Post by Pavane on Jul 17, 2012 13:16:31 GMT -5
Wiraqu - male cougar
Miakoda - female adolescent wolf
---Wildflower Drop---
Here in the mountains, summer comes later in the year. It's well and truly arrived, though; the air is warm, the sun is bright, and so are the cacophany of wildflowers blooming here, multicolored splotches in every shred of earth among the rocks and tumbling over the cliff-faces, unwilling to give up their positions. Their scents fill the air, carried on a breeze that makes their blossoms wave, and small creatures scuttle around through them, mice and pikas living their little lives. A larger creature is here as well; a cougar male, sprawled on his side with the flowers gently waving around his stretched-out paws. His eyes are closed, his body still except for the gentle rise and fall of his breath. Asleep, apparently. ...not that being asleep means much, when it comes to cats.
As is so often the case with her in recent days, the young she-wolf hasn't the slightest idea where she is going. That's not to say that she's lost, only traveling with no direction or purpose in mind; she is moving just to move as it's better than sitting morosely in one spot for hours on end. Never having ventured this far into this particular mountain range, Miakoda is carefully picking her steps through the rocky terrain. The last thing she needs is to twist a leg or wrench a paw on the uneven ground. But her progress is halted when she suddenly finds herself amongst a spread of wildflowers, her head picking up as her golden eyes blink in surprise... and a hint of a smile touches her slender muzzle. A bit of cheer, eh? She could certainly use it. She lowers her head again, shoving her nose into the blossoms at her front feet, enjoying their scents... and too enchanted to yet notice the significantly larger feline dozing nearby.
Wiraqu shifts as Miakoda approaches, but it's only to sprawl around onto his back. He stretches out one paw, lifting it over his head. Zzz... and so he might have remained, but his paw bumps into a flower. A mature flower, heavy with pollen... which the bump dislodges, and the breeze sends just-so to his nose. Ah? Achoo! The oversized kitty sneezes, and his pale golden eyes blink awake.
Well that is quite certainly enough to get her attention. With a few startled blinks, the she-wolf's body stiffens and her head jerks up just enough for her to see over the tops of the flowers. When she sees the cougar, her eyes widen and her expression becomes one of wariness, if not outright fear. Miakoda has encountered this kind of cat a few times in the past during her travels... and the interactions were generally not pleasant. At a loss as to what to do, she stands there, frozen in place and waiting to see what the cougar does... ready to break into a sprint back the way she came if necessary.
Wiraqu, for his part, seems eminently unconcerned. But then, why should he be? He's a top predator, and this is his domain. The feline stretches, then rolls fluidly around and rises to a sitting position. His gaze wanders across the cliff's edge, looking out at the valley beneath, then around until it settles on the wolf. Ah! How interesting. He remains in that casual seated posture, but there's undisguised curiosity in his eyes. "Why, hello."
Miakoda's eyes slide left, and then right, and then slowly back to the cougar's. Well. He hasn't decided to eat her, apparently... yet. But there is no relaxation visible in her frame, though the she-wolf does pick her head back up again to a more normal level. " ...Hello," she answers, her voice betraying her apprehension but also her confusion at his rather nonchalant greeting. "Um. I'm sorry if I've disturbed you." An apology to the creature that could easily kill her certainly seems warranted.
The apology is recieved with nothing more than a shrug of one shoulder, all but ignored. "I haven't seen wolves on this mountain in quite some time," Wiraqu muses instead. "Tell me, are there more coming?" Though his posture remains casual, the tone of that question is somewhat more pointed. One wolf, a cougar can handle easily. A pack of wolves, and things turn out rather differently.
The question he presents is not entirely unexpected; from the cat's point of view, it is perfectly reasonable. Miakoda pauses, silence ensuing for a few seconds, and then she says, "I don't know. There is some... rather messy business occurring within some of the local packs right now. I'm not sure how all of it will turn out." Her head tilts in consideration, and she adds, "But if wolves do come, it will not be in any large number."
"Hmmm," goes Wiraqu at that news, and now it's his turn to go silent as he considers. Wolves. Always so... wolves. As the thoughts bounce around in his head, one of them strikes the right spot to make his muzzle quirk up with a smile. "I don't suppose any of it has to do with... oh, what was the name? U- something? Uday?"
Even if she had some reason to hide the name of the pack from this feline, the look on her face would've given it away anyway. Miakoda's golden eyes widen as he plucks the name, or something close to it, out of his mind. "Ute," she says in light correction. "And yes, it does. How do you know of the pack?" Her curiosity to hear the answer to the question overrides some of her nervousness, and Mia slowly sits herself down at the edge of the spread of wildflowers.
Oh, yes, Wiraqu notes that change of expression, and the smile widens to a grin; a hunter pleased by a successful (mental) pounce. "Ute, right. That." As for how he knows them... the cat chuckles. "Oh, I'm not truly the one who knows them, but I've heard." He shifts his position slightly, to better face the wolf, and curls his tail in around his legs. "There was a bad business, two years back. A young cougar got caught in it, and they're the ones who saved her."
Whoever said curiosity killed the cat certainly got it backwards, at least as it pertains to this current situation. The little that the cougar shares about Ute's history causes her ears to prick forward into a more alert position. "What kind of bad business?" Miakoda asks. The idea of a wolf pack helping out one of their prime competitors is understandably odd to her.
Wiraqu settles himself comfortably, chuckling softly. Storytime! Strange as that may seem, to get the story of a wolfpack from a cougar. "I wasn't living on the mountain then," he begins, "So I don't know all the details, though I'd met a few of those involved. The girl's father, for one - ah, now that was a strange fellow. Named himself Toyo, back then. Raised by wolves, if you'd believe it. In fact... by those very same wolves, those Ute, if I'm remembering my stories right."
The tale is so odd that she's not sure she's understanding correctly at first. Miakoda's head tilts to one side even more noticeably as her brow wrinkles. "Wait... Are you saying that the young cougar's father was raised within the Ute wolf pack?" She remembers Tala's words about the Ute's credo of always seeing to welcome and help those around them. But to this degree? The she-wolf is rather taken aback.
Wiraqu nods his head to Mia's question. "I still don't understand how he managed with all that howling." A shake of his head, his thoughts back in time on those earlier meetings, and then he pulls himself back to the present, and his current audience, with a laugh. "But he did. Stayed with them until he was just about grown, then came to Amaranth and found himself a mate. They had a pair of kittens... and that's where the trouble started, with a group of troublemakers that went around stealing cubs."
"Amaranth?" The name is repeated, rather painstakingly, the she-wolf making sure she gets the pronunciation right. While she's not entirely sure, Miakoda deduces that it is the name of a group of cougars that calls these mountains home. Or at least, as much as cougars live in groups... The cats she encountered in the past had lived solitary lives. But anyway. "Why would anyone want to steal cubs? Was it other cougars?"
"Amaranth," Wiraqu repeats, and hehs. "The Sisters of Amaranth have their territories throughout this mountain. I am the Chieftain; I keep it for them." He's da boss! Insofar as cougars have a boss, or a group to have a boss of... okay, so maybe it's not much like any group wolves are familiar with, and more similar to those other felines and their solitary lives. Regardless! "No, it wasn't cougars. Nor were all the cubs cougar-kittens. It was a rather strange group, from what I hear. A boar, a wolverine, an eagle, a bobcat... and an evil spirit guiding them."
One solitary brow quirks up, giving her a look of dubiousness. It all sounds too strange to believe. Such a wild myriad of wildlife banded together by... an evil spirit? Miakoda can't help but wonder if this cougar is having his evening fun by playing a rather large joke on her. "You cannot be serious." It's a statement, yes; but it is an inquisitive one.
Wiraqu laughs, at that. "How should I know?" he answers. "I wasn't there, and I've never seen a spirit. But, there is a shamaness of Amaranth; she speaks to them, as did my mother. The Sisters have all found their guides from among the spirits. As for me, well. I found the scents lingering after; I saw the eagle and wolverine dead. That is what my own senses told me. That, and a story from the stolen kitten... who I found, with the wolves who saved her and two cubs of their own kind."
It is all quite confusing, and Miakoda's chest swells with an intake of breath that is released in a long sighing. "Well... the kind of trouble you're telling me about is quite different from the trouble that Ute is struggling with now. Your story is about a difficulty that the pack faced together. The dilemma their facing now is pulling them apart." The she-wolf's ears turn back and her eyes fall down and away from the cat's. "When you asked me if wolves are coming... I said that if any did, it wouldn't be in great numbers because I'm not sure how much of the Ute pack will even be left."
Wiraqu tilts his head now, eyes bright in regarding Miakoda as she looks away. There's little to directly concern him, not with wolf problems - especially not ones that turn wolf on wolf... but that doesn't mean he's not curious. Cat! "Have their young males begun to fight?" That's how it usually works with felines, after all!
A dry, wry laugh bubbles up her throat and escapes harshly. "In a manner of speaking," Miakoda says. "The heart of the matter does lie with the young males of the pack... but not in the way you're probably imagining. They aren't fighting over she-wolves, or... " But the sentence trails off as she reconsiders. Althaea is part of the problem based on what she has heard, she and her interest in Brutal; so, in a way, perhaps they are fighting over a female. "It's all tangled up," she finally says. "I'm not even sure I fully understand what's going on. But I guess I shouldn't even know what I do know considering I'm not even a member of the pack."
Ahhh, young males. Wiraqu nods, then tilts his head as Miakoda goes on to add qualifications and details and all that. Details, and lacks thereof. "Young males don't always need a reason to fight," he notes with a grin, then hmms. He's quiet a moment, considering. Not that he understands wolves, but! "Why haven't the females made their will known? The males will follow, or else they will not... but it is females who make a tribe, not males."
"Because if I understand the situation correctly... the females are not in agreement on what they want. Quite the opposite, in fact. So if the females are split, you can only imagine what state the males are in." Miakoda's ears turn back even further and even her tail participates this time, drooping downward toward the flowers. "And since I have no say in anything... here I am."
"That does seem troublesome," agrees Wiraqu. "Do they disregard their Matron? Or is there no Matron at all, and it is Sister against Sister?" He regards Miakoda a moment longer, then smiles. "If you have no say, O she-wolf, why does it worry you so?" That question, at least, seems rhetorical in tone.
Miakoda's head drifts from side to side as she shakes her head. "There is no female Alpha. There is only a new male Alpha, one of the young males. Although if an outsider is allowed to have an opinion, the new Alpha is already doing a better job than his predecessor... who was never around to lead." But it's the latter question that weighs most on her mind, and it pivots Mia's eyes away from the cougar, back in the direction she came. "I suppose it shouldn't," she murmurs, which in itself is not an answer. "It might be wisest to just not go back. I'm sure the pack doesn't need one more loose end to worry about."
So that's how wolves call it. Alphas. And wolves can have a male without a female. Strange, but Wiraqu's not here to judge. He's just here because... well, because this is his territory, and beyond that, because he's curious and listening to a lone female wolf who's wandered into his domain is an amusing enough way to pass some time. "For an outsider, you seem to know a great deal," offers Wiraqu, then chuckles. "If they have let you learn so much, perhaps you are not such an outsider as it seems... ah, but what do I know? Perhaps wolves are always howling their business to the heavens." A shrug, and a smile to go with it.
Without enough experience of her own to really respond to his latter statement, since she was raised by only her parents with no other packs nearby, Miakoda can only shrug. Maybe sizable packs that live close by one another are gossipy. She has no frame of reference. "I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what happens," she says, a rather open-ended statement, as she rises to stand again. "I guess I should be going... I'll head back down the mountain so that I don't disturb you. Thanks for not... you know, trying to tear me to pieces or anything like that."
"If you lie in wait, some rabbit may well come to you," says Wiraqu. "But... if you care what sort of rabbit, perhaps you should give chase." Cryptic advice pertaining to bunnies! Aww yeah. He nods at her mention of departing, and chuckles. "A visitor, now and then, keeps things interesting. I can't wander as I once did." A shrug, to that, followed by a grin. "Besides - if Ute wolves can welcome cougars, I can do the same for a wolf from time to time, even if she isn't Ute."
Despite the enigmatic talk of rabbits, she catches the underlying meaning of the cougar's words... but makes no comment on it. Instead, it is something that will undoubtedly be mulled over for the new few hours. Or the next day. Or the next few days. Who knows? "Fair enough," she says to him. "My name is Miakoda, by the way... in case our paths should ever happen to cross again." Standing fully now, the she-wolf shakes out her fur briefly.
Wiraqu smiles, and nods. In the end, all this matters far more for Miakoda than Wiraqu - well, unless she manages to unite the pack and bring them all rampaging up his mountain. The cougar cares deeply in that case! Which is all the more reason to have friendly relations. Sure, that's vaguely logical, he'll pretend he planned it out that way. "Hello, Miakoda. I'm Wiraqu." He grins. "And farewell, Miakoda!"
Miakoda bobs her head in a nod of farewell. "Take care!" she calls back over her shoulder as she begins to depart, moving at a slow trot, still mindful to not place a paw in any cracks or crevices. Her departing remark is somewhat ironic, all things considered... telling a cougar with a thoroughly stable home and status to take care while she heads off to a future that is nothing short of uncertain. Ah, life.
Miakoda - female adolescent wolf
---Wildflower Drop---
Here in the mountains, summer comes later in the year. It's well and truly arrived, though; the air is warm, the sun is bright, and so are the cacophany of wildflowers blooming here, multicolored splotches in every shred of earth among the rocks and tumbling over the cliff-faces, unwilling to give up their positions. Their scents fill the air, carried on a breeze that makes their blossoms wave, and small creatures scuttle around through them, mice and pikas living their little lives. A larger creature is here as well; a cougar male, sprawled on his side with the flowers gently waving around his stretched-out paws. His eyes are closed, his body still except for the gentle rise and fall of his breath. Asleep, apparently. ...not that being asleep means much, when it comes to cats.
As is so often the case with her in recent days, the young she-wolf hasn't the slightest idea where she is going. That's not to say that she's lost, only traveling with no direction or purpose in mind; she is moving just to move as it's better than sitting morosely in one spot for hours on end. Never having ventured this far into this particular mountain range, Miakoda is carefully picking her steps through the rocky terrain. The last thing she needs is to twist a leg or wrench a paw on the uneven ground. But her progress is halted when she suddenly finds herself amongst a spread of wildflowers, her head picking up as her golden eyes blink in surprise... and a hint of a smile touches her slender muzzle. A bit of cheer, eh? She could certainly use it. She lowers her head again, shoving her nose into the blossoms at her front feet, enjoying their scents... and too enchanted to yet notice the significantly larger feline dozing nearby.
Wiraqu shifts as Miakoda approaches, but it's only to sprawl around onto his back. He stretches out one paw, lifting it over his head. Zzz... and so he might have remained, but his paw bumps into a flower. A mature flower, heavy with pollen... which the bump dislodges, and the breeze sends just-so to his nose. Ah? Achoo! The oversized kitty sneezes, and his pale golden eyes blink awake.
Well that is quite certainly enough to get her attention. With a few startled blinks, the she-wolf's body stiffens and her head jerks up just enough for her to see over the tops of the flowers. When she sees the cougar, her eyes widen and her expression becomes one of wariness, if not outright fear. Miakoda has encountered this kind of cat a few times in the past during her travels... and the interactions were generally not pleasant. At a loss as to what to do, she stands there, frozen in place and waiting to see what the cougar does... ready to break into a sprint back the way she came if necessary.
Wiraqu, for his part, seems eminently unconcerned. But then, why should he be? He's a top predator, and this is his domain. The feline stretches, then rolls fluidly around and rises to a sitting position. His gaze wanders across the cliff's edge, looking out at the valley beneath, then around until it settles on the wolf. Ah! How interesting. He remains in that casual seated posture, but there's undisguised curiosity in his eyes. "Why, hello."
Miakoda's eyes slide left, and then right, and then slowly back to the cougar's. Well. He hasn't decided to eat her, apparently... yet. But there is no relaxation visible in her frame, though the she-wolf does pick her head back up again to a more normal level. " ...Hello," she answers, her voice betraying her apprehension but also her confusion at his rather nonchalant greeting. "Um. I'm sorry if I've disturbed you." An apology to the creature that could easily kill her certainly seems warranted.
The apology is recieved with nothing more than a shrug of one shoulder, all but ignored. "I haven't seen wolves on this mountain in quite some time," Wiraqu muses instead. "Tell me, are there more coming?" Though his posture remains casual, the tone of that question is somewhat more pointed. One wolf, a cougar can handle easily. A pack of wolves, and things turn out rather differently.
The question he presents is not entirely unexpected; from the cat's point of view, it is perfectly reasonable. Miakoda pauses, silence ensuing for a few seconds, and then she says, "I don't know. There is some... rather messy business occurring within some of the local packs right now. I'm not sure how all of it will turn out." Her head tilts in consideration, and she adds, "But if wolves do come, it will not be in any large number."
"Hmmm," goes Wiraqu at that news, and now it's his turn to go silent as he considers. Wolves. Always so... wolves. As the thoughts bounce around in his head, one of them strikes the right spot to make his muzzle quirk up with a smile. "I don't suppose any of it has to do with... oh, what was the name? U- something? Uday?"
Even if she had some reason to hide the name of the pack from this feline, the look on her face would've given it away anyway. Miakoda's golden eyes widen as he plucks the name, or something close to it, out of his mind. "Ute," she says in light correction. "And yes, it does. How do you know of the pack?" Her curiosity to hear the answer to the question overrides some of her nervousness, and Mia slowly sits herself down at the edge of the spread of wildflowers.
Oh, yes, Wiraqu notes that change of expression, and the smile widens to a grin; a hunter pleased by a successful (mental) pounce. "Ute, right. That." As for how he knows them... the cat chuckles. "Oh, I'm not truly the one who knows them, but I've heard." He shifts his position slightly, to better face the wolf, and curls his tail in around his legs. "There was a bad business, two years back. A young cougar got caught in it, and they're the ones who saved her."
Whoever said curiosity killed the cat certainly got it backwards, at least as it pertains to this current situation. The little that the cougar shares about Ute's history causes her ears to prick forward into a more alert position. "What kind of bad business?" Miakoda asks. The idea of a wolf pack helping out one of their prime competitors is understandably odd to her.
Wiraqu settles himself comfortably, chuckling softly. Storytime! Strange as that may seem, to get the story of a wolfpack from a cougar. "I wasn't living on the mountain then," he begins, "So I don't know all the details, though I'd met a few of those involved. The girl's father, for one - ah, now that was a strange fellow. Named himself Toyo, back then. Raised by wolves, if you'd believe it. In fact... by those very same wolves, those Ute, if I'm remembering my stories right."
The tale is so odd that she's not sure she's understanding correctly at first. Miakoda's head tilts to one side even more noticeably as her brow wrinkles. "Wait... Are you saying that the young cougar's father was raised within the Ute wolf pack?" She remembers Tala's words about the Ute's credo of always seeing to welcome and help those around them. But to this degree? The she-wolf is rather taken aback.
Wiraqu nods his head to Mia's question. "I still don't understand how he managed with all that howling." A shake of his head, his thoughts back in time on those earlier meetings, and then he pulls himself back to the present, and his current audience, with a laugh. "But he did. Stayed with them until he was just about grown, then came to Amaranth and found himself a mate. They had a pair of kittens... and that's where the trouble started, with a group of troublemakers that went around stealing cubs."
"Amaranth?" The name is repeated, rather painstakingly, the she-wolf making sure she gets the pronunciation right. While she's not entirely sure, Miakoda deduces that it is the name of a group of cougars that calls these mountains home. Or at least, as much as cougars live in groups... The cats she encountered in the past had lived solitary lives. But anyway. "Why would anyone want to steal cubs? Was it other cougars?"
"Amaranth," Wiraqu repeats, and hehs. "The Sisters of Amaranth have their territories throughout this mountain. I am the Chieftain; I keep it for them." He's da boss! Insofar as cougars have a boss, or a group to have a boss of... okay, so maybe it's not much like any group wolves are familiar with, and more similar to those other felines and their solitary lives. Regardless! "No, it wasn't cougars. Nor were all the cubs cougar-kittens. It was a rather strange group, from what I hear. A boar, a wolverine, an eagle, a bobcat... and an evil spirit guiding them."
One solitary brow quirks up, giving her a look of dubiousness. It all sounds too strange to believe. Such a wild myriad of wildlife banded together by... an evil spirit? Miakoda can't help but wonder if this cougar is having his evening fun by playing a rather large joke on her. "You cannot be serious." It's a statement, yes; but it is an inquisitive one.
Wiraqu laughs, at that. "How should I know?" he answers. "I wasn't there, and I've never seen a spirit. But, there is a shamaness of Amaranth; she speaks to them, as did my mother. The Sisters have all found their guides from among the spirits. As for me, well. I found the scents lingering after; I saw the eagle and wolverine dead. That is what my own senses told me. That, and a story from the stolen kitten... who I found, with the wolves who saved her and two cubs of their own kind."
It is all quite confusing, and Miakoda's chest swells with an intake of breath that is released in a long sighing. "Well... the kind of trouble you're telling me about is quite different from the trouble that Ute is struggling with now. Your story is about a difficulty that the pack faced together. The dilemma their facing now is pulling them apart." The she-wolf's ears turn back and her eyes fall down and away from the cat's. "When you asked me if wolves are coming... I said that if any did, it wouldn't be in great numbers because I'm not sure how much of the Ute pack will even be left."
Wiraqu tilts his head now, eyes bright in regarding Miakoda as she looks away. There's little to directly concern him, not with wolf problems - especially not ones that turn wolf on wolf... but that doesn't mean he's not curious. Cat! "Have their young males begun to fight?" That's how it usually works with felines, after all!
A dry, wry laugh bubbles up her throat and escapes harshly. "In a manner of speaking," Miakoda says. "The heart of the matter does lie with the young males of the pack... but not in the way you're probably imagining. They aren't fighting over she-wolves, or... " But the sentence trails off as she reconsiders. Althaea is part of the problem based on what she has heard, she and her interest in Brutal; so, in a way, perhaps they are fighting over a female. "It's all tangled up," she finally says. "I'm not even sure I fully understand what's going on. But I guess I shouldn't even know what I do know considering I'm not even a member of the pack."
Ahhh, young males. Wiraqu nods, then tilts his head as Miakoda goes on to add qualifications and details and all that. Details, and lacks thereof. "Young males don't always need a reason to fight," he notes with a grin, then hmms. He's quiet a moment, considering. Not that he understands wolves, but! "Why haven't the females made their will known? The males will follow, or else they will not... but it is females who make a tribe, not males."
"Because if I understand the situation correctly... the females are not in agreement on what they want. Quite the opposite, in fact. So if the females are split, you can only imagine what state the males are in." Miakoda's ears turn back even further and even her tail participates this time, drooping downward toward the flowers. "And since I have no say in anything... here I am."
"That does seem troublesome," agrees Wiraqu. "Do they disregard their Matron? Or is there no Matron at all, and it is Sister against Sister?" He regards Miakoda a moment longer, then smiles. "If you have no say, O she-wolf, why does it worry you so?" That question, at least, seems rhetorical in tone.
Miakoda's head drifts from side to side as she shakes her head. "There is no female Alpha. There is only a new male Alpha, one of the young males. Although if an outsider is allowed to have an opinion, the new Alpha is already doing a better job than his predecessor... who was never around to lead." But it's the latter question that weighs most on her mind, and it pivots Mia's eyes away from the cougar, back in the direction she came. "I suppose it shouldn't," she murmurs, which in itself is not an answer. "It might be wisest to just not go back. I'm sure the pack doesn't need one more loose end to worry about."
So that's how wolves call it. Alphas. And wolves can have a male without a female. Strange, but Wiraqu's not here to judge. He's just here because... well, because this is his territory, and beyond that, because he's curious and listening to a lone female wolf who's wandered into his domain is an amusing enough way to pass some time. "For an outsider, you seem to know a great deal," offers Wiraqu, then chuckles. "If they have let you learn so much, perhaps you are not such an outsider as it seems... ah, but what do I know? Perhaps wolves are always howling their business to the heavens." A shrug, and a smile to go with it.
Without enough experience of her own to really respond to his latter statement, since she was raised by only her parents with no other packs nearby, Miakoda can only shrug. Maybe sizable packs that live close by one another are gossipy. She has no frame of reference. "I suppose I'll just have to wait and see what happens," she says, a rather open-ended statement, as she rises to stand again. "I guess I should be going... I'll head back down the mountain so that I don't disturb you. Thanks for not... you know, trying to tear me to pieces or anything like that."
"If you lie in wait, some rabbit may well come to you," says Wiraqu. "But... if you care what sort of rabbit, perhaps you should give chase." Cryptic advice pertaining to bunnies! Aww yeah. He nods at her mention of departing, and chuckles. "A visitor, now and then, keeps things interesting. I can't wander as I once did." A shrug, to that, followed by a grin. "Besides - if Ute wolves can welcome cougars, I can do the same for a wolf from time to time, even if she isn't Ute."
Despite the enigmatic talk of rabbits, she catches the underlying meaning of the cougar's words... but makes no comment on it. Instead, it is something that will undoubtedly be mulled over for the new few hours. Or the next day. Or the next few days. Who knows? "Fair enough," she says to him. "My name is Miakoda, by the way... in case our paths should ever happen to cross again." Standing fully now, the she-wolf shakes out her fur briefly.
Wiraqu smiles, and nods. In the end, all this matters far more for Miakoda than Wiraqu - well, unless she manages to unite the pack and bring them all rampaging up his mountain. The cougar cares deeply in that case! Which is all the more reason to have friendly relations. Sure, that's vaguely logical, he'll pretend he planned it out that way. "Hello, Miakoda. I'm Wiraqu." He grins. "And farewell, Miakoda!"
Miakoda bobs her head in a nod of farewell. "Take care!" she calls back over her shoulder as she begins to depart, moving at a slow trot, still mindful to not place a paw in any cracks or crevices. Her departing remark is somewhat ironic, all things considered... telling a cougar with a thoroughly stable home and status to take care while she heads off to a future that is nothing short of uncertain. Ah, life.