lived there... with her pups. He'd liked the little red-furred kid who'd greeted him at the borders, who looked so much like the boy's other uncle Regulus, and he wondered how his nephew was doing now, and what other pups she'd had. He knew that Ignis hadn't been the only one, but he'd never met the rest of them. He'd felt so uncomfortable with the harsh way the boy's father had treated him for speaking with Tornach that he'd been quick to excuse himself and retreat to his range, thinking that surely Zuriel would come visit, but she never had. He was starting to get concerned, for it had been a couple seasons now yet she had not come. It upset him to know that he had nieces and nephews out there he hadn't met, only the one strange young daughter of Regulus'. None of his siblings had sought him out, made any effort to allow him to get to know their children, and it saddened him nearly to tears. He was getting old - he'd likely never have children of his own, so he couldn't help but wish for the chance to spoil nieces and nephews, to pass on what he knew to them. Though he did not know them, he loved them all, and his heart ached to be near to them.

But his own responsibilities made it difficult for him to leave for any real length of time, and all of them were scattered to different packs now, too far spread out to visit them all in a quick trip. Even this trip to the grove was a long time to be away from animals who needed constant tending, and he was itching to get back to check them.

Hm, but if they were well, if Aiden said they'd been guarded well by the pack, well, maybe he could spare more time for another trip this direction to visit Zuriel and her kids in their pack, though something about Zuriel's mate and the way he'd treated Ignis made him anxious and on edge. He didn't look forward to seeing him again, or needing to keep his mouth shut because it wasn't his business how Zuriel and her mate raised their children even if it did anger him to see anyone treated badly.

He hitched the leather rope into a more comfortable position, and set off back through the grove.

Aurielle Adravendi

She’d ventured eastward once more, thinking to visit with Abaven’s alphess, and to get some explorations in before the snows of Winter grew too bad to venture far from the pack. She had also thought to drop in and see if Rhythm was about but had met with a surprise—a new pack border that circled both the Range and the Knolls. A frown still puckered her brow more than an hour later as she mulled over the find. Rightly, she ought to have called for the alpha and given this pack a study, but she had decided to leave it for perhaps her way home. But there was, at least, a thrill, if confusing. She’d caught Mask’s scent among the markers. But not as its leader. Had his ambitions fallen through? She paused as her nose crossed a fresh trace of scent, and her head cocked as she studied the drag marks in the snow. The scent was familiar. Her uncle. He was elusive, like smoke. The times she’d passed through where she knew he lived and tended his herds, he’d never ventured out to her, even when she lingered long enough that her scent should have been noticeable. It was baffling. Did he not wish to acquaint himself with the family, save for obligatory once-in-a-blue-moon appearances on the border? It had made her cautious about even calling for the man. But years were getting on. He wasn’t much younger than her father, who had grown so much more somber in the seasons of late. She already had never met her aunts. Perhaps Baine, very briefly, when she was too tiny to remember, but she wasn’t sure. They had all left, disappeared, many without a word to her father, which troubled the greying crimson male greatly. The law had been set in the pack for a reason—he, and his mother before him, had wanted to be able to know that departing members of the pack were safe, and not merely dead in a ravine somewhere out there. And even when Zuriel had left to explore the world, with his blessing… harm had still come to her. Aurielle had been told of Zuriel’s story the woman had given her father. It was a lesson to always be on guard around strange males. Her mother and brother’s kidnapping had only served to hammer such a lesson into her mind. Of course, when she’d met Amos, she had still been young and innocent to such tales, and her gut had said he was good, in any case. Her father had very much wished to kill the man – Elias, as Zuriel had called him those years back – and yet his kind-hearted sister had pleaded with him to spare the monster. To let her help him. The thought was not one that filled Aurielle with hope for her aunt’s sanity, personally. To allow a wolf who had violated one’s very body to be anywhere near one’s self again, regardless of forgiveness, without flashing fangs and firm barriers in place, was insanity. The decision still haunted her father to this day, even more deeply after Marina’s rape. Aurielle drew a breath and slipped after her Uncle’s trail, padding along like a silent ghost, already half blended with the surroundings. If there was one thing about winter she loved, it was the snow. She’d decided that upon her first winter. The way it helped her meld into the background, to ghost along and then step from a veil of flurrying flakes like a long-maned spirit was enjoyable and fun. It took little time for her to catch up with the thundercloud-grey and black male—he was dragging a load, and she was free of burdens. Loshir and Ayodele hung back to allow privacy as the young woman stepped to fall alongside Tornach, though with a respectful bit of personal space between. “Uncle Tornach. How are you this day?” A grown young woman and no longer a young girl greeted the male, with an easy grace very reminiscent of her father’s former nature. Alas, his nature had soured, save for when he was near his mate and son—even now, he tried to keep a strong face around them. And naturally, Aurielle was privy to his tenderness and his heartaches. The heartaches he didn’t dare share with Solveiga, for fear they would break her further with guilt. Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think

He had been following the older male from the Range. He had been incredibly curious about the male's stock and what he was doing and how long he'd been doing it, along with a thousand other questions. Cepheus had never spoken to him, but he had been watching. Observing. And the more he watched, the more he grew interested. So instead of waiting for the prey-keeper to return, he decided to follow him and hopefully catch up so he could talk to him. He followed the trail eastward until he reached the nook. Blue gaze looked around, and when he spotted a white form moving along up ahead, he tilted his head with curiosity. It didn't take long before not only the darker form of the male came into view, but the white form of a younger female with strange long hair coming from her head. Huh...he had never seen that before. She reminded him of a horse in a way. Interesting indeed. He waited until they were a little closer before he made his own approach. "Hey, you're the guy that has all those prey animals penned up, right?" Manners, manners, manner. Of course, they were lost to the male and always had been. He didn't exactly grow up with anyone to teach him, so he was often blunt with his words. Even so, the curiosity in his gaze was evident. Gaze switched between the dark male and the white woman, curious about her as well. Speak