It was quiet up there, high on the mountain with but the sound of wind and the occasional bird call to distract a person. It was peaceful and pleasantly cool; even with the sun so close, the high altitude and coursing wind gave release from the summer heat. The young boy was beginning to drift, but his active mind made the process slow.

What of Tesseract? What of Glorall?

That was where his thoughts began to go as they did ever time he edged on sleep. There was that part of him, young though he was, that would dwell on the recent past. He had no idea why. Sure, he was angry about being uprooted, about the lands being taken from Rhoedias just after the death of her mate and child. Other child, he corrected himself before the thought carried itself off. He was all Rhoedias had left and she needed him more now than ever. She deserved to be called mother, even if he didn't feel deserving to be called "son".

But, Glorall...

He wouldn't lie; Noel missed the ocean. He missed the smell of the salty brine in the air and he missed exploring the little tidal pools that collected around the rocks after the ocean receded for the day. He missed trailing after Alana like a lost shadow and he wondered, almost desperately, how she was doing these days. Was she being treated well? He thought of Tesseract; a wolf who challenged a widow only days after the death of her family, who took lands in the wake of great loss and grieving. Would that be a wolf who would take advantage of a kind, delicate soul like Alana? Would he run her out of Glorall to be homeless? Would he call her Omega, force her into submission and humiliation on a daily basis?

The very idea that Tesseract could do such a thing made the boy's fur lift off his spine even as his eyelids began to flutter and grow heavy. He needed to know, needed to take a trip out of Spirane and figure out what was going on back in Glorall. But that wasn't today. Today he needed to...

That was the end of those thoughts.

With his mind finally quieted, the pup's eyes closed slowly with but a flutter of color blurring by the green landscape below. He thought little of the blue-grey streak, little of anything really, as his vision faded to black and he fell asleep in the warm sunshine, completely at peace.

That wouldn't last long.

A rather wet lick slapped across the boy's face, startling him awake so suddenly that his body flailed and rolled away. Mismatch amber and split amber-blue eyes shot wide open, the furl all over his body standing on end as adrenaline surged and his breathing became wildly erratic. Catching sight of the stranger, a small, round female adult, Noel froze in an awkward, stiff position on the ground, body leaning away from the woman who suddenly began a steady stream of jibber.

Noel managed to catch most of the words despite the quick succession in which they were spoken, his wide-eyed, terror stricken expression losing a bit of it's potency as she reached, eventually, and end.

"I-uh, I, um I-I'm Noel." He had caught the one question hidden in the middle of all those fast, energetic words. Perhaps it wasn't the most articulate response, but Noel found it quite difficult to think, let alone respond, after being accosted in such a... friendly manner.

soul and sky are magnetizing