Whitewater Gorge i don't know nothing about mopeds

tegan arrived somewhere inbetween noon and noon-thirty-- just as he said he would. the sun was high in the sky and he was in damn good spirits. he trotted along towards the buttcrack-- proud of himself for remembering how to get there-- and paused around where they were last time. give or take a few feet-- he wasn't being anal about it(hahaha more butt jokes). and then, he plopped himself down and waited patiently for miss @Easy to come be graced by his presence.

Easy was sniffing around the edge of the gorge, mentally comparing it to the morraine that divided Aditya's wood from Daddy's plains. The morraine, at least, was far easier to navigate than the gorge, but Easy rather liked the rush of water from down below. Of course, Daddy would have been terrified to find her so close to the edge. He held on tight to the belief that wolves that died in rushing water would have there spirits trapped there forever. He didn't know quite what happened to their spirits after they died, but Easy understood it was somewhere between Aditya's idea of reincarnation and Daddy's extremely odd belief that there were people in the sky writing out their stories.

But whatever. She was too young to die, and Tegan was up ahead, clearly very eager to see her again.

"Hey, Tegan!" she hailed, glad to see that he was just where she'd expected him to be. Part of her wanted to run and see him, but there was an odd scent in the ground, here. Easy wondered if the Last Shadow had been to this area as well. "Come smell this - do you recognize the scent?" She was pretty sure one of the strange creatures they'd scented in the taiga had landed here, too.

and there she was! easy was not hard to spot, what with her patchy grey pelt. tegan had never met someone who looked so different from other wolves-- aside from towhee, maybe. but either way, he saw her and stood to go greet her with a few waves of his grey tail. "wassup easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey," he barked, and then dipped down immediately to shove his nose in the snow and figure out what she was talking about. he raised up, giving a light sneeze and shake of his head to clear to cold from it.

"nope," he said brightly, not even taking the time to process the scent, "not ringing any bells-- oh wait, actually." a few seconds in and tegan realized that maybe he did recognize it. he scrunched up his face for a minute. was that... fiadh? "actually it kinda smells like my sister-- she's got some weird neck friend," he shared with a shake of his pelt. it didn't seem particularly interesting to him. as a quick add on, he pricked his ears and said, "she claims it attracts bears but... that's a lie, i haven't seen it attract a single bear."

"Hey, Tegan-um...Wegan," she replied, stepping back so that the other could get a good whiff of the strange scent. It seemed at first that he wouldn't be any help with it, but as soon as the boy mentioned necks, Easy knew that she'd found another clue. "A man I met had one, too!" she gasped, thinking hard about what this might mean. "He seemed kind of crazy, but he said some kind of murder bird attacked him and spider-vines gave him a funny necklace, and we tried to get it off but then the bird came back and we had to run from some elk."

She hadn't seen any sign of him since, but honestly, she hadn't been looking that hard.

"Maybe they just attract trouble," she suggested.

"oh no, no, don't do that," tegan said in response to her weak attempt at a nickname. tegan was an expert at this-- she should just leave it to the professionals. tegan then squinted at easy as she told her story, thinking and processing all the information he was being given. the thing that stood out the most was that the neck friend was given by a murder bird. fiadh had left that detail out of her story. maybe she didn't know? despite his antics, the comment was actually quite unsettling to the blackthorn pup. 

"trouble sounds about right," he then agreed, unable to decipher what any of the rest of the story meant. why the heck would any of this happen? it didn't make any sense to him. "where do you think it came from? like, why do you think it did that?" he asked, nose twitching as he turned to look back at his friend.

Uh-oh. Telling her what to do was the worst possible way to gain Easy's compliance. "I do what I want," she said with a lofty toss of her head. "... Tegan-Weegan."

But there were more interesting things to discuss than her abmysal nick-naming skills. Tegan agreed that the cool necklaces were trouble magnets, but seemed lost when she went on to talk about the murder-birds. Of course, they were rather new to her as well. She wouldn't be telling him that. "My dad says there were a lot of them in Alaska, where he was born. Up there they call them Last Shadow because the last thing you see before they kill you is the shadow of them when they fly over you," she explained in her spookiest story-telling voice. "But they didn't kill that dude when they gave him the necklace. Maybe it's a different kind that gives them out."

Boy, did she wish she had gotten one. Even if they attracted trouble.

tegan shrugged as she quickly went against his suggestion. "fine-- but you look dumber than me, pal," he replied, and moved on. he wouldn't hang back on the conversation, it was sort of a waste of time and energy-- tbh. 

"that's fuckin ominous as hell," he said with a few blinks, "the last shadow. jesus christ." though he was glad to receive all this information-- because now he had a really cool story to tell! tegan was glad he didn't get one. even though it'd be really cool to rub in everyone's faces, it seemed like some weird responsibility-- the keeper of the neck friend. tegan really did not have time for that. he paused, giving easy a quirked brow and a wave of her tail. "you gave me chills! that's a good story, good shit easy," he praised-- tegan praise was the highest of sorts, so he hoped she appreciated it. 

"oh hey-- guess who's officially a part of the adult ranks," tegan then boasted, moving away from the rest of their conversation and into something that was impressive on his own behalf. tegan wasn't technically old enough but... towhee threw them a bone and bumped them all up a little bit early. tegan wasn't complaining, he wasn't part of the higher more responsible tiers and still got all the benefits of being an adult. cause he totally was.

Easy looked down at her paws, wondering if she really seemed dumb to Tegan. She knew she was big and ungainly, but Daddy liked to call her his warrior, and warriors were big, right? Sometimes she believed it, but a lot of the time, all it took was a little offhand comment from a friend to send her tumbling back toward self-consciousness.

"I've seen two of them," she bragged to Tegan, not quite as self-satisfied as she might usually be. "It sounds like a million mosquitos buzzing in your ears, so loud you can't hear your own thoughts! And the birds are as big as three moose all tangled together. Very scary." Of course, she hadn't been too scared at the time. Only after she'd heard from her father what they were really all about.

She still really wanted one of those necklaces.

"Me," she said swiftly, her stance turning prideful once more. "I'm a hunter, now. Just like my brothers and my sister. And I'm Daddy's guide - he's got no eyes anymore, so he holds my tail and I escort him on his scouting trips."

watching easy fall like that made him feel a little bad. he tended to forget not everyone was as obnoxious as them redhawk folk, who yelled insults to one another as a form of affection. he hesitated for a brief moment, almost stopping to apologize but... tough luck, right? besides, they moved on. 

"that's dope," he returned, sounding genuinely interested as opposed to his sometimes sarcastic comments, "and scary, but only a little, i dunno what i'd do if i got stuck face-to-face with one." he took a few moments to think about it to himself before shrugging. "piss myself prolly."

aw damn, easy was bumped up to! and... honestly, her role in the pack was way cooler than his own. but that also sounded like a whole lot of responsibility and tegan wasn't about that life. instead, he focused on a different detail of her story. "oh shit-- way to go... why'd your dad got no eyes? what happened to 'em?" he asked, nose twitching curiously. his parents both had their eyes-- though finley was still sorta slow from the battle against black feather woods.

Easy flashed a self-satisfied smile, because she had chased after the bird, intent on bagging one to drag home to her father. She hadn't realized quite how big or dangerous they were at the time, but she still considered it a feat of bravery. Braver than Tegan, at least! "Well, we can't all be Easy," she said loftily, not quite thinking that sentence through. But rather than beat herself up about it, she found the strength to press on, latching on to the next topic of conversation.

"Some asshole tried to eat my sister over the winter. Daddy fought her off and bit off her tail, but she got a tooth in his eye," she bragged, tail wagging. It was one of the coolest things about her dad, honestly. "It's still there, but it's all gross and dry. And he has the other one but he can see out of it." Honestly, he'd been mostly blind since she was tiny. It didn't phase her anymore. "What are your parents like?" she asked curiously.

"hey," tegan said with a shrug, "no ones shaming you here." haha get it because she was easy. tegan thought that was still clever-- but he wasn't smooth enough to make any other moves on the matter. whoops, anyway, moving on.

"that's gross-- but kinda dope, i guess. i like hearing stories like that," the blackthorn shared with a smile. he liked hearing indra's story-- and even seabreeze's story, even though she was kinda weak low-key. he was too so, whatever. "my parent's are pretty cool... she and my dad are they beta's-- they used to be the alphas but they handed it over to my cousin towhee. mom's got a limp from a war we were just in, but like they're both really badass. it's where i get it from." 

Easy didn't get it; she didn't really understand what it meant to be 'easy' aside from that she wasn't supposed to be difficult. She totally was, though. So she sorta just ignored that joke, chuckling like she got it but moving on as quickly as she could.

"Yeah, it looks really gross," she agreed, tail wagging at this proclaimation. Gross, but totally cool. It was also cool how Tegan's mom had a limp from the war - belatedly, she remembered that Redhawk Caldera had had something to do with that. Aditya had mentioned it to Dad one time, maybe. "That's pretty cool," she allowed, sitting down because she'd had to come a looooong way to get here. "My dad's always been the leader since I was tiny, and then my sister and Pema became leaders with him. And my mom's RUNNOFT but Pema and Catori are pretty much both my mom."

hah, tegan gave a snort. "r u n o f t," he repeated thoughtfully, "i like that, imma use it." two moms was also kinda cool, like as a concept, cause tegan always really liked his own mom. but three parents? tegan couldn't imagine having three parents... well, did towhee count as a parent? that was a good question-- she was always bossing him around. 

hm. food for thought.

"i've got two sisters," tegan shared with a roll of his eyes, "and a brother, but lucca is kinda lame. fiadh is like me but she's not as cool. i'd make fun of clover but she was attacked by some asshat lately and... she's not been doing so well. i'm kinda worried about her." he gave an awkward shrug. he stayed away from clover for the most part, he didn't trust himself not to just pile on her about something useless, and as crude as tegan was he really did feel bad-- he didn't wanna make it worse.

Easy listened to him talk about his family with interest, wondering what it would be like to meet them all. She was especially interested in his mom, the war hero, but the rest sounded cool as well. Like Towhee - what had caused his parents to give up power to her? Easy couldn't imagine her father ever stepping down, even to a position like beta. He was The Boss. That was his thing.

When he was done, Easy quickly rattled off her assortment of siblings, plus the fact that she'd be getting a few more in the next couple weeks. But none of that was super exciting, and his tidbit about his sister getting attacked kind of worried Easy. "What happened to her?" she asked, expression grave. "I mean, if you're okay talking about it. Not if you're going to get emotional, though."

! him? emotional, hah! tegan stuck out his tongue in a look of disgust. "emotions? never heard of her," he said quickly, then shrugged. "just some asshat came at her... i don't know what he wanted... maybe to kill her? he didn't touch her-- she ran away quick enough and my uncle colt showed up to chase him off but, still. fuckin whack," he said with a furrowed brow. that guy was just a different level of dickery. ugh. tegan didn't have words to describe the guy, really. he always gave clover a lot of shit-- he always considered her the dumbest of the crew-- but this was something else.

Easy listened with interested, and then wagged her tail as she started to brag, "My sister got full-on attacked. She was laid up for weeks and she's got scars on her scruff, now." And that was just Lav, not her badass sister. "Which is awful. Wolves that attack other wolves kinda suck. I just wanted you to know that I win."

She stuck out her tongue at him and turned in a quick, happy circle. "We can't just waste time talking. We have to do something fun since I came all the way back here."

"damn," was tegan's intelligent reply to that. it really was awful, but it held a lot of political weight and he was getting sort of bored talking about it but... hey, what do you know, so was she! 

something fun? well tegan was full of fun! after a few moments of thought, tail wagging, he eyed her curiously for a moment before diving towards her. his nose bapped into her shoulder and then he darted away, barking, "tag! you're it!" and skipping in the other direction, checking over his shoulder once to see if she would chase him.

u can wrap up w your post or we can play this out?

Easy was totally chasing him. Tag was a game she was very familiar with, and maybe Tegan would prove a slower and easier target than Lavender. "You'd better run!" Easy cautioned when he seemed to hesitate. She didn't want him to go easy on her, no matter how deserpately she wanted to win.