Way back when, he and Elwood had talked about making a field trip out of this. But Peregrine had decided that he would go to visit Tytonidae on his own. He didn't want anything to distract from his reunion with his daughter. Besides, Fox could use having both godparents on hand during his absence, seeing as they never did come up with a solid Caretaker. He wouldn't be away for more than a day or so, yet the three pups could be quite a handful even with the rendezvous site at their disposal.
He left before his family woke, letting Fox know he hoped to be back by nightfall. Peregrine then set out toward the Sunspire in the distance. It was a pretty straight shot to the northeast and the dip in the river was quite refreshing on this muggy late April morning. By the time he drew up just below the mount, the clear sky had become much more cloudy and it seemed they might be in for an afternoon rainstorm.
He wouldn't let anything rain on his parade, though. With his black muzzle pointed at the peak, the swarthy wolf called out for
@Tytonidae, though he was prepared for a leader or Warden to come in her stead. Perhaps
@Summer might hearken to him first. Peregrine wouldn't mind meeting the messenger, who he knew was Ty's good friend (if not more).
Pretty new avatar!
Becoming a gamekeeper was harder work than Tytonidae had expected, but she also wasn't pushing herself particularly hard. She had never had the drive, the passion, that her sisters had. In fact, if she had known that Saena and Junior were founding their own pack right now, a shot of jealousy would have shot right through her. The two of them had always been thick as thieves, and Ty had been left out. Whether or not that was her own doing was up for debate.
Ty had told Summer that she intended to go see her father once she had finally proven herself as a gamekeeper, but the going was slow, and Redhawk Caldera now felt like a long way off. Hearing her father's voice should have filled her with excitement, but instead, Tytonidae felt a lightening bolt of worry and shame that she'd accomplished next to nothing. She was over a year old, and all she'd done was mope around. Nevertheless, she couldn't let her father down.
With her tail tucked between her hocks, she greeted her father with a half-hearted,
"Hi, Dad."
He hadn't seen Tytonidae in ages. In the meantime, she had grown and changed. But when she appeared, Peregrine recognized her immediately. He smiled and wagged his tail, obviously happy to see her. It slowed somewhat when her demeanor registered with him. She was the picture of meekness. She had always been the softest-spoken of his children (aside from Pura, who didn't speak much, period) but this was unusual to him.
"Ty!" he said warmly. "Happy belated birthday! I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner," he added, genuine remorse in his tone. The distance and timing had made an earlier venture here impossible. Better late than never, right? "How are you?" he questioned, every bit of his body language welcoming her to come closer and open up to him.
Tytonidae shrugged it off when he apologized. "I'm sure you've been, um, busy." With Fox (and probably their children), her father had likely had his paws full for quite some time. He asked how she was, and she met that question with another shrug. "I'm good. Osprey—I mean, Osprey Junior—came to visit a little while ago. Did you know she's a Beta in another pack? She even has, like, a mate." If it was inappropriate or unwanted for Ty to be sharing all her sister's news, she didn't recognize it. Besides, talking about Osprey was easier than talking about herself.
The yearling was bracing herself for the questions of "what have you been doing?" "are you a leader yet?" and "is Summer your mate?" That last one in particular seemed to get asked a lot. Saena had been the first to suggest it, and Osprey had suggested as much when Tytonidae had mentioned him. Perhaps Ty could veer the conversation away from herself and onto others. Yes, that would work just fine.
It was almost jarring, the way Tytonidae (and Pura, too) pardoned him for everything, whereas Junior and Saena held everything against him. He knew he'd dropped the ball and understood why two of his daughters were troubled about it still. Yet he would be an enormous liar if he'd said Ty's treatment of him wasn't a massive relief. It was wonderful to be unequivocally forgiven, to be loved unconditionally. Possibly he didn't deserve it, yet he appreciated it more than he could ever say.
"Saena told me a little bit about Junior's goings-on," he answered. None of it surprised him. Junior had always been a busybody and an achiever. He just hoped she was happy. That's all he ever wanted for his children anymore. "Your sisters seem to be doing well. Not sure about Pura," he admitted. "But I came here to see you. I want to know what's going on in your life, Ty. I've missed you. What have you been up to?"
Saena had talked to their father before Ty had gotten a chance to. She supposed it shouldn't have been that surprising, but she wondered if she would ever "catch up" to either of her sisters. Pura had been gone for some time, it seemed, and Tytonidae wondered if he had left because he had felt the same way. It wasn't like she'd ever been particularly close to her cousling brother, anyway. She did think that, once upon a time, she'd been close to Osprey, but that time had passed.
"Oh, um." Ty paused, not quite sure what her father was looking for. "I'm not a leader or anything. I still haven't really proven myself as a gamekeeper. I don't... I don't think I'm doing a very good job," Ty admitted with a defeated shrug of her shoulders. "I was going to come see you once I'd gotten my gamekeeper title, but I guess I wasn't fast enough." Tytonidae had always been a slowpoke, and it seemed that was one trait that she wasn't going to grow out of.
Perhaps this was why Tytonidae's approach had been so sheepish. He didn't know whether she felt overshadowed by her sisters or as if she should have accomplished more at her age, yet already Peregrine was shaking his head. He reached forward, gently bumping his black muzzle against her slightly faded cheek.
"Ty, I was three years old when I first became a leader. And I was over a year before I became an official hunter with the Falcons. You're doing just fine, I promise," he said in a low, affectionate voice. "Leadership and trades are great to work toward, for some, but they're not the end game for everyone." Peregrine paused, smiling as he queried, "So you're going after Gamekeeper, eh? Atta girl," he quipped, unabashedly happy that one of his children, at last, had pursued his favorite duty.
But if trades, leadership, and babies weren't the end game, what was? Perhaps that was the most perplexing part. Tytonidae didn't have the same drive and direction that her sisters did. She'd gone with the flow, complacent enough to be dragged this way and that with the tide that was life. The single time she'd had a strong opinion about something, it had only proven to throw her entire life into turmoil and distance herself from her siblings. It was why she was here, living on the spire, rather than living in her birthplace: Blacktail Deer Plateau.
Frustration still lingered in her chest, even with her father's comforting words. She licked her lips when he mentioned the gamekeeper thing, and she shrugged again. Sometimes, she wished that somebody would tell her to (wo)man up and do something with her life. Nobody seemed to want to be harsh with her, though. Least of all her father. "How is everything at the caldera?" she asked, again pushing the conversation off of herself.
Ty didn't seem particularly eager to discuss the subject, which disappointed Peregrine somewhat. But he took his cues from his daughter, allowing her to guide the conversation away from herself again. "Things are going fairly well. You have two half-sisters, Wildfire and Raven, and a half-brother, Nightjar. You're more than welcome to come meet them anytime. They're about two months old now. My life revolves around them right now, for the most part, and everything else is generally okay there," the black Redleaf-DiSarinno reported.
"So, if you don't mind my asking, who's this Summer guy? The one who left a message a few months back?" He almost joked about boyfriends and shotguns, yet he held his tongue. Tytonidae seemed... more withdrawn and vulnerable than he remembered. Sometimes when he talked to Saena, he had to be careful about what he said. It was like walking on eggshells. He hadn't anticipated feeling that way around Ty but there it was. He frowned thoughtfully, wondering if there was anything he could do.
"I'd been planning to come visit, anyway," Ty admitted. In truth, she really did miss her father. She was, perhaps, the only child who had never spoken a sour word to him. Nor had she ever thought one. For whatever reason, Ty thought that neither of her parents could do any wrong. She idolized them in some strange way, putting them on a pedestal that was likely too high for them to ever sit upon.
Summer came up in conversation again, and Ty's demeanor brightened slightly. The Ostrega boy somehow managed to bring out the best in her. "He's a friend of mine. He's been really sweet and nice to me. We're not, like, a thing, if that's what you're thinking." Ty only added that bit because everybody seemed to assume that they were a couple. "I told him I was going to go visit you, and he wanted to come along, but I told him I'd wanted to go alone. Y'know, be independent." Or something like that.
"We'd love for you to visit," Peregrine said with a sweep of his tail. The pups had already met Saena and he would love for them to meet Tytonidae too. Maybe Pura would swing by one day too. He wouldn't hold his breath about Junior. It seemed she was far away these days. Even if she had been right next door, he knew she would be very unlikely to want to meet the pups she considered her replacements.
Ty brightened at the mention of Summer, which heartened Peregrine. "I wasn't thinking anything in particular," he half-lied with a little grin. "Like I said, I'd love it if you came to the caldera sometime. Bring Summer if you want or come by yourself. We'll make accommodations one way or another. I'd love for you to meet NJ, Wifi and Rave. I think they'd love you and look up to you."
"Yeah, I will," Ty confirmed. "Once I've finally proven myself as a gamekeeper." That was the plan, anyway. It had seemed like such an attainable goal, but those months of seclusion hadn't left much room for proving her worth to The Sunspire. Hopefully, this new spurt of energy would help spur her into action and actually put her life together. She was curious as to why her younger siblings might look up to her, so she took it to mean the literal sense. They would have to look up, because they'd be smaller.
"I don’t want to keep you from them… do you need to go back soon?" Ty asked, not wishing to interfere with her father's life too much. She knew that she was a part of it, too... but so much of her wanted to be self-sacrificing and let him get back to the rest of his younger children and Fox. "I could walk back a little bit of the way if you want." Ty couldn't up and leave The Sunspire without telling anybody, but taking a couple hours out of her day would be nothing.
She seemed open to the idea and that gladdened him. When she asked if he needed to get back to his family, he paused. There was a part of him that always wanted to head home as fast as possible when he was away from his mate and pups. But he had carved out this time for his eldest daughter and he didn't want to cut it short. His time with Tytonidae was limited, whereas he saw his youngest batch every day.
"I have time," he said simply. "I like the idea of taking a walk with you, though. So I don't get to meet this Summer guy, huh?" he teased lightly, turning and motioning for her to take the lead on their tandem jaunt.
Trying to wrap up some older threads; hope you don't mind!
"Oh, he… he’s probably busy," Tytonidae replied sheepishly. That wasn't entirely true, but she wasn't sure how she felt about her father meeting her best friend. There was a(n) (un)spoken connotation about the two yearlings that Ty wasn't quite willing to explore. And the last thing she needed was a bunch of "Dad" moments to spoil the awesome thing she had going with her bestie.
"So tell me about the kids," Ty said, stepping easily into line beside her father. She would listen as he spoke of them, and once she'd gone far enough that she could still make it back before sundown, she would bid her parent farewell and return to her home.