Heron Lake Plateau it's easier than just waiting around to die

A week or so back, Raleska had thought it intelligent and rightfully well-planned for her to go looking for her brothers. Not Svalinn, but her other brothers - the ones she still remembered, and missed.

There were a lot of reasons this plan was lacking in foresight; the weather had gotten colder, she wasn't old enough to be on her own safely, and, frankly, the girl just didn't have any sort of survival skills to make such an expedition a success. But, being a child and thinking like a child, Raleska was so sure of herself: that she would be fine, that she could hunt by herself, that nothing would kill her -- maybe, this youthful naievette had been what saved her in the first place.

Of course her absence was noticed right away; her mother had been visiting the Shadewood when Raleska made her great break - it had been a few days of miserably hiding under the jutting chin of a beaten bluff before her mother found her and dragged her squalling (and a little bit relieved) back to camp. Raleska hadn't found her brothers, obviously - but she had found out that things outside of the Plateau were, well, fucking terrifying.

She was still on "house-arrest" as she glummed around, scowling into the dirt and assaulting a stick with her pent-up frustration. Her mother never let her out of eyesight now, and feeling imprisoned with the unbreakable despair only a child was capable of summoning, Raleska launched onto the spine of a young oak sapling, and started wrenching into its pliable arms with unsympathetic gnashes of her teeth.

Owen was told, frequently, along with all his sisters, to sit down, shut up, and not cause any trouble. They weren't to go near the pond; they weren't to go poking into cubbyholes and dens that didn't belong to them; they weren't to leave the pack borders. But he was having a lot of trouble still with the sitting still part, especially with Mother gone who knows where and returning who knows when and all of his sisters driving him crazy in the meantime especially since not only Father but also the couple of puppysitters being rotated in and out seemed rather on-edge and distracted. Everyone in the pack seemed antsy, really, in fact, and Owen still hadn't been able to suss out why. Not that he had really gone digging, to be fair; mostly he had just wandered restlessly about the packlands, over the sections that were safe and familiar long-trod ground to his oh-so-worldly young self by now, as he grew not only increasingly fretful but also a little bit bored. He steered clear of all the treacherous and untrustworthy inanimate objects that littered the area that had always made such a habit of tormenting him when he was younger. But this didn't leave him a whole lot to poke at or do, especially since so many of the adults had been making themselves scarce and the few that were still lurking about the packlands and patrolling the borders were all quite firmly locked in super-serious and super-boring Grownup Mode, and had exactly zero time to pay any attention to Owen and his perfectly reasonable requests and neverending questions.

So when Owen spotted a smallish and vaguely familiar face he was really quite relieved, even happy. He hadn't seen much of Raleska around for some time, but then again he'd been pretty busy with other things, and working harder at avoiding his sisters' sibling torments than at seeking out the company of others around his age. Hey, he said, padding toward her as his tail lifted hopefully, but as he grew closer his footsteps stuttered and slowed, and his tail end drooped as his eyes grew wide. It was not just some spindly twig that the girl-pup had clenched between her teeth, but rather a whole entire baby tree. Something Owen himself would have been way too chicken to try for himself. He stopped a short distance away and stared in openmouthed awe at Raleska's impressive display of physical cunning in having brought the sapling to its knees...metaphorically speaking. Did it attack you or something? Owen asked in somewhat hushed tones with a certain hint of reverence behind the words, his green eyes traveling slowly up and down the spindly wooden length. Even now he was leery of getting overly close to the splintered young tree, lest it spring up and attack him, as so many of his toys and objects thus far had seemed so wont to do. Heck, even the dirt corner of the birthing den had liked the prospect of smacking into his trender nose far too much. And then on the other paw here was Raleska: a young demigoddess fearlessly bringing down even the sprightliest and most springy of small and uncooperative oaks. Singlehandedly and heroically making the world a safer place for puppies everywhere, no doubt. Owen didn't want to admit it aloud but yeah, he was kinda impressed by this feat of strength before him. He eyes finally came to rest on the young girl's face once more, awaiting with bated breath the recounting of her mighty defeat of this wicked tree, and of all her warrior princess adventures she surely must have been out busily having while Owen's back was turned for that matter. Owen hadn't the guts to go out and have adventures himself so he must perforce live them out through the tales and exploits of others...right? Sure. Right. If only Raleska would be so obliging, at any rate.

Much in the same boat as the other child, Tywyll had returned to the plateau a little hungry and a little dirty but otherwise without much issue. Then again, it was entirely possible that his family was too busy figuring out where all the adults were that they didn't notice the black blob vanish in to the muck only to resurface near the lake; whether he was in trouble or not didn't phase the young Blackthorn, which was fitting since most of his ilk were known for getting in to messes without using their heads. He'd cleaned up and napped for a while, even eaten the contents of numerous caches, and he was back to his usual self — whatever that could possibly mean.

Today, he was hunting for frogs. There weren't as many of them available as he expected. The concept of seasons did not dawn upon the thick-skulled child. Nobody had taught him about winter, or the fact that it would be too cold for something with cold blood to survive. But he hunted anyways, sloshing through the shallows of the lake or dragging his paws (or, more likely, his entire face) through the mud until he was painted a murky baby-poop-brown from snout to chest. It was during one of this lunges wherein the boy misjudged his entire existence, the concept of momentum, everything the incline of the slop he was prowling on, and went from a quick dredge of the soggy earth to a head first slip-and-slide straight in to his doppleganger's path.

Whether Raleska's was downcast (since she was so busy moping) or not, whether Owen had her full attention or not, the boy came careening down the small hill towards the two of them like a pinball bouncing off its course; Tywyll's own eyes were shut to avoid getting anything in them, so it was the perfect shitstorm.

Dirt and splinters of soft, pliable tree rimed the corners of Raleska's mouth as she ripped her head back and forth in a frenzy - this tree would go down, and she would see to it that she was the one that ruined it. So intense was her determination that she didn't see the boy until he spoke: with a startle like a spooked cat, Raleska's fur rose like black flame along her back, and she set her lamplight eyes upon him in accusation.

He had startled her, but she realized it was that other puppy that she hadn't seen much of. Maybe it was intentional their parents kept them apart, or maybe it was because the sullen Eyjolfur girl was bad news and a puppy like Owen ought to have the good sense to know it - she was about to give the inquisitive packmate a tongue-lashing of her own cultivation when she caught that faint hint of awe in his eyes.

She wouldn't have been her mother's child if that didn't just stroke her self-importance to an outrageous degree. She stood upright with the sapling still in her mouth, and regarded Owen with the most severe expression she could muster: as if she were a battle worn general ready to impart her knowledge (all obtained at a terrible cost, of course) to the lowly private.

That stern lecture never came, because a black ball of fur suddenly tore down the incline and swung right towards them - instinctively Raleska sprung back and let go of the sapling, which had been under considerable tension a moment before. She could only watch in shock (and a faint, sickly glee) as the sapling's spine suddenly righted with a snap, its long arm careening towards Tywyll...

Raleska jumped and turned on him with wide, accusing eyes, which made Owen startle back in turn. He posed stiffly there, leaning back from her fiery yellow eyes with one ivory paw clutched apprehensively up against his chest, with his mouth open in a tiny voiceless "o." Why was she so... so... fierce? And not just towards trees, but also toward perfectly innocent pups who came up to ask her perfectly innocent questions! After a moment's consideration of him she raised regally herself up with haughty pride and looked down upon him like a condescending know-it-all cat. Owen cowered a little closer to the earth and wracked his brains trying to figure out what he could possibly have done to deserve this treatment.

He was granted a sudden and unexpected reprieve from the loftily proud girl and her snooty opinions however when she leapt up and away, while a black and brown furry cannonball came thundering down out of nowhere to run her down. What in the...?! Owen jerked back, and his eyes also followed the tree—the spindly and thoroughly-splintered little tree that thankfully he had had the wisdom and foresight to stand well clear of, because now the plant seemed to have become a whippy and enraged thing as it reared itself up free of Raleska's punishing teeth. Owen winced and shrank back even further as a thick splinter came shearing off from it and whapped into the ground some several feet away from him. At this point Owen was practically clutching the ground up to him in a desperate hug, as his eyes followed the tree's arc in horrified fascination. The scent of the thing that was rumbling towards it in a flying tangle of fur and mud and limbs hit him square in the face—saints and deities had Tywyll gone and gotten himself yet another filthy stinking mud bath again, really, in so short a time?! How had his mother not made a rug from his filthy pelt, at this point—right at the same instant he too realized the most likely trajectory of the enraged sapling. Ohmigosh Tywyll look out Raleska made it mad an' now it's tryin' ta chomp you! he squealed in a shrill and likely not-entirely-coherent warning, its words tumbling over and into each other in a panickily babbled keening pitch, one that he hoped despite all appearances would not reach the incoming youngster's ears far too late to actually do anything about any of it.

He didn't  have time to see the release of the sapling, nor did he anticipate the potential damage of his own careening body. It all happened so fast — his loss of control, Raleska's engaging of the sapling, and then the tumult of Owen's voice; everything all at once. It was chaos, just how Tywyll liked it, but it was all directed at him. Owen tried to warn him but it was already too late - his voice reached Tywyll's ears and began to process just as Tywyll's projectile of a body collided with the kinetic force of the sapling.

It narrowly missed his face, and his legs were tucked just so.

What it hit -- well, he didn't have a word for it, but he wouldn't be peeing for a while. The sensation of the whip-like sapling striking his groin was instantaneous and horrible, and it dropped him like a sack of bricks. Tywyll didn't even have a chance to yelp in pain, because he was a bundle of flailing limbs, mud, and the radiating, gut-wrenching pain of a good punt. When he managed to gasp, he was sucking in a mouthful of mud while tears stung the corners of his eyes, and he rolled uselessly on his back (as if that would help).

It would have pleased Raleska to learn Owen regarded her as a prideful cat - but the time for goading (while ever present and at hand) was cut short by the chaotic events that unfolded thereafter. The sapling righted itself, with rather rapacious fury. Owen's voice screamed over the crash of fur and pebble and branch, but to no avail.. and the black shadow that tumbled down to them like a drunken hedgehog had landed with a loud and invasive splat.

Raleska's eyes were wide with horror as she saw what the tree had interacted with - only, it wasn't so much horror as it was the kind of face one makes when they set what should be a calamitously delightful set of events into motion. Only, it wasn't a series of domino stacks Raleska was playing with... it was the lethal arch of a sapling, and the tender, all-too-soft meat of another being's member.

Once she realized what had really happened, she stepped past Owen's form (noting with amusement how he tightly gripped the earth as if it were going to fly away from him at any more) and looked: what she saw, the heaving strain of agony and the afflicted groin.. well.. she only felt bad for a second before she burst into derisive laughter.

Yup, she was her mother's daughter alright. He would be fine.. only his most useless part had been affected! With a jaunty saunter, Raleska didn't even say sorry - she just strolled right on by with a snigger cutting the corners of her features into an unruly smirk.

Owen's mouth hung ajar as he sat huddled there frozen and staring at the mudball's tableau before him. The tree flailed itself back upright—well, mostly; Raleska's teeth had definitely done a number on it— and it stood there cocked at a jaunty and smug angle as it vibrated the last of its hijinks out of its system and gazed down on its puppy victim with what Owen imagined could only be a supercilious wooden sneer. As Tywyll rolled helplessly around, Owen's eyes locked onto the sapling in horrified fascination. Its prey was right there on the ground before it, belly-up and thoroughly humiliated, its muddy brown armor obviously no protection whatsoever against even very small angry trees. Cringing Owen waited as Tywyll rolled about there and sucked in a few gurgling mouthfuls of mud: at any moment, surely, that small gloating tree would move back in for the kill... but no, no, it seemed apparently not. After a long and very tense few moments Owen allowed himself to relax just a fraction, though he made sure to keep the tree still in the periphery of his vision just in case it might decide to go for him next. It obviously seemed rather extra-partial to particular bits of male anatomy, after all... No, no, don't even THINK about it, Owen! he ordered himself in dismay. What a horrible thought— and ouch, poor Tywyll over there had to live it!

His attention was jerked away rather suddenly however, as with incredible and even somewhat dainty elegance Raleska went stepping blithely past him—gosh, how could she possibly ever have remained so calm, after what the three of them had just seen?!—to get a better look at Tywyll in his throes of agony. It was rather like a trainwreck one couldn't look away from, in its fashion, Owen had to admit... but the expression on little Raleska's pointed peppery black face was a strange one indeed. Owen's brow furrowed in puzzlement as he stared now instead at her, trying to figure out just what she was thinking—right up until she opened up her mouth and burst into mocking laughter, as suddenly loud and harsh and jibing as the cawing of a teasing crow, causing Owen to jerk back in stunned startlement as he blinked at her in bewilderment. What... what?! In other circumstances Owen might have found her coolness under pressure and slick, even callous detachment from it all to be admirable, but in this case... his eyes drifted back to Tywyll to see if the other boy could make any better sense of all of this, as the widely-smirking Raleska all-too-casually went gliding past the other boy. Owen's lip twitched up just a tiny bit in a feebly half-hearted attempt to find something to laugh along with her at (... Heh...) though for the life of him Owen couldn't figure out just what she found so funny about all of this. Or was she simply laughing in the face of danger, all the while taunting the tree itself or poor Tywyll for having gotten it its way and given it the wrong puppy victim to sup on? Owen's spinning head was so confused.

Wai... whuh... uh, Rales...ka... Owen's voice seemed rather creaky and crackly and strange, all of a sudden; a feeble and pitiful thing compared to the much louder and harsher ringing of Raleska's derisory cackles, to be sure. Owen wasn't even sure how audible he might be in its bewildering echoes' afterwake; though to be fair, even if Raleska heard him he wasn't sure she'd even bother to so much as turn around and look at him, much less to genuinely respond. Owen cleared his throat a little as he scuffled cautiously sidewise, inching a wee bit closer to Tywyll in a very roundabout fashion that took him in long ars carefully wide of that vicious tree. Slightly closer, and in a slightly quieter atmosphere as Raleska's strides took her a little further away from them both, Owen tried again: Whuh, bwuh... oh my gosh Tywyll. His voice still didn't sound quite normal but at least it should be a little more audible and coherent now. Shock and awe held it down in volume to something between a reverent murmur and a horrified whisper still however, as Owen craned his neck out to regard his fellow male pup with eyes like the round shining face of the full moon. Are... are you dying?

Owen couldn't quite bring himself to actually laugh, of course, but on the other hand he wasn't quite sure what he felt. He'd never seen a wolf actually die before, and wasn't at all certain if that was what Tywyll's pathetic thrashing on the earth here spine-down was portending or not. And what was he supposed to do, if so?! Shit, he was the alphas' kid, and his mother was a healer—surely Owen ought to have some idea of what to do here! If, that was, Tywyll was actually dying. Owen shuddered, but wondered all the same just how stupid he'd feel if he went panicking and yelling for help when Tywyll wasn't trying to be dead over here after all. Or how embarrassed poor Tywyll might feel, if so. So instead Owen sat there staring and dithering. He didn't want to actually touch Tywyll himself, though he crept a few cautious steps closer yet... what if this excruciatingly painful-looking death thing was contagious, after all, or if helping its prey of choice might make the tree decide to go for Owen instead! But he next impulse, which was to poke Tywyll with a stick from a safer short distance away, on balance also did not seem like it was likely the greatest of ideas, either. A stick was probably the last damn thing little Tywyll wanted within miles of him right now! Owen dropped the twig he'd grasped between his teeth and with some embarrassment of his own quickly scuffled the thing off to the side and halfway-behind himself, hoping that maybe Tywyll hadn't seen.

Beyond the world-ending pain in his groin there was the dull awareness that someone was laughing, and he couldn't do anything about that (nor did Tywyll have the mental capacity to really feel angry about that part), and as the laughter dwindled with Ralseka's sauntering escape, there came only the overwhelming, gut-twisting, gasping-for-air pain that throbbed where it should not have throbbed. Just as it began to abate Tywyll managed to suck in a breath, and he heard Owen freaking out over his flattened body. Something about dying. Yeah, he definitely thought that he was dying right now! If someone didn't help him right the heck now then he'd certainly perish! Tears pricked at the edges of his vision and through the blur he saw Owen carrying a stick or something, and while the dark boy rolled and spasmed from the pain, he heard the clattering of the stick against the ground. Eventually his body would recover, but Tywyll would certainly never forget this moment for a lasting while.