Phoenix Maplewood Are you still around?

Densa trotted to the forest, her eyes looked worried. Her mommy wasn't really getting better and she felt like that this was the moment that she was left all alone. She hadn't seen Sesi around or Nanook for that matter. Did they even know about their mother being close to dying.

Desna let out howled to the forest, wanting her family close. She had admitted to Nanook that she didn't want to be left alone and now life was taking her family away from her piece by piece. Her hazel eyes looked around for anyone really. Why did the forest seemed to empty? She wasn't sure about this at all.

@Nanook but anyone is welcome since Desna is on TBD.

I didn't want this to go too long unanswered so you could get back in, but @Nanook is welcome to hop in.

Ukko hears the howl and resists the urge to go for it immediately.  It’s not for him but he knows who it belongs to and what he’s supposed to do.  After he’d left Scarlett, he tried searching for her children but he couldn’t find them.  There were only hints of them lingering around and the scents were old and trying to find them only put him in circles.  The call would go unanswered if he waited any longer—Scarlett still isn’t ready to be on her own and he didn’t know where the other children were.  He doesn’t want to report that information back to Scarlett either, but if there is at least one child still around, it isn’t a total loss, right?

He inhales a sharp breath and eventually forces himself to find the call, and eventually finds the younger wolf at the borders. He approaches tentatively, should Reek or Saena but around the corner, and sweeps his tail eagerly behind him but he doesn’t rush to greet her.  He’s not the one she called for, after all.

Yep awesome! Maybe we can also use this as a 'joining' thread since Desna is still on TBD but she would never really leave the forest. Seeing that Ukko 'found' her and all.

Desna turned towards the footsteps that were approaching, but she knew her sister's footsteps and these were way too heavy to be Nanook's. Desna glanced at the dark wolf male she met before. He helped her hunting, yet now he had a different air about him. Maybe he had grown up in ranks, who knows. Desna's ears dropped through, because she was expecting her sister. She had been determined for Nanook to reach out to her but seeing that their mother wasn't well and might die, wasn't something that she didn't want Nanook to experience alone.

"Hey Ukko," she muttered and dramatically let herself 'fall' onto her side. "I don't think my sister is coming," she pointed out to him and let out a deep sigh. She looked at him from the ground for which she needed to angle her head. "I'm so sad. Now mommy only has me. We are all scattered," he pouted.

-chucks Nanook in here (while assuming a lot of things)-

Nanook wasn't in the forest, but she was close enough to hear Desna's call for her. Yet instead of piquing her ears, they slicked back. The reverberation seized the child's heart and twisted that same ugly guilt she'd tried to run from since turning from her sister weeks before. Her encounter with Xan still lingered in a tangled web of emotion couldn't discern. It kept her from returning to the Maplewood, and to the family she'd left behind.

Yet the hurt in her brother's eyes had remained with her, and reminded her of what she'd done to Desna, and the pain that had been inscribed on her sister's face when Nanook had pushed her away. There was something different to this guilt compared to the one she felt over her parent's separation. She didn't know what she'd done to make them leave each other, but with Desna, she knew what had made her upset, and her innards writhed whenever she thought of it. At first Nanook had managed to defend her actions, but as the days turned to months, her certainty became a swamp of dread and hostility. The guilt only grew the more she tried to ignore it, and the more she felt how much she needed her sister again.

She felt hopeless, confused, and the louder, more stubborn part of her still told her she was doing right. After all, Desna had expressed no interest in helping her look for Xan. Yet somewhere in her subconscious that guilt festered, until the quiet accusation was all she heard, and all that led her in her measured steps to the place where Desna had sounded her call.

Ukko tried to smile in order to ease the situation but it does little when Desna falls over, exasperated. He tries to imagine what it would be like -- both of his parents had been healthy and strong, as well as his siblings -- and he couldn't come up with it. The most he can relate is being separated from his family and he isn't too torn up about it to offer any sympathy. The smile disappears and he inches closer but doesn't sit, his head drops and he nudges her rump.

"You can't just disappear though. Don't leave again without telling someone, okay? We thought you were gone. You're mom needs you," he tells her, smile turning into a frown when he takes a few steps back to give her space. He'd been able to find Sesi and stumbling across Desna now has been his old hope that things might be okay. Nanook, however, is still elusive and he isn't sure she's around at all anymore. "She's asked for you," he adds with a gentle swish of his tail. Perhaps enough to encourage her up and to go see her.

Ukko won't stay long. Once Nanook shows up and Desna's okay, he'll leave them. I can get you re-titled soon, once she's agreed?

Definitely!

Desna's ears dropped when Ukko scolded her lightly, or at least it felt to her that way. Desna nodded softly. "I was looking for my sister!!," she explained. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry," she returned to the darker wolf. Her hazel eyes falling down guiltily. Desna felt even worse when she heard that her mother was asking for her. Tears popped into her eyes. "Mama asked for me?," she sounded so small. Now she felt horrible. Her tail dropped limply.

Densa hadn't noticed that Nanook was pretty close by already. Desna bit the inside of her cheek, pushing herself to her feet. Her eyes a bit hardened. She was almost 7 months old, close to being an adult. She should behave better than this. She looked over her shoulder, feeling a bit defeated still. "Maybe I should go see my mother soon," she spoke to Ukko, not yet leaving yet. She hated seeing her mother so sick. Desna didn't want her to be sick.

The sound of her sister came through the trees, accompanied by a deeper note she did not recognize. But the voices were muffled, and Nanook couldn't make out their words. It occurred to her this was her last chance to turn around, and her chest tightened in a sickening knot. Her step staggered with the sudden panic, but she resumed a steady onward trot. Where her stubbornness once made her push Desna away, it now kept her from running again. Confronting her sister rocked her with inexplicable fear, but she had made up her mind, and no one could change that - not even her.

The only words Nanook caught before she burst into the clearing were lost on her the moment she lay eyes on Desna. The girl's paws froze to the ground and her legs grew rigid, a resistance from the ice still gripping her heart. But fractures chipped away at the frozen cage, crevices Nanook hadn't been able to mend, and when she saw her sister now - though she knew nothing of what had happened in the days she had been gone - a surge of desperation flooded her face and mind. Her tunnel-focus made the man in her peripheral inconsequential; it was Desna she was after, but the anxious fear of actually standing here turned her words to a gawking silence.

Last post from me!

“You should,” he tells with a slight smile. Scarlett seeing her child would do her good, he thinks, and cheer her up enough for her to stop talking and thinking about death. She’d see how much she has to live for. It will all be well once again, she’ll see.

Ukko opens his jaws again to speak but the tree line breaks with another wolf, young in features, rushing toward Desna. The call had been originally for the girl’s sister and he makes the assumption the wolf headed their way is such a wolf. His tail wags a few times but he nods his head and leaves the two to catch up. He passes a knowing look to Desna, encouraging her to make her visit soon.

Desna was about to leave when she realized that her sister was her. Desna's ears perked up when seeing her. The girl wanted to be angry at Nanook but she couldn't not really. Because she knew that if she would be angry she might chase Nanook away. The dark girl looked at her paws for a moment. "Mama is ill," she stated, like that would make them magically get along again. "You better come with me," Desna spoke, not really wanting to talk about what happened before. She just felt like Nanook would have to go to her mother first, she was weak and Desna had the feeling that she wouldn't be alive for long.

Shall we wrap this up soon since we have other threads? :3