Redtail Rise bloodstain

New Snow was uneasy. Rankled by recent events, she returned to her brood with fresh meat and rabbitskin. Depositing it, she looked around the rendezvous and moved to stretch, and then began to use her snout to inspect and be sure no trace of any illness had come near in her brief absence. 

She could not chase away the thought that perhaps they ought to, as a pack, migrate to a place no sickness had touched. This land meant little to her in comparison to the wolves it housed.

night eye had not yet come back. and he waited tensely for blood star to show that the sickness burned in her veins.

his mind was along that of his mate. this land would remain powerful in his memories. he might even return to die when it was his time.

but his wariness overrode the attachment.

he nudged the back of her ear and settled beside his mate.

New Snow obeyed much, but perhaps nothing moreso than the instinct that made her so subservient in the first place. It was this instinct that reared it’s head within her now, that was insistent that danger was near. New Snow licked her chops, the stress of it difficult to dispel.

Mountain Boulder! New Snow had been so lost within her mind that she had not heard his approach, and though she chided herself her excitement in seeing him could not be dimmed. Chin-nibbles and shoulder nips were delivered as she ran in eager circles around him, her ear still warm from the place he had touched. Her tail waved wildly as she greeted him with her customary dozen-kisses, though she withdrew to look him over.

He looked as tired as she felt. She did not like it. New Snow loosed a worried whine, and looked to the horizon. I think we all must go.

long rumbles of affectionate reassurance followed new snow's kisses, and for a moment he closed his eyes at the sheer pleasure of her very presence.

her whine was not echoed in throat, but in his eyes. i do not think wealda will go.

i do not think moon runner will leave. this he conveyed by gesturing toward the last place they had seen their loyal daughter. and loyal she was, ready to fight for blood star despite the fact she was still weakened.

but this malady was not something any strength of leadership could prevent. not his, not hers, not that of the brother who surely looked for the other pups.

still, he did not want to split the pack. he wanted wealda to decide they must relocate.

When he was silent, she looked back to him—and her stomach felt then as it did when she had been very young, and learned the lesson in her long days of travel and longer still nights of hunger that there was a point that meat could spoil! 

New Snow frowned, and looked down. She did not think he was wrong. She pawed at the earth, frustrated, and looked back to the horizon. 

Now it felt too far away. Out of reach. She moved to sit beside him, burying her head in his shoulder. She felt the whisper of natures cruel breath at her nape, and wondered if soon it would be natures unrelenting teeth there instead. 

She rumbled, uneasy. They put the three newest life at risk, if they stayed—but she weighed even the alternative. It is out there too she barked out, as if this might somehow settle them if Wealda could not be moved.

But… 

He had seen her that day. It is not here, she rumbled, knowing that if he thought that it was that they would be gone already. But they both had the instinct within them to be loyal—to Red Woman, and now to Wealda. That loyalty within them both might very well compete against their better instinct, but New Snow had been too exhausted to think of it any other time but for now.

new snow was worried, frustrated. if blood star fell, nothing would keep mountain boulder here. but she was not fallen. she was here, breathing. their wealda.

there was one divergence of his own loyalties, and that was for the life of their young.

we will move them farther. we will wait for night eye.

his lips moved along her nape, pulling bits of leaf matter from her pale coat.

wait. then we will go to wealda. how long? communicated in silent touch to the caru.

Patience was asked of her, and for Wealda she had it. Her trust in the woman was not easily shaken, and that was not the case now—New Snow trusted the girl she also saw as daughter. She wanted to herd her away from this, too. Nothing felt so important as that. 

New Snow would go to see her when she was well. It would be unfair to move her as the woman recovered. New Snow stretched out beneath her mate, crooning a note of thanks as he groomed her. It put her mind at ease, soothing her.

Away from the horizon, back to Mountain Boulder. When she is well again, her flattened ears answer, but they flick up quickly: or if we scent danger. 

To move the cubs more inland soothed her further. She nodded. And then, sniffing her mate, paused. Her eyes were bright with new interest—she had nearly forgotten! Where is the young one?

a timeframe was comforting. an end to their waiting moreso. their pups were not so young that they could not thrive outside the protection of the rise, but mountain boulder wanted the finest start for them.

the child. he chuffed toward the borders where wealda had come back. the pup for now was kept apart, fed by those around. certainly the arrangement would change if there was no danger.

a restlessness took him. suppose to ease both their minds they scouted a place further? the maplewood could no longer be a choice, so close to all that had gone on.

New Snow could not ascertain the age of the cub through this faded scent, and her instinct to care for this one too was relayed with a whistling sort of whimper. But he would be able to relay to her what was needed, if anything. She understood the danger, enough so that she had not focused on it until the scent of them reminded her they existed at all.

Sensing now his restlessness, New Snow took to grooming a knot from his shoulder. And, once it was gone and the fur there was in order, she stepped alongside him. Whatever it was he wished to do, or go, he would not be alone.

flame stalker had been gone a while. but mountain boulder was more confident in her absence, assuming that she had answered the call of her young age and gone to seek the beginnings of a new future elsewhere.

kept separate. for now, he communicated of the child brought back.

he held her eye and blinked, unsure of how to tell new snow that this child was redtail also, born of the rise or not.

she would come to know it. he nudged her shoulder and shook off the clinging tension, and invited her on a hunt and exploration of the furthest borders.