Pan was over the moon with the officialisation with her relationship status with Peregrine. At the same time, she felt a little tense over it all: she hadn't yet confessed her gender confusion to Perry, like she had to Reek, and she still wished that she could have Perry all to herself. Besides, what would Fox say if she found out that Pan didn't actually feel like she was a guy? Perry's additional lovers were limited to males, Pan was pretty sure. And what if Perry decided to take on another lover? It was hard enough as it was sharing him with Fox.
Still, it was better than nothing, and Pantaleimon felt happier than ever before.
After what happened to Sebastian, Pan hadn't really intended to actually return to Redtail Rise anytime soon. She hoped Reek'd visit her and had waited and listened for his howl in nearby territories, but it hadn't come so far. He'd been there when Sebastian had been hurt, and Pan's heart worried for a visit... But she really wanted to tell Reek. And somehow, her paws started to carry her further and further from Redhawk Caldera and in the direction of Redtail Rise, of Reek, because he was the only one who actually knew her -- who knew what she was.
When Pan reached Dawnlark Plains near sunset, she started to fidget. She watched the Rise in the distance and felt her heart throb in her chest at the knowledge it wouldn't be smart to go up to its borders. She wondered if she was close enough for Reek to hear her. Suddenly, Pan started to doubt if she really should call for him, or if it was better to turn tail and leave. Peregrine's comfortable scent -- as well as that of the whole family, as Pan stayed with them at the rendezvous site now -- was still on her, near her, and Pan suddenly ached to lay by his side and sleep by his side. Pan, about halfway through Dawnlark Plains, looked over her shoulder and fidgetted a little in place while she tried to decide whether to try and find Reek or go home to her lover.
Disentangling herself from her snoozing lover, Saena shook the sleep from her body and emerged from their private cavern into the deluge from the waterfall. Being soaked to the bone upon waking up was becoming something of a routine. The alpha female didn't enjoy it at first, but now that she was getting used to it, she would miss the morning and mid-afternoon refreshment if ever it dried up. She made the short swim through the pool to the opposite shore, shook herself again, and headed for the southern borders.
She decided upon arrival to sweep along the eastern side of the ridge for her morning patrol, so she began to walk briskly along the well-worn trail, stopping every now and again to refresh scent markers that were growing dull. Patrolling itself was dull, especially when she could've been sleeping in with Reek, but necessary. Saena went about it with all the vigour of an 80-year-old grandmother, at least until she broke the trees at the south-western tip of their claim. From here, she could see the majority of the plains stretching below.
And there, central, was a small white dot. There were no other figures around it, so Saena knew it was either another wolf or a dog, seeing as polar bears didn't exist so far south (if you didn't count the ghastly one that occasionally appeared to her, which was just now following her from about twenty feet away). Intrigued and in the mood to try to recruit new bodies into the Rise's ranks, the alpha female slipped away from the border and began to lope across the distance between them. The closer she got, the more certain she was that the other creature was indeed a wolf. She approached jovially, with her shortened tail flagging just above her hips.
That is, until she ran headlong into a wall of Peregrine's scent. She stopped for a second, quivering on the spot, to smell again and... yep, the air was perfumed with the scent of her murderous father. That was enough to send Saena into a rage. Her quivering turned to agitated trembling, her flagging tail was now stiff as a mast and held as high as possible, and her ears flipped aggressively forward. She contorted her face into a dangerous snarl and accelerated her lope into a flat-out run at the other wolf.
How dare they get this close. Larksong Grotto was bad enough but this, this was a directly adjacent territory, practically their backyard. If she was a rational wolf she would know Pantaleimon was too far away to cause any harm, but she was not rational, not when it came to Redhawk wolves.
Mere feet from Pantaleimon, however, Saena stopped. She snarled deep in her throat, a constant cacophany, and stood tall and proud. Everything about her screamed her intent to attack, and kill if needbe, the stranger in front of her. Yet Saena knew that their treatment of Sebastian had been vindictive and hasty, and for that reason alone, Saena made an offer. "You have five seconds to explain yourself." Her tone left no room for argument. Failure to either explain or flee would result in an all-out assault from the overly territorial, very pissed off alpha female, who had no patience left for wolves of their ilk.
Pantaleimon sighed softly to herself while she considered what to do; she still hadn’t made up her mind. She really wanted to turn around and just go back to Peregrine, but another part of her felt like she’d travelled way too far to not go and see Reek. To at least try and see him. Then she thought of Sebastian and a chill ran down her spine, and she’d just go back to staring into the distance, inverted into her own mind and unable to make a proper decision.
That is, until she saw the approach of another wolf. Distant at first; it piqued Pantaleimon’s curiosity, but that curiosity soon faded when the stranger got closer. Pan’s heart caught in her throat as the young female approached with bared teeth and hostile stature.
With her tail tucked between her legs, Pantaleimon instantly threw her large body to the ground, reverting to her most primal instincts. The fact that her could be assailant was a female didn’t help. It felt like minutes had to have passed – although in reality, it was mere seconds – since the female had asked her to explain herself before Pan managed to find her voice at all. ”I w-w-wuh-wuhs vuh-v-vih…” Pan kept her eyes trained on the grass between her legs while she tried to find the words, but everything just seemed to get stuck in her throat while she tried to explain herself, so she took a deep breath while she tried to collect herself and muttered a barely audible, ”sorry,” though to an onlooker who caught the word it would not be clear if it was intended towards the one who questioned her, or towards Pan herself.
Pantaleimon fell limply to the ground, curling up his figure into something resembling a fetus. Saena's aggression faltered for a moment, her baser nature appeased by this show of submission, but her patience began to wear dangerously thin when in lieu of an explanation she received a garbled mess of sounds. She took a threatening step forward, fully intending to end this wolf's life if they didn't start talking now, but again she stopped when the barest whisper of the word "sorry" pressed into her ears.
For the briefest of seconds, Saena almost believed there could be an innocent Redhawker. That not all of them necessarily agreed with their alphas. That not all of them would blindly follow Peregrine and Fox into the bloodbath they seemed to want so damn badly. But it was nothing but a thought and it disappeared immediately, because that was ridiculous. Any wolf who followed them supported them, even if they didn't do so outwardly. She'd told Sebastian the same thing and if it came to it, she would prove it here.
"Well? What do you want?" It was clear by now that Pantaleimon posed absolutely no thread to Redtail Rise. Saena's manner was still harsh, though, because of where Pantaleimon came from. She didn't give a rat's ass if the wolf was harmless when they hailed from a pack of murderous monsters. This was the last time she would ask. If she didn't receive an answer this time, the alpha female would throw any last shred of inhibition aside and go for Pantaleimon's throat.
Pantaleimon's heart raced in her throat while she stared at the grass between her paws, unwilling and unable to look up at the face of the angered female. Even without smelling Reek on her fur it was not that hard for Pantaleimon to understand what pack the blazing young female was from. This had to be Saena, another of Peregrine's angry children.
There was so much that Pan wanted to say, but first and foremost she wanted to come up with things to preserve herself: that she was a friend of Reek's, for example. Reek had warned her, of course, but somehow the warning had not seemed like so much of a threat when they were standing side by side near Redtail Rise territory, smiling sadly and both wishing that the relations between their packs were different.
Pan tried to find the equolence to say her name and mention she was friends with Reek, but she didn't quite manage. "F-f-fuh-fuhruh," And so, failing horribly to say even mere words, she decided to shorten it even further, while she feared not only Saena's wrath, but felt like a massive disappointment to Peregrine, who mere days ago had said they should be more agressive, act more feral. And here she was. On the ground. About ready to wet herself. "R-ruh-ree -- Ruh-reek's, h-he..." Pan stammered hoarsely while she imagined Perry's disappointed face looking over Saena's very angry shoulder. She trailed off then, looking up at Saena for the briefest of moments before averting her gaze again.
Saena was about two seconds away from ripping Pantaleimon's face right off when instead of supplying an answer, the male stammered some more. Oh for fuck's sake, she internally swore, did I get the resident handicap? Normally this sort of thought would never, ever cross her mind but this wolf was seriously being a pain in the ass. She'd been gracious enough to give him the opportunity to explain himself, something that wasn't given to her, and he came up with this?
She was half a second from lunging when her ears twisted forward to catch Reek from among the wolf's nonsensical sputtering. That stopped her for good. There was only one wolf from Redhawk Caldera that had any reason to seek out Reek, and that was his friend, whom Saena had agreed to grant asylum. Pantaleimon was the only wolf from that pack she wouldn't kill on sight (after giving a five second chance to run or talk their way out of it), but she didn't have the slightest idea what Reek's friend looked like.
"What do you want with Reek?" she asked, less severely now. Her tail still lashed behind her and she was still tense and incredibly irate, but suspecting that this was Reek's friend from the Caldera, Saena put her aggression aside... for now.
Saena’s demeanor seemed to shift at least a little bit at the mention of Reek, much to Pan’s relief. She closed her eyes a brief moment, wishing she had turned tail and ran rather than submitted to the Rise’s presumable Alpha. It would’ve been much easier. If only talking and socialization came easier to her; it had never been Pantaleimon’s forte. Especially in the face of a dominant, aggressive Alpha Female – a Queen.
Pantaleimon scrambled to her feet, somewhat, but kept low to the ground, keeping a close eye on Saena as she did so. If the Queen would show signs of aggression, she’d remain on the ground. Pan just wanted a better vantage point: a chance to run away if she needed to. Part of her felt indignant that she could not even see Reek, but then, she understood. They were wild animals, after all, and maybe she had come too close.
”He – h-he’s m –m… f-f-friend,” Pantaleimon stammered. She hated when words refused to come out, when she was nervous and reduced to a stuttering idiot. Right not there was no use fussing over it, though. All she really wanted was to see Reek right now, so that she could feel safe again.
Imagine that! More fucking stammering. Saena'd about had it with this wolf and their apparent speech disability. She was about to dismiss him completely with a half-turn away from him, believing him to be entirely inept and therefore as non-threatening as a fly, when he managed to croak out that Reek was his friend. This caused Saena to freeze on the spot, but her ruddy ears flicked in Pantaleimon's direction.
Slowly she turned to face him once more, more understanding now, but clearly still agitated. Whether it was with Pantaleimon's stuttering or with his presence in the north, even she couldn't say. "You're that Pants guy he talks about, aren't you?" she said wonderingly, then grumbled, "why the hell didn't you just say so?" Talk like a normal wolf, you idiot, is what she kind of wanted to say, for if it wasn't clear by now, Saena still didn't realize that Pantaleimon was as timid as a mouse. Reek being friends with such a shy and soft-spoken creature seemed so unlikely that the thought never even came to mind.
Finally Saena seemed to calm down, and Pantaleimon could not have expressed in words how relieved she was for it, even if she had managed the guts to do so. When Saena asked if she was 'Pants', Pan nodded with a meek, forced smile on her face (even though she felt horrible, Reek's nickname for her still brought a small smile to her lips).
"I... S-sorry," Pan mumbled and she looked briefly at Saena's face before looking away again. She wanted to explain, but what was there to explain, beside the fact that she was a terrible wolf? Pantaleimon swallowed dryly and remained on the floor, not sure what to do next. Luckily talking was a lot easier now that Pan no longer felt in mortal danger, however, even though she was still nervous and therefore stammered when she talked. "I j-just wanted to - to visit uhm, Reek to - for t-telling him a-about my, uhm... my lover, 'cause w-we t-talked, uhm, l-last time, about -- talked about that." Pan looked away, feeling stupid and rambly. She didn't even think about the fact that Saena was Peregrine's daughter at that moment, as she had never met her personally before. Otherwise she might not have even considered Saena might relay her message to Reek, if he wasn't nearby himself.
The alpha in her wanted to do something oppressive, like shoving the other wolf's snout into the dirt just to exercise her power, but that wasn't in her nature. The brief surge of egotism faltered under the strength of her true character, which was gentle. In fact, prior to defending herself from Fox, Saena had never harmed another wolf. Not intentionally. And aside from Sebastian, she had never done so willingly.
She listened to Pan's explanation with a little more patience now, though the man's persistent stutter almost made her want to roll her eyes. She barely refrained. Instead she frowned thoughtfully, then asked, "does Reek know your lover, then?" She couldn't think of any other reason two males would discuss lovers with one another. The truth of it was far too complex for her to imagine. After all, her father had taken two lovers while still living at the plateau and had made a show of it to boot, but neither of them had the same secret identity that Pantaleimon did.
And so she would just continue thinking it was weird for men to discuss their lovers with one another, since it seemed like a private topic to her.
Saena seemed a little calmer and more patient now, although she still looked pretty angry. However, her slight tolerance at least brought back some of Pantaleimon's powers of speech, and she was grateful for it. She didn't know that Saena still thought her a stammering mess of a wolf; Pan herself was just glad to be able to speak again in a way so that others knew and understood what she was saying.
The question came as a surprise, since Pan didn't think that it would be relevant whether or not Reek knew her lover. The fact that he did know Peregrine -- a little better than Pan would've liked -- changed nothing about the fact they had discussed the affair last time Pan'd visited. "Uhm, yes," Pan said quietly. "But it du-doesn't..." Pan wanted to say 'matter', but left just a bit too much time after 'doesn't', and ended up trailing off there, as she often did, because it felt like it'd be weird to say the last word of her sentence now.
Pantaleimon righted herself then, getting up from the ground, removing herself from the dirt. Ears remained pressed back against her skull, any contact with Saena's face made from the corners of Pan's eyes submissively, and her tail tucked between legs. "I - I'll just, uhm, l-later," Pan muttered awkwardly. She backed off a few steps to indicate that she intended to turn tail and leave rather than visit Reek like she intended to. It seemed like that was what Saena would want, and Pan's desire to see her friend had evaporated throughout this highly uncomfortable meeting. Pan decided she'd visit again, hopefully when Saena wouldn't be around.
Pantaleimon once more trailed off into nonsensical silence and Saena sighed, barely refraining from rolling her eyes at the male. He was a total wreck. At one time, she'd hoped that Reek could convince his friend to leave Redhawk Caldera behind and come to live with him, but she didn't think she could last one day dealing with a wolf like Pan. Maybe he opened up in better company or maybe he was always this bashful, but it was a huge hindrance to any sort of relationship she could've forged with him, and her impatience won out.
"You can come closer and call him if you want, I don't care," Saena said, "but I'm leaving. No offence, but you're impossible to talk to and it's wearing." Pantaleimon, of course, was not allowed beyond the borders of Redtail Rise and he would get a swift ass-kicking if he so much as tried it, but she didn't mind him seeking out Reek, even if he wouldn't say more than two clear words to her. Obviously her lover enjoyed his company. She wouldn't deprive him of that no matter what she thought about Pantaleimon's speech disability.
Pantaleimon took a step back and stammered out something else, but Saena had already turned around to leave. She had no interest in trying to decipher anymore of Pantaleimon's words. Though before she left completely, she couldn't help looking over her shoulder and saying, "make sure you tell my dad I hope his tiny little puppet dick fell off."
Pan looked at the ground when Saena said she was impossible to talk to, feeling self-conscious and scrutinised. "Sorry," she muttered, sad eyes falling upon the ground. Pan decided she'd return some other day -- right now she'd only look shaken and like shit and didn't want Reek to see that side.
Saena left then, and Pan awkwardly brought out a "bye" as she did. Of course, she wasn't going to tell Peregrine what Saena had told him -- as a matter of fact, Pan intended not to tell Perry anything about this altercation. "You stupid idiot," Pantaleimon told herself as she turned away and started on home, feeling ashamed and like a helpless idiot who didn't deserve all that she had.