"Slow down!" Irvis huffed as she struggled to keep up with the Champion that had been chosen for her. Her Championship rite had been completed the night before, and now it was time to visit the Carving Stones. She had spent the night listening to Gamdre tell her several of the most important rules, and explaining things she already knew. His ears twitched, but his pace never ceased.

"And what will you say to your ancestors who visit you when you meet them?" Gamdre called over his enormous shoulder. He was lanky and huge- russet and white colored, with half of a tail that made Irvis uncomfortable to be near. It looked like it always hurt.

"May the moon guide you and mist bless you!" She huffed, lungs burning. The silver wolf's legs hurt already from the shaky journey down the cliff face that made up the entrance to their camp. Fear shook her legs as she remembered the careening height that protected them from most intruders, watching the pebbles skitter down the surface of the granite cliff. Gamdre had been there to grab her by the scruff, as much as she didn't want to admit that she had needed his help. She was a big pup after all. Pride swamped out the fear. She was becoming a Champion of the circle! Taught by the greatest fighter there was.

Now though, she was struggling to keep up over the bouncy pine needle ground, slipping and sliding if she went too fast to try and catch up. Irvis growled softly to herself, keeping an eye out for any thinner spots to dig her nails into as she went so as to not slide so bad.

"And what will you not say to Galbrimine and Duskux when you meet them?" His tone was clipped, she could hear the stress in it.

"Don't mention their blindness," Irvis huffed, pushing herself to meet him and looking up at the older wolf. His wide face tipped to one side, the whites of his eyes showing as he glanced at her.

"Well there you are, I was beginning to worry I was losing you," he snickered, dark eyes shifting away to swerve around a thick pine tree.

Irvis sneezed, losing her lead and quickly regaining it, "You've got longer legs, how am I supposed to keep up?"

"If you can't make it even to the Carving Stones to meet your ancestors, how are you supposed to become a Champion and protect all of Mist Circle- all three of our hills, the swamp to the north, the valley and lakes in the center? Your legs will get longer, but for now, stop complaining," Irvis nearly tumbled as he punctuated his sentence with a nudge, her lanky legs stumbling for purchase before regaining composure and following.

Through the snippets of sky between the tall pine trees, Irvis turned back and looked for the wide plateau that marked camp, longing to be playing hunt with Duskux by the eating-circle rock. That was one good thing, she supposed. Duskux had been born before her, so he was assigned a Champion first, except that he was born blind, and Galbrimine took him as a Carver instead of a Champion, since Regar had passed away not terribly long before.

His training was far away though, and Carvers stayed in the box canyon that all Stone Carvers worked in. A place of respite, healing, and remembrance of their ancestors, as Gamdre put it. Whatever that actually meant. Irvis had half a notion that the words just meant old, dead wolves, and stuffy roots and plants that made her nose burn.

"There won't be any time to play," Gamdre tilted his head again, and she flattened her ears, earning a small laugh from the male.

"There's never any time to play," she muttered, kicking a piece of smooth bark as she went, churning up the pine needles.

"Duskux has a very important job to train for, and a very difficult one. One that I- or you, for that matter, will not get in the way of."

"What does he even do all day? Staring at rocks can't be that interesting."

"Stone Carvers are very important to the circle," Gamdre's tone suddenly became much more serious, and his fur bristled softly. Not in anger, but rather in irritation. It still made Irvis dance a couple of steps away from him as they pushed on, the pines thinning out to a rockier ground, the minerals poking out of the earth like tiny mountains, plumes of stone.

"They are born unable to see- they cannot see our world, the one we live in. Carvers see our ancestors, and speak with them like you would speak to me, or I to you," he explained, voice still hard. His fur was beginning to relax as he spoke and a brief wind buffeted their fur. Padding from the tree line gave her a new world of scents. "I... don't exactly know how it works, but they do their best to work with our past kin and heal. Meanwhile, they carve the likeness of each ancestor into the rock so that they may not be forgotten. A forgotten ancestor is one that does not exist. They must take care of the Carving Stones, and follow the guide of the dead to carve."

"Seems like a lot of work for some dead wolves," Irvis commented, taking in a deep breath and glancing across the rocky outcropping they had come out on. The canyon that opened like a maw beneath them was really just the leftover fragments of a gorge- one side squished together like clay. The open end was cut off by a rockslide, but it didn't distract from the enormity of what was beneath them. Gamdre beagn to speak, but whatever he had going on Irvis wasn't interested in hearing. It faded into some background noise as she thought on whether or not she should look over the edge. Padding closer, curiosity overtook the pup as she leaned over the lip of the near-vertical drop to see what lie below- or at least see how far it dropped into the seemingly endless abyss. Dust floated in motes in the emoty air, making her stomach feel sick.

Irvis craned her neck to see down the sheer orange hued cliff, her paws inching closer to the sandy edge. It was easy to imagine an unfortunate wolf falling down, down, down the four or five tree lengths and landing in a broken heap below, little more than a fly-sized speck on the ground beneath her. The canyon was enormous, deeper than Mist Circle's camp was tall, and it made her dizzy with the understanding of the height. Her paws tensed in the sand for grip, but the silty grit gave no friction. Fear gripped her as she slid forward a few paw-lengths, back legs churning before being promptly snatched back by Gamdre by her scruff. The silver pup shouted out a soft, "Hey!" As her paws came out from under her, hind legs kicking at the air before connecting with the dirt. Tossed back away from the edge, Irvis had to shake out her pelt to regain her senses, the adrenaline making her limbs tremble, the pain from earlier burned out by the fear that had come from nearly sliding down the cliff face.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" Gamdre barked out at her, his eyes searching hers angrily as he bared his teeth at her. Irvis cowered, seeming lost for words for a second. All she was doing was trying to see down into the canyon, what was so bad about it?

His scruff stood on end, a line of fur rising down his spine as he drew his muzzle up and stood staring down at her, eyes narrowed. Embarrassment flooded her as he spoke.

"Wolves have died falling such heights. You made it down our camp cliff just fine, but Mist Circle- all of our territory, is filled with cliffs and rocks, holes and drops. You need to put your skull on your shoulders, Irvis," Gamdre didn't let up, and Irvis felt shame root her paws to the earth, tail tightly tucked beneath her, one flank pressed into the dirt. "You must always stay one leg away from the edge, unless you're comfortable and know that there's no way you can fall-"

Irvis spotted movement behind him, and relief flooded her as she saw two wolves- one large and one smaller, emerge from the lip of the canyon, grateful for what would soon be a distraction. _Duskux! _

"Trest insists you stop your shouting, Gamdre, this is supposed to be a restful place," the much larger, blonde wolf spoke first, pulling Gamdre out of his tirade. The russet wolf whipped his head around, tail twitching in anger as he abruptly ended the lecture, ears flattening. She was just glad he wasn't shouting anymore- for the moment the embarrassment that would ordinarily come at being reprimanded in front of others was overruled by eagerness to move past the subject.

"Trest can complain all he wants- he's dead, Irvis would have been there to join him in a couple of moments if I hadn't grabbed her," Gamdre countered, voice dark.

"Ever the charmer," Galbrimine's voice was flat for a moment, before he cleared his throat and dipped his head in their direction. It unnerved her a bit that he could "see" where they were, but she had to remind herself that it was likely his nose and the... dead wolves that Gamdre had told her about that were guiding him. It still didn't make it any less upsetting to look at him and see that he wasn't really looking. Duskux was different- he grew up with her. Galbrimine did... not.

"What's he doing these days anyways?" Gamdre motioned for her to follow with a very stern look. It conveyed the obedience he needed from her. Irvis avoided his gaze, ears flat against her head. Yeah, yeah...

Galbrimine and Gamdre began to chat as they walked a little ways down the now-dry gorge, keeping a leg length away from the edge. Irvis was sure to keep two between her and the open maw of the stone. Duskux fell back away from his elder, his sightless gaze staring ahead and following the way down. Like the camp, the way to get to the bottom seemed to follow a sheet of stone that partially fell away and created a path no bigger than a deer-length wide. Duskux walked confidently, a bit unlike how she remembered him in the camp stumbling over his own legs and constantly bumping into things. His dark grey pelt was sleeker now, too, and thicker.

"I didn't think they'd give you him," he commented quietly so that the two ahead of them couldn't hear.

"Tell me about it. He's got antlers in his fur half the time," he muttered in response, crossly shaking her head and huffing out of her nose, "I didn't mean to slip, I just wanted to see how deep it was." The further they got down onto the ledge that brought them to the bottom of the canyon, the closer to the cliff wall she pushed, glad for the buffer of three others around her.

"He's just grumpy, to everyone. One time, I accidentally bumped him when I was heading to the eating-circle and he just kicked me, felt like it was clear across camp," Duskux finished off the short story with a frown, and Irvis felt the tension lift a little bit, a small laugh rising from her.

"I'd kick you too if you stuck me with burrs 'cause you didn't know which end of camp you were on," she teased, grinning.

"Was not covered in burrs!"

"Were too!"

Duskux snapped his teeth in the air, and Irvis had to refrain the urge to just shove him. The fact that they were treading on a precarious edge was enough to keep her from doing anything stupid, or dangerous. Besides the venomous look that Gamdre had given her just moments prior.

"What are we even here for anyways?"

"You think I know?" Duskux shot her a sidelong glance with milky colored eyes.

"Aren't you supposed to be the great ghost-talker or something?" Irvis glanced up ahead at Galbrimine and Gamdre. They seemed to be deep in conversation, not paying much attention to the two of them.

"Just because I'm learning to be a Carver doesn't mean I know everything about it," Duskux whined, his tail flicking to playfully hit her in the shoulder as he bounded ahead a few steps, "Come on, it's... well, I think it's really cool down here! The mist comes up from this pond!"

"The mist?" Irvis craned her neck to see around the two elders in front of her as they hopped the last bit down the eroded fault slip. The bottom of the canyon, which she would have met much quicker if Gamdre hadn't been there to grab her by her scruff, was open and barren. There were signs of life, mostly pathways that had been smoothed away by various pawsteps over the years.

Walking across the bottom of the boxed-in canyon led them to the end where a vicious rockslide had cut off the end closer to Mist Circle. Duskux hadn't been wrong at all- the end of the canyon held a pool of water that trickled down from the rockslide from further up in the mountains. Mist gathered at the surface, the warring temperatures of the cool canyon and warmer upperlands creating a fog that lifted like slow flames into the air, curling in the sunbeams that poked through the rock above them.

"They say that the canyon was a river when the first wolves lived here, but... who knows. I don't think I've ever met any wolf that old, yet," Duskux added on, shrugging as Gamdre motioned for them to follow down to the pool that sent mist swirling above their heads. Irvis shook out her pelt, the cool air making her toes cold. Not to mention the biting stone underpaw. No matter how smooth it was, it was cold and grabbed at her paws like thorns.

"Galbrimine," Gamdre dipped his head, and Irvis watched Duskux pad over to join him to the side, where several sleeping-dens were constructed in the wall of the canyon, carved out crudely over the years as resting places for the sick and injured.

"Irvis," the Champion barked out, drawing her attention away. Ducking her head, she quickly joined the russet-colored wolf, skirting around his cropped tail. His gaze shifted from the pool to Irvis, muzzle flicking towards the water, "In. It is time for you to meet your ancestors."

"The water?" Anxiety spiked through her pelt again, the fur along her spine rising. It was cold, she was tired, and now he wanted her to get her fur wet? He was a raving lunatic.

"It's only a few paws deep, you aren't going to drown," he murmured, bending down and using his muzzle to push her into the chilly water. Irvis resisted at first, but the second her paws hit the cold liquid there was no point. Untensing her muscles, the gangly pup reluctantly took a few steps forward, leaving Gamdre behind, wading into the mist as it thickened around her.

"Gamdre, I can't really see, how far am I supposed to go?" She twisted her head back, but the mist had grown thicker, whiter, obscuring anything beyond a couple of steps out of her vision. If he had answered, she didn't hear.

"Irvis," an unfamiliar name called out to her in the mist. The silver wolf froze, glancing between the drifts of condensation with bright yellow eyes.

Bristling as nervousness swelled in her chest, the long-legged pup tried to sniff at the fog, only to be met with the scent of water and stone.

"Who's there?" Irvis couldn't ascertain who had called out to her.

"No need to fear. My name is Regar, I was Galbrimine's elder when he was learning to be a Stone Carver," an older wolf padded forward, part of the mist and... part real. Irvis narrowed her eyes, searching his ragged pelt briefly.

"I was supposed-"

"To meet your ancestors. Yes, well, that does include all of us, who have departed to the mist of course," Regar's voice was raspy, his pelt light grey and thinning in some spots, where it wasn't nearly transparent. Understanding seemed to wash over Irvis, and she calmed a bit, staring up at the wolf. What was she supposed to say? Gamdre hadn't prepared her in the slightest. Just, 'Don't mention the Stone Carver's blindness, Irvis, and use your manners, Irvis!'.

In the presence of the spirit though, the young wolf didn't feel so anxious.

"I didn't know what to say the first time I saw a dead wolf either," Regar tipped his head to one side, and Irvis spotted a wide, pink scar that seemed to envelop his head from ear to jaw, jagged and gnarled.

"I suppose it's weird," Irvis sniffed, standing as still as possible, glancing away and back towards where Gamdre had been moments prior.

"Yeah, it's a little strange seeing a live wolf, too," a warm smile tugged at Regar's muzzle, his tail gently swinging back and forth, before he motioned for her to come closer. Irvis hesitated, before taking a step forward through the water. He turned and began to walk with her, through the water. Irvis tensed every couple of seconds. Surely the rockslide would come looming out of nowhere and she'd walk right into it- but it never did come, and after a moment or two she was walking as confidently as Regar through the mist that encased them.

"I feel like Gamdre doesn't like me very much," she suddenly spoke, surprised at her own honesty. Regar tipped his head to one side and nodded.

"The Stone Carvers before me were a set of twins, Kiln and Koln, and I thought they hated me too. Or, didn't like me. We are chosen by the Mother to train those who will come after us though, and that is an enormous responsibility. What if Gamdre taught you wrong and you had died? What if you had fallen?"

Shame made Irvis dip her head, fur hot with embarrassment, "You saw."

"Many did. We thought we would meet you far quicker than anticipated."

"Anticipated?"

Irvis felt the older wolf tense, before he turned his head to face her. Instead of milky white eyes, there were bright, sky-blue ones there, searching her with concerning ferocity. Irvis took a step back, tipping her head to the side as she looked up at him.

"Irvis, it is very important that you do your best. Gamdre will be harsh, but it is for your own good, to make sure that you grow up a fine Champion of Mist Circle. There is a darkness coming, unlike anything anybody has seen. I did wrong by hiding it. Now I believe it is more imminent than ever before, and it is being denied. Will you remind Galbrimine for me?"

The strength of his tone threw her off for a moment, before the silver wolf regained her footing and steeled herself.

"Yes... I can," she shakily agreed, shivering in the foggy whiteness, an unnatural chill working its way through her pelt.

Regar seemed to relax, his muzzle dipping as he nodded, seeming to relax.

"You promise you'll do your best to protect Mist Circle and the wolves that live there?" He asked, blue eyes almost pleading now, the aggressive shifting of his mood beginning to wear down Irvis.

"I promise, Regar," she tried her best to convince him with her tone, a dreadful feeling filling her belly.

"Good. My time here is done then. Please Irvis. You may not understand yet, but you are a very large piece of such a small world," he sighed, ears lowering slightly, "May the moon guide you."

"And the mist bless you," she finished weakly, the sudden weight of information making her pelt feel heavier than it had when she had stepped into the water. Her legs felt like they would give, shaking with the immensity of what he had bestowed upon her.

...protect Mist Circle...

Turning, Regar bounded into the mist, disappearing altogether. Irvis watched him before turning, heading back in what felt like where they had come from.

Padding through the water, her ears twitched as voices began to filter through the fog. Relief warmed her limbs, driving her to haul herself in long hops through the water and out onto the rock that she had departed from just moments before. As the mist broke, she spotted the three of them standing where she had left them.

"I suppose I've not had enough bear to really know the difference," Galbrimine calmly finished whatever it was they had been talking about before his head picked up. Gamdre had already stood and strode over to meet Irvis. As she departed the mist and took her first clear breath, the young silver wolf shook her pelt off, some of the weight dispersing with the water that was slung across the stone around them, earning a disgusted huff from Duskux.

"That was quick," Gamdre murmured, lowering his head to meet her gaze. Irvis took a deep breath and held herself up to the fullest height she could make herself, which wasn't very tall at all, barely meeting the bottom of Gamdre's scruff. She opened her mouth to speak, but Galbrimine quickly silenced her.

"What you see isn't to be discussed. It is between you and your ancestors, not any other living wolf," the blonde Stone Carver padded forward, gently brushing past Irvis, who glanced towards Gamdre. The russet wolf simply nodded. Frustration welled up inside her.

"Who knows why it was quick. That just makes for an earlier day," Duskux chirped out, his dark brindled pelt shaking off the droplets that had landed on him. Irvis ducked out of the returning spray and crossly lowered her ears at Galbrimine.

"What if we must share what's been told?" She asked, keeping her ground where she stood after Duskux had finished ridding his fur of the droplets.

"Then you will have to speak with Mother when we return." Gamdre nodded, glancing to Galbrimine, who quickly turned away with a whisk of his tail.

"Return quickly then," Galbrimine sighed, motioning for Duskux to follow him as he moved away down the winding canyon, passing each face that looked out as hollowly as the vast night sky, back to the winding trail they had descended to get to the bottom of the gorge. Gamdre nodded to Duskux, who looked rather conflicted before bounding off after his own mentor. The russet wolf had a puzzled expression, but Irvis could tell, just by looking at the male's eyes, that there was some sort of fear.

"Everyone comes here to meet their ancestors when they begin their training...?" She ventured to ask, on the precipice of crumbling internally. Something was wrong, she could tell. It wasn't like anyone to just... not talk to her, not discuss things. The silence was heavy and crushing.

"Everyone does, yes, but not everyone has to share such things with Mother. Maybe it's nothing." Gamdre sounded unconvinced, but Irvis knew otherwise.

Am I bad? Have I done something?

Irvis couldn't wrap her head around what had just happened. Sure, it was strange, and any other day she might have put it up to nerves and pressure of having so many expectations on the first day of training. The pup knew something was... off.

Sighing, she followed Gamdre anyways, trudging up the steep stone gorge face, only looking back to catch a glimpse of her friend, who had already entirely disappeared from view.