Nocturne Summit Look to the stars

Backdated to the night after this thread takes place.  Also used a bit of PP, pm me if you would like me to change anything.  :)

@Charon had taken her to the Noturne Summit, the place where they could stargaze.  Meanwhile @Aduin had found a place a little ways off just as he had previously decided.  Upon reaching the summit as night fell overhead, Odie was stunned into silence by it's beauty.  She felt like she could stare into this veiw forever.  Constantly she found a new star capturing her attention, as her eyes flickered consistently from star to star.  It was perfection to her that starry sky.  Perfection.  Luckily it wasn't the same part of the summit that had frightened her previously.  Plus now it was night, so it was pretty much all shadowed in general from the darkened sky.

She turned her green eyed gaze to Charon at that moment.  "It's so beautiful."  She whispered in awe.  "The stars... the sky... it's just gorgeous."  She continued her tail happily wagging.  "What should I know first Charon?  About astronomy?"

Constellations interested him less than the beauty of the stars, truth to be told, but he had learned about them because he knew that they held value for others. And if he were to learn of a subject, it may as well be one he cherished. "They are beautiful," he confirmed with a smile as they had found a ledge upon Nocturne Summit and settled there. It wasn't the view that Moonspear provided, but he could not bring her there, to his family, not now. "It's even more beautiful up on Moonspear." Yet she understood as well as he, he guessed, that and why he could not bring her there. She was not a part of her pack.

"Some day I aim to find a place so tall that you can touch the stars," he divulged as he looked at them, not entirely emerged in his role as astronomy teacher yet — he needed a moment to appreciate their beauty and let the calm blanket fall over him that they provided first.

She continued to admire the stars beauty, but noticed that Charon was not yet ready to give her an astronomy lesson... she would have to wait.  That didn't matter though, especially with this veiw.  She felt like she could just stand here and stare at those gorgeous stars forever.  When Charon said that he wanted to find a place so tall that you could touch the stars though her she found herself sent back into a flashback.

A sudden idea formed in Odie's mind at that very moment.  The small pup took a couple steps back and before attempting the task, replayed the plan in her mind.  She would be like a bird if it worked!  Well... in a way.  Odette plan was to carefully stand up on two legs and then jump so high that she would reach the stars and moon, be able to grabs a star and then come back down.  Simple right?

It was action time and Odette miserably failed.  Carefully and slowly Odette began to lean all of her wieght on her hind legs and well at first it seemed like it was working, but then she put to much wieght on her hind legs and guess what?  Odette plummeted to the ground... backwards.

She gave a shake of her head, shooing the memory away.  That was of the past and she didn't want to be thinking of Steady right now.

She forced herself to refocus back on Charon.

"Where will you go to get so high?  It would be beautiful though, the stars just right above your head, lifting a paw to touch them... huh, I wonder what stars feel like."  She remarked, her gaze still dancing over each and every star.

"I don't know," he said frankly, "I'm not sure if such a tall place even exists. But if it does, I will find it, and it will be marvellous." Perhaps he was a dreamer, but it didn't matter to him if the place existed or not. If it did, he would surely be lead to it by the stars, and if it did not, well, he would always keep his dream alive. He wondered what the stars would even feel like upon touch, for he hadn't a clue.

"Anyway — what do you already know?" He looked at Odette to gauge her knowledge of the stars, so he better knew where to start. It'd be a different lesson if she knew nothing than if she already had some basic knowledge lined up.

What did she know about the stars already?  Well that was a good question.  She thought, and then she thought back further and further until finally she came upon a faint memory of just before her Mother had died.  She remember... what was his name?  For a moment she racked her memory once more trying to bring it up.  Phas?  Pho?  Phock?  Phocin?  Phocan?  Phocian?  Phocion perhaps?  Yes, it had been Phocion.

"Back when I still lived at Silvertip... there was someone named Phocion who told me about Sirius.  He called it the wolf star?"  She glanced at Charon giving the smallest cock of her head, unsure whether or not her answer was correct.  "That's all I know though..." she glanced down a little sheepishly, "I'll tell you if I can remember anything else."

He nodded at her response and said, "Ah, right." It reminded him that he needed to seek out others to learn from their knowledge too some more; there weren't that many on Moonspear that shared his knowledge. Ame knew a lot, but not everything. He looked at the skies again and said; "The easiest to find are the small and big dipper. They look kind of like rocks with tails, or like little huddled mice." He glanced up at the sky and found them easily enough, though wasn't too sure if Odette'd find them too. He pointed a paw up as he said, "Look, there," and looked to see if she'd find them or not. Pointing out stars was always difficult because they were so far away.

It took her a bit but eventually her eyes laid upon what she was pretty sure was the big dipper and the little dipper.  She found it surprising and even astonishing that such shapes could be made from the small looking stars that speckled the night sky.  Her eyes flickered back and forth between both between both little and big dipper eyes filled with wonder.  It was beautiful.

"I love it Charon," she exclaimed to her mentor, "it's just... amazing how those tiny little stars can come together to create shapes or objects," for a moment she paused head tilting with a thought, "are there any other constellations?"  She hoped there was and with that thought in mind, her vibrant green eyes began to search the sky for more.

Charon was glad that Odette shared his affinity for the amazingness of the stars. That was the core reason why he had begun to be an astronomer. He felt connected to them somehow and though he considered himself to be for a higher purpose, he also recognised that there may be others; not destined for higher purposes, perhaps, but with an interest in the stars nonetheless.

"Amazing, isn't it?" he said with a grin. She was eager to move on, so he said, "More than you can count." Charon was in fact not very sure how many constellations there were, but he was sure even he did not know all of them yet. He spotted a familiar constellation and said: "That's Raven's —" He halted momentarily as he remembered it wasn't a real one. It was Dhole's, about her sister. But it'd be weird to stop now, so he continued after a second or three, "— Arrow. Raven's arrow. See?" He pointed at the sky; "She's shooting the arrow at that dragon over there."

Raven's Arrow.  That one was a little harder to find as her eyes searched the midnight sky for the constellation.  It took her about two minutes but when she did find the constellation her eyes lit up with delight.  "That's so cool."  She commented, tail wagging with the enthusiasm that she held for this subject.

For a few more moments her bright green eyes drifted across the starry sky searching for anything else that she could find on her own... yet without much guidance she was not that experienced yet, so instead she decided to ask Charon something related.  How he had gotten his own guidance, who his own mentor had been.  "Who taught you about astronomy Charon?"  She asked him curiously, then awaited a response.

Charon was glad that Odette didn't seem to notice him flaking a bit over Raven's arrow. He was also glad that she quickly went onto the next subject, being how he'd come by his knowledge. It came from many sources, though he supposed a large chunk had come from Thistle. But also from other teachers, practically none of them really in the picture, now. And part came from musing, alone or with others, about the stars.

"My —" What Thistle had been to him was still a bit ambiguent even now. He'd called her his mother before, but it had always felt wrong towards the mother that'd given her life to protect Kevlyn. "Thistle, the one who raised me, she taught me a lot. I also learned much from others who came on my path. Sort of like I'm teaching you, I guess. If you keep searching there's a lot of wolves to learn from." Some had known more than him, but there were those who knew very little, but just enough to be able to teach him something small he did not yet know, too.

She was surprised when he mentioned a wolf who he called Thistle, as he told her about how he had been taught, claiming she had raised him.  If he was calling his other by her actual name did that mean that he was adopted to?  She was a little bit afraid to ask at first, not wanting to strike any soft spots on accident, but finally her curiousity got the best of her and she just had to ask. "Are you adopted too Charon?"  She asked quietly, then waited for an answer, though was not going to be one to demand it if he did not wish to respond to the question which she had posed.

Her eyes then went quickly back to the starry night sky, scanning the endless seeming layout of stars that stretched above her head.  They were so beautiful that she wished she could touch one like Charon wanted to, but yet they were so far away, high up in the sky.

If someone else had asked, maybe Charon might have taken offence in such a personal question. He didn't like to think he was different or less because his real parents had died, and he also didn't want to discredit his real parents because of the sacrifices they'd made. But the way that Odie turned her gaze to the night sky instantly after asking the question and seemed somewhat self-conscious about the question softened him.

Rather than directly answering the question, he explained his situation. "My mother died protecting one of my brothers from a bear," he said candidly; "And my father is dead, too. Thistle and Ragnar were the Alphas of Stavanger Bay, where I grew up, and they took me and my siblings in." Thinking about it, the fact that his parents had been allowed pups at all was special, let alone the Alphas raising their children as their own. But then, if Charon'd ever permit others to birth children, he would see those pups as the pack's, and he'd likely do the same thing.

He didn't seem to sad to recite his parent's deaths.  One day she wondered if it would be the same for her... perhaps, but she didn't really wish to think about that right now.  She wondered briefly though what would have happened to her or Charon if someone had not taken in either of them.  They were both truelly lucky to be alive if you really thought about it.

She decided not to try and work out any other personal information about Charon for now.  Instead she chose to move back to the topic of astronomy.  "Well... what was one of the coolest thing that Thistle taught you about the stars?"  She asked him, moving on to a lighter subject.

There was a silence, and Charon didn't really care to further elaborate on his parents. It was a long time ago and though he'd always felt a sense of duty towards his mother for dying on his behalf, he had never really known her very well. He missed Thistle more every day than his own mother.

Soon the conversation shifted, and he smiled sadly as he thought of Thistle. "Well... She did have this one story about the eyes of Thjazi, they're a pair of stars named after a story of the norse gods. In the story, they have to make this one lady smile and one of the gods binds a goat to his balls and makes it run..." He grinned; it was perhaps not a very appropriate story, but he'd been younger than Odette when he had heard it and it had always stuck by him because of its inappropriateness.

While she found it more inappropriate than funny, she couldn't help but give a little laugh at the story.  All the same she could definatly see why this was the most memorable, or coolest thing, that Charon had ever heard, because it was one of those things that you just can't really forget.

 

"That is quite the unforgettable story," she remarked, her laughter starting to cease to an end.  She wondered what had compelled a Mother to tell her son such a story as she probably wouldn't tell her kids if she ever had any.  Still the world did and always would have unexplained phenomenons.

"It is..." he said with a soft smile as he remembered Thistle, wishing she were here to see her grandchildren. "Well, it won't get much better than this, so I think that's it for today's lesson. I hope you find other teachers, too, but you're always welcome to come for more." There were enough places round the Moonspear where one could watch the stars well, after all. For now though, it was time to go; for Odie to go home, and, he had to admit, Charon felt the urge to return to his family to make sure they were okay too.

The lesson closed up.  While she would have loved it to last longer, that would not be.  She should be getting back to her family now, just as Charon himself should get back to his own now too.

"It was great getting to see you again Charon," she began, "but you're right, I should be getting home."  For a moment she paused.  "Thank you so much for teaching me tonight Charon... it really has been quite fun.  I hope we'll get to do this some time again in the future..." she trailed off, then began stood up to leave and find Aduin so that the two of them could head back tomorrow.

Charon smiled in response and said, "I hope so too." Maybe they'd meet again sometime in the future, or maybe when he had some more time, when his girls were a bit older, he'd be able to visit her instead. "See you around, good luck with the stargazing." Charon briefly nosed Odette's cheek before he set off back towards Moonspear while Odette would find Aduin and head home again. There was a soft smile on his lips as he returned home, hoping his own girls'd become little stargazers too.