Heron Lake Plateau journey through stellar life

Phox had continued to search for any sign of Camilla nearby. She had escaped her captors once before, and he knew she could do it again. His sleeping schedule had been thrown all off-course since the fight with the wretched beast that had taken her. He often found himself waking in the middle of the night (as he did now), and quietly shuffling out from beside Towhee, stepping into the cold shivering. Phox's mind was elsewhere yet again tonight, and although he had stayed beside Towhee as long as he could, his racing mind led him astray yet again.

The dark, cold sky above looked down on him, and he stared right back up at it, standing on the ridge of the plateau. The moon was just a sliver of what it could be, and he was fairly certain it would be a new moon in a few days' time. His eyes lingered on Taurus, then to Gemini, then on to the big and little dippers. Pisces was there, too.

*Gives Kat something to stalk*

Niamh was restless; she found it hard to sleep, as something kept nagging at her, forcing her to go out and patrol. It felt similar to the feeling she got when a bug crawled along her fur, physically, but emotionally it reminded her of wanderlust. An insatiable itch that could only really be quieted by leaving her small, cozy den and venturing out into the night, hoping she might be able to tire herself out by going along the borders so that she could return to her den in the morning and sleep away some of the daytime hours once she'd finally worn herself out and rid herself of that antsy feeling. It still felt like something was tweaking the fur at her spine, just where her hip bones softly jutted, at the highest point in her haunches. She reached around to nibble at the fur there, scratching almost a bit too roughly with her teeth to stop the feeling from coming back, before she set off again. 

She didn't exactly expect to see Phox out and about- though he was more out than he was about, as he was stationed fairly still, looking up at the stars. Towhee had told her that Phox was interested in stargazing, and Niamh gave the starry sky an almost wary side-eye before she looked back at Phox again. Niamh knew nothing about the stars, and as they were too far away to do anything for her, she wasn't exactly interested about them, either. But this was Phox...And he had to have some reason for looking up at them as he did. "You see anything in them?" She asked quietly as she drew up alongside him, giving the sky another skeptical look.

"You see anything in them?" Niamh said, and Phox turned to look at her. The stars weren't something that many had interest in, although Phox knew they had both practical and not-so-tangible uses. They could be used for navigation, as he had taught Bat, but there were also countless stories up there that most didn't bother to learn and few wanted to hear about. They were an abstract concept, too, and he understood that wasn't for everybody. He never went out of his way to point them out unless somebody asked (or he was reminded of one in particular, as was often the case with Towhee and Gemini).

All the time, he replied. Are you looking for something? If she sought meaning to recent events, he could assure her no help would be found up there. As much as he looked at the stars when he was in distress, they never gave him straight answers. If they had any, they kept their secrets well-hidden. Instead, it was more of a meditative practice to look at them, reciting their names and remembering their stories. Without that practice, Phox worried he might lose some information along the way, which he undoubtedly already had done.

Ever the skeptic, Niamh was surprised when Phox answered- but she held her tongue, and was willing to put a bit of faith in the subject if someone like Phox so honestly and frankly admitted to believing in seeing signs in them. She sat down beside him, feeing welcome in his company and tilted her head back. The edges of her lips pulled down as immediately, she imagined Bruges somewhere up above her- if that was where he'd ended up, like in the stories she'd been told as a yungster- but she couldn't see any star that remotely resembled the twinkle in his silver eyes. 

"I look," She said, and continued, defeatedly. "But I never see anything. " She admitted. She continued to scan the stars, which seemed just about as stationary as her heart felt, twinkling only vaguely from so immeasurable a distance. "What do they mean to you?" She asked, knowing that at least he must have put some value in them. And maybe, if he could, she could too.

It was common for others not to bother understanding the stars. Even Towhee seemed ambivalent about them compared to her brother. Phox, on the other hand, had become borderline obsessed with them while he'd been away from the Redhawks. She asked, and Phox was always up for giving a lesson, especially to a friend.

Some of them, in groups, make up constellations, he began, not sure if she even had that rudimentary knowledge. Each of those has a different legend behind it, and each legend has layers of meaning. Even now, Phox didn't know all the layers of meaning that each had to offer. Sometimes, upon reciting one of the stories in his head, he would realize there was yet another lesson to be learned from the legend. But that was just what the stars were, not what they meant to him, personally.

A long time ago, a wolf once told me my parents were up there. I never got to meet them, so looking up is about as close as I can get to doing that. He would never get to hear his father shit-talk, nor would he ever get to see his mother go on one of her tirades for no apparent reason. Of course, this led him to idolize both of his parents in an unhealthy way, but nobody had ever really tried to stop him from doing so. Perhaps it was a harmless thing.

Phox pointed out that the stars could be grouped, but she frowned. They all looked so far apart that she couldn't make out any sort of pattern to them. Her brow furrowed as she searched for something that looked slightly less random, but she couldn't see anything, so she shook her head. "I can't see anything," She said, defeated. If there were patterns and groupings, Niamh couldn't pick them out; she needed things to be a bit less abstract. 

But he did mention that he believed- or at least, had been informed- that deceased wolves lived up in the stars. Niamh hadn't put much thought into whatever happened after a wolf died. As far as she could tell, when something was dead, it was simply gone. She nearly said as much- but she didn't really want to burst his bubble. So instead, she asked "Are all dead wolves up there?" Perhaps a bit tactless, but she meant well when she asked the question.

I couldn't at first; it takes practice. It wasn't as if any wolf woke up knowing how to do things. Just like hunting, the constellations had to be taught and studied and practiced before they were really learned. Even then, there were still layers to peel off and discover. She asked if all dead wolves were up in the sky, and although he wasn't sure, he replied with a confident, Yes.

He had to believe that Orca was up there, too. It wasn't like only some wolves got to go up and watch their lives unfold, right? There were days that he doubted the presence of long-forgotten wolves up there, but it was a comforting thought that he clung to nonetheless.

The easiest followup question for Niamh was the one that came to her lips- but wasn't spoken. But how do you know? Phox wouldn't necessarily have an answer for that, and she didn't want to make him find one, all things considered. Everyone had lost someone, and she had a feeling that the only answer that could have been given would have been something along the lines of you just know. That wouldn't have satisfied Niamh, who needed concrete, tangible evidence in order for her to truly believe something...But for now, she'd give it the benefit of the doubt. She too wanted to believe that there was some way her brothers could have ended up tossed among the stars, watching down on her. The thought made her feel heavy and sad. 

"Try me, then," She said, drawing in a breath to keep herself from sinking into grief. "Show me one of these pattern-things," She said, gesturing toward the snow. If he could draw it with pawprints, she might be able to find it in the sky.

Niamh suggested he show her anyway, and Phox nodded. One at a time, he arranged some pinecones so the took the form of the big bear. On the ground, which was covered in snow, they were an inverted picture of the sky, but hopefully one Niamh could see well enough. Once those were laid out, Phox turned his snout to the sky, pointing in the direction of the constellation. It might take a minute to see it, but it's there. That one's called the big bear. It had other names, but that was the one Phox tended to use.

Silently, Niamh watched as Phox created some obscure image with pine cones, putting them here and there and when he said it was a bear, she stared at him awkwardly for a second and then back at the shape on the ground. For some reason, spatially, it didn’t make sense to her. She wasn’t very adept at reading between the lines in conversation- let alone connecting the dots on the ground. ”Uhm...” She said, and circled the pine cones before she sat back down. ”Sorry dude. But I can’t tell its ass from its head. Let alone see that up there,” She said, gesturing toward the sky.

Teaching Niamh constellations would only ever be a lukewarm success at best. Phox- as good and patient a teacher as he might be- did an excellent job of arranging the pine cones, but Niamh struggled with associating them with a shape. Regardless- his aim of giving her a distraction did work, and the time together was both sincere and enjoyed.