Blackfeather Woods Bad Decision

@Vaati The reason for his absence is he ingested deer who had eaten something that was poisonous but non lethal.

His vision became impaired after he had gotten lost during a hunt, relying only on his sense of smell to guide him back to Blackfeather, he was wounded on his leg and had an occasional limp in his step. He was getting more and more tired as he continued further until he collapsed yet still conscious.

He had found a tail. Or what was left of it. The bone structure was intact — cemented together by tough cartilage and freeze-dried leather. But most of the fur had fallen off, leaving just a clump of long fur at the tip. Euron trotted along the borders clutching his new toy between his teeth, only to happen upon a black wolf laid out at the edge of the forest. One with a far bushier tail...

"Are you dead?" Euron inquired as he drew near.

He happened upon the pair by chance, just as his patrol was nearing its end. Both were easy to see against the snow, dark and vaguely familiar; he knew the smaller to be another of Potema’s children, whilst the other shared visual similarities with many of Blackfeather’s past. With a furrowed brow he advanced towards them, picking up on the end of Euron’s question. “What are you doing out here?” he asked the child first, glancing his way. It wasn’t long after before he was looking back towards what he assumed was a corpse, recognising it as someone he’d seen only in passing a good while ago.

The closer he looked, he noticed the rise and fall of his sides—oh, so he wasn’t dead. “Hey, get up,” he commanded. Any chances of him being wounded were disregarded, as Kove wouldn’t care if he was; he wasn’t someone of any significance to the northerner, just a potential waste of resources.

He stood up stumbling a bit, laying there must have brought some of his strength back. His injuries must have only been temperary but the gash on his leg was still slightly bleeding. "I am Nightstar." He said, the wolf had not met this pack wolf yet.

To his disappointment the black wolf was not dead. Kove showed up too, questioning his reasoning for being out on the borders. Euron dropped the old bony tail on the snow, pressing his paw over it so that he could answer more freely. "I wanted this one to be dead so I could have his tail." Euron answered, shooting the dark wolf a sour look for not only being alive but for ignoring him. He looked back at Kove then, wondering if the white wolf would send him off or not.

Up rose the obsidian creature, a stain splayed across the snow no longer. Kove watched his movements, the stumbling noted and the metallic scent in the air concerning; he did not worry for the health of the male, viewing him now as nothing more than a potential waste of resources. He glanced towards the child, then, his reason for being there successfully grabbing the man’s attention. Waving his muzzle slowly, he motioned for Euron to come closer before whispering, “Maybe you can still have it.” The last word had hardly made its way out of his mouth when he looked back towards Nightstar, unimpressed.

“What’s your reason for coming here?” he asked, choosing to not add in a back. Although he would swear on his life that he’d seen him in passing within the woods some time ago, the possibility that he hadn’t made him more careful with his wording.

Nightsta began to speak. "Me and my sister Moonshadow were accepted by Vaati about one moon ago, I came into to contact with a strang plant during a hunt. Which restulted in my disappearance." The wolfwondered now if he would be let back into Blackfeather or if he would be sent away without any hesitation.

"Oooo..." Euron grinned as Kove whispered in his ear. That simple humoring of the boy's wishes had placed Kove in a favorable light. He sat then, grinning devilishly at the [supposedly doomed] black wolf. He intended to be quiet and to wait for his chance at the tail... but the wolf's explanation caught him off guard. Euron canted his head and arched a brow, crinkling his nose in confusion, as his mind conjured up images of this male being kidnapped or beaten up by a fern. It was all rather amusing to him, and he giggled before interjecting a mocking comment.

"Hehe, you must be pretty weak if a plant got you. Plants do not even bite."

The male explained, though his reason for leaving the woods was hardly a grand tale. If anything, he thought even less of him now, his mistake a foolish one. He opened his mouth to respond when he heard Euron’s voice, at whom his attention was then directed. “Some plants can do more damage than teeth,” he explained. “Where a bite creates a wound you can heal, some plants are so poisonous that there’s no helping you after you’ve eaten one.” Kove was far from an expert on the subject, but he knew enough to get by, including: “That’s why you shouldn’t eat any plants you find unless you know what they can do to you.”

Turning his attention back towards the traitor, he added, “Eating just any plant you come across reflects poorly on your intelligence.” The exception being Cicero, whose knowledge was greater than most and experiments never too problematic. “Letting you back in with your wound and carelessness would deplete our caches and create a greater risk than what you’re worth,” he decided. Their resources were already limited on account of it being winter, and what they did have would be used up quicker than necessary if he continued to make mistakes.

Nightstar nodded his head. "I understand. I will be on my way then." He thought of his sister as he turned around, wondering if she'd be alright by herself. "Just ket my sister know what happened." He said before he starts walking away from Blackfeather woods. He knew that she would be alright, she was much wiser than him in ways.

Why would I eat a plant? Euron wondered as Kove cautioned him against doing so, having explained that some plants were poisonous and were worse than being bitten.

Kove denied the black wolf a second chance and Euron watched the male turn to depart. He waited a moment to see if Kove would chase him and then looked at the pack's Listener curiously when it started to seem like that would not be happening (not that Euron afforded Kove much a chance to react).

"Not going to have his tail?"

Last post from me.

There was no battle to be fought or decisions to be defended as the male took his leave. Kove stared after him, watching the younger wolf until his attention was pulled towards the child; he kept an ear turned in the traitor’s direction just in case he made an attempt at backtracking and attacking. And at the boy’s question, he considered pursuing the other male so that the child would receive a new toy, but he never acted upon it. The Inuk was not the sort to attack to maim. When he fought, it was only ever because he was defending something or someone—only once had he played on offense, but that was a long time ago and now nothing more than a distant memory.

“Not this time,” he stated, accompanying his words with a slow shake of his head. “We will find you another tail, though. Soon.” After one last glance in the loner’s direction to ensure he’d gone, Kove turned whilst motioning for the boy to follow—and, should Euron do so, the elder would lead him along the borders in search of some tails. But should he not, then Kove would return to the woods alone, lingering just within the treeline—watching.

He was momentarily crestfallen than he would have no tail. But then Kove offered to find him another, making Euron agreeable to following him around the borders. With the longer thoroughly rejected and sent on his way, the pair set off.