With winter starting to settle into the area, Temujin was looking to relocate to someplace a little more mild that the upper foothills that he and his little companion had been living in for the past several months. He could weather the winter weather and harshness without much issue but undersized Nitza tended to struggle more with maintaining warmth. In the days leading up to his scouting jaunt, he had done his damnedest to make sure she had ample access to food, water, and a warm place to get out of the wind chill and out of the cold night air, especially if any snows came. Pretty satisfied that he had done his due diligence, Temujin had bid his small friend farewell for now and promised he'd be back in a week's time or so. Nitza had wished him luck and bade him to return soon, that she'd be okay in the meantime. The fox shifter was able to travel further and wider on his own, able to rest in short intervals to get up quicker and carry on. He was mapping out the paths for the quicker routes south, to somewhat more temperate places were the coldest season might be a little more gentle to the delicate wolf. He found a few potential overwintering territory options and then began his trek back up north. Similarly, he made good time. As Temujin began ascending the elevation back to his original stomping grounds, a nagging, gnawing gut feeling was niggling at the back of his mind. Something just felt... wrong.
Hurrying back to where he and Nitza had been staying, Temujin padded through the foot of snow which wasn't here when he had left. His silvery eyes scanned the area. There were some small wolf paw prints, but not too many, not too fresh. Worry twisted in his belly. Where had she gone? Had something happened?
"Nitza?" He called out, his voice carrying clear and crisp in the frigid air. Swiveling his ears around as he sniffed the air, Temujin padded through the snow, calling out again. He paused, listening. Aside from Nitza's little paw prints, there weren't anything larger that he could see on the surface of the snow aside from the bird prints that left tiny, hopping trails, a couple rabbit trails... He lowered his head to sniff the surface of the snow, found the familiar scent, and started following it. South-southwest? Had she tried to follow him after a few days? The charmed shifter hoped and prayed that wasn't so. Had the weather that swept in after he left been so harsh as to drive her from their established summer and autumn territory that they had kept?
His pace quickened as he followed on, the mantra of 'please, please, please, please be okay' repeating over and over in his head. Had it been multiple storms? Just based on the muffled crunch under his paws, it had rained before the snows hit, a fine layer of ice hidden below the crusting powder. After a time of tracking, he had to stop and snort, huffing warm air through his sinuses as he walked, giving sniffing a break but following the gist of the beeline his delicate companion wove. He called out again, simply her name, before listening.
Nothing, still. Shaking his head, the fox shifter put his nose back to the ground and kept following. He wasn't smelling blood, so if she had been attacked... It wasn't terribly likely. But what if she had gotten physically ill or if the temperatures got so low that she started freezing to death? A spike of acidic panic turned his guts. He shook himself vigorously to dispel to those thoughts, forcing himself to focus. Temujin wouldn't rest until he had definite answers.
It was nearly two hours of tracking before he realized the area he had entered seemed to be crisscrossed with scent trails of hers. Still no trace of the metallic tang of blood, so he was still running under the hopeful assumption that she wasn't grievously injured. He paused on the peak of a gentle hill and called out again, his tone coming out sharper than he intended, his nerves tight in his throat. Temujin again paused to listen. This time, there was a quiet, almost muffled answer. It was from nearby. Relief wouldn't come to him until he had visual on Nitza.
Stalking through the snow, he could feel the tension that had seeped into his muscles. He eased down a steeper hill toward a bank of a frozen over stream. He called again; and again his own name echoed back to him. He whirled around and spied a low, deep overhang where dirt had washed or fallen away earlier in the year, the 'ceiling' of this hillside cave of sorts knitted together with now partially exposed tree roots.
"Nitza..." He hazarded to call again, to which there was a pause and an almost tentative, soft 'here' answered him. Temujin sighed, his breath fogging in swirling clouds around his face as he shifted to his fox form. He slipped inside easily and only then did the full weight of relief hit him when he saw the white, black, and pink wolf tucked up in as small a ball as she could manage as far from the entrance as possible, her pink eyes meeting his over her tail covering her nose. She looked cold. Temujin wordlessly closed the distance and settled in to curl up against her, using his larger, dark furred body to further block any draft that may try to penetrate to the back of this temporary den.
He laid his head on top of her, which got some soft whining and grumbling from the wolf but he could feel her sigh from his added warmth and he could feel the tension draining from his muscles. After letting silence draw out for a time, Temujin cracked open a silvery eye to glance down at her. His volume was soft but his tone was stern, betraying the anxiety he had been battling for the last couple of hours. "You have no idea how worried I've been when I got back, Nitza, and you weren't there. What in the world happened? Were you trying to follow me south? Why didn't you leave any message or sign behind? I was worrying that you had gotten hurt, lost in a storm, frozen to death, something..."
The small wolf shifted a little, her expression reading as a blend of embarrassed and ashamed.
"I'm sorry, Temujin... Day five had this rainy, snowy weather with this driving wind that swept the slush into the den we had. I thought I'd maybe try to meet you on your way back since the wind was driving in from the north, but I was getting so chilly and so tired in all the snow. I found this abandoned den in the hillside and have been here for a day... Again, I'm really, really sorry to have worried you so... I didn't even think about leaving a sign or note back at the den..."
The shifter closed his eye and rubbed his chin back and forth across Nitza's back as he settled in. The two of them could set out for their warmer wintering grounds tomorrow. "I am glad to see you're alright... Don't do that again, okay? Let's take it easy for the rest of today and I'll tell you about what I found tomorrow. Get some rest, Nitza..."
[WC: 1250]