he had not been to this place since his last meeting with
@Peregrine, but lasher happily trekked down from donnelaith. blue willow had given up her position as alpha female -- he worried over this, but knew she would be pleased to resume her duties as medic, especially if the love between dante and osprey came to bloom in the form of children. aria had gone exploring -- with a word to the silver beta that he would only be gone a short while, the druid departed.
a short while later, he lay in the warm sunlight, half-dozing. the carcass of a suckling pig lay nearby -- the panther was welcome to partake if he so chose. lasher settled himself into a
lax pose and fell into the hypnotic drone of insects and of bird-chatter.
Now that the pups were living at the rendezvous site, it was time to start cutting the umbilical cord. This meant leaving them totally unsupervised for short stretches of time. It was difficult but necessary if the Alpha pair wanted their pups to develop and integrate properly. Peregrine would be lying his ass off if he said he didn't secretly hire
@Eljay to keep an eye on them from a distance and pay him under the table (preferred currency: rabbit legs).
Trusting his nephew to keep watch over his rambunctious young sons, Peregrine hobbled on three legs down the caldera, which took about fifty times longer than normal. He grunted when he reached the flatter terrain at its base, then set out directly toward the forest in the distance. Apparently the recent change of scenery at home wasn't enough. He had spent so much time horizontal lately that he wanted to walk just for the sake of it, even if it was slow going.
As ever, he kept his senses peeled for any sign of Lasher—and this time, he was rewarded! Peregrine came to stand over the slumbering man, eyeballing his leftovers before his jade gaze rested on the other male's face. He looked so peaceful. It was very tempting to bat him awake. Instead, the leonine black wolf stretched out beside him with a contented sigh, rolling onto his side and carefully tucking his broken leg closer to his chest.
lasher was not moved awake, but came out of his reverie all the same with the brush of peregrine's dark fur against his own. yet he remained muzzy, though he reached out with his slender muzzle to softly preen the fur around his companion's ruff. he meant to formally offer the remainder of the pig to the caldera wolf, but found that words evaded him in this moment,
it was enough that they should share this time, warmed by the glow of the sun, taltos placidly tugging tangles from the proud ebon hackles, besotted with the scent of his panther, for that was what peregrine was, and would ever remain.
A rumble escaped him when he felt Lasher's teeth combing through his fur. His eyelids fluttered closed, though his head remained upright and he did not sleep. He simply relaxed, letting the April sunlight bake into his dark pelt. Only after a long time did he reopen his eyes, which skirted immediately to his companion's face. He smiled faintly, his skin feeling tight with the sun's heat.
"Oss came by a little while back. It was good to catch up with her," Peregrine murmured, then hummed and asked, "How's Deirdre?"
"i am glad she came here," lasher said gently, pausing for a moment to merely lean his muzzle for a heartbeat against peregrine's shoulder. "deirdre is .. mended. she no longer avoids me." but casmir had gone, and emaleth had become one of the shadows that lay about donnelaith. perhaps it was the nature of things.
"how have you fared, peregrine?" the druid inquired in the next breath, murkwater eyes finding the other's own as he pulled away to reposition himself.
Although he said that Deirdre was on the mend, his hesitant speech caused Peregrine to slant his eyes at him questioningly before looking away again. If Taltos wanted to embellish on anything plaguing him, he knew he knew he would have the black Alpha's attention.
For the moment, Lasher wanted to hear about his side of things. "Well," he drawled, "this happened." He motioned his snout at his crooked leg. "One of my boys rammed me and snapped it like a damn twig." Although his expression was dour, there was amusement in his tone, perhaps even a bit of pride. "We recently relocated them to the rendezvous site. They grow up too damn fast."
peregrine's glance did not go unnoticed; lasher was too slow to answer before the panther revealed his crooked leg. the pride in the panther's tones quite horrified taltos -- was his former lover somehow enthused that his son had effectively lamed him? yet he spoke none of this, ears folding back in an expression of empathy. "have you a healer at the caldera? perhaps i might bring you something."
he smiled then. "my daughters also; they wander the forest now, and i with them. filled with questions and their own observations. deirdre is quite smitten with death now."
He saw the concern knitting his companion's features but Peregrine just shook his head lightly. "No medic. It hurts some but I'm pretty sure it's just a hairline fracture. It'll heal, as long as I keep my weight off it." Even the pain was more manageable now than at first and he didn't feel any particular need to take medicine. Nature would take its course, knitting the bones back together in time.
"Smitten?" he repeated incredulously when introduced to little Deirdre's predilection.
peregrine denied that he needed to be seen, but lasher felt that the panther would say the same even if he bled from his very heart. pride ran close to the surface of the devil. however, he would press it no more -- he nodded and sighed at the other's surprise. "she likes to find dead things; she asks many questions about death. i believe it is part of her process, to heal by confronting that which she does not understand, but it is haunting."
he remembered then, sharply, how they had buried with mourning what they had believed to be junior's remains, and he had the macabre idea that, had they a graveyard in donnelaith, his pale witch would take a dark interest in it.
The swarthy wolf hummed low in his throat, not sure what else to say about that. He could see how it would be disquieting, although youngsters were nothing if not curious, sometimes morbidly so. It was probably just another stage of her grief, like Lasher said, something she would eventually outgrow.
"And what about your other little girl?" Peregrine queried, forgetting her name. He had heard quite a lot about Deirdre because of the special circumstances, yet he felt like he knew nothing of her sister. And though the Alpha typically didn't care about those from outside the pack, he admittedly cared for Lasher (and a few others), and that extended naturally to his offspring.
lasher was relieved to turn their dark talk to lighter subjects. "emaleth is opposite of deirdre in all things. she is turned inward, quiet, content to be alone." in some ways she reminded him of the panther's own daughter, raven. "i teach her the languages that i know, and she does not oft speak them, but i know that she has put the knowledge away for another time."
the druid smile gently. "what of your brood? one is very strong, i see." a teasing light lit his eyes.
He couldn't know that Lasher was thinking the very same thing, yet the description of Emaleth reminded Peregrine of his wayward lookalike too. He hated that Raven had disappeared without so much as a goodbye. Nightjar had recently done the same too, though somehow the latter's departure hadn't really surprised him. Peregrine had hoped that his elder son would embrace his role as a big brother but it had turned out quite the opposite in the end. Such was life.
"Oh, they're a regular batch of rowdy dickbutts," Peregrine replied fondly. "It was Ferret who crippled me. He's thickheaded, literally. He's a little bruiser. The other three aren't quite as salty, though who knows? They're still pretty young." There was plenty of time for them to develop their own personalities. What they had now was just a sneak peek.
"How's everything else in..." Like his daughter's name, the name of Lasher's pack also eluded Peregrine. He smiled sheepishly, hoping Taltos would understand what he was trying to ask.
lasher laughed as peregrine spoke, enjoying the panther's ribald and fond way of referring to his children. ferret -- he still could not imagine how even an imp of a child had fractured his father's leg, but perhaps it was because he had been given daughters, and his sons were grown. "they take after you, perhaps. strong. stubborn." handsome, he wished to add, but instead let the word dissipate into the glint of his eyes.
"donnelaith. we are well -- the pack is quiet for now. perhaps we shall have more children the following year. i enjoy it this way -- the smaller groupings, for we are tightly knit." he paused. "how is the caldera?"
Donnelaith, he repeated in his head, trying to commit the name to memory. It was a strong but flowery word, perfectly suited to Lasher's reign. He offered up an uneventful news report, which was really the best kind. Peregrine knew he referred to himself and Blue Willow when he mentioned children, yet the black Alpha immediately thought of his sister.
"What about Osprey and Dante? Are they officially expecting yet...?" he wondered, even though not much time had passed since his sibling's visit. "The caldera is exactly the same: small and tightly-knit. These days, it's mostly the two of us, the Betas and our kids. Plus a few extras. Although our son, Nightjar, just flew the nest," he reported with a slight frown, "meaning that none of our first litter remains at home." That made him sad, yet Peregrine understood it was all fairly natural dispersal and he still hoped one (or all three!) might wander home someday.
"not to my knowledge, though we are all anticipating it," the druid responded gently, settling himself against the ground again, though he had turned his head to face peregrine. tail thumped gently against the ground. he too knew the pain of older children moving from their natal den. "constantine and casmir have both left, now. only their sister eilidh remains, but she has come to the age where she is quite interested in young males her age."
perhaps it would be only a short time before she was taken as a mate and departed donnelaith also, though he held the hope that she would bring her paramour into the fold. yet there was a year, at least, to consider such -- he sighed contentedly. "i am pleased to be here."
His mention of his coming-of-age daughter made Peregrine think of Wildfire. He wondered how she was doing, especially after the breakup with Floki. He hoped she had been able to move on as painlessly as possible. He knew well the pain of ending a relationship. That thought made him blink suddenly and loudly in Lasher's direction.
"One of mine," he began, then remembered Lasher knew Wildfire. "Wildfire, I mean—she had a boyfriend. That's why she went to Moonspear, I think, originally. She came by a while ago and said they didn't work out. She assured me I didn't have to kick his ass." He smirked darkly. "Maybe she'll come back here, although I doubt it," he said, mostly to himself.
"Here," Peregrine replied, "as in physically? Or this point in your life?"
wildfire. lasher had not seen her for quite some time, and had wondered after her as of late. a boyfriend; taltos' brow furrowed when peregrine revealed that it had not lasted. "she seems a levelheaded girl; he is a true fool if he hurt her in any way." though the fireflame was not his daughter, the druid could not help his protective feeling toward her -- she was a child of the panther after all.
"both," he rejoined with a grin, stretching luxuriantly before he stood and moved quietly to the carcass of the pig, which he began to drag toward them. he did not know if the devil hungered, but did not wish for peregrine to move more than was necessary -- his task ended and he curled next to the redhawk wolf again. "i did not think that this moment would ever occur."
Taltos seemed nearly as bothered as Peregrine himself felt. "Agreed," he replied simply. Wildfire had made it sound like a mutual parting and he believed her when she said she would be all right. "I met him once," he added after a pause. "He seemed like a good kid. But they were—are—both so young." And maybe Wildfire took after her old man in the romance department: leaping before looking and all that. It made him think of Hawkeye, though that float drifted away on a mote of April sunlight.
His eyes followed Lasher's movements, even if only one of them worked properly. The smell of coagulating blood made his nostrils flare. When the pig was set within reach, he arched his neck and nibbled at the nearest pound of flesh, then straightened up and glanced at his companion as he settled beside him once again with another dreamy remark.
"Me neither, I guess," Peregrine said anticlimactically, tearing off a strip of skin which he then pressed sloppily against Lasher's cheek.
"i was young also when i took my first lover. or was taken, rather," he recalled with a soft curve to his lips. julien -- o, julien. wicked and passionate, evil as the rot that kills the ancient tree, and yet taltos had adored him fervently. the very thought of julien, even now, transported him to a place where his cheeks burned beneath his fur.
it was at that moment that peregrine playfully smeared him with a length of pig-flesh; the druid laughed aloud and dipped his muzzle into the thickening blood, pressing his lips against the caldera wolf's collarbone, hoping to sully him with the crimson.
They engaged in a little bit of a food fight before something clicked in his head. Slowly, Peregrine slurped the hunk of flesh into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully and swallowing. He ran his tongue over his lips and leaned back slowly, brow furrowing ever so slightly as he looked Lasher full in the face.
"You don't mean taken, as in... against your will, right?" he asked. "You probably told me about him. But I forget. What was he like? Was he better looking than me?" Peregrine asked prissily, probably, let's be real jokingly.
"it was not against my will. he had the years i have now, and a silver tongue to match. i went willingly, and though at the end of us it was bitter, i shall not ever forget julien." the panther spoke again; taltos' eyes gleamed teasingly. "aha, peregrine! shall i describe him to you?" the strong legs, the arrogance of julien's very bearing.
and yet there was no comparision -- lasher did not do such with his lovers. and yet ... "he did not have your rich dark fur, nor your strength ... the gemlike quality of your eyes. and he was not kind, as you are." perhaps the other had spoken in jest but lasher did not, though his eyes danced with good humour. "surely you have had other lovers since we were last together, some more beautiful than i?"
Peregrine inserted his tongue into the space between his lower lip and teeth, holding that thoughtful pose as Taltos spoke. The fact that he instead described Peregrine himself caused a laugh to rumble up from the dark Alpha's chest. He guffawed outright when Lasher called him kind.
He sobered slightly at the question, drawing in a very deep breath which he trapped in his chest for three seconds before slowly releasing. "There was only one other," Peregrine replied. "He was beautiful, although the two of you couldn't have been more different, physically speaking. He vanished a while back," he said, looking at his broad paws. "We only made love once, right before he went missing."
And he hadn't so much as looked at another man since. As Lasher well knew, Peregrine hadn't been able to perform when the opportunity had presented itself. Peregrine wondered if he would ever take another male lover again. He didn't think so.
lasher chuckled at peregrine's antics, but he too grew wan at the mention of the man's last lover. moving closer, if the panther allowed, the druid laid his muzzle o'ertop the thick ruff, conveying a deep empathy. and yet, in the next moment, he fought the imperceptible tension of his body -- he had known a pale, feminine wolf from the caldera, one who had wept over peregrine, sought to make sense of the devil's words.
pan.
the druid felt the name welling upon his tongue -- he wished to speak it into existence, to tell peregrine that he had known the pallid man he had loved, that they had spoken. but then he recalled the darkness of their conversation, the grief and bitterness that had wound 'round both their tongues, and he was silent.
perhaps their talk upon the strand, the words shared, taltos' own anger and pain over peregrine -- perhaps it had led to the palefurred man's disappearance from the caldera. and he could not take upon himself that burden, not when he lay now with the panther again, when there was affability between them once more.
selfishly, taltos said nothing about pantaleimon, merely tightened his embrace upon peregrine for a moment before pulling away to glance into the dark verdancy of the devil's eyes. "i am sorry that he has gone -- it is my hope that he returns to the caldera, to you." the pain of loss commingled with love was bitter indeed.
The dark wolf certainly didn't push Lasher away, taking pleasure in his warmth and comfort, even if he didn't necessarily need it. It was probably a little inappropriate, actually, for his former flame to comfort him over an even more recent lover. But Peregrine was selfish and greedy that way. We all know that, particularly you, Lasher.
"He won't," he replied softly, smiling sadly. "Nothing would have taken Pan away from me, except death. I'm not sure how or where it could've happened but he never, never would have left me willingly." He paused, mulling. "I tried to tell him to leave me for his own good and he wouldn't even do it then. No, Pan's gone." Peregrine paused again, longer this time, before adding, "But he lives on in my son, Peter Pan."
taltos had no such limitations, as you know, peregrine. would the panther find comfort in the offering of his body, the druid would offer it gladly. but he did not; his words came again and lasher listened, guilt clawing at the recesses of his mind. he put it firmly aside, touched by the tribute that peregrine had given the man.
"that is beautiful, truly," he said gently. a small part of the man wished that peregrine would allow them a last time, closure in a way, but they had attempted such. perhaps the passion between them that had died had also quelled whatever want had once been existent in peregrine, and such things could not be forced.