Returning to this rocky place gave context to the few hazy memories that Erie possessed of her family. They were uncertain, but they were there, spirits that danced just beyond her eager grasp. She wanted so badly to know of the ones who had given her life and warmth, and she wanted to know why she saw them one day and then never again. It might just be amnesia or, perhaps, the mind had its way of repressing things too difficult to face. Erie was too young and inexperienced to know. She had a sense that her birth home was somewhere she could not reach. A pack, a place of safety. Was that the scent that filled her nose? She had wandered close to the territory's border. She backed away carefully. There was a place she could sit a safe distance away between two boulders, and she shouldered her way in, eyes wide and skittish,.

She didn't have a clear picture of any of her family members, but she knew something--two bodies her size, two larger figures with eyes of ice of fire, a dualism that had always struck her as significant. Erie remembered them fondly gazing down upon her. They were Mother and Father, maybe, and the small ones her siblings, though she didn't quite know. It was only an assumption. Once, when she was a young pup, the one with fiery moons had gazed upon her and said, 'You will see that the world is always stranger than you think, and more dangerous than you could imagine.' And dangerous and strange indeed had Erie found it. She had herself raised on the line between the two, and on the not-always-trustworthy words of nomads, like herself.

Or, a nomad is what she thought she was, or a witch or a forest spirit. It depended on the day, but now, even the dirt under her paws wanted to talk, too. Entering these lands was like passing through some sort of semi-permeable barrier; a magic that stirred the memories in her just as much as the scents. Erie shifted, leaning against one of the rocks to her side, her eyes searching the trees, as if they would give up their secrets so easily. If only she could talk to them-- they would certainly know, but instead she'd have to find another one like herself for answers. She would rather pluck her fur out one by one than start a random conversation with a stranger; the fact that you needed to interface with others to survive was an the most unfortunate truth in life so far, honestly.

Perhaps she was strange herself, or perhaps they really all did look at her with critical, evil eyes. They were either critical or creepy, the wolves she'd met, and Erie wasn't sure if the strangers here would be of a different breed. She moved her body out from between the boulders a little bit, and looked from side to side. She'd wait here for a while to see if she got lucky, and then travel sidelong down the border til she reached someone. At this point, anything they could tell her would be more than she currently knew.