Redhawk Caldera Your words cut deeper than a knife

@Peregrine Just tagging you for reference purposes, this thread is open to anybody.

A lot of change was happening. Even Nightjar, dense as he was, noticed it. Njal had returned, but the young warrior hadn't sought the man out, primarily because he blamed the older wolf for reneging on his promise to train him to be a warden. There was a certified healer in the pack, but Nightjar hadn't met him, perhaps because his days were spent between the rendezvous site (where Ashton was not allowed) and the borders (where a healer had no business being). Peregrine had lost sight in one eye due to some sort of trauma. Unlike the other events, Nightjar was not detached from this one, for he spent a great deal of time at the rendezvous site in the company of his injured father.

He was returning there now with a three-day-old piece of deer muscle clamped firmly in his jaws for the alpha male. The stirred earth he left in his wake was not as neat or compact as it had been before, but Nightjar was still learning how to properly cache meat. The last time he'd opened a cache, he hadn't thrown dirt back over it, and had returned the next day to find their stores missing. This time at least he had done that. He hiked his broad shoulders and began the ascent up the side of the caldera, breathing easily through his nose, as if this climb took no toll on him. Having grown up here on the slopes, and being as burly and powerful as he was, it really didn't.

Peregrine had explained what had happened (or so Remedy assumes), and Fox had been horrified. While Haunter had not had any blood come out of his eyes, he had certainly suffered headaches and other strange anomalies Fox could not explain. Even with Ashton being back, she didn't feel any more at ease. As far as she was concerned, Peregrine was on his death bed. He'd been recovering at the rendezvous site, where Fox ended up spending most of her time after her most recent run-in with
"Starling." Peregrine was lightyears more important that some physical relationship, and Fox knew she couldn't abandon him at a time like this.

Her mate safely resting, Fox was sitting just a few yards away from him, content to watch the world and keep him safe. She immediately alerted to movement that came toward them, but quickly realized the movement was a non-threat: Nightjar. Her gaze and posture softened, though she did not sit down just yet. It amazed her how giant he'd gotten in such a short amount of time. He and his sisters were nearly their adult size, and it had been clear for quite some time that Nightjar would tower over her (if not Peregrine as well).

"That for Dud?" she asked, assuming as much. He had been spending just as much (if not more) time with Peregrine as Fox had. "He’s sleeping now, but I can watch it until he wakes up."

When he began the descent into the rendezvous site, he was not surprised to see the bright red back of either his mother or sister there. Peregrine was nearby, asleep. As Nightjar drew nearer, he recognized that it wasn't Wildfire, but Fox, and his tail began to wave. Not that he didn't like his sister—on the contrary, no matter how jealous he was of Wildfire's and Raven's reputation versus his own, and no matter how grumpy he got with them, he loved his sisters dearly—but it had been a while since he'd spent any quality time with his mother.

He flopped down in the grass nearby, unaware that Fox had already noticed him and reacted. She offered to take the muscle, but he draped a broad paw over it and said, "I can." Maybe she would test him, try to take it from him, engage in a tug of war... all things that Nightjar would appreciate even if the tough muscle was for Peregrine and not himself. But it wasn't likely, not unless Fox was in a better mood than she looked. Without a signal to keep his guard up, the burly pup dropped his snout over his forearm and stared at Peregrine.

"Dad's like me now," he commented idly, unintentionally vague as he very often was.

Nightjar wanted to look after the meal himself, it seemed, and Fox wasn't going to argue with him on that. Her son settled in, then, and Fox relaxed onto the ground as well, content to lay in easy silence until Peregrine woke up. It seemed, though, that was not to be. Nightjar mentioned something about Dud being like him, and Fox cocked her head to the side in mild confusion. "Like you?" she asked, wondering what he was talking about. As far as she knew, Nightjar could see out of both eyes.

"Did something happen to your eye?" Fox asked, struck with concern that Nightjar had managed to get into some kind of trouble recently. Or was he having headaches like his father? Fox tried to look at his eye more closely, but from this distance, she couldn't see anything immediately obvious. Then again, Peregrine's eye looked just as normal as ever. Could it be something that had been passed on to Nightjar somehow?

Nightjar's head cocked when Fox asked about his eye. What made her think it was his eye? It didn't occur to him that his statement was incredibly vague, concerning even. He thought everyone knew. The fact that no one could possibly know his experiences didn't occur to him either. Rarely did he think anything through, and this was just another of those times that Nightjar's lack of intelligence showed.

"Dad's eye is broke," he pointed out, then he flapped his dead ear and said, "my ear's broke." Didn't that make them the same thing? Invalids, both of them. Sadly, Peregrine's loss of sight mid-life was a little more devastating than Nightjar being born half deaf, and sight was harder to adjust to. Nightjar couldn't hear on his left side and often cocked his head to compensate, but at least it didn't affect his motor skills. Peregrine would not only be unable to see, he would be unable to perceive depth. Unable to run confidently, at least for a long time. It was depressing.

Not that Nightjar really thought about, or knew about, any of that.

Nightjar explained with simple words, which were easy on Fox's simple mind. Even though Wildfire and Raven were brilliantly intelligent in different ways, she found that speaking to Nightjar was always a bit of a relief. When she asked for more detail, he didn't spew out a long-winded speech about this or that. He said only the bare minimum, something she could only assume he picked up from her side of the family.

"Broke?" she asked, though it was a rhetorical question. "It looks fine from here," observed Fox. She pondered moving in closer, but nothing about his ear looked out of the ordinary. It was still just the same ear she'd always seen on him. She was aware that her own left ear was missing a small piece out of it, though that didn't really make it "broke." It was an aesthetic difference, that was all.

"Yeah," he confirmed, but Fox's inspection was concluded with a statement that there was nothing wrong with his ear. Maybe it wasn't something she could see physically. Peregrine's eye problem couldn't be seen physically either, but he was still blind in it. Nightjar lived primarily a physical existence, but not once had he ever taken a look at himself in a pool of water, so he couldn't even confirm or deny that his affliction was not physical as well. "Oh," was all he had to say to that.

But he could confirm from experience that, "there's no sound." Not since the day his ears opened. Whether he was born with it or whether Wildfire really had popped his eardrum, Nightjar couldn't hear a thing on his left side. It didn't hamper him as much as it would have if he'd been born being able to hear and lived a life where both ears worked, but it was still a hindrance at times. Like when the bushes rustled on his left side and he didn't notice it. Or when someone spoke to him on that side and he didn't totally understand them. Still, it was a minor disability at best. It was no wonder that no one had really noticed it aside from those who noted the way his ear tilted off the side rather than alertly erected most of the time.

Fox furrowed her brow. No sound. How could he not hear out of that ear? It didn't make much sense, and because Fox had never been a particularly observant wolf, she'd never picked up on the way he held it. She'd just thought he'd been built that way, with one ear a little less lively than the other. "When did the sound stop?" she asked, unaware that he had literally always been that way for as long as he could remember. Suddenly, it struck her that she might be a terrible mother for not catching on sooner, if it had been like this for a long time.

Her mind raced, wondering if there was anything they could do. Being without hearing in one ear wasn't the worst thing that could happen, she thought, casting Perry's sleeping form a glance, but it certainly didn't make Nightjar's life any easier. Maybe he just needed his ear to be cleaned. Fox had dealt with wax buildup in the past, so maybe that was all that needed to happen. For now, she convinced herself it was going to be an easy fix.

Nightjar shrugged, not really sure he could remember a time when he could hear out of both ears. He didn't really know what that felt like. If not for the fact that he could hear clearly out of the other, he may not have known there was anything wrong. Hell, he hadn't really realized it until his father's injury.

"Always, I guess," he answered with a shrug. Maybe when he was too young to remember, he'd been able to hear, but then, if it was a popped eardrum, then Wildfire had caused it long before either of them could hear anything. More likely it was a defect he was born with, though. There wasn't really a difference to him and he wasn't curious enough to care what caused it anyway.

"Always." Fox's heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach (or at least it felt that way). How could she not have known? She furrowed her brow. How something like this could have gone unchecked for so long? Did her other children have ailments that she had no clue about? Was there anything Fox (or anybody in the pack) could do to fix it? Was it something she or Peregrine had passed on biologically? Could any of their children hear out of both ears?

All these questions unfurled in her head, though she did not speak them aloud. Fox did not wish to cause concern for Nightjar. She could not verify any of what she was thinking, and she did not want to frighten him. Of course, maybe he would not be frightened at all. He had managed thus far, hadn't he? The sole Redhawk son was shaping up to be a good hunter, and he'd already proven that he was an apt fighter. So perhaps all this worrying was for nothing.

"It doesn't bother you, does it?" she asked, finally.

Whatever Fox was thinking, none of it was evident to Nightjar. Hell, he wasn't even perceptive enough to hazard a guess, not when it came to the inner workings of the mind. He could tell there was some distress there, but otherwise he didn't sense anything from her. Not until she spoke did he have the slightest idea what she thought about his "broke" ear, and when she did speak, it was to ask him how he felt about it more or less.

He shook his head in a single sweep, no. One could tell from his demeanour alone that it wasn't a bother. Sure, his left side was significantly more vulnerable to ambush than his right, and he was unable to have adjustable 360 degree hearing like many wolves did, but he was okay for it. It didn't affect his ability to patrol and it hadn't yet affected his ability to fight, perhaps because like Fox, not many realized he had a problem on that side. Lucky for him; if one figured it out mid-fight, they would have an advantage. The subtle scrape of their feet on the ground that could give their moves away would become a mystery to him if they remained solely to his left. Nightjar didn't know that, either, and so perhaps they didn't know because he didn't do a good job of compensating because he didn't know that he had to.

One day he would surely be exploited, but that day hadn't come yet.

Fade?

Nightjar shook his head to indicate that it did not bother him. Still, Fox could not help but feel as though she had done something wrong. Since the very beginning, perhaps even before they came into this world, Fox had wanted to give the Firebirds the absolute best chance at life. In that, she felt she had failed. If Nightjar had never heard out of his left ear, then he likely never would. The Alpha frowned.

Perhaps he was lucky that it was not a visible impairment. Nobody could look at him and know right away that his left ear heard nothing. She would know, along with anybody else who thought to ask. But really, how many wolves went around asking that kind of thing? Fox had not asked up until now, and she had only done so because he'd brought it up. At least he was not bothered, although Fox would keep an extra close eye on him. Now that she knew of his handicap, she would be watching for it.

For now, though, she settled her chin on her forelegs, waiting for Peregrine to wake from his nap.

I'll archive here!

Whatever the cause of his deafness was, it was clear in all that he did that it didn't affect him very much. His left side would always be more susceptible to attack than his right, and he would never make a splendid gamekeeper because of it, but he wasn't interested in hunting for a living anyway. Fighting was his forte, and so long as Nightjar could see his opponent, he needn't yearn for the ability to hear on his left side.

Fox laid the issue to rest by dropping her snout to her forelegs, and Nightjar decided it was time to do a patrol. Peregrine was taking longer to rise than the boy expected and there were things to do, things that required his attention more than his father. Fox was watching over him. So Nightjar left the hunk of muscle lying in his spot and he rose, shaking out his fur and heading meaningfully away from the rendezvous site. From past experience and his own predictability, his mother would probably know he was heading out on patrol, so there was no need to announce it as he departed.