Struck out on my own I find my first adventure [d]

Yiska sat stock-still as he waited for any sign that the pack was coming to greet him. The mountain was not silent. Even at the bottom of the slope, which protected him from most of the wind, some still reached him and pulsed in his ears. The stark trees swayed and murmured as the gusts passed them. Some birds called. It sounded cold.

Suddenly a sound reached Yiska's ears: a falling rock. His head whipped toward the sound. A small white wolf had just emerged from the grove of trees uphill. He stood, excited, tail in a relaxed position. Submission was not in Yiska's nature. In his birth pack every wolf was essentially seen as equal so the idea didn't cross his mind that he might want to appear submissive so that the pack didn't attack him. If they did, Yiska would have no idea why. Instead he waited impatiently for the white wolf, a female, to reach him. As she approached he noticed that her muzzle was red with blood, and fear entered the brown wolf for a moment. But he could take her on, he told himself. He was large and she was small. Size was a great advantage in a fight. But then another gust caught the brute in the face, bringing him the scent of prey. It was not another wolf's blood that stained the pure white face of this female. He relaxed again as she spoke.

Her voice fit her, he realized. It was melodious and soft, but...there was little kindness in it. A thought came to him: where were the rest of the pack? Yiska knew no other custom than the one he had been raised with: always, the entire pack would greet a newcomer. Was that not the case here? Possibly. But then, he didn't smell any other wolves, either. Perhaps this white wolf was alone. Either way, he had to assume that he was in the presence of the alphess. None of this caused the brown wolf to change his stature. He rarely showed others respect, even strangers, because he assumed that they assumed that he already respected them. And vice versa. He was straightforward to all, and yet a mystery.

Yiska thought for a moment before he answered the female. "The promise of adventure, the prospect of companionship," he submitted finally. "These mountains are beautiful. I could not resist their allure." A compliment to the wolf's territory should bode well with her.

Yiska enjoyed listening to the white wolf's voice. It was wild, beautiful and transient, like the song of a bird that was only present in summer. It must be enjoyed while it lasted. But the words themselves were cryptic. She could promise him adventure, eh? That sounded a lot an invitation to join her pack. Or was he jumping to conclusions? So excited to have met another wolf, an alphess no less, that he wanted to believe that she had taken a liking to him? The brown wolf would have to keep himself in check lest he ruin his chances by making assumptions. On the other hand, did he even want to join her pack? Most wolves would envy Yiska's situation. A young, handsome male with the prospect of becoming alpha. Assuming Placid was indeed alone in her territory. To join would make him alpha male, right? Not necessarily her mate, although the thought certainly didn't bother him. But while Yiska had set out to find love and might find it with Placid, he was also in search of adventure. Surely her territory held them, but what would happen once those had run their course? The world was a big place, and this mountainous territory was small compared to all the places he had not been. It all depended on things he didn't know: whether he was invited to join Placid's pack, how she felt about him. He would have to wait and see. Yiska allowed his tail to wag a few times to show that the thought of staying around was pleasing to him, which it was, for the time being.

"My name is Yiska," he replied to her question, "former heir to the White Pines pack, now a lowly vagabond. By my own choice," he added. That was the name of his old pack far to the north, where, in truth, he had not exactly been the heir. He and his siblings had all shared equal rights to one day take over the pack, a day he had thought about many times before. How would that be resolved if more than one of his parents offspring wanted to rule? Probably through a fight. Fights had been avoided as much as possible in that pack, so Yiska couldn't help but wonder what his parents had been thinking when they didn't choose an heir. Surely, not wishing to show favoritism, they had instead condemned all of their children to one day fight their own siblings. That was part of the reason Yiska had left. He would not fight his brothers and sisters.

An heir too, huh? thought the brown wolf, his yellow eyes drifting between Placid's white fur that blended so well with the snow, and the surrounding mountains she wandered. She seemed...both out of place and perfectly at home in this harsh but beautiful environment. Again like a bird. She was so small and looked so dainty he had a hard time believing that she could live here alone. Of course, there was still the possibility that there were others in her pack. He reminded himself to ask. Or perhaps she had not lived here long and had not yet had time to be claimed by the elements. Or she was tougher than she looked.

They were one and the same, Placid and Yiska; she was becoming more and more lucid to him. She had left her pack in favor of a lifestyle where she would have more freedom.

The brown wolf stood quickly at Placid's suggestion. I'd like that very much," he said happily. Always straightforward, always honest. "I'm sure these mountains must hold many secrets."

Yiska nodded his assent and followed as Placid rose and headed up the slope. Such light prints, the brown wolf noticed. His own paws were large and his body more massive, so his prints were deeper. Rock showed through them. But his legs were also longer and Yiska could have easily overtaken Placid without more effort than she was exerting, but he stayed behind her to show his respect for the alphess. But still close to her. He felt like if he strayed to far or looked away for too long, he would lose her white shape in the snow. But the mountains were just so beautiful....There was a certain steepness that mountains could have where they looked exquisite. Where the mixture of dark rock and brilliant snow was perfect. Since leaving his pack Yiska had seen many mountains, some rugged ranges, some composite volcanoes soaring miles above any point the eye could see. Few times had he seen that perfect steepness. These mountains had it. They looked stoic, forbidding, but strangely beautiful, much like the white wolf who patrolled them.

Her quiet, song-like voice brought him to attention. Why had he left his pack? Because he would certainly have had to fight someone in order to lead the pack, and that was his goal. To be an alpha. Yiska was not so unlike other wolves. He wanted to pass on his blood and ensure the survival of his kin, too. He hesitated a moment. "Because I would have had to fight to rule the pack. You see...I wasn't the only heir. All my siblings were too. I just didn't want to fight them. But I didn't want to give up the chance of becoming a pack leader, so I split. And here I am."

Yiska couldn't help smiling as the alphess agreed with him. It was comforting to know that he was not the only wolf who would have chosen to leave rather than stick it out and hope to come out on top. He hoped Placid didn't think he was cowardly for doing so, not simply because being cowardly was so shameful, but because his reasons for quitting the pack were not cowardly in the slightest. He was about to ask why Placid had left her pack, but she was already saying something much more interesting to the brown wolf. There it was. An official invitation into her pack. Another smile spread across his face like the sun breaking from clouds. None of the qualms he had previously felt about joining her pack now presented themselves. Yiska had often found that occupying his mind with a problem was the surest way to solve a different problem. It seemed that while he had been walking and talking with Placid his unconscious mind had been working to ease the worries his conscious mind felt about staying long in these mountains. He knew he could be happy here for a long while at least, and he could always leave if it became clear that he would not gain a breeding position or find a kindred soul with whom he could share his life, or if he lived beyond his prime, fulfilled his genetic duties and wanted to see more of this world before he passed on into the next. Yes. The thought of that life greatly appealed to Yiska.

Now he stopped and followed Placid's gaze, but all he saw was the same achromic brilliance that the rest of the mountains exhibited. Until one of the creatures moved. Now he could pick out an entire herd of the sharp-horned critters. Mountain goat. So that's what that is. "A hunter, huh?" he said with a hint of both challenge and playfulness in his voice. "If that's to be my position, perhaps you had better evaluate my hunting skills."

With a nod and a wag of his tail, Yiska's countenance set into a more serious and determined tone and he set off at a brisk trot to circle the herd at as great a distance as he could while still keeping them in sight. He had always been a good hunter, but that was because of his long legs and large lungs. He had stamina and speed and could bound through snow as if it weren't there. But, as he was beginning to realize, those qualities might not be the most important in these steep and precarious mountains. The moose his pack had favored were large, lumbering creatures that could run vast distances without tiring, so Yiska had been a great hunter of the antlered beasts. But he suspected that these goats, with their small, cloven hooves, so at home on the steepest of slopes, were more like the agile, quick-turning deer he found it so difficult to catch. And his dark fur didn't help either. Placid was lucky to have her white fur that blended so well with the snow in winter, but Yiska's brown fur really stood out. He would have to use all his thinking power to catch one.

The brown wolf continued to circle, looking for a way to get closer to the herd without drawing attention to himself. Larger rocks rose out of the snow directly downhill of the goats. Perhaps Yiska could disguise himself as an inconspicuous, furry, moving boulder and sneak up on them. He circled around toward the boulders and lowered himself to the ground and sat there for a few moments to try to get a feel for the rock lifestyle. I can do this, he thought. He lifted his body off the ground just enough to be able to move his legs and made his way, quickly but trying to remain unnoticed, a few yards closer to the animals. Never mind. I'll never get there at this rate. He looked around for Plan B. Aha! A much larger boulder, easily six or seven feet tall and twice as wide, that was quite close to the herd caught his eye. The brown wolf stood again and withdrew from the field of large rocks and trotted carefully and quietly parallel to the herd until he was behind the boulder. Then he turned uphill toward the goats, completely out of sight. He smiled again at his cleverness. It felt good to use his brain for hunting instead of just chasing the prey to wear it down.

Yiska reached the boulder and, taking painstaking care not to displace any rocks down the mountainside, looked around the edge of the boulder. The herd still seemed unaware of the danger. This would usually be the moment when he would burst from behind the rock to cause a stampede, single a weak one out and take it down. And the wolf was desperately urged by instinct and past experience to do just that. But he held himself back. He was in a very strategic mood and could see that if he were to try to run them down they would easily escape up a nearby steep cliff. Oh yes, they could climb that ridiculous mountainside, he'd seen them do it before just in these past few days. He would have to keep the herd from escaping that way.

Then Yiska remembered Placid. She was almost directly uphill and her body was very hard to discern from the snow. Lightbulb. Yiska broke from behind the boulder at a flat-out run. As he predicted the goats made for the cliff, but Yiska had thought that out. He ran along their left, between them and their refuge, searching out a weak individual. They all seemed weak at the moment in their confusion and inability to escape, but an old ewe caught his eye. She had a lamb with her, which made Yiska feel bad, but in his time observing the animals he had seen lambs nurse from multiple ewes, so it's not like it would die too, necessarily. Abruptly Yiska turned and flashed his teeth at the herd; they veered right, directly toward the spot where the almost-invisible Placid waited.