This place was more rocky than ice, Lumi observed as her companion unwound the bandages from her hooves. They had settled at the bottom of a marble valley. The snow dusted the rocky caps, but was more or less just a dusting. The gleaming ivory stone with rich darkened veins surrounded them, shielding them from any winds. This was by far the most mild area they had come across yet and decided to settle for a rest. Luminosa chewed some plants they had found along the way. Their supplies were running short, and the north wasn't plentiful with its food, but they still had enough to go on for now.

Just to the northwest of the Sparse Pines, the ground began to slope downward. Opening up to an ancient riverbed that very much appeared as a canyon to the small, practically newborn pup. Well, he's not quite a newborn. He's capable of catching and eating rabbits on his own, but being unsupervised outside of pack territory wasn't exactly ideal either. But currently, Maelstrom didn't quite notice that he had passed from Syndicate borders into open loner lands. His eyes were drinking up the gleaming and glistening veins of marble that spread through the river's valley.

He wanted, no. He needed to know what the sparkling stuff was. Drawn by curiosity and puppy ignorance, he stumbles and slides down the sloping rocks until he rolls out onto the flatbed of the once river. Marching up to a particularly wide vein of marble, he scratches at it and even tries to bite at it. Smooshing his lips and tongue against the cold ground as his teeth gnash together. Frustrated that he can't retrieve it from the ground, the pup steps back, lifting his head and glances around to see if he can find anything that would help him.

There's not much out here, but what he does see leaves his eyes widening even more. A deer! By herself! His brow scrunches. Brain scratching to remember what he had learned during hunting lessons. Deer were always in herds unless they were male and she didn't have antlers so she couldn't be a buck, right? Maelstrom cants his head, bravely approaching the deer.

"Where's your herd?" He asks, tilting his chin up to look at her as he stops a foot or so away. Hooves be damned, he was going to get answers!

As the last bandage fell from her hooves, Lumi took a moment to click them on the stony ground. It was as hard as ice, and as cold too, but it definitely wasn't ice. It seemed to be a stone of some sort or... more than one stone smushed together. Luminosa knew of some that made weapons from stone, but she didn't know if all stones could be made into things like that.

Paws slapping rock made the doe's head turn to see a pup bounding towards her in the sloppy, goofy way that pups did. Where pups went, surely a mother followed. Lumi looked around and scented the air, but the boy was alone. He asked where her herd was and she smiled at him, "I'm afraid I do not have a herd, or a pack. But where is yours? Surely you have a family nearby?" She looked again worriedly, hoping no mother would come bounding out from behind a rock.

The barren land provides ample space for the northern wind to whisk through. His fur ruffles as a shiver runs down his spine. Looking up at the deer, he too worries why she is alone. Was he safe talking to her alone? Or would someone come to her rescue in fear the predator would hunt her? His head cants at her response, head physically moving around to look at the milky white landscape. Nope, still nothing really around them except for rocks. Shiny rocks.

"We live in the lands that neighbor this one," he answers once his gaze lands back on the doe. Lifting a paw, he points it behind him up the slope to where the tops of the pines could be seen. "I kinda accidentally rolled down into this... I don't know what this is," Maelstrom's brow furrows as he looks around again. There's no water, no brush, no nothing. So what was it supposed to be called?

"Maelstrom"

The pup said they lived in a land nearby, but Lumi couldn't fathom how such small helpless pups could live in a harsh environment like this. She felt a little nervous about it, maybe sad, but wolves were resilient and had thick fur coats. She looked across the wash, with its bone-colored cliffs shining in the distance, devoid of most flora that would draw fauna to the area... what would the little wolf eat here?

The pup said they had rolled down into this area, hesitating and seeming to lose words for what the land should be called. Lumi didn't fully know herself. "We'll call it a barren valley for now," she indicated. "But perhaps we should work on getting you back home, hm?"