Firefly Ravine i want to be fed every night the breath of extinct creatures

Forward dated a few days. Will possibly open up to all welcome later.

Thuringwethil does not return home that night and without telling anyone she was leaving at all, it doesn’t even cross her mind whether or not someone has noticed she’s missing. It isn’t uncharacteristic for her to sleep somewhere else other than with Wildfire, for she needs to give Hougeda the proper attention since her mate won’t return to the heart of the pack like some outsider. The thought burns through her mind briefly before she quickly rids it, making her way through the thick brush of the tangle. She wandered back north with the intention of returning home but ends up veering east, making her way through the thick foliage of the forest until she finds herself on a ridge.

At first, she does not recognize it as the one she’d met her mate on and it isn’t until she finds the charred remains of what once was where snow has been shuffled around. What isn’t blanketed, or tall enough, pokes through with new life as the regeneration of the ridge returns. Something knocks around inside her, tugging at her mind that something is wrong and she should avoid this direction and to turn back but it is slow to come to and she continues on anyway.

Where the sun should peak for the day, clouds have blocked the sky from view, and she looks up—squinting at the bright clouds—for a moment before the wind blows. Her nose twitches as anxiety tightens in her chest, growling as the realization settles over her. She licks her chops, pointing each movement with irritability and a heavy sigh as she scents the air, a thick sweetness overcome her nearby that doesn’t leave a good feeling in the pit of her stomach. Still, she does not turn back despite the protest and continues until she is on the other side.

Catori's time was drawing near, but Grayday thought he still had a few days before she settled in to whelp. And it was with the @Spiritwalker's blessing that he took @Lavender and Easy to the river that day, wanting to get them out of the territory for a little bit in order to give Cat the space to do what she needed.

While the girls travelled further down the river, Grayday wandered until he found a relatively dry patch of dirt and laid down for a nap. The weather was not quite clear enough for his nap to be called sunbathing, but he enjoyed it all the same. And while he napped, he dreamed of Catori and the night of the Hunter's Moon, and when he woke, it was with a tiny smile on his face.

The male rose to look around for his girls, and soon caught sight of Easy's tall, dark form a ways in the distance. "What'd you do with your sister?" he called out to her in jest, tail wagging idly behind him. What he did not know - what the wind and his failing eye hid from him - was that this was not his daughter at all.

The wind shift fails both of them and she does not pick up his scent when it turns, though it is proving hard to pick up anything outside of her immediate area. When he speaks, her gait comes to a stop and slowly turns her head to look behind her. The words don’t make sense to her—she doesn’t have a sister, does he mean her daughter?—and she begins to shift her weight so that she is facing him, watching should he dare to come closer.

Once before she’d been in this position but the commanders are often isolated it she goes into heat and she’d slipped away before anyone else found find out (though her scent trailed off the day before, maybe a little sweeter than before). Thuringwethil recognizes him after a moment, as the wolf at her borders some time ago, but she makes no move to stand down. Her fur bristles along her nape and peeling her lips back. She hadn’t noticed the scent of a pack nearby just yet and worried she’d gotten too close—and leaving a very noticeable trail behind—she’s awkwardly compromised. Instead, she offers only a warning and the chance to slip off somewhere else, away from his claim.

His tail slows when he receives no response from the figure . He blinks twice, hard, wondering if he'd mistaken an oddly shaped tree for his girl, but it is not so. The figure before him is certainly a wolf.

"Easy?" asks, his voice hesitant as anxiety rises in his chest. Was she staring at something? Had something spooked her? "'S'wrong, girl? Where's Lav?" He begins toward her in earnest, intent on finding out what's the matter. A sick feeling rises up and settles in his stomach. Easy was not a quiet girl. Whatever had silenced her was something to worry about.

He calls her by a different name. Her ears fall back against her head for a moment before swiveling back up, alert. Any warning she gives him is dismissed when he doesn’t realize who she is, mistaking her for (if she’s not mistaken) his daughter she’d met and dares to step closer. Does he not note the change in the air? The brute is far from being a spring chicken, but certainly his nose is not broken too?

Thuringwethil narrows her eyes and, this time, dares to growl the second warning to prevent him from getting any closer. If he hasn’t picked up on her scent now, then it is for the better, and she can slip away before it is too late, but if he thinks she is someone else, will he pursue if she just leaves? “You are mistaken,” she says gravelling, growling all the while, and taking a step back to account for the distance he’d shortened.

The voice draws him up short - Grayday stops in his tracks and stares hard at the shadowy figure, straining to see the difference between the strange wolf and his daughter. In his eye, there is none.

"My apologies," he says, shaken by the reality of his impairment. "I came here with my daughters - they must've wandered off while I - "

A violent sneeze cut through the male's explanation. A swirl of the wind had brought her scent to his nares, and pleasant though it was, the male knew better than to let it settle. " - while I was asleep," he finished, his voice a bit more formal. He took a couple more steps back and then sank to his belly in a sphinx-like repose, aware that he might cut a threatening figure to many a lone woman. "Heda, right?" he asked,  finally placing her voice after having caught her scent. "Sorry if I startled you. I don't see well anymore."

Her words stop the brute from getting any closer and she can feel him staring at her. Of course, it should be obvious who she is but he apologizes anyway, offering an explanation that is cut short by a sneeze. He continues but slinks back further away and settles on the ground. Knowing so little about the scarred brute, she can’t be so sure of his motives and the nagging feeling she should know who he is never really left. She never really pursued the knowledge beyond that meeting but it if she can run into him so easily just on the other side of the ridge, then she needs to figure it out.

“Heda, sha,” she says without thinking about it, watching him a moment longer before she trails off during his apology. “You are fine,” she tells him reluctantly, swinging back to look at him though her eyes often flitter behind him—and to either side—should his daughters show up unannounced. “I had no intention of getting close to your claim,” she explains, should she be on the cusp of his borders, and hoping that her scent isn’t distracting enough that she missed it entirely and crossed over unaware but she thinks that’s low on the list of problems.

A happy about from behind him causes a silvery ear to swivel - the girls are still around, it seems, but paying no attention to the drama going on outside of their play. Which was fine for the moment, he supposed, but he couldn't help fretting over what might have happened if it had been an enemy in their midst.

Things are uncomfortable as is.

His ears flicked back toward her when the pack was mentioned. "We're a bit further back. This is just a day trip," he assures her, tail whisking gently. "Easy misses the water from out old territory."

He paused a moment, realizing this might not be the ideal time to bring up his thoughts. But the way Heda had phrased her assurance made him speak anyway.

"We won't attack anyone outside the borders. Someone will probably come and talk to you, but we're not too fussed about wolves passing by." He grinned. "You're in for it if you cross our borders, though. We had to leave our last home because of all the trouble with war and intruders. The first one to cause trouble for me here is gonna bear that brunt of that frustration, I'm afraid."

Her scent passed him again, and he yawned to rid himself of his excess (and inappropriate) energy. "That's why we were a bit nosy when your scouting party came through. Did you ever find your red girl, by the by?" His gaze turned grave, at this.

Her eyes follow the swivel of his ears, her own tightening up to listen, and hearing the ruckus all the same in the distance. It’s faint, but there, and she assumes it is his children and she does not feel anymore threatened than before. Still, it is nice to hear his reassurance but it does not soothe any pent up frustration built up from the last few days. Running in the fields with her new “friend” had been enough to sate her temporarily, and the fact she’s grown weary from lack of sleep, keeps her even enough.

When he mentions war, he re-grips her attention and she searches his face. Is that where he lost his eye? Her lip tightens for a moment, and then opens her mouth to ask something, but he cuts her off and everything begins to click into place. Huh. All the previous annoyance she couldn’t remember where she heard his name has faded and she’s awarded temporary relief.

“Ah, right,” she says and tenses, easing back a little. “One of the scouters told me about you,” she offers but her tone is clipped. Eske is a brash woman and sometimes she wonders if some things are exaggerated, which is the only reason keeping her firmly planted on the ground instead of deciding to go about her business. “We did find her. And we got rid of the wolves that had taken her,” she adds, stiffening her posture a little; it is not the first battle she has won.

Grayday huffed, an expression of rueful consternation crossing his face. Probably that young upstart who'd barged in and started yelling at him. The other - Twill - had seemed reasonable enough, but Grayday couldn't think of the girl's mother without a sour taste in his mouth.

Still, he didn't hold that against Heda, who had been just as polite as Twill and perhaps even more understanding. He still thought it kind of strange that she was sticking around, talking to him. He hoped she wasn't looking for a companion - Grayday had enough kids to worry about, and there was nothing like a humorless woman to help him keep ahold of his desire.

Not that it wasn't there, of course. The wind was swirling both their scents, so he was sure she could tell. "I'm glad to hear it. There's enough danger in the world even without wolves turning against each other," he said, his voice not quite steady, but he decided to blame that on anger.

Standing, Grayday shook out his pelt and turned away from Heda to pace toward a nearby stream, keeping his side to the surly woman. He wasn't sure why it seemed like a bad idea to show his back to her, but he knew exactly why he didn't want to face her head on. "I thought we would be safer over here when I moved the pack. Come to find out there are assassins in every quarter. One of our young boys, Burr, was brutally murdered in a forest to the south. No clues on who did it, no reason for it. Just senseless violence. It's everywhere." His voice and expression darkened through this speech, and his voice cracked a tiny bit on the last word as grief threatened to close his throat. The male lowered his head to drink from the stream, not trusting himself to go on until he'd gotten ahold of those memories.

Even from the moment she met him on the borders, Grayday never felt like a threat. Eske’s previous exaggeration of the leader is easily replaced by something more affable and for the most part, polite, given their predicament.

She does not like what she hears. One of their own murdered farther south. After running into the other wolf a few weeks ago, with a bird for a companion, she’d considered uprooting their home once more. Their neighbors and the threat of Blackfeather finding them isn’t appealing to her and after Sleeping Dragon, and leaving Seageda long ago, she’s less attached to certain stretches of land if it meant keeping them all safe. The sacrifices she’s made over time have kept them going and now, knowing maybe they aren’t so safe after all, it isn’t the worst idea.

“I’m sorry about your boy,” she tells him though she knows she’s not entirely innocent. One ear flickers, watching as he takes a drink of water, and thinks about the girl from the day before. Licking her lips she glances away, debating her welcome in this area and whether or not she needs to head up. She turns back to him.

Grayday lifted his head with a shrug and a grimace. There was no sense in being sorry. He'd meant to caution the woman and now he was sad again, thinking about how Burr would never be his son in law, about how Mawk must be feeling worse than Grayday could comprehend. It didn't help that he was also glad - he couldn't think about Burr without also thinking of Dauntless, who had been spared. About the girls somewhere behind him, hopping around like there was no danger in the world.

"Me too," he said after a moment, hoping no more would need to be said on the subject. "Do you have a family?" he asked the Commander, wondering more about a mate and children, but prepared to hear about brothers or cousins or packmates instead.

There isn’t anything added, not that she expects it, but he does ask something that causes her ears to twitch briefly before correcting and remaining upright. If she were in Seageda—or any other branch in the area—she may have a different answer. Heda, here, still does not have the same weight, despite the trouble they’ve been through and though she’s just gotten Wildfire home and they’re back on track, there’s enough trust in her new budding friendship with Grayday than she’ll give credit for.

“Yes,” she tells him with an idle flick of her tail. “The red girl is my mate. We are expecting our second litter,” she adds, carefully. She’s met his daughter, and others aren’t too far off. She can speak to him as a parent, in some weird way, and not feel she’s putting them at risk.

Something about the question seemed to bother the Commander - Grayday was prepared to back down at once, as he knew pups could be a touchy subject. She surprised him by answering anyway, but the answer was even more surprising than that. The girl was her mate? They had children together? None of that made sense tho Grayday.  It probably  showed with the incredulous expression on his face.

But that was none ofhis business, confusion and curiosity aside. "Congratulations," he said with a dip of his head, schooling his features into something more respectful. "My wife and I are expecting our third litter any day now."

Thuringwethil, in that moment, realizes she hasn’t told many wolves outside of Drageda and at times she forgets that others may not not judge her because she is a commander and has a family. No,they make a face of confusion. Or like Towhee, scrutiny. Either way, it’s not a good feeling and she watches it cross Grayday’s face while her jaw tightens in response.

He speaks of only congratulations and of his wife and their litter. Whatever is going through his mind, he keeps to himself, and she is glad. ”Thank you. She is due soon, too,” she says with a sweep of her tail. They’ll be close in age and, maybe, they can get together. ”Perhaps we can get together, in the future,” she suggestions, offering something he’s already offered but she can confirm she’s still open to the idea.

Ah, that was good. Grayday thought along the same lines as Thuringwethil, although he was not about to suggest getting the kids together once again. Luckily, she did it for him. "Yeah, maybe sometime in midsummer," he agreed. The kids would be old enough to be corralled to a nearby territory, where they could tussle with Drageda's pups at their leisure. "My last set didn't meet a wolf outside the family until they were already halfway grown, and I think their social skills have suffered a little for it," he admitted, thinking of brash Easy, helpless Lavender, and silent Dauntless. "You might've noticed with Easy - we're trying to teach her a bit of tact, but it's slow going."

It was strange to offer, putting her children with complete strangers, but she’s gotten a chance to meet him twice—and his daughters in the distance, proof of their existence and relative innocence—and she suspects they can run into one another a few more times before they trust one another mixing their kids together. He explains the desire to socialize them and her mind wanders off to her trio. Unfortunately, she can understand where he’s coming from but she doesn’t dare speak ill of them to someone outside their family. “We should meet again soon,” she offers, “but for now, I should go.” Thuringwethil waits only a little bit longer, giving him a chance to add anything before she turns and slips away in the opposite direction.

Grayday gave a little wag of his tail, pleased to have been able to make tentative plans with the woman. She seemed a kind enough soul, even if she was a bit reserved and prickly to start with. "I'll give your family a month or so to whelp and settle before we drop by again," he offered, thinking he'd likely be too busy to visit any sooner. "Feel free to stop by if you're in the area. Perhaps you can meet more of the family."

Not the smallest ones, but Catori and Pema, and some of his older children. He liked Thuringwethil well enough, and was eager for easy relations between the two packs. The more allies they had this time around, the better.

"Stay safe," he called after the woman, turning his back to go and find his children once more. Surely Easy and Lav had worked out all their wiggled by then.