Lake Rodney stars, tell me your stories

@Phox zodiac time? :D

He lingered along the northern side of Lake Rodney that night, having found the other night that it was a lovely place for a visit. The stars were reflected in the lake, though not as beautifully as the other night he'd been there, and he had settled on a small hill near the water's edge where he could overlook the water as well as the skies and stars above. Even though it was a bit too close to Redhawk Caldera to his liking (which he, even though Peregrine and Fox were no longer there, still felt grudges against) it was a nice spot with a good view. There was a content smile on Charon's face as he sat there and looked to the skies in silence.

Yasss!

Phox had taken to wandering at night and sleeping during the day the past few months. It seemed to be his natural schedule. He was quite the nocturnal creature these days, waking at dusk and snoozing right around the time the sun came up. After letting Raven know where he was going (like the goody-two-shoes he was), Phox made his way to Lake Rodney where he had a clearer view of the sky.

The moon was beginning to grow in size again, though it had been completely invisible several nights prior. Phox took note of this, and also the bright star (Regulus) that was to the right and closer to the horizon in relation to the moon. Wanting to get a better look at the other half of the sky, Phox began to make his way around the lake, and eventually spotted the white figure lurking on the shore.

Curious and friendly, Phox approached with a soft "woof," to greet the other wolf. Maybe he was out here stargazing, too!

As another wolf approached, Charon did not even take note that it was a wolf from Redhawk Caldera. It was mostly Peregrine and Fox that he had associated with the Caldera (he kept forgetting that 'barf face' was from there, too) and they were also the idiots that made his associations with the pack negative. So when someone else approached and woofed to announce their presence, Charon didn't think unkindly right away. As a matter of fact, his latest children had survived some of their most fragile phases and he was in a good mood at having his freedom back. Life was good, for now, and this spring and summer had certainly been a hell of a lot better than last year's shit parade.

This young wolf made him feel compassionate because he had children, too, and he seemed friendly enough. He cast a fleeting glance back at the skies before turning his head to face the young wolf. "Are you out stargazing too?" he asked; he hoped the answer would be 'yes', because he didn't really feel like aborting his own stargaze for a random conversation with some youth, but he didn't mind the company.

Before Phox had a chance to ask the question that was on the tip of his tongue, the white wolf confirmed his suspicions. Phox, being the ever-jovial boy he was, gave the stranger a toothy grin. "Yeah!" he confirmed, tail waving back and forth, "My sister has been teaching me all about Zodiac stuff." Phox wasn't sure if the Zodiac was common knowledge, but considering Raven had learned from somebody else, it wasn't totally bogus to think that this guy might know, too.

"Do you know 'bout that?" he asked, eager to soak up whatever information he could from his fellow stargazer.

Charon took a liking to the youth, though he couldn't quite pinpoint why. There was something about the boy's eagerness and enthusiasm that made Charon excited, too; it was the same sort of effect Eshe'd had on him once. He spoke of his sister and how she'd been teaching him. Charon knew nothing about 'zodiac stuff' so his interest was instantly piqued. The stars were so infinitely vast that it seemed impossible to learn everything.

"No. What's zodiac stuff?" Charon looked at the boy and then asked, uncharacteristically so, "Can you teach me?" He thought of his own little boy and then decided it wouldn't hurt to give the youth a confidence boost by letting him know he had information Charon wanted.

Perhaps, in time, Phox's over-the-top joyous nature would subside and he would get more sullen and serious with more tragedy in his life. In a way, he had been spared the death of his parents by them dying before he was even alive to know them. They were more ideas in his head than actual wolves. But that was not Phox's focus right now, and only some insight into his little pea brain to fill a paragraph.

Charon asked to be taught! What a crazy world. Phox had, of course, taught Towhee a thing or two about the sky (or tried, at least), but teaching a strange adult was a whole new thrill! "Of course!" he replied, doing a piss-poor job of containing his excitement. "Zodiac is, like, all the pictures in the sky. Like that one over there," Phox said, pointing to the west, "That's Leo the cougar. He devours pups who are naughty." Remembering how Sassafrass had taught him, he recreated the stars with a few lighter stones on the ground. "See it?" he asked expectantly.

Charon was charmed and endeared by the boy's enthusiasm. He felt estranged of himself when he realised this, because he'd never really been one to be charmed by anyone. Becoming a father had made him soft, he deducted, though Charon couldn't quite tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe a bit of both.

Zodiac was apparently another word for constellations, as far as Charon could tell, judging by the description of pictures in the sky. He nodded as he listened to the boy and glanced up into the sky. Knowing many constellations, Charon easily found the one that the boy mentioned. "I see it," he shared with a smile, and chuckled at the boy's description of the zodiac Leo. He wondered who'd taught him. Oldest trick in the book, of course, to teach pups stories about things that took care of naughty pups. "Who taught you these things? Do you know more?"

"My sister, Raven. She learnt from somebody else." He didn't know from whom she had learned, but she seemed to know an awful lot. "Yeah! There's a different one for each cycle of the moon," Phox explained, "but you can see more than one at a time." He was still learning about when they came around, and obviously he hadn't seen all of them, but he was sure that he would. It was only a matter of time!

"This one," Phox explained, rearranging the rocks in a different formation, "is Virgo, the mother. She looks after each and every one of us and makes sure that we're safe. Raven said that she was kinda like a mom for those that didn't have moms anymore, like me." Phox bit his lip, hoping that was true. He loved each and every one of his guardians at Redhawk Caldera, but he often wondered what it would have been like to have a real mother and father.

Charon smiled as he mentioned his sister Raven had taught him. He hoped that his own baby children would be like that some day — that Hydra, Lyra and Alya and maybe even Julia would teach them and they'd fondly tell others about their bonds with their older siblings. "A different one for each moon cycle?" he asked, a detail he knew nothing about. "What do you mean by that?"

The stones were rearranged as he mentioned Virgo and Charon thought it was quite a clever way to teach others. He always just impatiently pointed to the skies but somehow no one ever saw it all too easily, except for a few naturals.

His smile fell when the boy said he no longer had a mother. Charon thought back to his own mother and then to how well he'd done in life; and he didn't feel too sorry, then. The boy'd be fine, he deducted, since he was a social kid with a good pair of brains by the looks of it. "That sucks." Was one way to put it. "My mother died when I was very young too," Charon said with a careful, sad smile. "Whenever I look at the stars, it feels like she's still with me in a way. Like she's up there, smiling down on me." He had never considered it might be because of Virgo, never having heard that story before, and suddenly wondered if that's why it felt that way; because Virgo made sure that their moms were still with them in some way.

Phox furrowed his brow, trying to remember what Raven had said, but he couldn't seem to pull it to the forefront of his mind. He felt kinda stupid, and he shrugged sheepishly. "I don't remember exactly what Raven said," he replied. "I bet she could explain it better if I asked her." Phox planned on doing just that. Raven was always so helpful whenever he had questions about anything, and he was so glad she had been around all this time. He had grown exceptionally close to her over the past few months, spending night after night drinking up information about the stars.

When Charon mentioned about how he thought his mother was looking down on him, Phox lit up. "Hey, Sebastian said that, too!" So maybe it was true. Phox looked up at the sky again, feeling a sense of warmth from the dark, cool sky. Phox took a moment to bask in that sensation, suddenly feeling very glad that he'd ventured a little away from home tonight.

Charon nodded as the boy said that Raven could explain it better, deciding to let it rest for now. Raven wasn't here, after all. Maybe he'd learn about the zodiac-per-moon-cycle thing some other day.

At first Charon didn't remember anyone named Sebastian, but then suddenly he remembered. It was the guy from Broken Antler Fen whose son he'd agreed to teach, who'd also delivered him Lazarus' corpse. "Sebastian from Broken Antler Fen? Are you from there too?" he asked curiously, wondering if the boy was from the Fen too and therefore knew the same Sebastian.

Charon completely derailed the conversation, and Phox was about to point out how rude that was, but he thought against it. Instead, he huffed, then tried to recall where Sebastian and his family were from. But really, he couldn't be sure. "Maybe he is. He hasn't always lived there. He and his family came to live with us at Redhawk Caldera this year," Phox explained, to the best of his ability.

"How'd you know him?" Phox asked. "Did you live there, too?" Had some of the wolves split up into two different groups? Phox hated the thought of being split up from his family, especially Towhee, and now he was jumping to all sorts of conclusions. "Are you two brothers?" he asked.

Charon got more than he bargained for in the answer; he'd only wanted to find out whether the kid was from the Fen, but instead he started on a tangent about Sebastian. To top things off the kid admitted to coming from the Caldera, and it didn't make him much more popular to Charon, who didn't like the Caldera wolves even though he had no more reason to hate them now that Peregrine and Fox were dead. He didn't let it show much though, just nodding while the kid continued to talk. It was just a child, he told himself, and so far things had been pleasant. Maybe not all Redhawk Caldera wolves were terrible, and he still had to meet the new leaders there, anyway.

"No," Charon answered, "Uh, to all those things. I just met him a couple of times, because Moonspear's rather close to where he used to live. I didn't realise he'd moved." Then, after a short and somewhat awkward pause, Charon decided, "I should head home to my family. Thanks for the lessons... What's your name?" Realising he hadn't given his own either, probably, since he didn't know the kid's name, he added, "I'm Charon Ostrega, from Moonspear. Maybe we'll meet again sometime, maybe Raven can show us both some new stuff in the future, huh?"

Last one from me; thanks so much!

Oops, there he went, blabbering on too much and asking too many questions. His ears flattened when he realized that he'd gone off on a tangent, but at least the guy (who introduced himself as Charon) was nice enough about it. He half-excused himself, but he asked for Phox's name and half-made plans to meet up again. "Oh yeah, I'd love that!" Phox replied jovially. "I'm Phox Redhawk! From... oh, I already told you that. From Redhawk Caldera."

Phox could tell that Charon was itching to get home, so he didn't want to be rude and keep him around. "I should go home, too! Bye-bye, mister!" And without any further words of farewell, Phox bowed briefly, then scuttled of toward Redhawk Caldera. It would be dawn soon, and that meant nap time!

Charon smiled at the boy's jovial demeanour, imagining that his parents must be proud of him (and having no clue that his parents were in fact his semi-self-assigned nemeses who were now dead). Phox, then. Phox said he should be off and Charon shared a last "Bye!" before he turned in Moonspear's direction and started heading on home. Interacting with the youth made him want to see his own son again, whom he hoped would be as great as Phox when he grew a bit older.