Kathleen had made one of her rare trips to the southern end of Alacritis. Though her timing couldnt have been worse. It was the middle of summer and her thick coat made the heat unbearable. Beeing a feline from a part of the world that always had snow, water was onee of her least favorite things to have on her.

No matter her dislike for water the moment she arived at the weeping woods, Kathleen found a stream to soak her pelt in. The water, though making the heat more bearable had also flattened her fur to her flesh. Making her look much skinnier but also more muscular.

As soon as she was satisfied with the amount of water dripping from her alabaster and ebony pelt she leapt into one of the lower branches of a tree to lay down and wait to dry a bit.

Walk | Talk | Think

Eirik could not remember what had possessed him to come out this way on a day like this. He should have known better, honestly. Back home, inside the pack lands of Secretua, he had barely had enough energy to do his daily work let alone anything else that he might have deemed fun. The heat was unbearable at times, stuffy enough to the point that half the time he just wanted to hide away in the Gulley, under the shade, or even inside of his den where the earth at least felt a little cool before his body heated it up. And for some reason he had thought it a good idea to travel far from home, into the east, on one of those hot summer days.

His tongue lolled from his mouth as he walked, panting to try and keep himself cool. It felt like a useless effort. He felt hot and uncomfortable and was sorely tempted already to turn right back around and go home. In fact, he nearly did, until he caught the scent. His black paws slowed their pace as he sniffed a little more directly at the air, trying to place just what it was that was out of place to identify it. It smelled like no wolf that he knew, and he could not place it with anything else that he knew. Was it familiar, or was he making that part up?

Curious, he set himself to following it around the willows, trying to find whoever made it as a means of distracting him from his discomfort.

She could smell him before she could hear him moving around or even see him from her perch in the tree. The scent had been familiar to her, yet it wasnt until she saw him that it clicked. This was her little maraca. Well not so kuch little any morw but still.

As soon as he was beneath her tree she would drop down infront of him. "My brave little maraca has tracked me down once again." a smile would be drawn across her features as she spoke to him. The last time she had seen him, the boy had been terrified of her. For some reason, she was compelled to feel bad about scaring him so had been nicer than she had first intended to do.

Seeing him again hadnt brought on the same feelings shed had that day. Now she was kind of happy to see that he hadnt been eaten because he had tracked down the wronwrong animal again.

Walk | Talk | Think

He tracked the scent toward a source of water and then away, rewarded by an even better find when he realized the path was actually covered in water droplets. It meant he was close. The water must have been recently dropped from the look of it, not yet fully sunk into the earth, and with a little more haste the grey and black wolf picked up his pace to get closer to the creature that had left the telltale trail. It led him toward a tree, and if he had been just a bit quicker with his observations he would have realized the trail ended there, but it was instead a sudden shadow leaping down to intercede him that caused him to stop short.

The feline startled him easily, and as he backed up a quick step he felt the fur along his neck and shoulders rise warily, a sudden growl surging up from his chest, while he bared his teeth in a useless display of bravado. His heart skittered in his chest a little over the initial shock, but no sooner did he finally get a good look at her did he begin to calm and relax again. It was only a cat. Spotted with black, she possessed such an intricate coloration that Eirik was sure he had never seen anything like it before. It made the brightness of her blue eyes all the more vibrant. Confused, the Kaname boy shifted a little on his feet, his mind belatedly registering what the creature had said. Maraca?

Struck by the familiarity, the memory of their initial meeting, everything suddenly clicked. "It's you." His eyes were wide as he stared at the snow leopard, his voice incredulous. This was her. This was the cat that had scared him so long ago, when he had been just a little pup. He had boasted of that encounter so often that he was sure the tale had grown with each telling, to the point that likely his siblings no longer believed it. And now that he was face to face with the feline...she hardly seemed as scary as she did back then. "I can't believe it."

As the boy would step away and all of his defenses would rise out of surprise and the fact that she had scared him by jumping out at him made her laugh. He would forever be her maraca, even though he was less shaky than he was the first time they had met. Then again many things had changed.

When her laughter finally died down she would stand theree and look up at him. When he spoke she raised an eyebrow. "Yes its me. And believe it because I can remember when you were no bigger than my paw." she would hold up uer paw for a moment and examine it for a few moments as if she was remembering something frome a ling time ago before setting it back dow and looking back at the k-9.

At one time shed had to look sown at him, now she was looking up. When he was little she could take one look at him and see almost everything. Now? Now she could see only the front of him, he had gotten quite a bit taller than herself but she could almost guarantee that she was still bigger than him....not in height per say but in everything else. Slowly she. Would walk a circle around him so she could examine everything. When she came back around to face him she would still be smiling a friendly smile. "Though your quite a bit larger than I remember, youve grown nicely....for a dog." from her, this was as close to a compliment as anything other than another cat had received frrom her.

Walk | Talk | Think

She laughed, likely at his reaction to her, and though he was fully grown now, much taller than she was and fully capable of defending himself against would-be attackers, the Kaname boy felt a little of that same childhood fright skitter up his legs. It was silly, stupid even. He could handle himself now. Heck, he was even bigger than she was! He should have not have been scared of her. And yet it was still there, as she spoke of when they had first met, lifting her paws and showing off their dangerous flexibility with a casual motion.

With a bit of effort, the grey wolf pulled himself up a little straighter, trying to pull his expression into something reminiscent of the stern looks his father was famous for making, anything to make himself look stronger and more capable than he felt. The spotted feline stepped forward in an arc, making a quick circle around him, and the whole time that she did Eirik kept his pink gaze upon her, shifting his weight between his paws with just a touch of visible unease. What was she up to? Sizing him up? Seeing whether she could still pose as much of a threat to him now as she had when he was a pup?

Once she finished her stroll around him, Eirik watched her closely, not altogether trusting the smile that curved across her lips in a mockingly friendly fashion. What was she up to with all of this? "You're not so scary now," he answered with false bravado, not wanting her to know that he was still unnerved by her presence. She could not hold him in place with a paw anymore. He was fine.

Kathleen could see him try to make himself look as though he werent afraid of her. Hestood up taller and put on a stern mask but his eyes gave him away. The way he had watched her as she had walked around him and the way he was looking at her with distrust right now told her thathe still held a bit of fear for her. It didnt surprise her, she felt the same way about her father...or well the father of her brothers anyway. If she saw him today, she would kill him, but she would always fear him.

Finally he would give her false words to match his false bravado and an eyebrow would raise at him. Did he truely think her stupid or did he just think himself that good of an actor. "So thats why you fallow me with those distrusting eyes of yours.' her tone would be that of humored sarcasm.

She would get up to circle him again only this time she would pause to bat at his tail, without ever making contact, befor comeing to face him again. "If I had actually wanted to hurt you then do you honestly think you would be here infront of me today. Hell if I had wanted to hurt you today I could have just ambushed you from the tree."