Morningside Cuesta enter, pursued by a memory

Well, fuck him anyway.

It hadn't been difficult for Persia to follow his mother's trail. The art had been keep close enough he didn't lose it while simultaneously hanging back enough that she didn't realize she was being followed. He'd been confident in his ability to do all three at once — but Rosewood had not.

I don't need him. I can take care of myself.

In fact, it was Rosie who would be balking when he realized he didn't have his favorite pal around anymore. When he finally realized it was time to move on. When it hit him that all the leggy naiads they'd met there were their blood relatives. If he'd put just a little more stock in Rosie's bravery, he'd expect his brother to catch up on a few days, claiming he had only changed his mind because he didn't think Persia would make it on his own — and that was bullshit.

But, if he was honest with himself, Persia still couldn't help glancing over his shoulder for the dumbass.

He grit his teeth and stalked forward once more, careless of the scenic landscape around him. He found a rock and kicked it with vengeance — and then snarled an invective when it was more painful than satisfying.

"WHYYYYYY," he accused the winter sky. "WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU, ASSHOLE??"

He didn't know who he was talking to, but he'd seen mad old Uncle Feather shout at the sky on occasion — and it'd looked just as liberating as it felt now.

they had not felled any big game in weeks, and heda was beginning to become truly desperate. every spare moment of her time was spent hunting for @Dinah and @Ava Amara, but the snows were gathering in every part of the valley.
in hungry hyperfocus she went out again, this time keeping close to the bypass. in the early winter, older animals often died. even one carcass would stave off starvation for she and john and the girls.
an hour's hunt in the cuesta turned up nothing. it took needed energy to weep, and yet heda shed hot tears in silence as she turned back toward rivenwood, empty-pawed once more.
and then, shouting, such language as to turn her cheeks hot, and the shadow-smudged eyes searched for the owner of so vulgar a voice.

Well this felt great — and not in that sarcastic way he usually meant it. He took a deep breath to give the sky another resounding SCREW YOU!

Instead he sneezed, and his nose twitched, and he sneezed again.

Persia turned and trotted toward the foreign scent, thoughtlessly seeking out a wolf he had never met from a pack he'd probably never heard of. What could possibly go wrong?

"HEY."

He said it from the next rise as he crested it, and caught sight of a slippy-figured lady with a streak of red racing down her back. He was tempted to turn up the charm, but instead he stood there feeling awkward as he took in the finer details. The woman was run ragged, and that was a huge mood-killer.

"Are you good?"

She did not look good.

he was leggy and toned in earth, perhaps a year younger than her. or a lifetime, depending on how you looked at it. that this complete foul-mouthed stranger saw right through the ruse of her thin steadiness to the hungry exhaustion beyond — it scorched heda with shame.
"i'm not," she told him, steeling through the shatter of her final pride. "i need help hunting — more than birds and rabbits."
she did not say why, wanting to protect what tiny peace she had made in the bypass for her daughters. heda had rightfully become mistrustful.
"i — i'm not sure how to repay you, if you'll help me."

Oh, shit. Persia had expected some kind of defense. Most people said they were fine, or that they would be, and they did not make it his problem. This had frustrated him only occasionally — most of the time he figured he wouldn't want people butting in on his business either, were their positions reversed. But sometimes he'd been indignant, thinking to himself that they were clearly not good, and he'd just expected this to be one of those times.

Where were they meant to go from here?

Thankfully, the woman had the answer. Hunting. Him, helping. Which would be a flippant, sure, why not in almost every universe, except in this one, he was more alone than he had ever been in his life, with his mother's scent disappearing into the distance.

But fuck it, right? He was grown.

"'Kay," he agreed, coming just a little closer. Not close enough for her to flip out and bite him — he hadn't ruled out some kind of sickness just yet, alright? "So, what. Deer? We're gonna have to find a treeline somewhere. Know anyplace like that?"

This cuesta was shit, he thought. What was she doing here? Why would anyone wanna hang out here?

"yes." heda didn't want to take this perfect stranger into the bypass, but a small herd of five deer had recently made it their home. she remembered smatterings of this from childhood, where rivenwood would not leave its vast territory for months as prey simply came to them, to reside in the deep pine forests or beside the cool lagoon.
"up there," she murmured, gesturing to the forbidding high edge of the nearest stone wall, "it's like a valley with one entrance that's the exit as well. deer come in for the winter."
she shivered, her thin pelt brittle against the snow. slowly her body was forcing the hair growth but it had been slow in coming, and she lost valuable heat each time she left her den.
"i'm widow redhawk."

She pointed, and Persia looked up at the mountain without unease. It was no more treacherous than the White Spine, where he had first learned to hunt. Her description sounded not dissimilar to their common place upon the spine.

"Alright," he said. This woman's sober attitude was starting to drag him down — not into a bad mood per se, but into equally sober maturity. It'd taken a minute, but now the damsel in distress!!! instincts that ran so strong in his bloodline were taking hold. If you met someone hungry, you fed them. That was just how things were.

"Call me Persia," he replied, and then he gestured toward the rise. "Lead the way, Widow."

And yikes, what a name. With cousins like Valiant and Brave, he assumed she was just named Widow from birth — he wondered if her parents weren't kinda shitty for dropping something like that on her shoulders. Hadn't they heard of self-fulfilling prophecies?

"I guess there aren't many packs around here?" he asked as they walked, fishing for more information. Why hadn't she joined one? Or sought them out for help? He thought he could smell others on her — where were they? Lying in wait to ambush him? Dutch had told him stories of cannibal wolves before....

"there are. i haven't met them." she led the way along the edge of the cuesta, experiencing a sense of relief as noctisardor kept its power above them. "i was born here. the territory is so large there's no reason to leave or need help."
both aware and unaware that she sounded delusional, heda inhaled the pinesnow air, her shoulders trembling again.
this could feed them. and then she would need to decide where to go. she would join anyone before she allowed ava and dinah to starve.
"i'm afraid we'll have to run quite a bit. but the place acts like a maze. it was easier to hunt there than on flat land, if i remember well."
but now she was quiet, bracing herself against another scouring wind.

Jesus. Persia got the impression immediately that Widow must've lived a very sheltered life. Maybe whoever had been feeding her and whoever else was holed up in here was dead. Maybe they didn't ever venture out, and she was only now being driven by hunger.

He eyed her while she wasn't looking. He thought he could take her in her current state. He thought maybe he could take a few of her if it came down to it. He hoped they weren't as hungry as all that, though.

"My legs work fine," he said with forced nonchalance. He was a good actor, but anyone could see that he was a little tense. "Why don't you save your energy and let me do most of the running. I'll hobble it, and then we can take it down together."

Even hobbling a deer wasn't something he usually did alone — but Widow looked like she needed to save whatever fat she had left, and Persia wasn't confident enough in his skills to suggest that she burn it in anticipation of a full meal. And if the first one got away, he'd need her still in fighting shape to take down the next.

They did as she said, threading through the maze in search of a trail. He would've worked faster, normally — and the change today was not all for Widow's benefit. Seeing her had underlined how helpless a wolf could become. He should be conserving his energy, too.

"Here," he said, finally coming across a fresh trail — and fresh scat. "You've hunted deer before, right?" he asked her, sweeping another shrewd glance over her pale, wan form.

why hadn't she sought a pack before now? before hunger pocked her belly and stole whatever respite could be had from her daughters? perhaps in some madness she had not wanted to subject them to yet another spate of faces, of questions, of pity.
"ill follow your lead."
but now they were here, with nothing, with no one. she shouldn't have come so far and she shouldn't have waited. "it's been a while," she murmured, experiencing a lunge of hope deep inside her chest at the fresh sign.
knowing enough to follow quietly, heda kept her steps light and her eyes searching for any movement, any lift of antlers head or stamp of cloven hoof.

Although Persia was yet young and had, until now, been under the thumb of various strong personalities, he still possessed the very Morningside trait of thinking he knew best, and that things would go much more smoothly if people would just do as he said. So he was pleased to be handed the lead by Widow, and just a little bit smug to have someone with a year or more on him agreeing to follow his lead.

Not that she made it easy to take pride in such a thing. He suspected a bunny rabbit could've led her along if it promised her a meal — but he would gladly pretend otherwise for a little while.

Persia led the way, high-stepping through the brush to keep from making too much noise. Only when he could smell the fresh life-musk of a young doe did he pause, lowering himself into the brush. He might normally have passed this one up to find easier prey, but now didn't seem like the time to be picky.

"Well — let's boogie," he said, nodding obliquely to indicate the direct she should go. "We can try to get the jump on her — but if she bolts, lemme slow her down, alright?

He went around the other way, tracking Widow's position until she disappeared into the brush. It was a little longer before he finally laid eyes on the doe, who was young and healthy, but still small enough he felt reasonably capable of bringing her down — with a little help, of course. He gave a short bark of warning to signal Widow as he lurched out of hiding and launched himself at the doe's side. He hit her just as she began to run, knocking her off course as he clung with his teeth and his claws to her shoulder.

"Fuck — get her, Widow!" he hollered, but of course, it might be hard to understand him while his mouth was full of fur and flesh.

Please forgive me for this moron; he is a very unreliable narrator. All of my characters are but this one especially.

persia was quick — and loud. he flushed the doe; they came rattling toward heda in a charge that almost struck all nerve from her.
his swearing made her wince, as it was almost the same word that —
instinct swept over the young widow, and she was biting for the jugular, for the flesh high on the throat, anything she could grab. hot blood filled her mouth, dripped between her teeth; it was the taste of life and she wrenched her head to and fro, claws digging into the earth as the doe's harried dash went on.
weakness and hunger vied inside her; desperation and the want to give up. heda shut her eyes and continued the sawing of her jaws, the shove of her body against the hard muscles of the panicked animal.

The deer staggered under his weight, and then jolted when Widow hit them, too. Persia couldn't help but admire the doe's incredible strength and dogged determination to live — and he felt just a little bad, as he always did, for cutting her life short.

But not that bad.

As soon as he tasted arterial spray on the wind, Persia wrenched himself away from the doe, spring-boarding off her side.

"Hop off, cottontail!" he called to Window — "You got her, girl, she's sank!"

Sure enough, the doe's strength quickly failed her whether Widow hung on or not. Persia was inclined to follow at a distance until she lost her strength. A kill could be made more safely this way, at the cost of some lost time and a little further walked. He hung back, keeping an even pace in the doe's bloody wake.

i forgot to answer ur last ooc note but plz never apologize for him i LAV HIM

faintly she heard persia's shouts; heda fell away and landed heavily, smeared with blood and tumbling into the debris. 
but hunger picked her up and desperation launched her after the animal once more. her hunting companion was calmed, but heda was frantic for the kill, and kept up her fanged onslaught, on and on until the doe sank to her knees and bleated pitifully.
heda staggered backward, panting, sucking in draughts of air as all her limbs trembled with exertion.

Persia worried for the woman, but there wasn't much he could do without putting himself at unnecessary risk. He caught up at a lope and then hung back until her frenzy broke, and she went from kill mode into exhaustion once more.

He tried not to look at her as he came around to finish off the agonized doe, giving her a moment to pull herself back together. He dispatched their kill and then spent a moment studying his claws as if worried one might have come loose — but of course, he worried nothing of the sort. It was just that it was uncomfortable to look at this woman, and growing more uncomfortable by the minute. He'd never been more aware of what a charmed life he'd loved this far. What had led Widow into this pitiable state?

"Go on and eat, then," he said when he lifted his head. This effort to wrest control of the situation back into his paws went a long way toward soothing his prickly nerves. This was just fucking sad, yeah — but he'd fixed it, right?

it was shameful to be ordered, to feel herself slinking toward the carcass as if she were no more than a fox or coyote. her jaws closed around the open shoulder; her teeth tugged wider the wound, and she set her jaws there to feed.
with perilous control heda kept herself from gorging on the animal. there was enough here to feed them all for several days, perhaps a week or longer if the bones and antlers kept. she filled her belly until nausea threatened; she set her focus on butchering the rest, setting aside choice organs and soft meat for her daughters.
the white fur was crimson petaled. her golden eyes slanted toward persia. "thank you. please, take as much as you want. it's yours too."

His chin jerked up at her thanks, ostensibly in acknowledgement, although it looked almost like recoil. Persia was filled with the immovable certainty that he had given nothing the woman didn't deserve. Wasn't owed for the simple act of being born. He had never gone hungry before — his mother had neveret him. This meant that no one should go hungry, that it was a crime committed by someone and being thanked for this felt like being thanked for returning something he'd stolen from her.

This did not show on his dark face. His eyes flicked over her, searching. Eventually he said,

"Thank you. I will."

But he didn't yet. He stood there a moment longer, silent despite the way he was obviously thinking some very strong opinions.

"Show me where you stay," he said. "We can bring the rest. Drag it on the pelt."

"no! n-no," heda stammered, ears flying backward in apology. "i'll — i don't — i'll do it, persia, thank you," and a quick bland little smile to accompany it as she tried not to glance in the direction of where she had found a den with her daughters.
she didn't know him and john wasn't here right now; he had helped her catch the deer and was entitled to as much of it as he could carry, but nothing else. and certainly not where she slept.
"it will be fine here. if the ravens want to take a little, i don't mind," heda said, her soft voice juxtaposed against the gory nature of her mouth and chest. 
she tore a strip of deerhide, shoving her treasures into its curl.
"the bypass is large. very large. feel free to stay as long as you'd like." away from her. from them. on this side of the lagoon, preferably. the mistrust rose like poison in her mouth.

Something about the immediate denial hurt Persia in a way he'd never been hurt before. Even though he'd been expecting her to turn down any more help. "Ouch," he said, hurt and concern warring in a way that made his voice come out oddly neutral.

Persia sucked in a breath and let it out slow, doing his best to exorcise all his concerns and confusion. This was none of his business, after all. But also, like... When had that ever stopped him before?

"No offense, Widow," he said, still uneasy despite his best efforts, "but I think I'm gonna come along away. So. Y'know. You can keep looking over your shoulder for me or we can do the less crazy thing and walk like we've already introduced ourselves. But I don't think you can stop me, y'know?"

His mother had indeed raised an asshole, but Persia at least tried to be polite while he told her yeah, no, fuck that, in a tone that turned conciliatory without his permission toward the end.

quite unbeknownst to heda, who had not given spring more than a second thought, her body was preparing for it, and now a glint of unfamiliar hostility suffused her gaze as she set it level upon persia.
slowly heda straightened, drying blood stretching upon her lips as her teeth were quietly revealed. his insistence promised danger for her children, she truly believed, and her instinctual predilection at this time was to deter men.
"leave." she had been more than generous; she had offered to split the carcass and share the bypass, and now he would receive three seconds to react before she was lunging for him, snapping under stress and natural call to drive him away.

The sight of her exposed teeth drove him back a few steps. He moved instinctively away from the carcass, giving Widow the space to do as she pleased with it. The one-word command that followed was simple enough to understand — but Persia still found his brow furrowing in contemplation. Without any experience having to protect things more vulnerable than he was, he could not understand her reluctance to have him around. Therefore, this aggression seemed awfully suspicious to the young man, who felt he'd been nothing but helpful and so, obviously, would continue to be nothing but helpful.

Even so.

"I'm not gonna fight about it," he replied, taking another step backward, and then wheeling away with a hop and a skip. "Be well, Widow." He jogged back in the direction he'd come, pausing only once to watch her over his shoulder, his green eyes still clouded with grave concern.

There was something weird about this woman, and Persia was going to find out just what that was.

For now, he only retreated quickly from view. He'd double back later on to sneak around some more.

<333

he left, though not without kind words which shamed heda until her gut roiled with regret.
she said nothing more, only watched the other wolf leave. and then swiftly from the carcass did she carry her findings, again willing to depart without a goodly portion of meat in case he came back.
she did not have the strength to be kind.