A New Territory [Monut & Ebu]

"uэто пиздец."

Her life had been nothing but chaos the last few seasons. Her pack, once comfortable in the snowy mountains slopes of what they called Eurasia, had whittled away to few numbers. In the dead of winter, they'd tried to hunt prey far too large and risky for their size, but they'd had no other choice. She'd been injured then, left with a wound in her side, the scars still remaining. She had thought she would die then, food for the vultures until a few wanderers had found her.

She'd fallen asleep to bitter freezing and woke up warm, weakened, and wrapped in a blanket - left in her human form.

It'd surprised her. She hadn't returned to her natural body in years; if only to save energy and help fight the cold nights. It'd made hunting easier. One couldn't yell over the fierce winds quite like they could howl.

The Sofia People, they treated her, tended to her wounds - only feeding her if she retained her human body (she assumed because they were worried she may attack otherwise). By the time the people in Black had attacked the school, she'd been mostly ready to make her get-away and return to the wild, but they had found her hiding in the healing wards then.

The last thing she remembered was a sharp stinging pain in the side of her neck and the flash of a glimmering needle from the corner of her eye. When she awoke, they told her she was on the other side of the world, lucky again to be alive. The new scents had scared her, overwhelmed her, but she caught the faint trace of another wolf on her clothing. A stranger to her, but comforting.

And now, where was she supposed to go? What would she do?

The snow white girl wandered through the forest, admiring the blooming trees and the new skies. It wasn't home, but it was quiet and rang familiar.

Before long, the scent of another would give away the presence of Montare, who was meandering along through the forest, as if in thought. He found the place calming and somewhat reminiscent of his hometown, or at least, when it was seeing better days. Being in a place that reminded him of it was nice, considering how infrequent his visits back there had become as of late. Eventually the shapeshifter found himself in front of a tree, before drawing forth a worn dagger with a seemingly golden hilt, before starting to carve into the tree's bark.

He paused somewhat suddenly, as if something had come to his attention.

She froze, warm eyes narrowing in on the young man intruding into her hiding spot. She could make out the fine glimmer of his blade in the distance. It reminded the girl of the shimmering rings and stones she'dseen others wear so many times before. It was beautiful.
Curious, she crept one bare foot forward. Her arms held close to her sides, to keep the annoying clothes they'd stuffed her into from snagging on anything. When she wqs close enough to speak, a few meters away, she did so.

"You, what are you doing here?"

Montare calmly turned his head towards her, presumably having already picked up on the presence of someone else to some degree by the time she spoke. His arm went down to his side, still holding the dagger, albeit gently now.

"Oh, it's just you. I'm just here to... remember a few things, I guess. What about you?"

He hadn't interacted with the girl much previously outside of the attack on Sophia, when he was responsible for rescuing her. Part of him couldn't help but think about that act, given his... interesting history with those of the opposite sex.

She wavered where she stood, shifting uneasily from one foot too another, as if ready to flee at any moment's notice. Diane was yet to be comfortable truly around any person from this strange new place, but there was a certain curiosity that drew her to this young man. "People are so loud and weird," she answered in a low tone. "I like it here. It is peaceful and quiet."

Montare couldn't help but let out a vaguely amused huff at that. "People are weird." It wasn't every day that someone else was seen as weird, rather than him. Of course, he wasn't about to complain or correct her. "Yeah. They are." Montare took the gilded dagger back up, before slowly starting to carve into the wood of the tree in front of him again. A small gash had been it before he'd even arrived, and that'd been exactly how he managed to recognize it and tell it apart from the metric fuckton of identical trees around.

He'd made a crude, rough outline of a heart by the time he spoke again. "Do you plan on sticking around here? The Academy, I mean."