Redtail Rise LXXIV

quick pack meeting to gauge where everyone stands! no posting order <3 @Mulherin @New Snow @Moon Runner @Redd @Cambria @Ruckus

red woman's death had shaken the fundamentals of the rise. her strength had prevailed through test, through hunt, through conflict, through abandonment.

perhaps all things must at last be laid to rest.

mountain boulder tasted winter in the air as he called those of their pack together. the pups were leggy now; he nosed each one and looked long at new snow.

his mind perhaps was made. but his dutifulness to the pack he had helped to lead bound him to the ridge's earth, and his voice was warm as he sang out.

Moon Runner had learned of Red Wolf’s challenge through the bloodspots on the ground. Once dispersed, she had returned to exchange fangs with Faraway Shadow and had lost.

A wheel could only take so much vibration until it was derailed. At some point, their unity waned. Their borders fell. The engine that was Redtail Rise malfunctioned, its parts cast away.

Moon Runner orbited the Rise, as Earth did its sun. Somehow, the nights felt colder. Lonlier.

The pale yearling howled in reply when she heared Wise Father’s call.

Then, she loped toward him, magnetised by the desire to feel whole once again.

The hunt lead issued a summons.  It was to the wolves of the rise, but Redd still rose and slowly, stiffly, made her way to meet it.  She had not recovered enough to feasibly travel but this distance was short.  A part of them or not, she needed to know what came next.

She approached with her head and tail both low and unthreatening, stopping a distance from them and sliding down to lay on her stomach.  Presumably Ruckus followed.

Redd’s entire bearing communicated contrite patience.  This was for the new Wealda and the hunt lead to decide.  She only wished to see if her home was still among them.

Single post from me, sorry he’s not cooperating!

Cambria heard the call, though he was in no position to heed it. Far away from the rise, he concentrated on the groundhog coming and going from its burrow on the south end of the plain. He had been here for hours, observing, and soon he would make his move. Only then would he return to Redtail Rise, with fresh meat for Redd and Ruckus.

His thoughts strayed, wondering why the Ulfhedinn called. But the Dragonling could not afford any distractions. He shoved the thought from his head—not without a flare of indignation—and prowled another inch closer to the fat rodent.

please PM me if i'm holding things up at any point. <3

Ruckus continued to shadow Redd wherever she went. They had never known "pack" outside of Riley, Raider, and Redd. Their siblings had been forgotten entirely, mere blips on the timeline of their life. Their posture mirrored Redd's, as it so often did, with their head and tail both low, satisfying whatever requirements this social encounter might ask of them. When Redd touched her belly to the grass, Ruckus followed. They could not make out the shapes in the distance, but they could clearly see Redd, and that was all that truly mattered to them.

in the new days of his tenure, mulherin grew quieter, in a way.

the gleam in his eyes lost their youthfulness. his face grew more angular, a thin crease ingrained in his brow from being furrowed.

when the ulfhedinn calls, he answers as he’d done countless times, but the air about him is fundamentally changed. 

tail held high, he woofs a greeting to the gathering.

the sight of redd and ruckus does not alarm him. he permits them nearer with a low croon. 

redd had proven her mettle, despite the turbulence of her decisions. in the wake of her challenge, he did not regard her with malice—their fight had drained that bitterness out of him.

she’d been permitted to stay, so long as she recommitted herself to the rise as a whole. the distance she put between them was hers to decide.

he gazes at the huntlead and his daughter once more, wondering the reason of his call.

through all this time mulherin made his position clear; 

if the rise went down, 

he would go down with it.

today would be the same

as all the days that had come before it,

he would remain.

new snow arrived last. mountain boulder welcomed blood star with a rumbling sound meant also to encompass the red pup. she had stayed, as had the child. she had not gone away after her defeat. it spoke in many volumes.

loud as well was mulherin's stance and snow rain's absence.

wealda would stay. this land belonged to him, to his blood.

moon runner's loyalty had been to those who earned and held it. glancing between the nightfurred youth and his daughter, mountain boulder sensed his own age, a deepening of a natural distance that might continue.

he stared at each of them in turn, assessing their dedication to the land upon which they stood.

and then the huntlead looked long toward the redtail leader. he sent a howl scudding into the cold autumn air as it seemed those who stood here were unified in what would be chosen: to stay, to build again. to remake the rise in the image of night eye. 

but it was the bond of singing he sought now.

I entirely missed the note about no posting order lol! I imagine this is in rounds then <3

Redd pushed herself to sitting but no song rose in her chest.  Despite their sounds of welcome she felt a distance and knew, with a weary sort of loneliness, that it would take time for her to find her place here again.

She wished to belong.  Her anger and resentment had gone, but trust had been lost within her as much as it had been in them.  Perhaps Cambria's words had brought something forth.  When she had first returned, injured and in need, she had met only suspicion and challenge. They had removed her without the consideration of her capability to properly answer.  The rank had not been earned.  It had been stolen while she could not fight back.

No resentment.  But hurt.  A wound she did not know how to vocalize.  The feeling that she, in an instant, had no longer mattered.

When the song faded, she let it rest a moment.  Then she spoke the words that needed to be spoken.  

There was no challenge.  Her voice held no accusation, only the rare vulnerability of a bared feeling.  There could have been.  If it had waited.

She only wanted to know why.  She needed to understand why they had sought to remove her so urgently that they had revoked her claim and disregarded her pride.  Without time to recover, without a fair chance to defend or prove herself, she had been left without the knowing that her place had been earned or her own leadership truly unfit.

Did they see this?  Or was she alone in this as well?  Perhaps her feelings were unreasonable.  She did not dismiss this possibility.

Ruckus pushed themself into a sit, only a fraction of a second behind Redd's movement. They sensed tension in her, and then came the words from their guardian. This place, this pack, was a quiet one. It was unlike the distant, early memories of Riley and Raider, all cheerful voices and happy noises. Nothing had been like that in a very long time. Even these words were terse and pained.

They sat; they listened.