No Time For Drowsiness [Tamsyn]
Panting, Natha took a quick moment to catch her breath before bounding into the woods. The trees grew clear to the sky, twisting and curving around each other as they went. Their gnarled and unusual shapes made for great climbing. Natha bunched her hind legs beneath her, her stubby tail wiggled for a moment as she leapt up into a nearby tree. Her claws sank deep into the bar and she pulled herself onto a nearby limb. She smiled at Tamsyn. "Isn't this neat? I love forests and mountains and I've never seen anything like this before. What sort of territory are you originally from?" Natha was curious if the other woman was used to northern terrain or if she was from more hospitable regions.
Knight
Tamsyn looked around the twisting, turning trees as they made their way down toward the hart of the forest, the awe clearly written on her expression. She didn’t know it was possible for trees to even grow into this sort of shape! It seemed like every time she turned around they were in a territory that was completely different than the last. She continued to wonder to herself how one continent could have so many different kinds of terrain and plant life.
She watched Natha as the feline leapt nimbly into one of the near by trees, clearly more suited to climbing than she was. It was super impressive to her though and she watched with an amused grin. She nodded in agreement to the statement around how much she liked forests and mountains. “It was mostly forested as well, but a more deciduous type of forest. Lots of maple and oak trees around where we lived. It was very mountainous too though, just a different kind of mountains. Much less steep or rocky. We lived in one of the valleys so it was pretty closed off,” she replied while she began to look around at the trees, trying to spot one that was less steep so she could try her hand at climbing a little ways up as well.
Natha stretched out on the limb, letting her hind legs dangle off either side while her front legs rested in front of her. The sunlight was glinting here and there through the trees while a gentle breeze brew through. It was shaping up to be a really gorgeous day.
Tamsyn grew up in a similar area to Natha full of mountains and trees though where the forests of Natha's home land were primarily coniferous trees, those of Tam's home land were deciduous. "It sounds nice. There are some really lovely valleys out there. I grew up higher in the mountains in a dense pine forest." She sighed wistfully, that was a life time ago. "It's a strange feeling to move." As much as Natha loved to wander and explore she did desire some place to call home. Some place she could return to after a long day of exploration.
Tamsyn could absolutely picture Natha living among a pine forest in the mountains with her silvery coat that was sure to camouflage her into the snow and rock easily. Having the ability to be so nimble while climbing was sure to be helpful in that kind of environment as well. She nodded and replied, ”It is... I liked the land I lived in before. It’s a shame my family lived there too and ruined it.” She frowned at the thought, wishing to herself that she would have had the time to really enjoy that valley. It had beautiful scenery, but the toxic wolves that lived there certainly weren’t putting up with to stay.
She found a tree with a particularly low angle to its trunk and she climbed up onto it curiously, using her claws to get what little traction she could on the bark. Even though she wasn’t made for climbing the way that Natha was, she was able to get higher than she thought she would be able to thanks to the gnarled, twisted form of the trees. Once she got to a point where she no longer felt like she could keep her footing if she went any higher, she stopped and looked around from her new perch. It wasn’t terribly high. She was pretty sure that if she did fall she’d still be alright, but it was high enough to give her a new vantage point as she looked around though the tree branches around them.
Natha delighted in the activity going on around her. Above her she could hear the songs of numerous song birds and the scurriing and chattering of squirrels as they went about stocking up for the winter. The forest had a wonderful pine-like smell and she never did tire of the unusual shapes of the trees.
Her ears perked as Tamsyn spoke. "Ah… kicked out?" Natha didn't wish to pry too much but she was genuinely curious. Wolves didn't kick each other out of family groups all that often as far as she knew. As a lynx though it was expected. As soon as a kitten was old enough to fend for herself she was expected to leave or otherwise be chased off by the mother. Fathers were not a concept Natha was familiar with. She'd never had one and no lynx she'd ever met had had one either at least in the parental sense of the word.
"Good work!"Natha cheered as Tamsyn managed to climb up a nearby tree.
Tamsyn gave a small nod to the simple question over what happened with her family. ”Yes... Something like that. My father made it pretty clear that I wasn’t welcome there any more.” Being ‘kicked out’ sounded much more simple than what actually happened, but it was an easier way to summarize it that way. At the very least it was easier than getting into the gritty details of why she had been banished from them. It didn’t seem to matter in her mind that none of it had been her fault - it still felt like something she was afraid to revisit.
She grinned at Natha’s praise and looked around to enjoy the view that she never got to see. Sure, she had taken in the views from cliffs and hilltops and mountains, but it was different see things from this angle. A bird fluttered overhead and she tipped her muzzle up to see them, spotting a nest tucked into the crook of a near by branch. It seemed like even birds had a home to call their own and it made her wonder if she should let herself find one for herself again... But that was a far larger question than she was able to answer right now.
”Now I just have to figure out how to get back down,” she commented with a chuckle, glancing behind her at the branch that she had recently climbed. Tam carefully got herself to her paws and started shuffling backwards since she wasn’t sure that she trusted herself to turn around in place on something this narrow. She got to a place where she could step down onto a slightly lower branch and did that a couple of times, using the surrounding trees and branches like stairs till she finally hopped down onto the ground. She stood there with a relieved smile, looking up to Natha again. ”That was fun, but I think I’ll leave the tree climbing to you.”
Natha gave Tamsyn a sympathetic look but made no move to push for further details. She knew little of the intricacies of wolf lives and relationships, only that they were far more complicated than those of her kind. At least for now. Eventually shorty and his gang would come to Boreas and then she would get to experience a form of pack life among her own kind. But that was still a ways off yet.
Natha chuckled. "Getting down is the worst! I swear its always harder than going up. But if you think these trees are wild wait til you see the ones in the Red Wood Forest! You could fit a buffalo in one of those trees." She carefully worked her way down, eventually opting to just leap down to the ground before heading northward to the forest. She knew her time with Tamsyn was coming to an end but she couldn't let it end without showing the wolf the great trees of the north.