At a month old, Eljay still wasn't exactly where he technically should have been. He was still small, still tired, still weak by all indications but for what his parents knew that no others did - He was the one who survived. Of all that they'd lost, Eljay had been the one strong enough to make it into this world, which made him stronger by far than any other pup born in the Wilds. At least, such was his doting mother's opinion, and she did tend to be a bit biased.
With Eljay nestled in a particularly cozy patch of bedding, Fin found herself enjoying a rare moment that appeased both her desire to never ever ever ever ever be away from her son, but also her desire to have her freedom. While the little Blackthorn slept soundly inside, Fin lounged just inside the mouth of the den with her front half soaking in the warmth of the sun's rays that peeked through the tall evergreens. Elwood had dropped by earlier to offer her a nice lunch and since finishing the meat upon the raccoon's bones, Fin had amused herself by gnawing upon the remainder of the skeleton.
Wildfire had spent a few days resting at the rendezvous site following another allergic reaction. She was pretty sure she knew exactly what caused them now: pine cones. This last episode had been the worst yet, causing her face to itch, burn and swell. It had caused shortness of breath too. It had taken her several hours to recover and these past few days to fully recuperate. Raven had proved to be a huge help and she was feeling a whole lot better as of this morning. From now on, she would just have to make sure to avoid pine cones at all costs.
Feeling not only better but downright energetic after that whole ordeal, Wildfire picked a playful fight with her sister, then joined her mother for a lunchtime patrol. Afterward, Fox left to go find Peregrine and her petite lookalike trotted in an aimless direction. She thought about visiting Sebastian, yet her recent encounter with his "evil twin" held her back. She didn't feel much like exploring, either, because of said altercation. She decided to head back toward the territory's interior and visit her godparents, then maybe go scouting for items to add to her collection.
"Aunt Flea!" she called as loud as she could (which wasn't loud at all) as she neared the Beta pair's den and saw her very favorite aunt sprawled in its mouth. She rushed right up to the gray she-wolf and buried her head in the side of Finley's neck, then settled on her haunches nearby. "What'cha eating? Where's baby Elwood?" she wondered, eyes bouncing from the skeleton to the dim den and back to Finley's face.
Finley's ears perked at the sound of footfalls upon the forest floor. Soon enough, Wildfire's scent touched her senses and a smile broke upon her face as the girl then came into view. "Well hello, Wiffle," she greeted, twisting her head to lick the girl's ruff as she smushed her face into her neck. "Raccoon," she answered, nudging the body towards the fiery girl a bit, "Feel free to partake. Not much left, but." She shrugged.
"He's in the back of the den, sleeping," Fin assured her, glancing over her shoulder at the little lump in the bedding she knew to be her son, "He had a big day - he moved a whole two feet on his own. It was quite impressive." She grinned at her little joke. Likely she should have been perturbed at how underdeveloped her son was, but she as nothing but proud of how he was growing - at his own pace, clearly, but still trucking along.
Finley invited Wildfire to partake in some of the leftover scraps. As a growing pup, Wildfire was very rarely not hungry, so she waved her tail and bent down to nibble a little meat off the closest bone. As she snacked, she kept her eyes and ears on her aunt, who mentioned Elwood Jr's big day. He had wiggled two whole feet on his own, apparently.
"Is that a lot?" she asked innocently. "Will he be able to play soon?" she wondered. She tried to come visit him from time to time but definitely didn't come around as often as she had thought she would, mostly because baby Elwood didn't do much yet. Wildfire very much looked forward to the day when he could see, hear, speak, walk and play with her, though.
Fin nodded with a smile. "It is, for Eljay at least," she replied. He was definitely less active than the firebirds had been - even little Raven who had been such a lazy little girl. She had turned out wonderfully though, and Finley had no doubt that so too would her perfect little boy.
"One day soon, he'll be up and about, just like you kids were," Fin said confidently when Wildfire asked, "Then you guys can come over and start teaching him stuff - how to play, how to dig... You can teach him about your trades too. Maybe he can be a naturalist with you." Once again, Fin's hopes for her son's future girlfriend began to peek out at the world. What was the harm in a little nudge here and there?
Finley seemed very optimistic about her son's bright future, so Wildfire took her cues from her aunt. "Oh, good," she replied smilingly. "Maybe," she agreed. It was hard to tell where Elwood Jr's interests would lie at this point in his life, though perhaps Wildfire would have a part in shaping them. "Think he'll be a Warrior and Outrider too, like you and me?"
That caused the little girl to think of something. "Can you and me go on an Outrider adventure someday? Like, just the two of us?" None of her other family members were Outriders, nor much into traveling, so Finley was the obvious choice for a partner in crime. But she knew her godmother was busy, between her leadership duties and her bouncing baby boy, so she might have to wait.
Fin had a lot of hopes for what her son would turn out to be. Oddly enough, she didn't particularly want for him to be a warrior. At least, not the way that she was. Warriors had to put themselves in danger too much, and she simply couldn't bear the thought of him being hurt. Being a Redhawk though, she knew that either warrior or warden would be expected of him. She much preferred he become a warden. Somehow, that seemed to be the more sheltered trade in her mind. "Maybe... I dunno, I kind of think he'll be more of a homebody like his dad," she commented.
Fins ears perked at Wildfire's request, and though it surprised her for a moment, a smile quickly broke across her muzzle. Now that she was more comfortable with others watching her son allowing her to be away from him, "Yeah, we can do that," Finley agreed with a smile, "We're working on weaning Eljay right now. Maybe in a couple weeks once that's done and I can be away from him longer, we can take a little trip?"
Finley seemed enthusiastic about the idea and even gave Wildfire a timeline of a few weeks. A bolt of excitement shot through her and the girl favored her aunt with a broad grin reserved only for the most special of wolves. "Awesome!" she replied. She then giggled and opined, "Wean is a really weird word. That means he's learning to eat meat, right?"
Speaking of eating, Wildfire's appetite disappeared as excitement filled her belly instead. She stopped nibbling at her godmother's kill and instead focused more on their upcoming vacation plans. "What direction do you wanna go? North, east, south or west?" Wildfire wondered, subtly trying to show off her knowledge in the quiet hopes that it would impress the much more experienced Outrider.
Fin snorted with laughter when Wildfire made note of how strange a word 'wean' was. "It really is, isn't it?" she commented idly as she repeated the word in her head, each time it sounding sillier and sillier. "Wean. Weeeean. Weeaaaaaaaan," with her last pronunciation, she reached over to snort and sniffle loudly in one of her goddaughter's large ears, pulling back after a moment with a little grin and nodding to confirm that it did indeed mean that little Eljay was becoming a self-sufficient carnivore.
Wildfire began to suggest directions and Fin regarded her with a thoughtful purse of her lips. "Well, which directions have you been?" she asked, "And which direction would you like to go? I've been everywhere, and I want us to go wherever you want to explore." Fin was happy to play bodyguard as opposed to navigator, and there wasn't too much left around the Caldera that she hadn't explored herself so it made more sense to her to let Wildfire decide.
We should have their field trip soon! :D
Finley bounced the question back at her.
"Um," she thought aloud, trying to remember. She looked around herself as if checking the current position of the sun or the angle of her shadow might answer her aunt's question. Of course, that was silly.
"Southeast, I think..." she answered after a moment,
"and then just south too. I think that's it. I'm not that good at directions yet," she confessed. They were a nifty tool, though it would take lots of exploring, adventuring and actual utilization to really get them down pat.
She knew north was off limits but did not know that she would venture there (unwittingly at first, then purposefully later) in the coming weeks, just like she didn't realize she would also get to see a bit of the lands to the east with Magpie in the near future. So Wildfire said,
"East or west. Which one would be more fun? What's the funnest place you've ever been to, Aunt Flea?" she suddenly wondered.
Fin furrowed her brow thoughtfully as Wildfire explained where it was she'd been, grinning mildly as she looked about herself. For a moment, she allowed a swallow of guilt down her throat over how little time she'd spent lately with her goddaughter. The sound of Eljay rolling to his side inside of the den put an end to it quickly enough for it reminded her that she'd had perfectly good reason for her neglect. Still, both of them were incredibly important to her, and though the Blackthorn may not have been able to make good on it for a while, she promised herself to start paying more attention to her other children when she could, even though she hadn't exactly popped them out of her own babymaker.
"The funnest place I've ever been to..." Fin replied thoughtfully, pursing her lips as her mind drifted back into her memory, "Well... The coolest place I've been in this area was actually when I lived back at the Plateau with your dad. A friend and I climbed up into the mountains that bordered our territory and eventually we came upon this super cool lake way, way up in the mountains that lead into a river, which then emptied into this huuuuuge waterfall. I swear the water fell for ages and ages, it was so cool..."
For the first time in a while, her old friend Kaihra popped into her mind. A twinge of melancholy struck her then. She had missed the woman since leaving, though it was a feeling that she had gotten over quickly enough. She had counted Kaihra as one of her good friends of course, but she hadn't quite made it to the rank of family, which was evidenced by the fact that Fin had chosen to follow Peregrine and Fox rather than stay at the Plateau with her and...
Oh boy, that was a thought she didn't want to explore.
"You never know what you can find out there," Fin added after a beat, "Even the dullest places can end up surprising you, which is what makes being an outrider so much fun."
Although the question was spontaneous, she listened intently for the answer. She pictured the mountains, the hidden lake and the waterfall to the best of her ability and suddenly desperately wanted to go there and see for herself. Surely Aunt Finley would still remember the way and it would be the perfect destination for their upcoming joint jaunt!
"Let's go there!" she shouted, as loud as Wildfire could shout, which wasn't very loud at all. "It's not too close to the plateau, is it?" she questioned, biting her lower lip and looking at Finley, her golden brown eyes wide with worry and hope.
It seemed she had set fire to Wifi's imagination for the goldenrod of her eyes began to sparkle with an adventurous light. She chuckled at her gusto, which was apparent even in the quiet of her damaged voice. The question made her frown slightly, though.
"The path I found was right in the heart of the pack's claim, so we'd either have to join their ranks or sneak in to get to it," Fin replied. Both options were likely doomed to fail given the relationship they had with the Plateau wolves. In her younger days, she would have been all about sneaking in. She certainly knew the land well enough and would probably have an easy time of navigating the less traveled areas, especially now that much of it had been savaged by fire (though Fin was not aware of that). It could work... But no, that would be stupid even for her, though she came to that conclusion only because she would have Wildfire in tow.
"We could always try and find another way to it though starting at a different point in the mountains," Fin offered instead with a wag of her tail, "The falls empty out into a ravine on the other side of the mountain, so at the very least, we can see it from the bottom." They had also gotten to it before when she had convinced Fox to leap into a deep cave with her... But again, that was Fox, not her sweeter, more fragile daughter.
The expectant fire in her eyes dimmed somewhat when her aunt informed her that the path lay in the center of Blacktail Deer Plateau territory. She understood Finley's next comments to be jokes or wishful thinking. The plateau wolves knew who they were, so there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell they'd successfully infiltrate their ranks. And sneaking in would be a death wish. Wildfire wanted to go on adventures but not that badly.
Her godmother ended on an optimistic note and Wildfire seized upon her suggestion. "Yeah! That could be our mission: find another way in." Finley's tail wagged and so did the little dhole lookalike's. Wildfire then stretched her neck toward the den's mouth and stage-whispered, "Are you weaned yet, Elwood Jr?" Of course, she was kidding. She tossed an impish grin at her aunt, her amber eyes now flickering with the fire of adventure again.
wanna finish this one up? :)
Fin nodded her agreement. Finding another way in sounded way safer than sneaking into the Plateau. Sure they'd be climbing over mountains and unexplored, potentially treacherous terrain. But they would be fine. If Fin hadn't died yet doing everything she had in her life, then this little trip certainly wouldn't do it.
Probably.
A laugh escaped her greyscale muzzle when Wildfire whispered to Eljay.
"He's getting there," Fin assured her before giving a thoughtful glance to what was left of the raccoon. Pulling herself to all fours, she snatched it up and turned to drag it into the depths of the den.
"Let's see if he's hungry, eh?" she invited her goddaughter,
"He aren't gonna wean himself." He periodically could be coaxed into slurping up some well chewed meats - maybe today was one of those days, and then they'd be one step closer to their trip.