Mud was disgusting. This whole swampy area was gross and unsanitary. Why'd she pick Tanglewood of all places to show up? Mira forced herself to keep moving forward, despite the unpleasant conditions, and her rising uncertainties of joining. Did she really want to go through with this? If she did, that'd mean she'd have to depend on people again. She had to trust them again. She tried to put up with it in the past, but at the end of the day, she just ran away from the situation.

She finally stopped, realizing that she further in their territory than she wanted to go. Her eyes flickered over to the water near her. Weren't there alligators here? Her nervousness spiked up even more, as she continued to rapidly glance around for any signs of danger. Maybe she should just turn back, or at least get people to come over now. She sat there for a few seconds, paws shaking slightly. "Ah - um! Hello? Hey- is anyone there-" she cut herself off, upon seeing something floating in the water. Without thinking, she instantly assumed it was an "Hey! I'd like to join! M-make it quick too! I kinda need some help over here." her voice was extremely nervous. If Mira wasn't so nervous about the members of Tanglewood, she would've bolted forward to avoid whatever was floating in the water nearby. Although, little did she know, but she was freaking out over a mossy log floating in the water.

//i don't know how to writing joining threads, but here it is!

As usual, Morgan was monitoring the territory when he noticed the presence of a newcomer. In mere moments he was nearly face-to-face with her to answer her cries. "What do you need help with, stranger? You'd like to join Tanglewood?"

The samoyed looked around to see if there was anything dangerous nearby, but he failed to register any unusual presences. "Well... I'll protect you for now if you want. I'm Morgan - the Deputy here. And you are?" He was quite used to seeing joiners, but they were rarely this frightened even if they made it as far into the territory as this one did. Without turning to face the stranger again, he said, "If you're going to join, I'll lead you to town." He took a few steps in the right direction to illustrate his sentence.

malphas approached, walking over in short strides, eyes narrowed. malphas usually found himself at the scenes of joiners due to his nurse status and the fact a lot of joiners seemed to be injured. at the thought, malphas' lips curled into a snarl- if a joiner was so weak they got hurt before joining, why should they be allowed to join? of course, he knew the test of time would breed out the weak, anyways. he dreamed of a better tanglewood. one day, he told himself.

"are you injured?" malphas stated, monotone, briefly brushing furs with morgan as he finally found his spot next to the large dog. "i'm malphas. nurse here, alongside iota. our mentor- and sawbone- is nayru. go to her if you have any actual problems cause' i'll admit i don't know shit." he said, no emotion in his voice.

Oh geez, that was a lot of people. Mira's eyes flickered between what she had interpreted as an alligator and the people that had approached her. That's when the realization dawned on her; that thing she was looking at was an inanimate object. This hadn't been the first time she created a false alarm, which had brought her mind to the time she screamed over an inchworm.

She really needed to learn how to be less of a skittish mess. "Uh. F-false alarm! Everything okay. Please don't worry! I'm sorry- really, really sorry!" she spoke rather quickly, almost making it hard to understand. The entire time, she was cursing herself for being such a mess. "Anyways - my name is Mirabella. Nice to meet you all," her voice still held the same sense of nervousness as it had when she called for help. Though, this time, it was the embarrassment over the entire situation. She wanted to subject to change, and fast. "Ah - yeah, yes! Could you lead the way, Morgan?" It was a bit of a late reply, but it was her quickest opportunity to getting out of this situation. Besides, she didn't really want to get lost in this territory anyway.

"Of course. It's nice to meet you, by the way."

Morgan's usual allies were a welcome surprise. Once he was finished looking around for any other presences, he continued on the path to town. "Follow me, all of you. Vigenere, watch behind Mirabella. Malphas, come up here with me."

Luckily, the path was one relatively devoid of traps and gators, since the samoyed had cleared it out not long before. It was a straightforward route that would take only a number of minutes in all. "We'll be at town soon."