Moonspear sing a new song

This sort of got away from me. Come talk to Alya, she's wandering.

Alya hummed as she scaled the runs and ridges of her mountain, navigating expertly even through the ice and snow. She'd never been on flat land before - even the safe haven of the rednezvous site had been sloped. Sometimes she tried to imagine what the world was like down below her, but for the most part, it was difficult for the sheltered young princess to even think in those terms.

This mountain was her world, and the things that existed outside it were more like a dreams than reality.

Lately, she'd been dreaming of a boy with lantern yellow eyes and a sad, ghoulish half-smile. Thoughts of Constantine had fled her all but entirely, and now her fantasies envolved a knight of equally dark coat, but infinitely darker aura. When she played 'rescue the princess' with Hydra and Lyra, one of them would now always play Cypress, the troubled but noble prince. They had to switch roles often, because Lyra and Alya were always eager to play the princess, but at least Hydra was always willing to play the demonic bear, so the other two only had to argue about who would play Cypress and who would play Lyra (because Lyra was the best princess persona. Alya had even worn that mask, when she and Cypress had met).

She'd sworn her sisters to secrecy when she'd told them of her encounter with the cursed young male, and they were just as fascinated by him as she was, despite having never seen him before. Though Hydra was more interested in the cursed aspect, Lyra now shared her helpless crush on the boy. It almost made Alya wish she'd not said anything, but then how could they play Rescue the Princess without knowing how to play Cypress?

They'd just finished a particularly violent rendition of the game, and Alya was left feeling very fulfilled by her tragic death as Lyra, and by Lyra's heartfelt goodbyes as Cypress as their characters parted for the last time. It was all very romantic, and it made Alya wish that she could meet the boy again. To prevent herself from making bad choices, she'd gone in the opposite direction of the borders.

Working hard and eating well, the wintery days passed in a blur.. which was all she could really hope for with a suspicious eye turned skyward often. She'd only fret in the downtime lately, or feel restlessness starting to set into her bones the longer everything took to conclude. With there being so many matters to anticipate, from Charon, Floki, and Aria's returns to the arrival of springtime, she had to stay focused, determined, and fiercely alive.

The mountain had few watching over it, and due to this, her time on patrol had to be effective -- and sometimes quick. Often there was much ground to cover. But, looking to get a lot done, she'd demolished the tasks early this morning and couldn't yet find the peace in her heart to go rest until it was time to resume a new round. Instead the hills and slopes could surely provide something to distract her, or at least spend her anxious energy halfway productively.

Scenting a daughter on the way quickly came as an added reward. A few expert maneuvers later, and she could start to match her path to the dark girl's side. It was too soon for her to tell which one this was, exactly, but this had nearly become reflex to need time to decipher the mysteries each brought. They kept her sharp in this regard always, and she got better at it over time. The clever little creatures who learned early to play to the strengths perfectly matching phenotypes granted were nothing short of what she should expect.

With all the ice, snow, and cold of recent weeks, she'd just been glad to see them all survive the bitter days without major peril. It was a great relief to see them grow taller, sleeker.. stronger.

She closed in wordlessly, only reaching for a fond nip on her flank when -- and if -- she could get that near.

Her humming tapered off as she detected the presence of a larger wolf. By the near-silence of her steps, Alya determined that it was her mother who approached. And, not feeling much like interacting with the woman while Cypress was on her mind, Alya hid in the back of her own mind and allowed Lyra to take control.

"Mama!" she laughed as the green-eyed woman nipped at her flank. Lyra scooted it out of the way, but not before she felt the thread of teeth through her fur. As the woman came to stride beside her, she bumped her head deferentially against the underside of her chin. "I'm glad we all got your sneakiness," she declared, tail lashing to echo this sentiment.

Somewhere deep inside the young princess, Alya was thinking about how she might sneak off to see Cypress in the near future.

When it came to the dark trio, they were nearly a single whole and the lines between them blurred so deliberately that Amekaze could only marvel. Sometimes she found it was easier not to decipher it, or let them shift and flux as needed. Did it truly matter which, exactly? Not always. She wouldn't know for a bit longer which one this was, or perhaps never.

She rumbled softly, happily, and let contact linger between them for as long as she could.

On her penchant for lurking undetected, it was truly one of her more favorable traits they could have taken, and for that she was thankful. "Me too." she answered as she peered at the svelte girl. They kept her on her toes with it, though, and thankfully she was not one to turn away a challenge. She would never hinder them in that regard and instead, subtly and lovingly, harass them back with sneaky maneuvers twice as hard for all the times they crept up on her. "I inherited it from my mother, too," she mentioned, although in the case of herself, her father's lean strength blended in had allowed her to perfect it rather well. Seeing it carry over so nicely into her own, and knowing how to help them keep the skills sharp should it interest them, was strangely heartwarming.

"What are you doing out here?" Amekaze asked next, and finally looked beyond her daughter.

The dark youth perked up at the mention of Amakeze's mother. For some reason, she had never considered that her Mamakaze might have a mother of her own. Probably a father, too. It struck Lyra (and Alya, deep inside) as odd that such a thing would even be possible.

She was soon asked about what she was doing out alone. It was a good question, and the answer was, truthfully, nothing in particular... but she was her mother's daughter, and all three of the mirror sisters took great pleasure in being reticent about their lives and activities.

"What was your mother like?" she asked, head tipping quizzically to the side. Alya glossed over her mother's question in favor of her own, knowing that Amakaze was far too wily to be sidetracked in this way (unlike a certain white father figure that Alya held near to her heart).

While not necessarily the intended effect, her mention of her own dam appeared to have perked some interest -- enough to discard the question, or at least distract from something. Subtleties always at play, she could only behold so many, so soon. At the least, her interest in the topic, no matter how genuine or deeply-seated, was one Amekaze could foster gently while the rest was simply kept in mind. With some coaxing, it may come up again and until then, the topic filed away neatly for later. "Mm, well, she was many things. Alpha and sage of her mountains, fierce, wise.. It depends on what all you want to know..?" she paused to steal a moment of consideration that sought to meet the blue of the girl's eyes: where to else begin, exactly, for a dynamic wolf of many, many faces such as her? "She had dark fur like us, only not so pitch, and one golden eye." Amekaze provided for the accompanying imagery. Her lip twitched, for somehow, this seemed relevant enough to her dark daughter's question.

Ame realized she could recall her features remarkably well, and remembered her honored mother's dry wit and casual disregard of all laws except her own so staunchly that a vague disbelief followed -- had it been so long already? Her dam had been a wild regal and empress twice-over, dashed with the hint of world weariness the aggressive, impassioned juvenile Ame had struggled to understand entirely back then, so she had to wonder what it could be like to cross paths again -- here, now, all these years later, and if some day her own cubs may feel similarly as she was now in thinking of her parent like this.

Alya gaped at her mother, suddenly realizing that she had a whole, big family she'd probably never heard of. "Has our family always lived on mountains?" she asked at once, needing to know more. "What about Daddy? Did his mom live on a mountain? What about Daddy's dad?"

She tried to picture a wolf that could've been Charon's dad, and found that she could not picture anyone more impressive than her father. In her mind, Charon's father was simply a larger version of Charon. What else could he be?

She blinked, for here stood the convergence of their histories, bright-eyed and curious. Amekaze had not expected detailing this here, and now, but her interests would not stifled so long as she'd have them. "Mhm. I cannot say for sure if it always was true, but for a very long time, my ancestors have claimed mountains.." the dark alpha nodded. As far back as she knew among their most distinctive leaders, when they did not have their mountains, it was out of otherwise necessity or a stepping stone towards the heights their blood pined after. Her experienced mother had always been adamant about it and a younger Rikudou had not quite understood until the mountain was not beneath her feet any longer. Then, she had come to realize that she needed to have one too.

Next, she shook her head softly although watched the girl keenly as soon as the motion steadied out. "Your father was born by the sea." Perhaps an enticing fact by itself, and an impressive aspect of nature she just might not know a whole lot about yet. It was hopefully enough to cover for her knowing very little else about the exact blood ties that made her mate the wolf he was. "I do not know where his family came from before then and there. Maybe it was once mountains too." She reasoned with a smirk. He'd taken to the elevations well enough to not surprise her much.

Alya wasn't sure why this was all so incredible to her. It wasn't something she ever thought about, simply because she'd never before seen any reason to. But it was a heady experience, to learns of things that were so beyond herself, and yet, that were woven intricately into the marrow of her bones. She thought of her first time off of her mother's mountain, and how her head had spun and her stomach roiled at the indignation of being on flat, expressionless ground. She thought of the sea as well - to her, nothing but a line sometimes seen upon the horizon, fuzzy and distant and barely discernable from the sky.

"I think I prefer mountains," she said dryly, wondering how it had been for her father. Had he needed to learn these slopes the way she'd needed to learn the valley? How had he even come across her mysterious and elusive mother?

"How did you and Daddy meet?" she wondered, never one to deny herself knowledge, when she thought it could be acquired. And her mother was, undoubtedly, the one to ask about these things. Charon had a way of telling stories that colored her perception.

Everything felt so low after a lifetime in the elevations. With a soft snicker, she certainly agreed. "The best choice. The seaside is impressive, but I like the heights too much." she shook her head gently. Oceanside life had almost charmed her once. Ultimately, it had never been a lengthy relationship between her and the coast, but she had savored it all the same. 

Which, when the subject steered towards an even more recent piece of history, her ears angled back. How much prefacing was important? When had it been that Charon had truly begun to matter like that to her? She had met him once, sure, but at first glace there was nothing to be said for their very first meeting.. Not until later in the mountains..

Valkyrie seemed to be the first word to make for the tip of her tongue, though. This, however, tied into a far more abstract explanation than she planned to undertake. "I met him for the very first time long ago when we were both looking for something and we crossed paths briefly by the sea." Him being very young had been his most noteworthy descriptor to her then. "Moons later, I found him when he had just come from a battle far from his home, near the last mountain of mine." She matched it to a tip of her snout northeast of here and licked her lips at the memory of him looking to be carted off to the warrior's afterlife just like that. Something had told her then to not to just let him die there, contrary to what he may have felt in that very moment. "He stayed with me to heal before going back home. After that we decided to combine our packs, since they were both small, and then found this mountain together." 

Alya gazed up at her mother, enraptured. She couldn't believe that she'd never asked this question before! She wished her sisters were there, so they could all ooh and ahhh over it together. Since they weren't, Alya made sure to commit every word and nuance to memory.

But the story was not all that exciting, and it lacked the grand romance that the girl had been looking for.

"But what about when you fell in love?" she asked fussily, unhappy with the lame-o ending to her mother's story. She decided to be even more specific, since Amekaze clearly didn't understand what she was after. "Like, how'd you get him to love you?" And then, as and after-thought: "And when did you get us?"

She lifted her nose, and felt her expression furrow in thought--because this was going that way, it seemed, and Amekaze knew the story was not as fanciful to any others. There had been no grand fall, no stunning realization that came crashing upon her with a poignant yes, I love him. It was instead that he worked so nicely beside her in life, after easing theirs together as they had. Just that, and she had found quickly that she really liked him there after all else before him let her down in the end, so she'd keep it that way.. none of which made for a remarkable story, against her daughter's wishes.

"Fell makes it sound so dramatic," she snickered, then softly shook her head. "It was not so eventful for me. The feeling lingered in the back of everything for a while after we moved here together. I felt it before I realized what, exactly, it was and that it was all because of him." So much had happened so quickly in life around it that it had been swept up in the rest of it, and had still gained its quiet strength during it all. But.. how she had got him to love her..?

There was some instinctual answer to this, she guessed: something in that she had been a solo alpha female, uncontested with no motivation of any to rise beside her. Enter Charon, young, ambitious, and ever-eager to ascend in life to fill that role when beta of a falling Rise no longer satisfied. Settling into place with the speckled Ostrega as her mate had likely just come as a byproduct of her tendency to be comfortable at the lead, if nothing, and the need to possess a spire to suit her wants. He let her do both very, very comfortably.  "I cannot say how, exactly, either. He fit so perfectly into place beside me, after no other could or would dare--and he made me better than I was. I suspect he felt the same." To start.

"And when we got you four? In leading together, once spring came and the mountain I loved was well-established as ours, it was natural for us to become one. We knew each other was strong, and that we could.." Ame explained, knowing that this went directly into some curious subjects curious girls could catch onto to soon enough. She'd asked, though. "So it was just when he was old enough and I finally saw my next heat, you four happened after that, come the backend of summer," which in saying so, she knew this was going to only make more questions, but she only wanted to be frank with her--there was nothing very fancy about any of it. It just was, and it worked.

"Oh," said Alya, a bit perturbed by this anti-climatic ending. Though she understood a great deal, she was, perhaps, still too young to understand the sort of love shared between her mother and father. To Alya, love was not an act or a promise, but an event. Something that happened to you, instead of something you practiced and cherished and lived.

But Amekaze was right in thinking her explanation would bring on even more questions. Though Alya misunderstood 'heat' to be a synonym for 'summer', she was now considering a question she had before.

"Where did we come from, anyway?" she asked, head cocking to the side.

Truthfully, their father may be able to paint a more endearing tale than she ever would, all rooted in cold, hard, logic and fact. Then again, this was how it was so perhaps not, but Alya seemed to take it for what it was worth with a question spearheading at the whole matter of how they even existed; sometimes looking at them, she still wondering the same although in reality she knew. Her and Charon had done well. "From me," paired with an obvious smirk. She'd grown them all herself but her expression grew a touch more serious as she thought of how to even put this lightly. "Well, your father did help. As is the alpha's right, when I finally came into season--which meant that I could do this productively and have pups--we bred and created you four. So about two moons after that, you were born." As warm-blooded beasts, there were many processes at work here and she could only begin to understand plus put word to a piece of them--let alone explain them to a young, curious girl. It just worked, she wanted to say and have that be all she'd need to hear right now, but that was awfully unlikely. She knew that.

Alya stared at her mother, wondering why each new expansion to this mysterious act seemed to both enlighten and obfuscate in turn. "Bred," said Alya a skeptical expression on her young face. And then, with a childish quirk of her head, "Born?"

Unable to obscure her identity any longer, Alya came fully into herself and fired a few questions at her mother, Alya-style. "You're being confusing on purpose!" she acused, "How does... 'bred'... how did that create us? What is bred? And I know we were born, but what does that even mean? How does born work?"

Alya stared up at her mother's face, trying to be patient and respectful, but finding herself strangely flustered and incredibly confused.

The dark youth promptly picked it apart, zeroing in on the sticky terms that didn't really apply elsewhere, and so there was no way she'd have a foundation of this at all. She'd have to be more literal, and somehow, even more straightforward about it. "It is confusing things. It deals with creating new life, so it cannot be simple," she defended with a smirk. It was not her intention to be frustrating. "Bred is.. when a female and male mate with plans for puppies," not that it cleared much up. "To mate, as an act, is.. " Trying not to wince outwardly, and wishing this could be put lightly: "Sex. Which even if I explain that in any greater detail, I doubt you will feel any less confused by it right now." Perhaps only outright disgusted, but the bait was there: I will, but you won't like it. "Briefly, it makes two creatures one." This relied on some pre-existing knowledge of what made them different.. which was a little hard to come by in Alya's female-dominated upbringing, Amekaze knew. But.. probably she'd seen how her father peed differently than they did? She braced for impact for more questions about this.

"When that is done when a female is in heat--or in season, they mean the same thing in that a female's body is ready to carry puppies if her conditions allow--a litter can be created." Ame's ears were angled back, but expression furrowed as she worked through this explanation and watched her daughter at the same time, hoping to see this sinking in somewhat better than the first time. "So after she carries them in her body for about two moons.. they are born, and officially start their lives with that. For wolves, it takes about two moons for the puppies grow enough to be strong enough to live beyond their mother." This would all still likely go over her head. She didn't know when she had first learned this from her mother, but it may not have even been so soon. "And trust me, this makes more sense when you see it play out in life." Not only meaning the likelihood of her living long enough to breed back to her mate, but everywhere else young mammals were born and happened in life too.

Maybe Alya was a little bit distracted, or maybe just a little bit dumb, or maybe her mother was trying to purposefully keep her from learning these secrets. (She was leaning toward the last option, of course.) Amekaze just kept adding more new words to her repertoire, and twisting around words like act and season in ways that Alya found a little bit disturbing.

Maybe she was a bit young for this.

"A female's body - like, inside you?" Alya asked with abject horror. "You mean - you mean there were babies inside you? What the fuck, Mom! What -what - we were?"

Alya gave a deep shudder, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to force out the next words, much like she imagined her mother had had to force them out - "How did we get out?" she demanded, her voice shrill and rising. What was going on, here?!

There would never be an easy way to put this. When the time came, they would come to understand it better. She knew this subject matter was a weighty one, but she would lay it bare anyway and let the girl take it or leave it. Her horror was plain to see, and with a mouth like that, she was very much her father's daughter then. Amekaze nodded. "Yes. Inside. It is how all warm-blooded animals are made, and my mother carried me and my littermates just the same.." she detailed, hesitant to bring up many more comparisons to further muddle the basis of this information, all while refraining from going into too much. "Again, it is because females have body parts that allow it," she said.

As for how they got out, Amekaze stared back intently. "Birth. It is what happens then, another process that forces the young to leave their mother's body and be born." This was, of course, barring any disasters and once again implying a lot of other happenings within. Judging by how mortified she seemed to be by this, Ame knew she shouldn't try to make it even worse.

Alya stared up at her mother, ears flat against her head and mouth hanging open in shock and dismay. How do I prevent this? was the first thing she thought, but her stomach was churrning to violently to ask. Instead, the girl let out an anxious whine and pushed forward to try and tuck herself under Amekaze's chest, between the legs that'd seemed so much longer when she'd been small. It was impossible, now, to hide herself beneath her mother, but Alya found a great comfort in trying.

"How do I make sure it won't happen to me?" she asked after swallowing down the frog that'd leapt up in her throat.

Thankfully, she could answer easily enough to that, and in truth, the girl's horror was not entirely misplaced. She was too young for this, Ame was too straightforward, and the subject matter of reproduction was not pretty. "Simply enough:" she assured her with a soft nod. "Avoid breeding with males while in heat," she explained. Until Charon had come along, she'd kept away herself, so knew it wasn't impossible. Nature didn't always make it easy, however, and this what where major complications could come along.

With that in mind, and feeling increasingly spent on the topic, she reached to nip at Alya's ear. "I really hate to make it be one of those things, but believe me, you will understand it better when you are older." Amekaze exhaled, readying her next proposition before they could find something new to pick about when it came to all that was on her mind. "If all of that did not mortify you completely... Want to find something to eat..?"

Alya instantly brightened at the thought of a hunt with her mother. Though she'd pulled a face when Amekaze claimed it, she was truthfully very glad that this wasn't something she would have to worry about until she was older. Better yet, it sounded very preventable, though Alya still wasn't quite clear on how to take the proper precautions.

"Mountain goats!" Ayla requested, hopping around at the thought. She'd yet to actually catch one, but with Mamakaze on her side, how could she fail? Without another thought, the girl bounded off, assuming her mother would be close behind her.

She would gladly lay that topic to rest for now in favor of the hunt, so offered no resistance when the girl took off. Ame was only a few short strides behind her, after all. Then and there was no time nor place to contemplate over the logistics of a successful hunt. It didn't matter to her right now, and above all, she was glad for a change of topic and pace all at once. She flattened down her ears and loosened up her stride further, playfully nipping at Alya when she could (hopefully!) reach her on their way to something to pursue.