It took her a bit of traveling, and a couple small detours to grab a dumb plant or ten, but she'd eventually made it to this Abaven place. Sure, she'd talked to Brandr, but she still wanted to go meet the Alpha herself in person. Rory'd been following along too, which was neat. Traveling was way better with a friend in the mix. Her head was held high, but not overly so, and her tail swung to and fro gently as she pranced and trotted along until she reached the border. Taking int he scent she knew she was in the right place. Yup, hopefully this was one of her last stops, cause all this walking sure was getting to be a bit much! Wandering was only fun when it felt slightly less like a mission and more like a game.

Wildly disorganized thoughts were shoved to the back of her mind as she tipped back her head and howled for Sparrow. Iskra wanted to know what this woman knew, and of course just meet her and all. Mulling over how to use her stupid favor had been one of her main pastimes on the journey here. So far she thought she had a few good, rough ideas. But she really needed to go back to Auster once she was through here. Keeping Malleus waiting longer might make it look like she was flaking or forgot what she'd said she would do. Of course the trade off for taking so long was that she had a pretty decent array of plants gathered up to take back with her. For now she'd stashed a bunch of them nearby, not wanting to carry them all the way to Abaven cause frankly that got old fast.

Her paws scuffed across the dirt as she waited impatiently, looking around for signs of the Alpha's approach. And Rory, where was he? Nearby, she hoped.

I'll show you how a heart can never fail

It sure was easy to get side tracked. Well, typically he wasn't someone who got distracted easily, but ever since agreeing to accompany Iskra he found himself like that often. He'd tried to be as helpful as possible with the plants and he'd managed to get a pretty decent collection going as they traveled. At least Iskra would have some proof of her efforts to show this man she'd made an agreement with when she finally returned to him. In the mean time Rory was happy storing the herbs he'd collected in a rolled up badger hide he'd borrowed from his mother.

He was just stashing his homemade satchel of herbs when Iskra's howl caught his attention. Whoops, he was going to be late if he didn't hurry. He shoved the hide in some bushes to come back for later and trotted to catch up with the starry coated female. He was hoping his presence at Abaven would make more of an impact, but if it boiled down to it, how much could Abaven really help? Unless they'd gotten their numbers up since his last visit? Still, he was curious to see what Sparrow's thoughts were on these Abraxas wolves.

He spotted Iskra easily enough and thankfully Sparrow hadn't arrived yet so he wasn't late. He came to stand beside the galaxy woman and he smiled softly at her. "You seem antsy." He was trying to lighten to mood some, he'd never been fond of tense situations. Besides, it wasn't as though they were meeting an alpha he'd never met before. Sparrow had seemed pretty level headed and nice when he'd met her.

"Speech"

Sparrow tried to get things moving in the pack. The more she looked over it, the less the current ranks made sense. She knew she would have to change them. How would the pack take such a change, though? Maybe Brandr and Caelum would be willing to help brainstorm a better flow for the ranks?

Someone called at the borders, snapping Sparrow out of her thoughts. Sparrow hastened to make her way to the call. She saw a strange and colorful woman when she arrived. Next to her, the vaguely familiar alpha of Lirim stood. She offered him a warm smile, "Ruaidhri, right? Welcome back."

Her eyes moved to the woman, "And you- welcome as well, though it may be your first time here. I'm Sparrow, the alpha of Abaven. Is there something the matter?"

It helped her nerves a little when Rory appeared, coming to place his larger form beside her. That alone was enough to bring back some of the woman's feisty nature as she shrugged and aimed to bump her shoulder against his in a friendly manner. "Well, who wouldn't be? It's not every day you get to ask someone if they've seen any marauding war machines wandering about. Although I am getting quite a bit of practice lately." Iskra grinned at her own words, chuckling inwardly. Yeah, she'd have plenty of experience in this oddly specific department before she went back to Auster. Turning back to gaze expectantly out at the territory before them, she waited for the alpha to answer the call, a little calmer than before.

When at last the little woman showed Iskra appraised the alpha of this pack named Abaven. She was at least a head shorter than Iskra, but the starry woman had to admit that she wore her height well all the same. The alphess' fur was simplistic and pretty, and she seemed friendly enough. Satisfied with what she saw, Iskra was ready to get down to business.

"Thank you, it's nice to meet you Sparrow, I'm Iskra Aeris," hesitating a moment, she would try to mull over her words and select just the right ones, "Not necessarily. I'm the one who initiated the visit. You see, I come in search of information. The pack I belonged to was recently challenged for and won by a wolf with the surname Abraxas, and I'm curious to know if you have seen or heard of any such wolves. It was an unusual challenge, in that the challenger was backed by an existing pack. I'd met a few of them before hand, and I wasn't sure what to think of them before. Now I'm a bit... concerned."

Iskra was tempted to go on, but she didn't like laying everything on people all at once. Of course, she'd already done it a time or two before, but no need to do the same here. After they discussed what Sparrow might know, then Iskra would be ready to discuss her deal with the Abraxas male.