Redtail Rise my tongue is an axe, and a sword

electricity crackled in the air. ancelin had heard the calling; first from aunt avicus for lilia and augur, then augur's own call for his mate.
what chilled him was his aunt's second call, a powerful dirge of anger that sang right into his blood. her blood. he almost stepped forward.
"@Lilia?" he exclaimed, a bit out of breath with how fast he had run to find her. "what's happening?"

She loped through the packlands, having convinced herself that if she bolted, she might be seen- and that if she was caught running, she might be chased. She could feel Ancelin's concern even before she saw him, and the speed at which he travelled made her wonder if someone was hot on his heels. Would they be chased out like quarry? All of a sudden, she felt isolated and vulnerable. She couldn't control what narrative Avicus was spinning now that she had called for her children.

"It'th Avicuth," She breathed, her hackles bristled stiff, porcupine quills to the touch. She felt some of her intensity settle when he came within reach. She shuddered, and in spite of herself, she uttered a dry, brittle chuckle. "She'th...Gone off the deep end." She said, bitter and hurt.

She couldn't call to the children- Avicus had turned tail and had rallied them together. 

"We should go to Augur an' New Thnow, but-" She suggested with a sigh that was cut short.  "Anthuh...You...Yuh gonna thtand with me, right?" She asked.

"what?" ancelin answered worthlessly, a confused man. but then it all registered; he glanced in the direction his aunt had called.
she was the last remaining blood-tie to a world he he had never known, and he inherently wanted to go to her, to attend this convocation of redtails.
but he had not be summoned and he felt some pain in him, something he hadn't expected to feel.
"of course i will, leelee," he chuffed. "we belong to each other, right?"
but what was happening? ancelin was still thrumming with anticipation and anxiety.

She would expain- but she waited, first, for the reassurance that he would be by her side. Just the idea of him turning to back the Redtails made her conviction falter, but with his promise came the confidence that she had had only moments ago when she had stood up to the disgraced Wealda and had braced for her teeth. 

"She demanded that she be made Wealda again," She explained, gesturing that they start to move. She knew where she had left Augur and New Snow, and hoped to rejoin them so that some semblance of sanity could grow alongside whatever it was that the Redtails were brewing. "She dithrethpected me, and Augur too. Anthuh I would've....If she'd've been anyone elthe I woulda ripped huh throat out for thpeakin' to uth like that," She said. "She went for me, too- but Augur thtopped huh." She had not feared for her life, and would have gladly accepted the battle. Being Berserkr, she was not supposed to fear brutality but embrace it. She knew the Ulfhedinn could be a ferocious fighter, but only when it was necessary. 

"She called the kidth," She said rhetorically, and chuffed. "Fuck. We raithed thothe kidth, Anthuhlin. Now they're jutht...What, huh pawnth? 'Cause she gave birth to them?"

this wasn't making any sense. not at all! not a bit! ancelin padded after lilia but the longer she talked with this sense of foreboding, the more he felt himself start to — balk.
so his aunt had tongue lashed leadership. that wasn't surprising, given who she was and the fact the rise was populated with her pups. 
it stunned him to think that augur, of all wolves, had been the one to break it up! in ancelin's memory, he had never known the great man to refuse anything avicus desired.
the kids, the kids; "they're young and she's their mom. but they can choose all this for themselves." and that was it, wasn't it! ancelin didn't choose this.
he hurried to gently arrest her stalwart beeline for the silent pair who had always treated them both with kindness. "leelee — fuck all this. let's just go, now."
his indigo eyes were earnest. "i know you're a leader here. i know it's not just that easy. but it is also that easy. and it's not really running away, we're just fucking off early the way we were gonna do in a couple months anyway."

She paused and looked up to him as he pleaded with her, and she sighed. It would be like running away, and like leaving the Redtails to the madness they now nurtured and in the middle of that swarming hive would be Augur, New Snow and his family. 

”We don’t know what thuh even gonna do. If we leave now, an’ they come for uth…Then it'th like we fled in fear an’ babe, that’th not uth.” She said. ”If we leave now we’ll nevuh be known ath more than cowardth…Then we’ll be marked ath thuch, an’ hunted fur thport- not jutht uth, but our kidth, Anthelin.” 

The decision they made would stick with them for generations if the Redtails were as vigilant as she knew them to be. 

”We should wait thith out” She cast a glance toward the sky, looking for @Towhee Jr hawk. She wouldn’t have been able to hear the howling, and should be found before she got roped in with the rest of them. ”Promithe me…We’re nevuh gonna be like thith to our kidth?” She asked, giving his jaw a light nudge.

Avicus had let them down, left them alone, and now came back and who knows what ideas she was putting in their minds now, about their line being superior.

lilia spun an image that did not vibe with ancelin's sense of self. "why would she do that? i'm blood. our kids are blood to hers, whether or not she likes it."
he could see she was stressed and afraid; he smoothed her forehead with his muzzle. "we won't do this. we won't be this. i don't want to wait for them to tell us to leave, lilia." that would humiliate him in a way that felt insurmountable. 
best to leave on their own terms. ancelin had no final stand to make; his blood had failed him over and over. she was home now.
but he let out his breath next. "i'm not scared of them. let them have this place, leelee. augur can figure out what he'll do next. you know ill stand with you though," much as he wanted to piss on their den and then depart this very second.

"I don't think she'll evuh conthider uth family. You, maybe, but she'd....Prolly want you to leave me." She said. The thought of it was unbearable- but he had sworn to be by her side throughout all of it.

"They can't make uth leave." She said. "Augur an' I are the leaduth. They wanna thtage a coup? Let 'em twy. Let huh kidth thee how mad she ith. She hathn't earned that rank, an' she'th jutht making huhthelf more and more unworthy of bein' in a leadership role." She hoped that Avicus' behavior might at least make an impression on the kids, and that they might see that their mother's behavior was erratic and unreliable.

"I don't want to leave Augur...Not jutht...now," She said. She could tell how much Avicus' slight had wounded him. "He'th...The clothetht thing I have to a Dad, an' I...I don't wanna walk away on him. If he want'th to keep the Rithe, I wanna help him keep it. He'th alwayth been there, fuh me an...I wanna do thith, fuh him."

The plans she had with Ancelin were still at the top of her priorities- but it wouldn't have felt right to abandon Augur in the early waves of whatever was to come from the Redtail family. She knew what it was like to be left behind, and couldn't bring herself to walk out on the man and his family so easily.

to ancelin, the rise was not worth her stress. he enjoyed the pups and masque; he thought fondly of them. but the abandonment of mother and father and brother, followed by that of his aunt; it had soured his taste of the bloodline. ancelin had slowly stopped feeling like a redtail. this event was a nail in that coffin.
ancelin would not feel the same as lilia simply because he had less to lose by way of his connection to avicus. this was not something he had considered, hence his brief frustration that lilia wouldn't just walk.
knowing she thought of augur like a dad softened the young hunter quite a bit, if only because he understood what it was to lose one.
"let's go find them then," was all he said, standing at her shoulder as he waited for her to hear off, back to augur he presumed.

She could tell he wanted to leave. And if they did, what then? Was it foolish of her to refuse to flee, simply because it would leave the children thinking that she was a coward? She was Berserkr; and she refused to disappear on the pack the way that Prophet had.

She wouldn't leave the children, not the way that Avicus had.

She would relinquish neither her title nor her presence, so as to preserve the integrity of both. The children would know that their Berserkr was a wolf who would not run away when something threatened them. And they would learn that those who loved them would not always disappear on them.

She owed Augur a debt as well; and should Avicus and her children move to cast any non-Redtail wolves aside, she would be there for him to be the protector he had always been for her. They sought out the quiet family, knowing that it was only a matter of time before everything came to a head.