Sleepy Fox Hollow when you wake, you're bargaining

Wylla brought them back to the last place that felt like home to her.

Sawtooth Spire would have been a safer choice. No doubt they would climb into the heights soon enough. @Phaedra had already abandoned her morose parents in the glen and sought Sagtannet's former claim; she had always had an affinity for the place. Wylla would not deny her what her heart wished. But she chose to remain in the glen for now because it was quiet, secluded, and @Mahler still needed time to heal before making the ascent.

For days and nights, she let him be. For days and nights, she hunted the glen's rabbits and foxes and left the remains in accessible areas for him. Today she sought him out for the first time, if only so he could see the gentle rounding of her trim sides and know that for all his loss with Rivenwood, there was one thing he would gain.

the familiarity of the hollow relieved and tormented mahler. he hardly spoke; there was little resistance in him to wylla's hunting. he slept. he ate. he dreamed black visions in which laurel's voice rang out, high and piercing. he deserved to die. perhaps that was why he had offered to go with her, to descend into the valley.
he lay in the cold upon a bare outcropping of rock, silverkissed muzzle across his forepaws. it was almost as if they did not exist together, and yet they did. movement just beyond his eyes. mahler lifted his head and watched wylla approach him, resolute as always, possessing at least even the appearance of a confidence that he would not have again.
there would not be a chance for absolution, not this time.
there was only the future, and he saw that wylla carried it inside herself.
tears stung his gaze. the gargoyle rose and closed the distance between he and her, pulling her into an embrace meant to veil the sudden emotion that welled sharply within himself.

He tried his best, but Wylla knew Mahler well enough by now to sense how haunted he was behind the calm lavender eyes. Leaving Rivenwood... It was probably the hardest decision he had ever had to make. Wylla had cared very little for her packmates there, but Mahler was a different sort. He cared very deeply about others. To irrevocably burn those bridges must be eating him alive, especially knowing they had left two children to their fate.

Wylla knew she would have to work hard to show him this sacrifice was worth it. She regretted nothing and felt Rivenwood had used him and failed him, but she knew better than to try to tell him that. She snaked her head under his chin when he embraced her, listening for his steady pulse in his throat.

She refused to think of the blood in the snow.

Wylla remained there for a time, a steadying presence, but eventually she pulled away. She sought his misty eyes with her singular one. Talk to me, Mahler, she bid him.

"laurel begged me to be the father of those children. i do not regret saying no. but i raised them as if they vere. like the others." he sat down in the purling drifts and allowed himself at last the respite of her voice, without the constraints of another time.
they no longer existed.
snapping ropes and settling sand; he swallowed. "i certainly loved them like they vere. i think — perhaps that is part of vhy she expected me to move to conflict. and druid and vitch —" well, he'd left them all, had he not?
"i have not vanted to lead for a very long time. i kept going because i vas the only vone who could do so, i felt. and now we have come here."
logs snapping, plunging down a mountainside. "i vas never able to choose. i am alvays so full of indecision, vylla, until i could not be. i had to choose. i vill not justify it. but neither do i regret it. i am tired of living vith so many."

Mahler's admission sent a choking miasma through Wylla. If she had been on the fence about her dislike for Laurel before, it was solidified now. It shouldn't have surprised her that the same wolf who expected everyone to drop everything and fight in her family feud had also expected Mahler to do as she wished, but it made Wylla feel sick to think all along another woman had designs on him.

There was always another woman. There would always be another woman. She made herself swallow the acid rising in her throat. He had not chosen Laurel. Not then and not now. That was what mattered.

Wylla wrenched her thoughts away from the tan she-wolf and fixed them on Druid and Witch. I feel bad for them, she said. That's their home but we couldn't defend it. It's not safe for them there, yet they had chosen to stay. They and Sequoia, who now suddenly wanted to help when she had hid like a coward before. Back when her strength might have made a difference.

There was nothing she or Mahler could do about that now. If they stayed... If Mahler went to that valley, perhaps he and Laurel would have saved Indra and Abel or perhaps they simply would have died. There was no way to know, and as callous as the thought was, neither of those children was worth his life to Wylla. Both of them together were not worth his life to her. She could not bear it if they returned and he did not.

Why didn't you say something sooner? Wylla wondered, but she knew it was because he felt it was his burden to bear. Surely Sequoia or even Laurel would have taken over. It would have sat poorly with her either way, but as long as they left her the hell alone, she would have lived with it. She was never there for them anyway.

She could not comment on his indecision. She was too glad that this time she was on the receiving end of one of his choices rather than the victim of it. It was something she would be silently grateful about.

"sequoia did not vant it, and i did not think that laurel — vas in a state to accept." he heard her voice crying in anger and sorrow and rage after him again, damning him toward a premature end. wind rose and played along the charcoal edges of his still-rich ruff. 
"i suppose they vill do vhat they think is best," mahler answered hoarsely after a long while. ursus burned through his mind; the teeth, the shouting, the blood. the infernal laughter.
the screaming of children.
"it does not matter now." the pages of this chapter were soaked in red and in salt, expanding past their bindings, yet mahler tried to shove shut the chapter all the same. "ve are here in the sunspire vith phaedra, and vith —" he set his stoneflower eyes on wylla. "vith her siblings who vill arrive in love and in protection."
if mahler could promise nothing else, it would be this last.
he cleared his throat and blinked, facing into the cold wind. "i think you have more than earned a respite, vylla. you rest. i vill hunt for us."
provider. protector. he could fulfill these roles without the crush of leadership.

Wylla had no further comment on the subject of Sequoia and Laurel. In years past she might have vehemently cursed their names and been far more outspoken about the nerve of them, but age and her growing understanding of Mahler both went a long way in curbing her tongue. He would not want to hear it and she didn't much want to talk about it either. It would change nothing.

He was right: it didn't matter what they did or what happened to them. Wylla wiped them from her mind with the ease of wiping a message off a whiteboard. Give it a few weeks and she wouldn't spare even a thought for them. Her mind was better turned to the future, to the children she would bring earthside in a month's time and to better days ahead.

Mahler bid her rest, but Wylla shook her head. Let's find something together, she suggested, moving to walk into the wind with him. I bet Phaedra has gone up there, she said, turning her eye up to the spire's imposing heights. Where do you want to go from here?

For now, she did not think of the canyon where the Saints lived. She didn't want to know if that was still going to be a problem.

mahler felt a surge of anger; he wanted to snap that he no longer wished to lead, wished to make choices of any kind. that each home he had chosen after diaspora had been a failing of some kind; that he was unfit to lead and unfit to choose.
and then the anger turned toward himself and became shame. how dare he feel such rage and even think of letting wylla bear it! she who has suffered so long beneath his selfishness and come with him here. she had given up so much to be beside mahler.
and so the man trained his purple eyes upon sagtannet where their eldest had gone to ground. "i think the mountain is safest, but it —" the foothills. thade. 
for an open and visible moment he struggled; then mahler cleared his throat and glanced around the hollow. "you alvays enjoyed this place. it is defensible. not so large."
he too did not think of the saints. he only looked to wylla now, wondering.

She followed his line of sight to the imposing peak. It was true that Wylla had reservations about Sawtooth Spire, especially after Thade's kidnapping. Her fears about the foothills had never come to fruition, but something much worse. They had thought the peak to be defensible, and she had thought it to be downright dangerous for anyone to even try, but that had not stopped some sicko from entering their territory and stealing her son away.

Her stomach flip-flopped. She couldn't be sure whether it was the pups beginning their movement or her nerves. I prefer it here, she admitted, it's quiet, it's small, and well protected. But it shouldn't just be what I want. I want it to be a home for all of us. That meant Mahler and Phaedra had to be happy as well.

Wylla suspected her daughter wouldn't have a preference. Whether they lived on the peak or next to it, she would always be able to visit her old garden there. Windholme. Her memories of Stag. She wanted Mahler to be happy with their choice as well. Rivenwood had meant so much to him that no place would likely feel like home to him the same way the bypass had, but that didn't mean she expected him to just settle.

once wylla spoke in the affirmative, mahler felt his mind made. he pressed his cheek against her own. "you are home, liebling." he spoke with finality and love. "you have vatched me ... attach myself so many times to pieces of land, at the expense of yourself." he pulled back only to seek her eyes again. 
"where you are, i am home."
a twitch to his lips now and one that did not reach his eyes, but the gargoyle meant it. he looked around the hollow again. "it is familiar and fortifiable here. we have two vater sources and are protected from the vorst of the vind by the mountains."
mahler did not look in the direction of the lake which had once been the base for diaspora — but he wondered.
"and ve vould be close to sagtannet, vhich is a fine place to hunt."
speaking of the future stirred him, steadied him.

Mahler wasn't wrong about that. He and Wintersbane chose Sawtooth Spire despite her misgivings about its dangers, but that had been their pack, not hers. Nova Peak was promising, but when a potential threat made itself known on the cliffs, he had failed to defend it. When she had begged him to run away and start anew with her, he plunged his roots deep into the earth of the bypass and refused to leave those who had stayed.

To be chosen over land was a monumental relief to Wylla, she who had long suffered her own feelings of inadequacy.

He pressed her cheek back against his and lifted her head up to survey the rock. This would be their home, then. She was not prepared to lead wolves who were not her own blood, and she suspected Mahler was tired of leading as well. So they would build not a pack here, but a family. A different sort of pack.

We are home, she agreed, craning her head back to look up at the soaring peak that protected the hollow's eastern edge. From here, it was imposing, but would provide them a steady source of food. Should anything happen to the water here, the crisp, clear Windholme was a good secondary source, and there was a lake to the north as well. Lusca would be proud of her, she thought. Kesuk Grove was a pure family pack, and now perhaps Wylla and Mahler would begin their very own, beholden to no one but themselves and their children.

mahler smiled and kissed her forehead. for a moment his heart felt warm with a radiant and fierce love. despite the fact that the next moments became far more somber at least within himself, the sensation reminded mahler that he was indeed living and alive.
"vould you like to take a look around? ve should restore the borders," he suggested. patrolling would do him well, the gargoyle felt, and it would keep him in wylla's company.
it was odd to be alone, just the two of them, odd in a familiar and desperately missed way. "vhat do you think phaedra is getting into?" he asked, beginning a relaxed walk along a path that would carry them beyond the oak forest and into a small clearing, in sight of a cold creek that jutted away from a larger lake.
birds wheeled overhead. he was reminded of the lagoon and subsequently laurel, and turned away to hide the dire flash of pain in his amethyst eyes. "there are cliffs here, if you remember, but they are not nearly so steep. that vay; the creek flows over them into a vaterfall."

Let's, she agreed, keeping her rounded side pressed gently to his as they walked through the trees. It would be some time still before songbirds sang, but she remembered how the hollow was in warm weather. It was an understatement to say Wylla has happy to be here for good.

Probably looking for that old stag she named, Wylla guessed, or maybe... You know, I thought for a time she had some kind of animal friend. I never saw it, but she smelled like prey an awful lot of the time. Which would have been no concern of Wylla's if Phaedra had a passion for hunting, but that was not the case.

Can we go look at them? she asked when reminded of the creek and the falls. A childish part of her hoped they were still iced over. There were few things as striking as a frozen waterfall. It was one of few natural phenomena capable of drawing Wylla's eye and appreciation for the world around her.

referencing our map ^^

"of course." the trees would eventually thin to grassland, snowcovered now. and then even that would give way to the tell-tale scent of poppies that were banked beneath the drifts, softly dreaming and preparing to bloom bloody and vibrant in the summertime.
"his name vas sieger. she named him vhen she was very young. i saw him often after that. she alvays had an affinity for the unvolflike: she grew attached to those soft little animals."
here the lake curved into a soft arc toward the wolves, and a great falls cascaded down into its frigid depths, quiet now and held in the white stasis of winterfreeze. the cliffs were high but not sharp, and a single oak stood sentinel over all.
mahler grunted with a moment's contentment and moved forward to lap at the lake's surface, scratching at the ice for shavings to wet his tongue. he glanced toward the waterfall and then back to wylla, silent in his anticipation to see what expression might transform her much-beloved face.

It made her happy, Wylla recollected, although she spent little time fostering Phaedra's interest in animals. To her, it was like playing with food. Their daughter didn't smell like prey so often in adulthood as she had as a pup, leading Wylla to conclude that if there was some creature hanging around her, it was long gone now. She wondered if it was the source of Phaedra's great melancholy, but knew instinctively that that was rooted deeper.

She brought me a snake once, she shared as they crossed the open plain between the forest and lake. She thought it was a worm and dropped it on my face while I was sleeping. She named it Tulip. Wylla remembered flinging the hideous thing into the bushes. Phaedra stormed off after that. It was not a fond memory for her, and likely not for her daughter, either, for different reasons. She hoped fervently that none of their new children would share that love of animals.

The waterfall came into view as they approached the bend in the lake, and Wylla paused to turn and take it all in. Even encased in ice, it had a flow to it that was pleasing to look at. It would never cease to amaze her how winter could still even a mighty waterfall. She didn't like the cold season much, but it did have its wonders.

Why did we ever leave this place? she asked aloud, stirring the air slowly with her tail. Sawtooth Spire was well protected, it was true, but this vale was well hidden and defensible as well. What had driven Mahler to go high in the mountains instead of forming Sagtannet right here?

mahler snorted his bemusement at phaedra's antics. it did seem very like her: "— tulip!" he snorted in pale imitation of wylla. in years, even months past, mahler would have felt his mind lurch toward the almost inevitable contemplation of the failures that had made his daughter cling so tightly to wildlife and the unchangeable.
but today's mahler only watched the slow satisfaction bloom onto wylla's features. he had long thought her beautiful, despite whatever scoff his wife might utter to hear that aloud, but he had not seen her as content as she seemed now.
another direct reaction to his thoughts — not now, not now.
no ruination for this time.
"it reminded me too much of diaspora to remain so close to vhere stigmata died."
mahler felt his breath tightening.
"there vas an earthquake after his passing. it drove us here. after such losses i vas ready to go anyvhere else."
mahler gazed at the fall of ice, then back to wylla, resolute in his vulnerability.

Wylla turned back her ears to listen to Mahler in silence, padding a few steps away to inspect the edge of the lake. Pebbles lined the uneven edge and clusters of frosted, dead foliage promised an abundance of cattails in the summer. It would be a nice spot to relax in the lazy heat of noontime.

Makes sense, she said, turning back around to offer her mate a wan smile. I felt the same way after Grimnismal. She didn’t mean to distill the effect Stigmata’s passing had on Mahler, however, and added, will you tell me about him? She had probably asked a question here and there about Diaspora’s leader in the past, but only in passing, and largely with the goal of better understanding Stag.

Rarely had she considered Mahler’s bond with the man, but it was that which she asked after now.

mahler swallowed and set his stoneflower eyes on the little stones flecking the shoreline of the waterbody. "he vas like no one vone i had ever known, before or since. i could not even tell you how ve became so close. ve hunted together that first night and it vas as if i had alvays known him."
the pain was unclenching in a knotted rush that slowly unwound inside his chest. "ve called each other kill-brothers after that. i vanted — perhaps to be him, vhen i vas younger."
his words slowed into a ragged silence. mahler's profile was apologetic, jaw tensing somewhat. "stigmata vas not the sort of volf i thought vould end the vay that he did."

It was difficult for Wylla to understand the emotion that gripped Mahler when he spoke of Stigmata. She had never known such a close friendship in all her life, and probably never would. The closest she had was her literal brothers, and they were both dead as far as Wylla knew.

That’s how it always is, isn’t it? she mused, thinking abruptly of that wolf at Arrow Lake who had screamed at her about dead children and ghosts. It’s always the ones who deserve to die the least.

mahler felt an irritating lump in his throat. "he is survived by his children, who visit me from time to time." his voice was huskier than he meant it to be; he cleared it with a harrumphing noise and shook out his charcoal ruff.
"is there anyvhere that you recall, vylla?" his amethyst eyes shone. "a part of the hollow that you vould care to revisit?"
any of it, any of it, so long as it was not more upon stigmata. mahler did not want to break before her.

She knew about Stag, of course, and knew that he had not come to visit Mahler. Somehow, it rarely occurred to Wylla that Stigmata had other children out there who might miss their home as well. There would always be a place for them in Sleepy Fox Hollow, so long as they could remember that it was not solely Mahler's home, but hers as well, but she didn't say anything about it now.

No, said Wylla. She hadn't spent a lot of time here with the pack, and her visits afterward were always triggered by grief and trauma. This was the last place she had seen Tiercel, if she remembered correctly, not so far from where they first stood. She was not keen to revisit that memory.

Right here is perfect, she said, dropping to her elbows and belly in the snow. Sensing that he no longer wished to speak and possibly wanted to retreat somewhere to sort through his thoughts, she said, actually, I might take a little nap, if that's okay?

"of course," mahler rumbled. he lowered himself to his haunches right as they were, nosing through her hackles. "sleep. i vill go to hunt." he could wait for this time to tend himself. filling himself with her kept such things from clutching every thought of his with grief.
the man lifted his head.
he looked toward the mountains, keeping watch as wylla rested. and when her breathing adjusted, mahler would step away from his wife, leaving a trail in the snowbank as he sought out something to fill her belly and mollify the children within.