cautioners

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you'll change your mind come monday and turn your back on me.
you'll take your steps away with hesitance.

With a soft crunch-crunch and globules of snow dragging beneath her body she made her way across No Man's Land. Kohar's thick winter coat made her look twice as large, and she knew she was tall for her age. Her height and fur made her feel protected in these harsh times, and as Spring was just around the corner Kohar hardly felt any hint of pup in her at all. Being too far from her lands to hear the challenging call of one wolf to another, she was entirely out of the loop of what was taking place in her homelands, and instead was in her own little world.

Kohar was determined to make her mark somewhere. Her pack didn't seem the place right now, but who knows? It could be one day. There was change in the air. Kohar was not ignorant of this.

The ebony and ivory female dawdled, as best as one may dawdle in the snow, onwards through No Man's Land. Despite all of the warnings (well, more snarls than anything else vocal) she continued to explore as far as the boundaries of her homeland and No Man's Land allowed her. So far she had not run into trouble. Perhaps Kohar was ever so ignorant of the dangers of the Stars pack. But as a generation, she did not realise, they were awfully sheltered in comparison to generations past. So when Rose snapped at her heels in anger for wandering, Kohar had stuck her nose up and disappeared again.

So she came across the pool. The waterfall was frozen beautifully, the cascading water caught mid-flow months ago in the bitter freeze. She decided to take a closer look, testing the ice under her snowy paws, pressing carefully and frowning in the vain hope that it would hold. It felt fairly thick. She mounted the ice and stood dead still for a minute, waiting for the crack. There was nothing. She exhaled gladly and began to move tentatively across to the waterfall for a closer look, ears and body tense to any sound or movement of the pool below her.

you'll take your steps away from me.

[[Midnight]]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,529,true][bg=000000] The little waterfall spring was a peaceful place, but somehow it was far more breathtaking in the wintertime when everything was frozen and looked so fragile and dreamlike. He was lying in the shelter of snow-covered brush, fresh snow lining his back and camoflauging him pretty well considering his fur was such a dark contrast to everything around him. His eyes were a steady forward gaze as he stared into the frozen ice below and stayed so stoicly still that he gave off a lonely exterior akin to a thoughful statue of stone overlooking an eerie graveyard. Justyn had been thinking again of his sister. He tried to keep her from his mind if he could help it, and with all of the drama and romance currently buying most of his time as of late, he had actually proven successful with this for a number of days. However, now that he was feeling a twinge of normalcy once again, Esmerelda managed to pop back into his regetful brooding and put him into a state of anxiety. He wondered if she was still living with the Stars and whether or not she was rallying her packmates to fight him for Caden's freedom. Knowing her fiery personality, he could not see her abandoning a friend in need. Justyn might be the type capable of such behavior, but he liked to picture his sister as someone better than that. Thinking this was, though, was not a blessing. It did not give him warm fuzzy feelings, but clouded his heart and mind with terrible ideas of meeting her in battle and having his loyalties tested to the ultimate degree. What if she attacked Fallon or Rose? Saki, Razanur? All of these wolves were a part of him now just as much as Es ever would be. The thought of familiar faces tearing one another apart was sickening, and he hoped war was never going to happen. He was wishing for the Stars to take the safest route and leave Caden to his own stupid fate. He was the idiot wandering alone, after all. His attention was drawn to a figure suddenly appearing in his line of vision; a tall she-wolf, tentatively making her slow way across the frozen ice. Instinctively, the coal-black male stood up onto his feet and held his breath, holding back an urge to huff a warning to the wolf below him. Her back was to him but he thought he recognized the beautiful silk coat belonging to Kohar, and though he was not particularly keen on conversating and disturbing his meditation, he was frightened by the way his imagination took hold of him and gave him visions of Duke's daughter suddenly breaking through the ice and disappearing forever into the freezing depths below. He carefully made his way down the steep but fairly short cliff, towards the banks of the spring, testing out each pawstep with great patience despite his desperation to close the distance between him and Kohar in case she fell through at any moment. But one wrong step on his part and he would slip and roll his way right across the snow and onto the ice. Finally he jumped gracefully from the last icy rock and thumped onto the shoreline, staring for a moment at the yearling as she seemed to take each step with great forethought and careful attention, judging by the way she angled her ears to listen to each move she made. Instead of darting forward onto the ice to meet her, he decided to make his way around the frozen water's edges and just meet her closer at a point where he could safely observe from the bank. As he padded along the bank, an odd feeling came over him as he realized something about himself, something that made him nostalgically at ease with himself and his own little world; he was taking the time to watch over someone other than himself. Moments like these reminded him that he still had some self-worth and some good left in him. It was comforting that he'd managed to break free from his overwhelming hatred that had consumed his puphood. As he stopped in his tracks and watched the Alpha's daughter from her left side, his tail made the slightest wag at the sight of her, remembering her as a small pup full of such adult wisdom that he so admired. "Careful. Looks are deceiving. That ice may or may not be as thick as you'd like it to be," he piped up in a quiet tone, fearing that a voice any louder would somehow disturb the still environment.

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Kohar was aware of another presence nearby as soon as she came within hearing range of it. She may have been listening for groans in the ice but her long dark ears were attuned to the whole environment. So she continued to make slow but safe progress across the pool as Justyn came upon her left side, and she inhaled as she saw him. His scent was something familiar, a comfort in times of wandering. She glanced up at him, ears still perked to the sounds of the ice, and she paused a moment before turning her dark eyes back to the tentative floor beneath her.

"I know," she replied softly. A few months ago she may have rolled her eyes and bit back sarcastically, but today she simply gestured to her behaviour. She didn't need to be told to be careful, he could already see that she was doing just that.

Eventually she passed the middle, thinnest part of the icy pool and breathed a sigh of relief as she approached the frozen waterfall. The water had been artfully caught by the cold in its action of cascading down the rocks and she studied it a minute. She'd half expected Justyn to grow bored with her antics and move on, so when she checked over her shoulder and found he was still there she tipped her shaggy head to one side.

"May I help you with something, Justyn?"

[[Midnight]]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,529,true][bg=000000] Kohar really was a fascinating thing. He was intrigued by the way she chose to greet him - if one could call it a greeting. She was all but disinterested in his presence and yet he felt no real obligations to leave her be. She just simply couldn't care less whether he stayed or went; and he loved it. To his prespective, it was unique behavior. He's nervousness eased up a bit as she made every step with success. The ice didn't crack and she had made it to the frozen waterfall. Now that he had a moment to think, he too found himself drawn to the beauty of the ice. A sohpisticated sculpture made by nothing but nature. If he was a pup again, he knew he'd definately be playing here a lot. As Kohar turned to address him with her polite but uninterested manner, Justyn snuffed as though he were amused by the thought of needing her help. He gave no other reply but drew his eyes towards the ice immediately in front of his paws. On sudden impulse, he lifted a foot and placed it onto the water, beginning a not-so-slow pace towards the waterfall. Every step carried his heavy weight and made the ice crackle under him. He walked as though he didn't hear it, not bothering to test each step as he went, as Kohar had done. As he approached Kohar's side, he stared up at the waterfall's frozen trail, towards the dark boulders from whence it came. "Ice is beautiful, but fragile," he said quietly, more to himself than the wolf beside him. He seemed to be thinking of something beyond this moment, but it passed quickly and soon he was on his hind legs, pressing his front paws against the waterfall and pressing on it, out of curiosity. He struggled not to slip. "It looks so thick and unbreakable."

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Kohar watched Justyn lope over the ice towards the waterfall beside her, pinning her ears back and closing her eyes for a second in anticipation of a crack in the ice. But it didn't come. She glanced at him as he arrived beside her and tested the waterfall, wanting to comment on how it's easy to tread where she has already tested. But she held her tongue and smiled a little instead, turning her attention back to the beauty.

Her ear swiveled around to catch the sound of him keeping his balance as he pressed the ice. She watched his progress, and considered what he said. A few moments passed before she spoke as she sat on the ice.

"Surely it depends on the form in which the water has frozen."

Her dark eyes scanned their surroundings.

"Take the icicles hanging from those trees. You could snap them to pieces in one bite, because there wasn't much water there to begin with. This waterfall, though... and the ice below us. That would snap you up instead."

Kohar wasn't the type to think that she'd said too much. She liked to talk, loving intelligent conversation more than most things, but found it was a rarity in their pack. All of the intelligence wolves were most psychos, and she was more sociable than psychotic. So far, anyway. Kohar had not seen Justyn for some time, and while she considered him a likeable acquaintance and somewhat of a teacher a few months ago, she was less inclined now. She didn't feel that they had yet connected as anything more, and Kohar was very guarded when it came to building trust between herself and others.