It wasn't so much a den as it was a windbreak. While the intent had been for her to find refuge within her father's pack, atop the freezing mountain, the summer in Boreas was untenable with her condition and with no parents or brother to tether her in place, she had drifted south once more, setting up near the runestones, trying to decipher their glowing message and just who might have left it behind for her to find.

She had only left in search of food, and when she returned a dark grey and brown lump had claimed her little divot sheltered from the wind. Lips curled back from her teeth in a ferocious show, but the seasons hadn't been kind to her, and when three heads popped up from the fur pile, she considered her odds.

But where else would she go?

Bending her joints and rolling her shoulders forward to push out the crystals around her neck, quills bristling over her back half, she made up her mind. If the small pack of coyotes wanted to steal her sleeping spot they could fight her for it. She clicked her teeth in warning, the gesture punctuated with a growl. They could shove off, or she'd turn them into blankets.

"speech"

-210/1500-

What was he going to do with dad? His condition had deteriorated, getting worse by the day. By the minute. There was something wrong with the old man, and it was far more than physical. Tenshi's passing had crippled Víðarr in ways far deeper than Erik knew or understood. The man who'd treated him as a secretary and gopher, while trying to at least engage in some fatherly behavior, was nearly unrecognizable. Hell, had Erik ever really known him? The cursed boy didn't know. Couldn't place it. Couldn't understand it, even if he tried to. Erik missed his mother, though there was comfort in the idea that she was safe.

Stashing the old man away just outside the Hallows, Erik refused to go door knocking in the middle of the night. Satisfied that Víðarr would at least somewhat stay put, he ventured out. Searching for dinner, searching for... anything that might give him answers. A cold knot in his chest as he wanders south. Wanders and wanders, hell if he knows how long. Deeper into Auster, the lands he'd known as a child. Stopping to scent the air for prey or danger, and finding neither of any consequence.

What does draw Erik's attention, however, is a very familiar presence. As the boy draws closer to his sister, the scene before him is... unsettling. Morganna staring down three sets of eyes, beasts that had seemingly taken over her den. "Trouble always seems to find you," his voice gravelly, harsh, but tone holding some humor. A wag of his tail and a rakish grin playing across his face, Erik steps up to stand by her shoulder. "Make this'n a fair fight, two of us and three'a them?" Rolling his shoulders forward and readying himself, but he'd go on her count. They could catch up after.

"Speech"

513/1500

A familiar gravelly voice has an ear turning, the corners of her eyes squinting, though she wouldn't take her eyes off her opponents. She was tempted to tell Erik to take one of the coyotes and shove it up his ass to even the odds. She was more than capable of taking on the rodents, but she held her tongue, water deer fangs flicking forward the only sign of her intention. There wasn't really a need to drag this out. They were the biggest badest monsters in these woods, and she wasn't afraid to remind them of that.

Racing forward with a snap and a snarl, the coyotes scattered. A paw pinned the tail of one, and teeth clamped over the creatures lower spine, not biting with enough force to snap, but hard enough to leave a reminder in the morning. It left her open for another to grab her shoulder but she wanted to make sure if she let the first one go it wouldn't rejoin the fight.

A shake of her head to prove a point, a low, gutteral growl and she loosened her grip, lifting her paw to give the creature the option to flee while its companion continued to gnaw on her shoulder like a gnat.

It had nothing on ripping off one of her mushroom growths, but that wouldn't stop her from falling to the side to pin it between her considerable weight and the ground.

"speech"

-754/1500-