Morningside Cuesta Got Me Thinking Like Crazy

Heartha had less on her mind since her talk with the female wolf Akuti. Still she missed her beloved offspring, wherever they were. But now, she could at least focus on other things. One of them being that she wanted to discuss what exactly @Grayday had in mind for the pack. She had no idea what his plans were, or ideas for it all. All she had done was just accepted to go along with it. So she howled out for him, already thinking of what exact questions to ask.

Grayday had been sitting by the river with Sunny and Dawn when he heard Heartha's call. One ear twisted curiously toward the sound, and he soon excused himself from the impromptu family time (probably much to his children's delight) to go and see what was the matter.

Since it hadn't seemed urgent, Grayday took his time finding his way to the woman, letting out a short howl in response so that she might begin to seek him out as well. He hadn't interacted with the woman much, but they'd banded together for safety and for the sake of their families - already, he felt a certain kinship with the wolves that gathered here.

"Hey Heartha," he greeted when he was near enough to be heard without raising his voice. His tail wagged as he closed the final few yards between them and came to stand before the older shewolf. "How've ya been?"

As she waited, she thought about whether or not she could even do the pack life agqain. She was determined before. And then the thought of the pups here came to mind, and she became determined once more. Grayday arrived soon after.

"I am doing...okay." She had stalled there for a moment, as she wasn't doing all that well. "I called for you, because I was just thinking about this group you have amassed. What are your plans for all this?" Heartha asked, tilting her head a little in a curious manner after she sat herself down.

Something in him always quailed at the sight of Heartha. Something in the way she carried herself, and maybe also in her eyes (difficult as they were for him to see). Day didn't know her story, but when he looked at her, he wondered if he was heading in that direction - sad and alone.

With this on his mind, he was unprepared for her line of questioning. His ears flicked uneasily, and he gave her a long, unreadable look.

"What do you mean?" he asked after a moment of confused contemplation.

Heartha's head went back to upright. He seemed confused, or distracted. Or something else that didn't come to Heartha's mind at the time. "Well, you are starting a pack, aren't you? I just...I wanted to know what you plan for, in the future. With this group." She wasn't sure if her question had been straightforward enough, but she herself was becoming somewhat distracted. "You must have a plan, right?"

A pack?

Grayday's head whipped around, as if - if he looked fast enough - he'd see the evidence of this blatant accusation. (A pack?) But the evidence had been there the whole time, and even though he saw the same things when he looked around, he realized that this was a pack. That he'd gone out to have an adventure and had somehow found himself with a whole new set of responsibilities.

"I didn't mean to," he remarked, the words sounding silly even to him. "When I said we should stick together, I just meant until you found a real pack. But I guess... I guess you have. I guess this is a pack."

He looked around the cuesta once more, bewildered by this sudden turn of events.

"I don't know what kind of plan you're expecting me to have, though," he added. "I mean, we're here, we're eating. Is there something else we should do?"

Another thing occurred to him.

"Why are you asking me, anyway? Sylvas - well - "

What the hell is happening?

"We should talk about it all together," he decided, finally regaining his composure. "We all have a share in this, don't we?"

Heartha raised a brow, thinking she had misunderstood everything. "You mean...oh." Now she realized what he really meant. She had already started to settle herself in, and it kind of let her down hearing that. But, then he spoke of the fact that they had indeed formed a pack. 

"I...I just thought you would be leading, and...Sylvas I-I don't know. I don't know what else" she said quietly, turning away for a moment. She knew that all this was confusing him now, and it in fact began to confuse her. "I didn't mean to confuse you." The idea that they talk it over as a group was a good idea. Yet still, she felt it was her fault in confusing him.

Day's ears swivelled uncertainly and then, after a moment, fell back against his head in apology. "Beg your pardon, ma'am - I didn't mean to snap," he said contritely, disliking the look he'd put on her face. "You just caught me by surprise, is all."

He settled his rump in the grass and averted his eyes from the woman, looking instead over the airy, green hills they'd apparently claimed. "Well, we can't stay here for one," he began. "We'll have to head out before winter and find someplace with a little more shelter and a lot less dangerous cliffs that could be hidden by snow. But it looks like it'll be a good home for every season besides."

He glanced back to Heartha, seeking her approval on the statement. "I reckon we'll have to start marking it, too," he added, a small frown crossing his features.

Heartha could see that he must have been rather stressed. She remained silent after his apology, not sure how to respond to it. She had surprised him, but she had just been confused about what was to happen. He had been her first choice in who to ask.

She too looked around when Day spoke of the area they were at currently. "That..is true, I suppose." The winter would not be kind to their young in a place with less shelter. And speaking of young, a thought arised as she sensed this conversation was coming to end. She wanted to know while she had a chance.

"Those pups of yours. I...I had some like them. And, I had to wonder, and have been wondering ever since..." She paused there. She had already asked the question when she first saw him near that river, and the response wasn't what she expected. She knew that this would be considered prying by many. So she quickly shifted her question. "How old are they?"

Lost in thought, the male did not notice when his companion began to edge toward a different topic. He was more concerned about the many responsibilities that might be heaped upon him, if Heartha wasn't the only one thinking he was the 'leader' around here. Day wasn't sure he liked the sound of it, but neither could he say he was particularly adverse to the idea. After all, he had kids to worry about, and if he wasn't the one calling the shots, how could he make sure they got what was best for them?

He was roused only when Heartha asked her question, and Grayday - never one to pass up a chance to talk about his kids - jumped to answer. "Oh, end of autumn - maybe early winter," he said agreeably, his tail wagging as he thought of seeing their cute little faces for the first time. They'd been so small, so sweet-smelling, so damnably cute. "Somewhere around then, though I couldn't really say for sure."

He paused when he realized what she'd started the question with, feeling a bit embarrassed by his own good fortune. "I'm, uh, sorry to hear about your brood," he added, wishing he'd started off with that.

His answer, Heartha found really and interesting and yet odd. He spoke as if he had not been there for there birth. Or anytime near then. "You weren't there for their birth?" She knew of heats and sometimes the occasion of what could happen, and that had happened to her. But he did not seem like that kind of wolf.

Her eyes fell back. She just realized she had said 'had children'. "They were...I've been trying to get past it." She held back any sobs. "I lost them not long ago." The same with the wolf that had fathered them.

"I was there," Grayday corrected, a bit defensively. "I just meant that it was at the change of the season, and with the winter we had, it's hard to tell where autumn ended and winter began."

Again, he felt silly for arguing over such inconsquential things when Heartha clearly had deeper things on her mind. Day shifted uncomfortably in the face of her sorrow, wishing someone would come along and rescue him from having to respond to it. "That's awful," he murmured, the words feeling weak and ineffectual.

"Oh...I am sorry." She had assumed wrong, and felt instantly bad for it, assuming a father not to be there during the birth of their children. She understood through his explanation. 

She saw how he shifted uncomfortably. "It's...it's fine. I'm trying to look forward, maybe start anew." That's what she hoped, anyway.

His ears flickered uncertainly when she apologized, and he wondered why he wasn't the one doing so. "Don't worry about it," he said with a wag of his tail. "I guess we're trying to start over, too. Me and the kids. There were a lot of... feelings... in our old pack, I mean. I thought it was time to get out of there, though I did plan on going back, when we first set out."

He'd brought a lot of those feelings with him by taking Adeline along, but they'd patched up some of the worst of their problems, and the male really did feel less guilty about that than he had in Easthollow. It wasn't, perhaps, the healthiest of changes, but it was certainly a pleasant one.

So, Day had thought of going back. She felt as if she was now intruding on his little journey. Although, he did say not to worry, so she did not. He also wanted a new start. "Things turned upside-down, did they?" The very same had happened at the Glade. "We had a pack, before you found us. But, other wolves came. Took it. Then, it started as if life was taking us out, one by one...Sylvas lost his mate, and I lost a friend." She wasn't sure if she should have said that about Sylvas, but she was sure they were friends enough that she could have.

Grayday shifted so that he was facing Heartha more fully. "That sounds awful," he repeated, but this time with more feeling. "They just... came in and forced you out? With kids and everything?" he asked softly.

He looked down at his paws, unable to imagine the mindset of a wolf that could be comfortable doing such a thing. Apparently, there was a whole gang of them out there, somewhere. Hopefully, they never came near his family.

"We won't let it happen again," he assured her, lifting his eyes back up to Heartha's face. "We won't let anyone in that we can't trust. We'll stick together, and we'll make sure our kids grow big and strong."

He knew that these platitudes were meaningless, at their heart. Things happened, sometimes, and Grayday couldn't gauruntee anyone's safety - but he would try, and he hoped Heartha understood that.

Heartha nodded once. She hadn't even seen the fighting, or who had been the ones to come in and hit them. All she had done was watch the pups. "I never saw them."

She managed a small smile. It allowed for comforting thoughts to hear that promise. "That means a lot..." She was very glad of hearing that, and hopefully that promise could be kept. She could not lose another home, not again.

Day offered a tiny smile and then stood, stretching out his back. It was getting harder and harder to get back up, these days - all he wanted to do was lie in the sun. But his kids were back at the river, waiting for him, and he thought that Heartha could do with some more cheering up.

"Wanna come back to the river with me? Sunny, Dawn, and I were playing down there," he offered, tail wagging in invitation.

Heartha shrugged. It was an invitation, and one she would accept. She didn't want to turn it down, thinking it would cheer her up if she went along to play about. It had been a long time since she ever did play. "Why not? I can use some cheering up." It would take her mind off of things.