Redhawk Caldera One life with each other

[font]@Peregrine [/font]

It was a few days since Osprey and Dante had bid their farewells to Donnelaith and began their journey South. They made slow, but steady progress, the weather was good and children were in good spirits and mostly excited about the adventure they were on. They did not yet realize that they had left their first home forever and that there were many long days and miles to walk ahead. 

When passing Moonspear, Osprey had wondered, if she should stop by and meet Charon for one last time, but decided against it. They had said their goodbyes the last time and knowing his very complex personality (and probably tons of other duties at the moment)... she just did not want to make matters worse than they were. In the area of the former Blacktail deer plateau she feared to run into Burke. Though he was sort of a friend, she doubted that Dante would like the brute and she also did not trust the fellow enough to have him see her children.

They did not - luckily. However, when the familiar landscape around caldera came into the view, Osprey knew that this was the place she could not pass. Peregrine deserved to know. Therefore she left Dante and the kids to spend the day on their own - resting and hunting, if possible - and went to her brother's doorstep to call for him and spend, whatever time they had, together.

Peregrine had to arch his neck a little awkwardly to clean the wound on his right shoulder blade. He frowned even as his tongue flicked over the broken skin, the two crescents of needle-like puncture wounds in the meat of his muscle. Ferret had sneaked up on him during a cat nap and sunk his teeth into him. Peregrine had reacted immediately and instinctively, lips peeled back as he snapped his fangs at the bridge of his son's muzzle. He had scored him there, causing the startled adolescent to cuss him out before running off somewhere. That left the Alpha to lick his wound and wonder whether he had overreacted and what Ferret was thinking, attacking his sleeping father from behind like that.

All of these worries fell away when a familiar singsong voice rose into the air. Peregrine whipped to face forward, simultaneously rising onto all fours. He loped down the slope in the direction of the call, wondering what Osprey was doing here. He only hoped she came with good tidings. He tried to remember the last time he'd seen her. Spring, maybe? Yes, early spring. Not long after the Firebirds—fucking Ferret included—had been born.

As soon as he clapped eyes on her, a smile crinkled his faded white face. "Osprey!" he shouted, tail wagging steadily as he closed the distance and approached, immediately reaching out to brush his muzzle against her cheek. "How are you, Mama Osprey?" he asked, jade eyes sparkling. "And what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

Peregrine came almost imediately - looking older and more rugged than she remembered, but still the same easy-going and great person Osprey had loved all her life. It was odd to think that she was probably seeing him for the last time in a very long time, if not for forever. They had spent a good deal of time apart in the last two years, yet they had always been within reach and known about each other's whereabouts. Now... Osprey did not know, where her family's journey would take them and how long would it be before they found a permanent place to settle down.

"I fear that I am bearer of bad news," she said, deciding not to prolong the inevitable. "I and my family are leaving and this is a... goodbye, Perry."

His sister did not beat around the bush, speaking frankly as she broke the bad news. Peregrine felt a pang of disbelief and sadness and his ears fell back. He licked his lips and shot her a questioning look, waiting for her to elaborate, give a reason. When such information wasn't forthcoming, he realized she must be pausing to allow him time to absorb and react to the initial bombshell.

Peregrine's lips parted as he struggled to figure out which of the millions of questions in his head to voice. Eventually, he settled on, "Where are you going? And why?" There was no accusation in his tone, nor a plea. He assumed Osprey hadn't made this decision lightly and he certainly wouldn't be trying to talk her out of it. But he wanted to understand what was happening in his sister's and her family's life.

"We are heading South. In a probably foolish hope that the winter there might be milder and therefore better for us and the kids," Osprey replied, thinking about all of the people they had left behind, who - though had not tried to dissuade them from making the journey - had thought that this was the wrong thing to do. 

"Famine and childbirth took it's toll on me - I have not been well for a very long time and I fear... that, if I stay here, that this winter might be. Maybe elsewhere my chances will be better," she kept the worst part of the truth to herself. She did not want to have her brother worry too much. 

"And... at the end of the day the wanderer in my heart craves for an adventure," Osprey finished her tale with a smile. "This sure is going to be a big one."

If he had been prepared to argue with her, Osprey's reasoning would have effectively silenced him. When she mentioned her failing health, he drew in a breath. They were both aging. That the famine and childbirth had done a number on her was not surprising. If she needed to seek greener pastures for her health and that of her family, Peregrine could hardly begrudge her that, even if he knew she would have to go very far away—completely out of his reach—to find them.

"Oh, Oss," he breathed, moving closer to her, putting his muzzle against her cheek. "It sure is," he said, getting a little choked up as the knowledge that he might never see her again after today washed over him again and again. "But Dante and the kids are going with you? You'll all still be together?" he clarified, drawing back to gaze into her eyes.

"You would not expect me to leave them behind or Dante letting me go on my own?" Osprey chuckled, realizing, how much she had changed from those days, when she could get up and leave on a whim. Now - being on her own seemed entirely meaningless. The exciting part of the journey was the fact that they were doing it together. Who knew, what would they see and find. 

"I let them rest for the day - he is with the trio and I have all my time for you only," she said. "So, it is your party and you get to choose, what we are going to do."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't think so. I just wanted to make sure." Peregrine offered a weak, sad smile. "I'm glad you're all sticking together. Makes me feel better about the whole thing." Not that they were doing it for him or that his feelings should be taken into account at all. But he knew his sister would be glad for it.

His heart throbbed into his throat at Osprey's next few words. She was all his for the day. After that, let's face it: they would never see one another again. The swarthy wolf sucked in a long, long breath, then exhaled slowly. He couldn't say how glad he was for this opportunity, no matter how poignantly bittersweet. Many of the others in his life had gone without a notice or farewell of any kind. This last goodbye was a gift he didn't intend to squander or waste.

"Well," he began after a long, contemplative moment, "I'd challenge you to one last race but you're old and I'm decrepit." Peregrine's lips drew into a wry grin. "So how about a walk instead? And..." He had to swallow to stop his voice from shaking. "Maybe one last story?"

"Not much of a racer anymore, no," Osprey shook her head. She had enough spunk to keep up with her kids, but soon they would outgrow her both in size and endurance and secretly she feared the day, when she would have to admit "I can't do it". In an odd way she felt a little bit better knowing that she was not the only one, who was giving in to the time's merciless touch. 

"Story you say - but I bet you have heard them all already," she put up some resistance, though it was clear from the fond smile and look in her eyes that she would happily comply. "I have a better idea - let's make it an adventure. I will be..." she stopped looking up at the sky, thinking, "... SuperFun Coconut, the exiled fairy. And you?" 

Osprey countered him with a better idea: a sort of collaborative live action mad lib. Peregrine gave her a bit of a playfully hairy eyeball. He wasn't the creative sort, so this was going to be terrible. But of course he would humor her. She was his sister and this was their last mile.

"And you?" "Uhhh." He paused, looking down as if considering himself. His shoulder was still bleeding and stinging from Ferret's bite. "I'm, uh, a dragon forced into retirement because someone ripped off my right wing. See?" He rolled his shoulder to show Osprey the injury, authenticating his tale.

"You don't have to look far for the ideas," Osprey looked at the nasty wound on her brother's shoulder, then briefly met his eyes, as if asking, if he wanted to tell about it. If yes, she would listen, if he would decide not to delve in the matter, she would brush it off easily. 

"So... all stories feature great and wonderful characters - valiant princes and beautiful princesses, brave and skillful magicians and smart fairies. All of them have happy endings - more or less, but little is known, what happens to the beaten bad guys, outsmarted dwarves and trolls, injured dragons and banished beasts," she began, getting into the story quickly. 

"And one day a ragged looking fairy with a very unfitting name - SuperFun Coconut (there were none of the qualities in the looks) - was sitting in a tree and admiring the view in the sky and thinking about all of the prancing idiots in the fairy-land, who had banished him just because... well, you can't play with fairy queen's wand a bit and expect not to be punished.

And there he lied and lied, until something big and heavy fell from the sky and pinned him to the ground entirely. It turned out to be a badly battered dragon. "Geroff, you pig!" Coconut squeaked underneath the heavy mass," she stopped there, letting Perry to fill in, what would his character say.

Post #3300 for you! Also, Perry is awful at this.

Osprey gave him a look that Peregrine could read like a book, even after all this time and distance. He shook his head minutely. She didn't need to know about her shithead of a nephew. If Peregrine spent any time regaling her about his kids, he would talk about the success stories, not the rotten eggs. But he was caught up in this tale they were spinning together.

He knew he was supposed to pick up where she left off and continue weaving this little oral tapestry. But he was hung up on something she'd said. "All of them have happy endings, more or less." Peregrine found himself smiling silently at her, tears filling his eyes. Never again would his sister, Osprey, darken his doorstep. She would find her happy ending somewhere down south and he would stay here, chasing his own golden days.

She stopped and Peregrine took a moment to collect himself. His voice was gruff as he haltingly said, "Well, the dragon wouldn't listen. Because he loved SuperFun Coconut and just wanted to be near her." Or was the fairy a him? Oh, well. About two seconds after the words left his mouth, Peregrine sprang at his sister, shoving his shoulder into her affectionately and trying to sling a foreleg around her neck in a wolfish hug. He forgot to add more to the story but that had always been more of Osprey's gig anyhow.

"We aren't going to finish the story that way," Osprey laughed and leaned into her brother's embrace. It was this one of the many special things she shared with Perry only. 

"Screw that then," she looked up at him and smiled. "Those characters tend to fend for themselves quite nicely. I guess that they went and eventually found a cool retirement place for discarded bad guys. Unless the SuperFun Coconut was smothered by the dragon's unmoving ass."

She arched an eyebrow, encouraging her brother to either continue or sugest something else to do.

As she spoke in turn, Peregrine found himself wildly wondering if maybe he and Fox could eventually retire down south too, joining Osprey and Dante wherever they were heading. But he dismissed that idea rather quickly. Much as he liked the idea of it, he truly never intended to leave the caldera. He wanted to stay here until his dying day, surrounded by his many children. Only some sort of natural disaster would force him from his home. The volcano was extinct and they had weathered Boardwide Plot 2, so he couldn't imagine it ever coming to that.

Swallowing and shaking off these thoughts, Peregrine gave Osprey a bit of a dopey grin. "Sorry I suck at telling stories. But while we're on the subject..." He trailed off for a minute, squinting in a random direction before bringing his gaze back to his sister. "Wanna reminisce? From the Flightless Falcons days? Remember that time when Crete"—a name he had hardly spoken since his brother's cowardly desertion years ago now—"threw that snake at Atti and he pissed himself? And then he threw Crete into the ocean?" He began chuckling at the crusty old memory.

Osprey laughed, remembering the incident, which now seemed like centuries old, but still funny. "It was quite mean, by the way," the adult in her had to say this, because being a parent figure herself, she would not want to see the same "doings" between her children. 

"Remember the time, when... was it Velox? Anyway, one of the older siblings told us that we could find treasure, if we went to the nearby bog in the middle of the night and pretended to be frogs? And we bought it, and we went there and... got hopelessly lost," she shuddered - even now the memory was not pleasant. 

"Mom was pissed off big time," MO had been very angry then both at the older sibling and the two over-imaginative kids that believed silly tales. Osprey had never quite shaken off the feeling of guilt over that one and had tried to be very careful at drawing the line between fantasy and reality. "And I still believe that we saw a real ghost there. I mean, who else could have given such a horrendous shrieks!"

"Ah, boys will be boys," Peregrine said, smirking playfully. He understood how she felt. Age and parenthood certainly gave him perspective. "And... vaguely?" he added, not really recalling the memory about the bogs and frogs. It had probably happened when they were very young, by the sound of it. Even though he could barely tease out the barest details in his mind, he smiled fondly. "Mo probably beat our asses," he quipped a little wistfully. It had been years but, man, he stilled missed their mother.

The mention of ghosts made him think of something, his expression going slightly more serious for a moment. "Speaking of ghosts, did you know Pied had visions of some sort? I wanna say they were just hallucinations or something but they were eerie..." He drew in a breath. He hadn't thought of Saena's and Pura's mother in a long time. But he could still remember the cold dread of finding her dead in her den the morning of their birth, stiff to the touch and surrounded by her own blood.

"Have you seen Saena recently?" he wondered abruptly. He couldn't quite recollect whether they had a good or bad relationship but they definitely knew each other. And Peregrine himself hadn't seen or heard from her in a long time, for good reason. He knew Wildfire had befriended her somehow but he suddenly wondered where she was these days, what she was doing, whether she might have a mate and family.

So many loved ones lost in the wind, Peregrine mused darkly.

Osprey had heard about Pied's talent (or abnormality), but had never asked her niece much about it. For a person, who still believed in existence of fairies and trolls, it was a little unusual, but the elder had always tried to draw a strict line between imagination and reality. If one would claim that they see ghosts or hear voices that told them to do specific things, she would be the first to make a healthy distance from them. It could be dangerous. 

"I did a long time ago - she came to see Lasher," they had not talked much and Osprey did not believe that they would have got much further after exchanging the common courtesies. "Around that time she was moving her pack with small children in tow. If I remember correctly, then there was some trouble with her former mate... and a rival pack. That was many months ago though - I have not seen her since."

"By the way... I have a favor to ask," she said, pausing to hear her brother's response first.

Peregrine smiled faintly as Osprey recollected her last interaction with Saena. Despite disowning him long ago now, it sounded like she was more or less walking a parallel line with him, between relationship struggles, rival packs and making babies. He snorted lightly, shaking his head and looking at the ground for a moment. He thought of the other wolf his sister had mentioned (Lasher) and his smile fell a little bit, turning wistful.

When Osprey requested a favor, her brother looked up at her again. "Of course. Anything," he replied without hesitation.

"I know that at some point in their lives my children will set out to discover the world on their own. And I want to make sure that, should they ever need it, they have friends out there," Osprey began, wondering, which one from the trio was more likely to begin a journey of their own, and secretly hoping that they would choose to stay with her as long as possible. 

"If any of them ever stand on your doorstep - please - grant them a shelter and if they deserve so - a home and a place in your family," she did not believe that any of her brood would grow up to be a... well, bad, yet you never knew. "Do you know the names?" she asked, realizing that Perry wouldn't even know, who to wait for.

He listened carefully. He wasn't sure what Osprey would ask of him, whether it would be a lot or a little, but it didn't matter. He would do it regardless. When it turned out she wanted him to keep his doors open to his nephews and nieces, Peregrine smiled slowly. Of course he would welcome any of Osprey's chicks into his flock, should they wander this way. He'd like that, actually.

She asked if he knew the names and Peregrine froze. If she had mentioned them to him in the past, he'd forgotten. He sheepishly said, "Larry, Curly and Mo?" He huffed a laugh, then added, "Of course, Oss." He didn't even need to think about it and Peregrine knew the favor would be returned without his even having to ask.

Although he would have liked to prolong these moments forever, he knew it was only a matter of time before Osprey had to return to said family and hit the road. Peregrine licked his lips and caught her eye, gazing openly into her face as he said, "You were my favorite since the day we were born. You will always be my favorite. I'm going to miss you so much." His heart throbbed in his chest. "I love you, Osprey."

"Close, but - no," Osprey smiled and shook her head, although if it ever came to finding good nicknames for the brood, she would keep Perry's suggestion in mind. "There is a boy with a dark-pelt, named Terance. And two grayscale girls - Sarah and Wraen. The first two are quite the competetive sort, the last - daddy's little princess."

"Terance and Sarah reminds me of us a little. Though they would never admit that they are each other's favorite people - too busy to prove that one is better than the other," she continued. "So... in a way it won't be a good-bye forever. You might meet my kids and see a bit of me in them. And I might meet your offspring - and see you. You have not dropped the goal of beating our parent's record, have you?" Osprey asked jokingly. 

As she spoke their monikers, Peregrine flashed back to the day when Lasher had first mentioned them to him. His heart pinched in his chest. He merely nodded as he (re)cataloged their names and descriptions. His heart throbbed yet again when Osprey said that they would keep in touch via their children. He supposed that was true. And there was always that chance, however slim, that they would meet again. But it was most likely it would be on the other side, if such a thing existed.

"Hell no!" he bellowed playfully in response to her question, jade eyes twinkling, the blind one only slightly duller than the other. "Fox and I will be banging out kids until the day I die," he vowed, unaware of how Ferret's attack would change his tune quite drastically in the coming days. "We have several fertile years still ahead of us. I want to live forever through my descendants, so the more I make, the longer I'll live," he quipped with a wink.

"In that case I wish you two best of luck," Osprey said with a smile. Knowing her brother it was easy to see him surrounded by many, many children, grandchildren and other grand-grand-grands. This image reminded her of the promise they had given each other as kids and repeated time from time again during the adulthood - to grow old together. And though they had changed quite a bit with age - neither him, nor her really felt that they were at the point, where they would consider themselves as really old. As slow, cranky and grumpy kind of old, when everyone puts up with your whims out of respect for your age. 

She fell silent then, realizing that their time together was running out and that they would have to part soon. "Would you mind walking back with me and meeting your nieces and nephew in person?" Osprey finally asked. "They have to know - after all - which scary face to look for, when they are going to be on their own."

ooc: I think that you can fade this out in your next post - thank you for the wonderful 1700 post long journey wth Osprey! :)

:') <3

Although he had been joking to some extent, Peregrine founding himself indulging in the very same daydream as Osprey (not that he realized she was picturing it too). He saw himself and Fox cuddled together with all their children, grand children and great grandchildren sitting around them. Of course, it was as idyllic as it was improbable. Most of their grown children had already gone away, some of them likely never to return. And that was all right. But the Redhawk patriarch allowed himself to savor the imaginary scene, just for a moment.

Osprey brought him back to reality by asking him to walk with her and meet his nieces and nephew. The invitation took him by surprise but he immediately seized it. "Yeah," Peregrine said softly, "of course." Anything to prolong these last moments with his sister. He silently motioned for her to lead him to her family. Hell, he wouldn't even mind entertaining his old rival, Dante, for a few moments if it meant he didn't have to let go as soon. A fond smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he fell into step beside his Silver Bullet. She had led him out of the womb and he would have happily followed her anywhere all his life. And when she disembarked today, for the last time, Osprey would take a piece of Peregrine's heart with her.