Dwin did not consider herself to be a sentimental creature, much less someone, who liked to dwell in the past. Time from time, however, she would like to make a trip to the Broken Antler Fen, where Brecheliant had been initially formed. Maia had taken her there once to show, where her sister Wraen's grave lied. Then she had told Dwin that they would visit her dead aunt and for whatever reason her little self had imagined that "dead" was just the same adjective as "purple" and that they would meet a wolf they could touch and talk to. Much to her disappointment the fen was empty and the aunt turned out to be hidden underground. Dwin's suggestion of digging her up to greet her properly had been met with an eye-roll and an explanation that this was not, how you acted around graves.
But the place they had chosen - or rather, where the said aunt had died and been left to rest forever, had been with a nice view. A hillock at the edge of the forest looking down at vast meadows reaching all the way to the mountains and with small lakes interspersed here and there. It was calm and welcoming and a year ago, even Dwin, who had a very vague idea of, who her aunt had been and what she had meant to her mom, had sensed it. The feeling disappeared, when you left the area. So - in a way - her mom explained that by becoming one with the earth again, Wraen's soul had claimed the land there.
When she came here today, it was cold and cloudy, rain had drizzled all along the way here and in the plains the wind had tugged at her fur roughly. But, once in the fen, the power of the bad weather seemed to stop at the border and the former packlands greeted her with calm and quiet. Caldera was a good territory to inhabit - all things considered - but, while here, Dwin did not understand, why her parents had chosen to leave it. Yes - there was so much more water here and it may cause trouble in the spring - but there was none of the heaviness here that had become so constant at their present dwelling place.
What's more - she felt as if this area was more like Brecheliant should have been than the childhood home of her father. Did renaming the same area really change, what it truly was? Could former Redhawk caldera, Redhawks and what other names it had had, be a Brecheliant too? Dwin wondered this, sitting down next to the mound, where Wraen was told to live, and addressed the question both to her and the universe, not really expecting that either would respond.
Puddle-hopping was fairly new to Long Rain, who couldn’t remember the spring months of her birth and had only known the warmth of summer for most of her life, but it had quickly become one of her favorite pastimes. Luckily for her, the ceaseless drizzling in these lands that day provided plenty opportunity for her to partake. The growing autumnal chill was new to her, too, yet she hardly noticed it with her plush undercoat, even when she had become quite sodden from lunging through puddle after puddle.
The last few months of her short life had been spent south of here, in a time and place where the mountain of her father’s family had been experiencing a drought. She thought of them now, wondering if they were getting some of this much needed rainfall occurring here and now.
She continued to bound from birdbath to birdbath, until suddenly there seemed to be no more rain-pools, and a marshy land stretched out ahead into overcast calmness. Unwilling to backtrack, even for a bit of fun, Long Rain plowed ahead. It was still wet here, if not quite as puddle-y as she would like. Truthfully, she simply didn’t want to risk running back into her father and jeopardizing her independent streak; he was within a howl’s range of about ten miles, but she had no desire to have him around, cramping her prepubescent style.
At the edge of the forest she emerged from, a broken piece of antler on the ground drew her attention. The girl snatched it up and saw a stout hillock before her: the perfect place to lie down and tend to her new toy. She was halfway up the hill before she realized its crest was occupied.
With the tine clenched between her teeth, her tail wagged questioningly, silently asking the silvery figure above if she could join them there on the grassy perch.
Wraen did not answer, because the dead are denied to talk with the living. The Universe did not reply either, because, what are musings of a tiny speck of dust, when stars and galaxies get created and destroyed every second? The entity dealt with deals of such a grand scale that it surpassed, what Dwin could comprehend. Like-wise dust-thoughts were too small to be understood.
She dwelled on the unexpected train of thought for a bit, until someone's arrival made her snap out of it. Dwin looked over her shoulder, her gaze meeting that of an almost yearling. The girl was well-built and if not for the still childish features of her face, she could be taken for an adult. It was not unusual, of course, for kids her age to wander on their own - these days she hardly ever met Teya's brood - still she scanned the area quickly to make sure that no one else accompanied the teenager.
"Go on," she allowed, getting to her feet and sitting down to a side. "Which big beast, did you stole the crown from?" she asked, regarding the girl in a good-natured manner.
At the invitation, Long Rain trotted up and flopped down beside the blackspine, languishing there as if in familiar company. With a grunt, she started to fumble with the oddly-shaped tine between her paws, attempting to angle it into prime chewing position. There. She started to gnaw on its edge, raking fresh adult teeth on the piece of moose antler.
She glanced up at the question, noting a pair of clever green eyes above a smattering of darkstar freckles before answering. Dunno,
she mumbled between grinding. Left it behind. Must not want it.
That was her reasoning anyway. She supposed it could have been lost, but then that also meant that the creature didn’t deserve to have it. Never found one flat- thick like this,
she added. She’d never even seen a moose before. Which wasn’t surprising. She could barely even hunt, if you could call “tracking without any success” hunting.
Long Rain stopped gnawing for a moment to press it slightly in the amiable she-wolf’s direction. Wanna chew?
The youngster did not make Dwin repeat her invitation, she settled nearby, placed the antler between her paws and after some curt answers was ready to chew. "Nah - it is a bad luck, when two wolves chew on one antler," she told and shook her head. There was a lot of truth to that, not only because it would be very uncomfortable, but it would be the easiest way to lead to a conflict. Especially, if the involved parties were strangers to each other and the "bad luck" meant having a scar on the muzzle or losing an ear or an eye. Which made her regret that she had never asked Bronco about the number of chewing incidents he had got himself in during his life. Because he definitely did not have a piece of his ear.
"Are you around from here?" she asked, casting a glance around and then also lying down. "Or on your first big life-changing adventure?"
It is?
Long Rain’s head was forced back a little in surprise, but she wasn’t one to argue with superstition. The Wolves of Bending Creek certainly had their fair share of beliefs. The girl made a contemplative huh sound, shrugged, and resumed polishing her enamel against the antler. Through the noisy clicking and grinding of her teeth, from the corner of her eye, she observed the ashen yearling lying down.
After a pause to consider the question, Long Rain replied, uhh, both.
She licked her chops, taking a break from her chew toy. Father says I am born here, next to big lake, but I do not remember this.
As for the adventure bit, I am changing lives. My first time. I leave my Father’s family, and now I find lake, find my mother, then I find mountain to make home with friends.
She sounded proud of herself, despite accomplishing absolutely nothing so far. (Or maybe it was having a plan that she was proud of.)
You have home here?
She gestured out over the fen’s wetlands. Have you walked many changing-life ‘ventures?
The implication of the stranger designating it as Long Rain’s first probably meant that she had been on more than one herself.
The kid presented a list of things she wished to accomplish and Dwin would have loved to inquire about each one of them. Who had her parents been and where were they now? What had been the lake like - perhaps she could help solve that mystery, since she was very familiar with the big waterbodies in the vicinity of caldera? What did changing lives mean - was she escaping from something? Had something happened to encourage her to change? Did her father and mother no longer live together? What was the mountain she was looking for? Did the friends live there already? And the final one - was she all on her own?
Each question held a potential of a very interesting story, a plot, a single thread of fate that led to many, many other probabilities. And had Dwin been younger, closer to the girl's age, she would not have hesitated to drown her companion in all of these questions. Now however, she had become a little more reserved, had more restraint and respected other people's privacy. If they wished to share, they would eventually.
"Well, I set out to travel the world, when I was almost as old as you," it felt odd to speak to the kid from a perspective of an adult, when in reality the age gap between them was not that remarkable. And, when the kid would hit one year anniversary of her birth that gap in experience and maturity would become even smaller. "And since it was still winter, not everything went as I had imagined. I met interesting people along the way, but for the most part I felt rather lonely. Add cold and hunger to that and life-changing gained a very different meaning from then on," she finished.
"Are you managing well on your own?" she asked not because she thought that the young she-wolf was unable to take care of herself or was not yet experienced enough. Just out of understanding that being a lone wolf in early youth was not an easy feat.
She spoke with the stranger for a little while longer and then they went on their separate ways.