for things that you might have done

@Antares - set after dark, right on the borders.

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With Reiko now awake, River had felt some of the weight that was settling on her shoulders dissipate. Even if the happenstance of her regaining consciousness was... dramatic and kind of scary, River was grateful for it. She'd only been in the pack for going on ten days now, and though she smelled like a Shiroshika wolf and was making connections with packmates, she still felt a little out of the loop. Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't trying to be a part of the pack and understand everything. It was just that things were difficult, right now. 

She was supposed to meet @Haruki by the borders tonight, to try and stay awake guarding them, but she'd been waiting for what felt like hours and he still hadn't shown up. It kind of made sense, because he might be with his mother instead, but she figured he probably would've at least told her. 

It was getting a little cold, just sitting around like this. River sniffled a bit, surprised to find her nose was running, and rubbed it with the back of her paw to clean off before she stood up and shook her fur out. 

"'S a little creepy out here, all alone," she admitted to herself, shoulders tensing up a little bit. So dark and quiet, with a few snowflakes falling down around her. If he didn't show up soon, she'd probably call it a night and head back up to find somewhere warm to sleep.
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Despite spending the better part of his day and the whole of the night so far scouring the mountainsides, Antares still had no real trail on the absent prince. The one he was newly meant to be looking out for. The one that, evidently, shared his mother's knack for vanishing acts--much to the newly-minted samurai's dismay.

He couldn't explain how, when, or why but the fog had cleared, and with it, so had all trace of the yearling. Last the dark Ostrega knew he had been with his mother, as was common as she rested, catatonic, so he had thought nothing of it at the time. Yet lo and behold, look where it led.

Frustration had him running hot, breath pluming and snowflakes not sticking as he plucked along a steady route back towards the borderlands of their claim. There was a chance Haruki had returned in the meanwhile, or perhaps someone who knew something did. He decided that was hopeful enough as the outskirts greeted him, and he slipped by into the dark. So far, he smelled nothing to help inspire his hopes.

Antares instead caught himself distracted and lurched from his stewing by a voice from near before he made it far. He blinked, and shifted course to see who was out at this hour--unable to recognize them well from here. When he found her, he better understood why fast. She was awfully new and he had been wrapped up in.. everything else, flung from one troubled focus to the next. Lifting his nose up from the ground, this curiosity was overdue, and opportunity good enough to take. He said a quiet chuff of almost hello when he was already closing in on her--a touch of momentum put into his fluid walk over, too. “Keeping watch?” he guessed, location considered.

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At least, she'd thought that she was alone. The forest was quiet, and she was a little wrapped up in her thoughts, so when an unfamiliar voice chuffed at her from her left, River sprang up, eyes round as she sought out the figure. At first, she thought that it might've been Tiberius, but the accent was wrong, and so were the eyes. Still, this man smelled of Shiroshika, so she assumed he wasn't trespassing. 

"Oh my god, I almost had a heart attack," she gasped, catching her breath and steadying herself from her brief fright. "You can't go sneakin' up on people in the middle of the night like that!" The scolding was teasing, of course, trying to lighten the mood that she'd no doubt sullied already by jumping so bad. 

The girl offered the stranger a lopsided smile, calming down quickly from her fright. "I guess I'm keeping watch. I got stood up tonight, it seems," she explained, ears angling toward the dark figure. The thing with her and Haruki wasn't a date, but she had been looking forward to it nonetheless. Still, he was probably with his mother, so she couldn't really fault him.

"What about you?" River inquired then, tilting her head to the side and offering him a wag of her tail. "Are you patrolling, or are you on the lookout for people to scare to death?" Another jest, hoping she came off as more friendly than scared or disappointed about being stood up.
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Courtesy his arrival on her scene, she nearly sprang out of her furs, eyes bugging and sending his posture into a subtle attempt to diffuse--ears splayed and tail waving softly, low, though he started to slow up confidently anyway. He knew what it looked like, yeah, and answered first with an apologetic dip of his nose while he gave her a little space about it. “It's easy to do,” he smirked halfway, catching her attempt to keep the mood light to poke back just a hint. Well, he didn't always mean to sneak so badly. All caught up in compartmentalizing his frustration for the missing prince, he forgot a face so fresh to the range really might not appreciate someone dressed in dark coming at them from the shadows, at night. So she had a point, after all, and did get to an actual response for him to mull on after that--thankfully able to relax a touch more, it seemed, which he appreciated as a good distraction from the brunt of his frustratingly cold trails.

At that: “Oh?” he tilted his head, interested in her choice of words--what her original plans for the night had been exactly, how much about them he could hope to press about, and who had left her to wait like this at all. It didn't sound like the worst of news but still.. not good to be ditched, not already with their missing wolf (and wolfdog) list a whole lot longer than it should be right now. “Actually I've been looking for the prince,” he answered steadily. “Not just to scare, necessarily..” Though it was a tempting place to start if he found out he was gearing up for all this worry for nothing. But he couldn't write off this situation so carelessly yet. “You haven't seen him lately, have you?” he decided to be outright to get it over with.

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"I've noticed," she responded with a grin, all but recovered from her previous fright. It must be easy for such a dark wolf to move around at night without being seen, and Riv wondered what she might look like in the darkness. Surely she didn't blend in as well - especially because she wasn't trying to. Stealth wasn't really her strong suit anyway. But the man smiled back, and she appreciated the jest in turn. "You're very good at it." Or, good enough to sneak up on her, anyway. 

The prince? River wasn't really all that sure what the titles were in this pack yet, but Reiko led it, and Haruki was her son, so that's probably what he meant. "Oh, Haruki?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. "Yeah, actually. We were supposed to meet around here to stand guard at the border tonight, but he never showed." A tiny twinge of worry settled in her chest, but she banished it immediately. There wasn't any need to stress about it yet. 

Though, maybe there was reason to stress, with all the stuff that'd been happening here. And she didn't need to ask if the man before her was worried - he had to be, if he was out this late looking for him. River offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, seafoam gaze never leaving dark blue. "I could help ya look, if you're not opposed to a searching partner," she offered, tail swishing behind her.
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It didn't appear to take her very long at all to recover, which too was appreciated. He hmm-ed softly. “Lots of practice,” he replied vaguely, and the faintest hint of mischief for the most discerning eye. He normally might have played it up a little harder, but once again.. a distracting lost prince that he was supposed to guard was clouding his focus something fierce. “Yeah, Haruki,” he affirmed when she asked. The very same prince who turned out to be both of their missing links for the night, which quirked his brow accordingly. “Interesting..” he drawled, exhaling a slow sigh after, ears tilting back as he chewed on this. “As of last week or so, I'm supposed to be his guard.” Hence why he was irritated by not know where the hell he was right now. “He was with his mom last I knew, then suddenly he.. wasn't anywhere I could find, just a trail fading off south a ways. No word,” he almost huffed with half a flick of his nose in that general direction.

The yearling hadn't been back among them long enough for Antares to really know what was normal for him, either... and he couldn't exactly ask his mother at the moment. His sister Hotaru didn't have these vanishing issues, well as he knew anyway, though she might be his best source of insight. He also didn't know if it was like Haruki to shirk plans like the ones he made here with his new acquaintance; all the same, he felt the plot thickening here, much to his dismay. “If you're interested, sure. I'll feel better covering some ground,” he answered on a glance past her, sizing up his next directive. “I was hoping he would have turned back up here at home somewhere.” Wishful thoughts, though, and he knew how airy they seemed.

While he was at it, he pieced on something else: “Anyway. I'm Antares.” And it was never a dull moment around here.

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A soft laugh escaped her at the comment about practice. The image of him sneaking up on other pack members was pretty funny - especially the more serious ones. "Maybe next time, you could sneak up on me when it's not the middle of the night." Riv really didn't mind being a training dummy, but after dark, by herself, near the borders... it wasn't really a good combination. 

Oh, these guys had their own personal guards? River guessed that made sense, if they were supposed to be royalty. She wondered if that was how things used to be, in her previous life - probably not, but she had nothing else to go off of. But the vanishing act Haruki seemed to have pulled was a little concerning - especially for his guard, she'd wager. And he'd only had the job for a week, poor guy. "Hey, he's probably okay," she tried to reassure, offering the man a wag of her tail and a half smile. "The first time I ran into Haruki, he was sleeping out in the open, so maybe he just fell asleep somewhere. I really don't think he'd go that far with his mom so hurt." At least, from the way he'd talked, anyway. 

"Yeah, it'll probably be better if we both looked, right?" she reasoned. Plus, maybe it'd keep them both from stressing too much about it. She waved her tail a little when he offered his name. "I'm River," she replied with a smile, tilting her head to the side. "So, where're we going, Antares?"
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A good suggestion, he chuffed a small half-laugh. “Mhm, I'll remember that,” he agreed beneath a brief smirk, deciding he could do with a challenge like that.. on a more carefree day, definitely. He really was playing to his strengths out here in the middle of the night. “Best to keep improving, you know.” he added in a murmur, vaguely, where he was most comfortable.

From there, he hoped she was right. Her further insights into Haruki were appreciated, regardless, because he had nothing else of real particular detail to build from. His watch on the yearling was sort of at arm's length, and now he feared this could be a big mistake. “Hope so,” he rumbled, trying to keep the bite of impatience out of it and remind himself that the prince was probably dealing with a lot right now. Waiting at his injured mother's side, not sure if she would be the same when she awoke or not, probably made him need a break or two. Hearing someone else say it helped further validate the notion in his head, at least. “Right? He seemed awfully dedicated to her bedside to me,” he supposed, then sighed heavily. They could theorize all night on the ifs of the ivory yearling and it wasn't really going to change anything.

Then, he was thankful for a name to match, and nodded deeply. River. There would be no issues remembering that, he thought. “Actually I was thinking of checking over by the big river. Rime river,” he jerked his nose as such, and didn't know what the name meant--suspecting origin in the honored mother's tongue that Reiko's family and Izumi used, he tried to accent appropriately. “Seems to be a spot some travel along on the way back in, and there's some forest between here and there to glance over too. Wishful thinking,” he explained, stepping on. He often considered it their most southern point, and if Haruki had half an ounce of sense, he hadn't gone running off into the most northern expanses of tundra. Antares hoped. “You haven't been here too long, right?” he asked at her, like he needed to set that suspicion aside so he wouldn't bore her with the basics of the terrain.

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"Mhm. Maybe you could even give me some pointers on stealth in the future. I stand out like crazy on the tundra," she replied, pleased that she'd gotten a laugh from the dark wolf. Though he'd probably stand out on the snow, too, being all shadow-y like that. At least at night he blended in better. 

And she didn't really know where Haruki could be. As nice as their conversation had been, they really had only spoken a couple times. She knew him about as well as she knew any other Shiroshika member - which, admittedly, was not well. Still, she really hoped she was right, and that he wasn't in any danger; hadn't run off or anything. "Yeah, so he's probably not all that far off," she reasoned. Unless something terrible had happened and he was in trouble. That wasn't something she was going to voice, of course, especially not with his guard so worried. But it seemed like trouble followed this pack, so maybe that was true.

Oh, she liked the river. Rime river. The words were so familiar to her, especially in that accent. Haruki was supposed to help teach her to speak it. "That sounds like a good place to start," she agreed. Water would make for a good landmark, and you could always follow it back if you got lost. Her ears perked at the question, and she nodded her head. "Yeah, I just joined a couple weeks ago. It's really busy here," the girl responded as they walked, glancing around to check for any sign of the missing prince. She turned her attention back to Antares briefly, a small smile on her maw. "When did you join?" A while back, she assumed, if he was trusted with guarding the prince.
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The nod for an answer came easily. He could surely share some tips for sneaking, though she was right--she was awfully stark to the tundra, but not in all spaces. Just as he could capitalize on the nighttime, her advantages just weren't so obvious. But, in the interim, he would have to think of how to package his knowledge nicely enough to share. He'd dwell on it later. “Really, all the snow takes some getting used to. I only truly stand a chance at night,” he remarked back on a flick of his muzzle. But he had been raised to play to every ounce of strength he could find, so innately worn into his grooves.

But through this entire encounter, he felt increasingly a little better that she could at least guess the prince was not too far as well. Still, shelving that worry at its worst was in his best interest. He just didn't know when it needed to become fully fledged concern, if Haruki failed to return to their reach before much longer.

As soon as he had her agreement, he was more than happy to slip forward into motion. A solid pace, for what was still a walk, at least. It still was not enough to mask his rumble, swift to agree. It was busy here. Sometimes he thought it was just him to felt that way, but no. River obviously noticed too. “I joined around the end of summer,” he answered. “I don't think too long after it all came together here,” he added, despite not knowing the exact timeline of the founding. The need of more guards for a branch of a royal family led him to believe this was all just really getting established here. “Anyway, yeah. It's been impressively busy since then, too.” Antares shared with his ears flattening some. He didn't like it, but a part of him was used to it--courtesy the last months of the Fireflies, especially.

His sights were on the route ahead, pointing towards the riverside.

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