“Crete Gyrfalcon Redleaf-DiSarinno,” Crete could feel his ears slick flat against his skull as Tyrannus loomed like a scarred shadow over him, forcing the confused mute into submission, his teeth bared and lashing at the mute’s scruff when he had not sank down - thinking the situation unfolding before him rapidly and wildly out of control was a prank - “you are hereby and for every day to come exiled from Flightless Falcons.” The timbers of Tyrannus’ voice sounded to be made of steel, harsh and violent as Crete felt the words vibrate through his elder brother’s throat. Crete shuddered violently in his sleep, remembering the panic and disorientation that followed, as he desperately tried to place where he had done something to deserve exile. He was loyal - loyal to his parents, and had accepted Tyrannus’ claim to the throne when Aether had passed away and March Owl had stepped down. If anyone had came to his defense - Crete could not remember, instead glimpsing a sea of faces, hisses of whispers - words that had lost their meaning in the deafening pounding of his heart, and the ocean wave of fear that had collided and washed over him. Exiled. Where was he going to go? What pack would take a mute? How was he even supposed to attempt to join a pack when he couldn’t communicate with words?

Crete awoke with a startled gasp of breath, sucking greedily at the stinging, chilly morning air, his heart pounding against it’s prison of sinew and bone. Fur ruffled along his nape, as he looked around, disoriented by the abruptness in which he had awoken and stood up, jumping to his feet, expecting to see Tyrannus standing over him, threatening him. The pain that spread like fire and ice in his heart, nearly winded him, as he took another deep breath in attempts to calm himself. It was still a painful and hard thing for Crete to grasp. Betrayed by his own brother, for crimes that he knew not. It was hard to ask Tyrannus what he was being accused off and exiled for when he had no voice to raise in protest, and in a direct fight the seasoned brother would take him - all hands down. He was a like mortal Ares (never mind that Athena always trumped Ares). It plagued Crete’s slumber, and though he chose not too consciously dwell upon the festering and fresh unseen wound, it left him with irritating mood swings, general mistrust, and an aching need for solitude most days that if not given would lead to, in some cases, aggression; of which was nearly unheard of in the quintessentially benevolent mute.

Peregrine had traveled in the direction Crete had taken, or at least he had went in a similar direction. Crete had tried to catch up to Peregrine numerous times, despite that his littermate was maybe a week ahead of him, but all attempts had been futile, and during the rare occurrences that Crete had picked up Perry’s scent - it was faint and all but non existent. It was encouragement that he was at least, on the right path. Crete stretched, sea green eyes taking in the landscape around him with musing intrigue, lifting his muzzle to the air ever so slightly to inhale the crisp scents. He was getting close to a pack’s borders, and felt internally torn. He needed to find a pack to stick with at least through the winter - though he needed a new home with permanence period - and his disability would make it measurably complicated. It was not an ordeal he was particularly looking forward too, but if he didn’t there was no guarantee he would survive the harsh winter. He could give it his best shot and that would have to be sufficient enough.

Steeling himself, he began to pad in the direction of the pack’s borders, stopping when he was the respectful distance from the scent markers and himself. Crete stood there, awkwardly, for a few moments not sure he how he was going to attract attention himself. A soft sigh pushed from his lungs and lips, as he settled back upon his haunches, figuring he would just wait until someone came through patrolling the borders.

Crete had never before let his disability stop him from striving for his independence, though, admittedly, his designs of independence and the designs of his siblings and other family members, tended to be starkly different. In a way, he quietly envied his siblings as they shrieked with laughter and yelled childish curses at one another, and tattled on the other for cursing, when all he could do was grin goofily at them. No matter times how he tried to talk, tried to make the appropriate sounds to form words nothing would come out. He had ingested numerous plants and herbs in Aether’s kind attempts to help but it was not something herbs or medicines were going to fix. It was probably that his vocal cords didn’t properly form, or full form or something to that effect. Until now, it had never been big of a deal. A sibling - not always from his litter, older siblings would volunteer to assist - ignoring his icy glares of protest, would often accompany him, to “speak” for him. Some of his siblings were better at ‘translating’ than others, admittedly. Guard hairs bristled in slight irritation at the thought but not wishing to suffer an incorrigible mood swing - especially when someone did stumble upon him at their borders, he didn’t need to be in an insufferable mood. That, Crete had no doubt, would not serve to help him any, and this would be hard enough as it was.

A inky smudge came rushing in his direction, causing Crete to push himself to his paws in a quick, fluid movement, ready to defend himself if need be. However, the wolf, though easily recognizable when he was in Crete’s face so directly - though the mute had recoiled back - it was the scent that filled Crete’s nostrils that confirmed that he wasn’t seeing a phantom. ‘Peregrine?’ Puzzlement dominated Crete’s facial features, before relief washed over him, and tense stance relaxed with a heavy sigh. ‘Peregrine.’ It really was his brother - whom, like Crete, had suffered Tyrannus’ strange and worrying tyranny. Crete recoiled again, ears slicking back when Peregrine proceeded to nearly shout in his face, a sign that Crete took to be outrage at Tyrannus. Feeling a brief pinprick of insult, Crete’s lips pulled back to expose his teeth at the displeasure of the word ‘mute’ and in the way that Peregrine enunciated it - even though Crete inherently agreed with his crass brother. He, a mute, could never hold leadership, so what was there to be even measurably threatened of? ‘I agree,’ Crete’s facial features smoothed out into a stony, morbid expression of agreement, as he nodded his head once and rolled his eyes, ears lifting to rest half mast atop his head. ‘Clearly Tyrannus has gone off the deep end.’ So how was it that no one else could see it?

Or was it, simply, that they did not wish to see it?

Figuring it was safe, Crete stepped forward and offered a lick of greeting to his brother’s chin, before he stepped back, letting his tail wag once. Despite that their situations royally sucked Crete was infinitely glad that Peregrine and him had managed to find one another. Peregrine’s command was heard, and acknowledged with a sarcastically skeptic twitch of Crete’s lips. Where, exactly, was he supposed to go? And now that he’d found Peregrine his desire to continue on was measurably depleted. Peregrine inquired, with more force than was really necessary in Crete’s opinion, though this was something he was used too, as to Osprey’s whereabouts and Crete tried to remember if he had seen Osprey in the crowd when Tyrannus was forcing him out of the pack’s borders. It had been chaotic - Crete wasn’t even sure he was really aware of what had been happening at the time. He shrugged his shoulders, having no more of an answer than that. ‘I don’t know.’ Crete, for all intents and purposes, had assumed that Osprey and Atticus were back in Flightless Falcon’s safe and sound.

Peregrine repeated what Crete’s shrug had clearly implied out loud, and Crete watched with an apologetic lowering of his head, as his brother’s brow furrowed what Crete knew to be perplexity. Guilt bore down heavily upon Crete’s shoulders. He should have tried to find Osprey, Atticus even - though it had been hard to think let alone move with Tyrannus’ gnashing teeth inches away from his face, and in instances more confusing (and potentially terrifying) his neck. Though the new patriarch of the Falcon’s had never actually bit him, feeling the enraged demon’s - that must have possessed his brother - hot breath saturating the strands of fur at the nape of neck had been too close for comfort in Crete’s opinion. Crete had never been made to feel so incompetent in a matter of seconds as he had when Tyrannus had chased him from his home and he (Crete) couldn’t even make sense of his chaotic and spinning thoughts. For all his intelligence it had been utterly worthless in those split, pivotal seconds. Crete had been reduced to the basics of his nature: instincts. Fight or Flee; and fighting Tyrannus had been out of the question. Crete, though he could have been considered built like a warrior, was not malevolent. Though he had acquired certain skills of moving as silent as his vocal cords made his voice, paired with a fair amount of agility. Those skills were useful in hunting (or spying, though he didn’t agree with such a thing) but little else. Mostly it just tended to unnerve wolves who were not used to Crete’s phantom-like silence.

Crete was broken from his thoughts and brought back to the more pressing present when Peregrine inquired once more, this time in regards to Atticus - the only other male in their litter. Again, Crete was filled with the unpleasant task of having to tell Peregrine, once more, that he did not know. As far as Crete had been aware - no one had came after him, though in all fairness he had not lingered, tearing across the barren, snow covered lands, eager to put as much distance between his demonic brother and himself. Something…somewhere had changed Tyrannus. He had always been the cool older brother, the handsome one that all the girls fawned and giggled over, the older brother that you wanted to be when you grew up, full of life and laughter and epic tales of battle. That brother did not exist anymore, and Crete could not help but feel that they should be mourning him as well as Aether; because Tyrannus’ spiritual death and change was measurably worse than Aether’s spirit’s ascent to Olympus. Crete inhaled deeply, his chest rising and falling as he exhaled in a soft sigh, shaking his head, in attempts to bring similar news in regards to Atticus’ whereabouts as he had Osprey’s. There was nothing quite like the crushing guilt of letting Peregrine down, nor the disappointment in his irresponsibility. He had been responsible for them and he had failed (though likely most of Crete’s siblings likely thought that they were responsible for him).

Crete watched Peregrine pace back and forth, ears slicking back to his skull in disgust at himself. At how weak he was. Just because he was mute didn’t mean he couldn’t have stood up to Tyrannus. Crete had been skeptical when Tyrannus had outcast Peregrine, and knew, thanks to Peregrine that it was because Tyrannus thought of them as ‘threats’. Aether was probably enraged in whatever form he had taken when he had passed; which led to the underlining question that they would probably never find an answer too: had Aether noticed this behavior, seething under Tyrannus’ surface for years? Was that the reason he had never been risen to leadership before their father’s passing? It was possible, but useless to contemplate. They would never be welcomed back and though it was painful to admit it even to himself, Crete wasn’t so sure he ever wanted to go back even if someone else took it away from Tyrannus.

Despite the emotionally draining and widely ranged mood swings Crete had been suffering from - likely a combination of poor sleep and the toll being betrayed by a loved one (having left quite a scar) - Peregrine’s talk of karma “fucking Tyrannus in the ass” elicited a silent snicker from Crete, and a crass sneer that pulled at the edges of the mute’s lips. Indeed, Crete hoped that Lady Karma wasn’t gentle with him either. Tyrannus didn’t deserve to be manhandled gently - no usurper, betrayer of kin deserved anything so soft as ‘gentle’.

set by Emy