Morningside Cuesta Wednesday

@Heartha

There was a distinct lack of fun to be had around the territory - a problem that had only grown in magnitude since Grayday had asked her to keep an eye on Heartha. Just knowing that the woman could possibly be crazy lessened Sunspot's enjoyment of life, not to mention what it did to her peace of mind.

Still, she felt for the woman. It couldn't be easy, worrying about your sanity like that. Sunspot did her best to be attentive and companionable to her new sidekick. Unfortunately, she still didn't know Heartha all that well, and had no idea what the other woman considered a viable passtime. Maybe I can introduce her to Grimalkin, she mused, thinking they might suit each other, since they had so much in common. Age and... well. Age.

But she wasn't supposed to take Heartha on any trips - at least, she hadn't been told to - so Sunspot figured she'd be seeing a lot of the Cuesta until this whole thing got itself resolved. She was already getting tired of it. There was so much grass and hills and absolutely nothing else. Not at all stimulating.

Sunspot turned to her companion. "What do you wanna do?" she asked. They'd just been sitting near the shady copse of trees - the only copse - all morning long. No one else was around, and Sunspot was getting ancy.

Heartha pulled her head up. She had fallen asleep, if only for a small bit, dreaming about her secret friend she had been meeting. She almost blurted his name, only starting off the first half of Howl's name. She glanced up to Sunspot, who had been caring for Heartha because of her state of mind. She knew it was for her own good, but it was getting boring for her.

Sunspot's question took time for her to process, and then she gave an answer back to Grayday's sister. "Well...what do you do for fun?" she asked inquisitively. Her tail swayed slowly, still thinking of her dream.

"Hunt," she easily replied, the word rolling off her tongue as soon as she'd had time to process the question. Then, as an afterthought, "Eat. Run around. Sex. Um... I don't know."

She was beginning to realize it'd been quite some time since she'd last gone out with the intention of having fun. Her time with Grimalkin had been completely unplanned, and a bit rushed, if she was honest with herself. These days, she was simply doing what she could to get by, and to help the pack do the same. Maybe it was time for a new outlook on life?

"What about you?" she returned.

Heartha kept a rather blank face, as what Sunspot did, Heartha thought most of the wolves here did. Until the last part, which she never thought anyone would say so casually. It made her quirk a brow out of surprise. It made her pause.

"...Right." It made her think, what could they do? "Maybe...explore...no, most of the area would have been found by now..." she muttered to herself, then Sunspot popped a question of her own. "Oh, me?" She pondered on this. She had just met this wolf. And yet, she doubted Sunspot had let her brother know about what she did for fun. So maybe, just maybe, she could keep a secret. But she wanted to be sure. "Well...can you keep a secret?"

Could she keep a secret? Sunspot had never tried before, but it didn't seem like it would be very hard to just... not say something. She gave a little shrug. "Sure, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody," she agreed, thinking that a little gossip sounded like some good, harmless fun.

She found herself becoming more and more intrigued as she wondered just what this woman could possibly want to keep secret. And then, she found herself becoming slightly worried. Maybe she like to murder packmates? That was something crazy wolves did, wasn't it?

Heartha examined Sunspot's face. It wasn't something that would hurt anyone, was it? Heartha was beginning to think it wasn't, just harmless meetings. Well, until their next meeting. 

"Well...lately, I have been going out. I've been going out alone, just to calm my mind..." She paused for a moment, biting her lip. "I might have met someone. But we haven't done anything! Just talking. Like friends" she quickly added on the end. She wasn't sure whether or not what she did was the right thing, or if it would even affect anything later. All she wanted to do was just get it off her chest, tell at least one other wolf. Besides, Sunspot deserved to know where Heartha was going.

"Oh," said Sunspot, thinking that this wasn't much of a secret at all. Nothing exciting, just friends? "Well, good for you, Heartha," she decided, giving the woman a smile and a firm wag of her tail. Grayday was of the opinion that loneliness and heartache had caused her to start seeing things, so -

Uh-oh. "Wait - are you sure - " She stopped and cleared her throat. "Well, do you think I could meet him?" she asked hopefully. She needed to see this wolf for herself, just to make sure Heartha wasn't sneaking out to meet a figment of her imagination.

The old wolf's ear flicked once. Then her tail began wagging, she was glad that Sunspot took it well. She put on a smile, turning her gaze to...well, nowhere really. Just daydreaming. Then Sunspot's question snapped her out of it. 

"Ah...Well, I..." Ste stumbled over her words. How could she answer this? She didn't want anyone to meet him, but she wasn't sure how Sunspot would react to that. So she just blurted out an answer, "Sure...." She quickly added, "One day...If I meet him again."

She decided to move onto another subject to shift from Howl. "So Grayday. He's rather kind. Was he always so kind?" Khoe was lucky to have him.

She felt a bit guilty at the uncertainty in Heartha's tone. She didn't want to impose, but it seemed irrepsonible not to at least check up on this guy. She'd just have to follow her, the next time she went to meet up. She'd make sure there was someone there, and then leave them alone.

While she was working through this plan, Heartha's mind seemed to stray from the topic. She asked about Grayday, and Sunspot had to laugh. "Well, he was a bit moody as a pup, if you want to know the truth," she shared, grinning fondly at the memory. "We have another brother from the same litter called Shale. They look just the same, and for a while, my parents said the couldn't tell the two apart. But they decided in the end that Grayday was the moody one, and Shale was the happy one. So Day might've been born being called Shale." This story always made her giggle - it was just so typical of her brother. "But I guess he's always been kind. I only knew him when we were little, and he was a nice lad, back then. Seems sadder now, though. Sometimes I wonder what's happened to him."

Heartha listened for how Sunspot described her brother to have been, when he was younger. She could never have imagined him to be moody, not ever. "I can't see him being moody. He's too bright." She laughed a little bit at the small joke she mad,e but she meant it. He was bright, and by bright she meant happy.

Sunspot went on, speaking of them having a brother. She said that Shale was the happy one, and Grayday the moody. "You sure you didn't all get them confused?" she quickly put in. Though she didn't see Grayday as really sad. Not ever could he see him being sad.

Sunspot gave Heartha a puzzled look. "I'm sure," she said. "He's the moody one. If you met Shale, you'd understand." She knew Shale a lot better than she knew Grayday, but one thing about him certainly hadn't changed - he still thought too much. "He's good at hiding it, but he broods."

She realized, suddenly, that there hadn't been much fallout from the news she'd given him when she first arrived. She'd expected him to be much more disappointed by the deaths of their parents, but maybe he had grown out of his solemn disposition.

She understood that Sunspot would have been correct, as she was the sister to Grayday and their brother, so she must have known. Grayday must have been very good at clouding his true feelings. That must have been why Heartha had always only seen Grayday as kind. 

"He must be good at hiding..." Heartha could certainly learn from him. "What about you? Have you always been by Grayday's side?" She hadn't noticed her around when Heartha first arrived, but she wasn't the best at noticing others.

Sunspot sighed, wondering what things would be like if she had been with him all these years. "No, he left home when he we were seven months old," she replied. "He said he'd come back, but he never did. Daddy went out to look for him, but we couldn't find him. Eventually, we just figured he got lost or died or something."

It was sad to think about, even though she knew now that he was perfectly fine. It still hurt to think about all her lost and missing siblings. What would things be like if they'd all stuck together? All eighteen of them?

"I stayed at home until my parents died. I took over the pack, but everyone was growin' up, finding their own path. Eventually, it was just me. I didn't want to become a spinster on that mountain, so I came down this way. Running into Grayday was pure, blind luck."

Heartha tilted her head at Sunspot's sigh. "Oh..." she responded once Sunspot had finished. It did sound like complete luck that they had come across each other at all, good luck in fact. And luck was something everyone could have, something Heartha wished she had just once.

"Well..." She thought of how they could go on from here, and an idea popped up into her head. "How about we go find something to do? Might find a rabbit or two to chase." She stood up and got down into a play bow. "Sound like fun?" she asked, her tail wagging behind her. She thought that it would be fun.

"Yeah!" Sunspot replied, hopping to her paws and giving her pelt a brisk shake. Her joints creaked a bit for being still so long - she didn't often spend her days napping. Sunspot wasn't sure where to hunt rabbits, though. There were plenty in the territory, but nowhere they couldn't run straight into a hole, or some bushes, or those crags where Day got snake-bit.

"Know any good spots?" she wondered. Maybe she just wasn't very good at catching rabbits - or maybe she'd just never tried very hard.

Heartha pondered on that question for a moment. Did she know anywhere...

"Well, there is the meadow. We could try there?" With the tall grass, it would provide some more challenge. And fun. Unless they ended up losing each other, that would not be so fun. She thought about offering the suggestion of a fun little race, but then thought that perhaps her bones were too old to be running so much. "Let's walk there. We could definitely go for a snack."

Fade