Night had fallen and the sky above was a black canvas littered with stars, some shining brighter than others. By then Askan ought to have called it for the night, should have hurried back to the spot he'd claimed as his den but he just wasn't tired.  He could have probably forced himself to sleep, could have scrunched his eyes real tight but out of sheer stubbornness he just didn't feel like it. Instead he found himself wandering, clambering up the rocky slopes till he reached the high ground. The Gorge was strangely quiet, the wind calm and barely enough to ruffle his coat as he moved, looking for a flat spot to sit. Eventually he found a rock that was large and wide enough to serve as a throne and he plonked his arse down, tail curling around his flank as he directed his attention skywards.

Some of the stars were awfully bright that night, all bunched together in a formation he couldn't make out. It looked pretty, more than enough to hold his attention, but if there was a meaning to be found then it was lost on him. He'd heard stories about stars before, pretty rhetoric that went over his head but he couldn't help but truly wonder what they were.

While most wolves tended to travel by daylight, Kiela often enjoyed moving under the cover of darkness. Well, relative darkness; the moon and its stars that glimmered overhead offered some faint streams of light, however faint they might be. Coupled with her eyes that had long since adjusted to the near darkness, it was more than enough to allow her to travel freely across the high ground near the edge of the gorge. Exploring it sounded like a fine idea, but she wasn't keen on traversing a cliff in the middle of night, no matter how brazen or foolish she might be during the day - night time was a different story altogether.

The night was quiet, almost eerily so, though Kiela was hardly deterred because of it. It simply gave her reason to be more cautious than usual as she moved, one large paw in front of the other in steady rhythm. She wasn't exactly the sort of female that went unnoticed, given her size; she appreciated the cover of night, not that the north was proving to be terribly congested to begin with. She heaved a sigh as she slowed her pace and paused to look skyward, sniffing lightly at the air. The twinkling stars above only held her interest for a short moment before the scent of a stranger reached her, and she swiveled around to orient herself upwind.

Making out the stranger's silhouette was a difficult feat, but after a short walk and a fair amount of squinting she thought she could see someone lying on a rock. Though the night was too peaceful to warrant socialization, she knew she couldn't go without speaking to the wolves that inhabited these lands forever. She was trying, she had to give herself some credit. Kiela made no effort to conceal her pawsteps as she drew closer, even clearing her throat to announce her presence long before she could be mistaken as someone trying to cause alarm.

Askan's ears tilted back in a show of annoyance, but in reality he didn't really care. Sure, he wasn't exactly in a chatty mood but the fact she'd made an attempt to announce herself was better than the thought of having her creep around in the shadows. He turned a little, neck twisting so he could get a proper look at her. Even from where she stood Askan could tell that she was far larger and bulkier than he, almost dwarfing him in comparison. But despite her size he didn't get the impression that she was a brute or the sort who threw her weight around mindlessly like a raging bear. Though he supposed that he hadn't pissed her off yet, who knew what she was capable of. Russet aside her coat seemed normal enough, or at least compared to the mishmash of colours he'd seen on other wolves. The same couldn't be said for her eyes though, like his own, they burned bright in the darkness like a pair of setting suns.

"Hey." Askan rumbled in a somewhat clipped greeting. Perhaps he felt a touch lonely too, since he didn't feel like telling her to bugger off. "You much of a stargazer?" He asked, gesturing to the sky with a flick of his tail. "Someone once told me if you look hard enough you can find a meaning or something but it just looks like a bunch of dots to me." His brows furrowed, a little frustrated by that fact.

He wasn't sure what to expect. The few times he'd tried to start a conversation the words had been thrown back at him, like someone kicked sand in his eyes. Maybe the fault laid at his paws, maybe if he tried to be more nice things would work out better for him but did he really have it in him to pretend to be someone he wasn't? Probably not.

The wolves in these lands were different. Sure, among her tribe back home there was no shortage of chatter, but the wolves she'd met here seemed... more eager to socialize. And knowing she had much left to learn, she knew she needed to take advantage of that, even though living in silence didn't sound all that terrible to her. A life of ignorance, though, didn't sound all that great and she knew that was what she'd receive here if she gave no effort. She half-hoped the stranger might ignore her, but instead he turned to face her, though only his silhouette was really visible at first. She met his gaze and watched carefully as he began to speak.

"Perhaps," Kiela started, sounding more cryptic than she meant to. Really she was just searching for the words to say what she wanted, a feat that was often frustratingly hard. The language of these lands hadn't quite been tamed yet, and it was evident in her heavy accent. "Stars... they are as important as any other thing," she tried to explain. "As each wolf, or tree, or even rock." Would he understand? Kiela wasn't sure, though he seemed curious nonetheless. His disbelief would not lessen her own, no matter how harsh it might be. "Some stars... are said to be what is left after death. Some goes to dirt, some to sky." Kiela was hardly a talker, but she had no qualms in sharing her beliefs or her family's culture with those interested, no matter how they interpreted it. "What do you believe? Of these stars?" A slow step was taken toward him, though still she maintained a cautious distance, curious what he might say.

Askan let her speak, even if he didn't quite get what she was saying. He understood that stars were physical, in the same way that rocks and water were but they just seemed so far away. Almost intangible. From her stunted explanation Askan could tell that she wasn't much of a talker, in fact she came across as a little uncivilised, as if she wasn't quite used to vocalising deeper, more poignant thoughts. Perhaps that was just the snooty Selwyn in him, making leap judgements that coloured him as a bit of an arsehole. But as long as he didn't say as much aloud it was fine, right? Probably not. He was going to hell anyway so why not enjoy the ride.

One thing he did know for certain though that stars weren't the souls of the dead. It just sounded too...optimistic, like something you'd say to comfort someone in mourning. Which wasn't to say he had all the answers, he just like to think he's mind was sharp enough to cut through all of the wishwashy, mystical bull crap. Or in other words, if it sounded too good to be true than it probably was.

"I dunno." He admitted, sounding more bothered by that fact then he should've been. "They're far away and not ours to own. They don't care what we want or think. Stars are stars."

Wow that was deep wasn't it? Askan rolled his eyes as he crossed his paws, further cementing his moody facade. Sometimes he just wished that his words sounded better, that he somehow could innately know what to say and do with people.

"The name's Askan Selwyn."

While she had never really encountered wolves who might see her views as strange; she wasn't totally sure how she'd clarify that her beliefs were hardly optimistic, not that she was the type to bother with justifying anything to anyone. Kiela hardly considered herself an optimistic wolf - life simply was what it was, without any meaning or purpose beyond what you made of it, even if everything was interconnected in a unique way. The stars were no less important or meaningful than any wolf, even if this stranger didn't seem to buy her thinking. That was quite alright, it wasn't her business to convince him of anything. That was hardly the Jarvela way, after all.

It didn't seem he really understood what she was saying anyway. He was right - stars were not thinking, breathing things, things with wants or needs, but they didn't make them any less connected to the rest of the world and its beings. Kiela simply shrugged, unbothered. "Perhaps," she said simply after a brief pause. He didn't understand her, but how could she expect him to even begin to try? Her grasp on the native tongue of this place was seriously lacking, and already she was trying to mentally fix what she'd said. Perhaps she'd implied that stars were truly the dead. What she meant was that there was a cyclical nature to existence that was often ignored, but she couldn't quite verbalize those complex thoughts in a language he'd comprehend. Either way... perhaps now was not the time nor the place for such thoughts, given how he'd reacted to them.

If she noticed his slightly foul mood, she made no sign of it. "I am Kiela Jarvela," she offered her name freely, briefly tipping his head toward him. After a moment she returned to her previous position, gazing upward at the stars. Well, if he had little care for what the stars actually were, would he be interested in their patterns, even if he believed them meaningless? It was hard to say. Orienting herself slightly to find the constellation she was looking for, she tried to catch Askan's gaze. "Do you see - there, the three bright stars, in a line?" This particular pattern was easy to spot in the night sky, though she directed her gaze to the left of it. "If you look over this way - there is a reindeer. The nose, there -" Showing off these constellations was a difficult feat, especially to a stranger, but perhaps he'd try. If not? Again, no loss of hers. "In stories he is known as Sarva."