Gazing up I could see the wind whipping the trees around with waves of gusts, powerful enough to cause them to quiver and shake as if protesting its force yet no having any other choice than to stand steady. It caught speed over the icy open waters before pummeling into the wooden pillars. Ice bricks formed into the pond's surface but I suppose the wind had broken it up last night and now the water was free to move across the pond in ripples, crashing up onto the banks and rolling over the polished pebbles, grazing my paws before recoiling back out to its body. There wasn’t a bird, frog, or chipmunk insight today, and I didn’t really blame them. Today was just going to be one of those kinds of days you just get through, rather than actually enjoy. A pink nose rose up to the air, catching the scents that the gusts of wind brought along with it before it died back down into a gentle breeze.

The dark grey skies reflected off of the waters and if it weren't moving, they might be almost the same muted color. I sighed, giving a light shake before turning back around to wander back to my project. One of the better things about being here amongst the trees was the coverage from the brunt of the wind’s wrath as it barreled over the open waters. However, I was dealing with constantly falling branches and twigs that just kept landing right on my shit and messing up all of my works causing nothing but pure frustration and resentment and sorrow and -

“Oh, COME. ON.”

I yelled angrily as another large stick fell on one of the glass shards that I had lying with the rest of my tools, instantly breaking it into three pieces.

"Hoc damnant tempestate et rami quae stulta deum decernere ad me mittent... UGH."

Latin lyrics rolled out like a late freight train, spewed in anger. There was no escaping this. But to ask me to sit down and watch the damn pond all day or continue wandering about was something that was more of a waste of my time than to continue to meddle with… ugh.

My paws began to pace a few steps to each side while I felt my blood pressure begin to rise out of pure irritation. ’Chill. It’s fine...I got this. I just need…’ My chest expanded to its limit as I took in a deep breath, closing my eyes gently as I did so. I let out a whoosh of air through my jaws before opening my eyes again. I had to keep my emotions in check… I just had to.

3. 2. 1.

I meandered over to the animal skin that I had been toting around whilst I traveled and pawed through a few items. I found one last glass shard that I picked up back while I was rummaging through the field with all of the metal machines a few days ago and brought it over to my work station. On a fallen log I had set up what looked like metal stands holding various items like jars, metal bowls, glass shards, and wires with shallow pots and pans under them. The order that I had placed them in was for my purpose of distilling my own base elixir but with the wind carrying on today, this might not happen. I overturned what had fallen and replaced the glass shard before deciding to head back to the lake. The device that I found back in that field was producing so much heat from its core and with this weather, I didn’t think I would be able to get it up to the temperature that I needed. Last night, a different story. I had about half a jar already distilled and had the other plant matter charred into its salt essence. This was the last step in phase one but… Oy. Not happening with this chill in the air.

My body fell into a sit before I lowered my front end down too. I needed time to think anyway. Sirius had mentioned that he wanted more information about these Dire wolves walking about, the ones that attacked his pack. They couldn’t be hard to find… right? And that ice bridge, what ice bridge?! This was going to take time to get around the area, but I had the upper hand from my point of view. No pack, no emotional ties, no scents to bond me to one area. I just needed to start prying into some wolves' heads… My head lowered onto my paws while I thought.

"Speech"

It was unusually windy in the West today, but then again it seemed to be quite an unusual season...the Albino woman made her way from one tree to the next as she tried to keep herself out of the elements as much as possible, though she was luckier than most to have such a thick winter coat still. She silently thanked her Ancora genes for the thickness of her fur, otherwise, she was sure she'd be in trouble. Blue eyes scanned her surroundings, noting that many of the trees were covered with snow, most of their branches bare and naked from what felt like a never-ending winter. She could hear the creaking of branches as some inevitably snapped and flew to the ground. She had to be careful, else she might get hit by a rogue branch thrown by the wind. Luckily, she knew willow trees were pretty resilient, their branches usually bending with the wind, but it seemed some of the older and drier branches weren't able to stand up to the onslaught like the younger branches were.

Despite the elements, she continued her path from tree to tree, dodging the whipping tendrils of willow branches and trying to avoid the worst of the wind and snow when she could. Up ahead, she spotted some water...but that wasn't the only thing. She spied another wolf, and not just that but beyond his position, there appeared to be a collection of stuff. She was curious but cautious. While she was not afraid of others, the same couldn't always be said about them. Reluctantly, she took herself out into the open, and if it weren't for the red paint that marked her body, she would have likely blended into the rest of the forest and potentially gone unnoticed. "That's quite a collection you have there,"

"Speech!"

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My eyes followed the small waves crashing over the surface of the pond as the wind pushed the water to fold over itself, and as the water crashed my thoughts seemed to do the same. Over and over again I would start a line of thinking and over and over again, it would slam into the wall as if something were throwing it there. I groaned, exhausted at my own mental efforts to work up something for Sirus for my bounty, for my alchemical preparations that Mother Nature just wanted to go awry, for the scarcity of prey that I was finding around here and the lack of sleep that burdened me every night. I began feeling my emotions tetter on the proverbial edge and the only remedy for that was a good night's sleep and a full belly. My eyes started to flutter.

'Could it be you're falling into his habits?'
'No. I am not like him.'
'Oh. But you are.'
'No, I -'
'All you need is that one little push to get things started...'
'I won't fall into it. I won't fall into it. I won't.'
'But what if you do? Would you end up in your aged years going mad...?'
'I cant. I mean - I'm working towards... I try so hard to...'

A small warm drop pooled in the corner of my eye and I felt it drop down the side of my face. I couldn't stop thinking about it. No matter how hard I tried...

It was so frustrating.
I was so frustrated.
Sometimes the keys playing in my head were so in tune and I felt the passion broiling deep within my gut to finding a way to prolong what I knew would happen to my mind eventually. Other times though, oh... those were the ones that made me want to crash everything I was working on or develop a poison just for a quick escape. It was a constant tug of war.

My eyes snapped open as I heard a few twigs snap off to the right and behind me. Had I fallen asleep? No... I wouldn't have heard the sounds. My head rose off of the ground and my eyes scanned the area quickly before settling on a figure that was approaching my area of work. I might have overlooked her the first time that I scanned the area for her form seemed to melt into the scattered snow piles that were around the forest floor. Her voice seemed a bit distant, but that could have been a paired effect of the wind and the battle in my head that I just escaped.

My body rolled up onto its paws and I trotted over to my workstation, watching her carefully. I didn't know how I felt about having someone else in my space right now and my hackles responded to that thought.

"Yeah."

I woofed, not really feeling in the mood to be bothered by anyone, let alone an older lady that was just sticking her nose into my area. My mind screamed for her to piss off and go find someone else to have small talk with, causing my shoulders to respond by tensing up, feeling the thoughts seep into my bloodstream. I wanted to be alone damnit.

Did i?

I wanted to sulk and at the same time, I did want a distraction. I wanted to feel like shit but I really didn't and wanted to get back to work, no matter how aggravating the elements were being. I wanted to push through.

'...Maybe she can help.' I thought.

Yeah, maybe she could. And maybe this is an opportunity to get more information about what the hell was going on around here. I took in a deep breath, straightening my posture and relaxing my tail against my back legs. My hackles began to settle back down as well while I breathed out. I wasn't concerned about this being a hostile interaction for she didn't seem to be like the beings that I was told about and ironically looking for. That and this ground as far as I knew was fair game. So I had no reason, other than my own irrational ones, to be upset right now.

"I, um, collect things."

Nice work, you eloquent being you.'

"Most out of necessity for working on alchemical projects. The rest just out of my own fancy for them."

My tone was even, not quite welcoming but hopefully not abhorrent either. I blinked, looking away from her and walking back over to the log holding all of the items. The little flat disk-like device that I had found back near the field of machines was buzzing loudly, the cause being something internal that was also having it vibrating at different intervals. I picked the glass that I had resting on it up and put it to the side so that I could take a look at the device. My brows furrowed... what the hell was, oh. I nosed it onto the ground and watched it fall. It hit the dirt and immediately made a quick whirring sound before slowing down and going back to its quiet and operational murr. A grin tugged at the side of my maw and I bent down to pick it up and place it back on my workstation. "Heh, sometimes the problem is just that simple." It just needed a kick.

"So...uh."

I placed the glass back on the surface of the device and let the liquid inside continue to warm off of the hot plate.

"Out to enjoy the wonderful weather we're having today?"

I spoke while idly putting tubes back over the tops of glasses and checking levels of the liquids inside of them.

"Or are you over in these parts on a ... special mission?"

I said, lightly teasing the last few words out of my mouth in an attempt to lighten my mood. Fake it till you make it, right?

"Speech"

"Yeah." One ear twitched slightly, though even with the wind in her ears, she could tell by the tone of his voice that he wasn't feeling very social. That was fine, she was simply curious and had wandered across him by accident. She had no problem continuing on her way. Though as she made to take her first step to continue on, he spoke again. "I, um, collect things." She paused, glancing curiously at him before setting her eyes on all the equipment he had set up. "Most out of necessity for working on alchemical projects. The rest just out of my own fancy for them." He said before moving around the objects. She watched with interest. "That is an impressive set up you have there. I've heard of this...alchemy before, though I've never tried it myself. Herbology and the like has never been my strong suit, though I know the basics at least to treat myself should I get injured." Some of the other Spartans were more in tune with this sort of thing, but not her.

"So...uh...Out to enjoy the wonderful weather we're having today? Or are you over in these parts on a ... special mission?" She raised a brow at the question, though couldn't help the haughty chuckle that rumbled through her. "I doubt there will be any nice weather for the remainder of the season, it has been an odd one. As for the latter, I suppose you can say that I am, actually." She was sure he meant it as a joke, but she really was on a mission of sorts. One was to find and gather her brethren. The other was to go back and investigate the bridge that had appeared in the North to see if that's where all these peculiar creatures had been coming from. She had never seen anything like them before, and she'd done a lot of traveling. She had a feeling that the bridge had something to do with it...

"Speech!"

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She was a talker. Maybe that was a good thing.

"You know about this alchemy?"

Forget what I was about to interrogate her about now. This was way more interesting. I thought she was going to go more in-depth about it but from the sound of it, she just knew OF it... not the actual practice. Oh my heart... I thought I had found a fellow scholar at last but alas...

I peeled my eyes away from what I was doing for a moment and took a moment to study her face with pure curiosity reflecting in my own orbs.

"Herbology is pretty much the foundation of it, you're right. All you need is the basics and a passion to know more to start."

I said, levity flowing through my latin accenting before I brought my attention back to my glassware.

She laughed at my next question, almost demanding a smile to form on my own lips. I didn't realize that a simple question could be so humorous... When she began to clarify I almost felt the need to sigh - I wasn't serious about the weather. I stayed stoic in my expression though and trotted over to my pile of roots that I had dug up.

"And what sort of mission is that...?"

I asked while shifting through the sad pile, scoffing at the fact that I had just used up the last of the young tree bark in the last elixar.

"Speech"

She looked on with full curiosity at the bits and bobs he had, the intricate looking glassware and the assortments of things she couldn't quite put a name to until he turned to her with a look of curiosity of his own. "Herbology is pretty much the foundation of it, you're right. All you need is the basics and a passion to know more to start." She nodded quietly, a smile tugging at her lips. She was more of the fighting and exploring type, although given the chance...she was sure her elder brother Dragon would talk her ear off about it nowadays. Last she had seen him, he had picked up this sort of thing as a hobby while she had been gone. "While I do not practice alchemy myself, my eldest brother Dragon, does. And I have a sister who adores herbology."

When he asked about her mission, she sat on the frozen ground, tail wrapping around her paws as she straightened herself. "Likely nothing special to anyone else, but I aim to gather my brethren. I was born here in Boreas years ago, though I left a few years back and came upon a clan who called themselves Spartans. Since my time with them, I have been adopted into their culture and became one of their few elite women warriors." She shifted a bit before continuing. "I came back here with a few of them, and others were going to meet us here. We aim to raise our flag here in Boreas and put roots down. As for the other mission...I am on my way to the ice bridge I've been hearing of. It wasn't there before, and it is quite a peculiar thing. I suspect these strange animals have been coming from the other side."

"Speech!"

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"Mm."

I hummed in response to the womans' account of her brother and sister's interests. It caused a flash of a moment when I was younger and my older sister would be there to help me with my training when my father wasn't around. My eyes fell as I felt a pang of regret over leaving her behind. That was something, maybe the only thing that I regret doing when I left his watch for good. I sighed and nosed a few pieces of bark out of the way, grabbing a couple in my mouth, and moved back over to my workstation. It wasn't going to help thinking about her now, it'd only bring up feelings of missing of what used to be and I couldn't do a thing about that now. So it was a waste. I dropped the pieces of bark in a metal dish shallowly filled with water before looking around for my bag.

The woman then started to speak about something that piqued my interest, causing me to drop the satchel in my mouth and look over to her with a kindled curiosity.

"These strange animals... Were they big wolves?"

I swallowed, pushing my ears forward to hang onto any information that she had about them.  

"Dire wolves?"

I said immediately after, taking a step in her direction. My head tilted slightly up in her direction, my eyes shining with the hope that I'd actually be able to learn something here.

"And... You mentioned an ice bridge?"

That was certainly new. I didn't have enough time here in this area to know what was the difference between up and down, left and right, a Boreas from a bubble.

"Do you know where it is?"

I bit the inside of my cheek lightly noticing my eagerness. Hesitantly I took a deep breath and pulled back, falling into a sit. I couldn't help it... At first this was just about getting a meal. But then this just started getting more and more interesting as time went on.

"Speech"