Sleepy Fox Hollow daunnes

not far from the base of the mountain where she had left @Caracal, the land sloped downward. heda trotted along the terrain, pausing here and there to howl loudly for help.
her voice carried, bright and almost shrill with panic. there were no discernable pack markings, and she started to despair. if push came to shove then she'd definitely go to mereo, and caracal could just divorce her for sure about it.
the mountains rounded. she stared down into a green bowl and called.

"eins, zwei, drei." mahler lifted a soggy piece of wood with a flourish. worms wriggled. pillbugs crawled away from the sunlight. a trio of grubs writhed at the sudden intrusion. "this is vhat ve call an ecoystem," he told his children. "you see how everyvone is quite self-sufficient underneath?"
there was howling.
there was calling, and it made his blood run cold, for mahler knew that voice and it was not one he had thought he would hear again. "go to your mother," he ordered the little ones, informing @Wylla with a howl that someone he knew had come to the hollow.
and then the gargoyle was off, traveling quickly toward the sunspire and the edge of the hollow, until the bit of white at its edge became a rangy girl with the unmistakable red stripe along her back.
"heda?" he asked hesitantly, incredulously, lavender eyes bright with worry. "vhat is — vhat has happened?"
it was all poised to crash down now.

just as heda was thinking of going in the opposite direction, she heard a howl. and it was one she knew. confusion and anger roiled in her gut. why the fuck did it have to be — "mahler," she greeted stiffly, forcing her red hackles to lie flat. why was he here? 
"is druid with you? is my mom?" she asked. the words had tumbled out of her mouth; she knew she was here for caracal, but the last she had heard from her sister, she'd gone back to rivenwood. so why was mahler here?

mahler started for a moment. he cleared his throat and shook his head. of course she had been frantic to find him here. she had left rivenwood and come back to find it gone. "your mother, your sister, and laurel chose to go to war vith ursus. i did not vant to go. vylla and phaedra left vith me and we came here. rivenwood vas dissolved."
the tale of abandonment was honest but it was not something mahler knew heda would take well. he stared at her, marveling despite the moment how she had grown into a strong young wolf, and silently thanked the duskfire wolves for succeeding where he had failed.

heda stiffened as Mahler began to speak, eyes going wider the longer he went on. her claws locked into the ground and when he was finished, the girl could only gape at him.
"so. you — you left them? druid? witch? you let them go to f-fight? you abandoned them?"

he should have known that peace would not last. guilt lunged in, a wolverine which ripped apart the delicate sense of forgiveness that he had only just begun to feel for himself. "yes. ve left rivenvood. i left sequoia and laurel to decide vhat they would do."
the directness did not make it easier, but here was the final page of a chapter that mahler had meant to close long ago.

"well that's — that's just really fucking great, mahler," heda snapped at the patriarch in a way she never would have dated before. "my sister — druid made it all the way to the glacier, injured. she tried to go back and i wouldn't let her. she was so worried about you. and that was the end, huh? not like you were the leader or the whole pack was depending on you or anyth —" 
her voice broke. frustrated tears filled her eyes. "i came here for help but i don't think i want it from you."

nothing heda said was anything that mahler had not shouted at himself. long inner lectures about returning to the bypass, swathes of introspective castigation; yes, he had abandoned his pack to ursus.
the news that druid had been injured had been carried by the duskfire wolves. but he had not seen its true effect until he looked at heda now, angry and near weeping. "i am many things. but i am still able to offer help."

heda was glad mahler didn't try to touch her or hug her. she would have bitten him, clear as day. the frustration now was that she was crying in front of him, hurt and angry sobs that forced her to turn away.
this was the man who had raised her. but he had also let her family go off and fucking die, heda supposed. she owed him nothing. 
but caracal was up on that mountain, and every minute meant his eyesight might not be saved. she angrily dashed tears from her face and glowered at the somber man. "my husband and i were traveling and ... anyway a goose pecked him right in the eye. it's — there's a lot of blood and it looks really messed up."
heda gestured to the mountain. "it's not far. don't worry, mahler, if it's too much you can just run away from me too." her lips set in a grim line, last barbed thing uttered for now.

mahler remembered all of them as children. it was particularly hard not to pull her closer, hard not to reassure heda. but how could he comfort her when he had been the architect of her current misery? and so he stared at the ground, ashamed, until she mentioned an injury and a 
a husband? why, she was barely more than a child herself! his gratitude toward duskfire faded somewhat, for now he truly was worried that there were overlapping situations here.
but the gargoyle had the presence of mind not to comment. he harrumphed and nodded, ears splaying at the girl's righteous anger. "go back to him. clean the vound. i am going to gather my supplies and then i vill meet you."
amethyst met gold for a suspended, tense moment.

"yeah, okay. see you there. his name is caracal," heda mumbled, before she turned and ran back up the hollow's side toward the foothills of sawtooth spire.
why did it have to be him? why did it have to be him? she hated this, and more than that, she hated that everything still wasn't a guarantee that his eye could be saved.