Redhawk Caldera fire in the hole

*sliiiides on in here*

At Eljay's command, Lucca peeled away from the group, sparing his sister only a brief glance as he and Tegan (but mostly the former) began to work on separating the calf from the rest. The herd had quickly begun to move off, releasing nervous bellows that were quickly drowned out by the thundering of their hooves. Despite his bulk, Lucca was steady on his feet, keeping his hungry gaze upon the limping young deer and its mother. Just like this siblings, the boy was filled with confidence — they had this in the bag. There were four of them and only one and a half deer, what could go wrong?

Everything, apparently.

Lucca winced and let out a strangled warning shout that came too late as Fiadh was suddenly clocked in the side of the head. The young deer went down with her but it was obvious the Blackthorn litter were more concerned for their sibling. Or, rather, their revenge. At Clover's war cry, and after giving his brother a determined nod of agreement, the three remaining would-be hunters took off. At his cry of "stop!", Lucca quickly threw a fiery glance over to Eljay that said, don't worry, we got this!

As they gained on the fleeing doe, Lucca was completely oblivious to the adult's sudden intervention. He faintly heard Towhee's cacophonous demands but was too focused on taking down their newest target to pay her any heed. Overtaking Tegan, who menacingly snapped at the creature's heels, Lucca pushed ahead of him and got as close as he could to the doe before releasing a dramatic holler and launched his heavy self into her side to take her down — only to completely rebound off her surprisingly sturdy ribcage with an, "oof", crashing into the grass while narrowly avoiding the deadly hooves, his tumbling form becoming a sudden hazard to his siblings and the pack mates who had joined them.

Up until the point when she saw Fiadh go down, Finley could only lie still, watchful, excited, riveted by the performance. She didn’t have much hope that they would actually make a kill, but that wasn’t entirely the point. The point was to get some practice in and learn some skills that - truth be told - they probably ought to already have had. Fin had raised this litter very different from her last two. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes as before which had driven her daughter away last time and driven herself away the time before. This time, she had been lax in their upbringing, falling into a motherly role that felt more true to her character than forced like before. It had resulted in four boisterous, loud, foul-mouthed, somewhat unruly young wolves, and that was perfectly fine with Finley.

But when Fiadh went down, the smile abruptly faded and concern overtook her. She made to rise, but quickly stopped as she remembered the pups in her belly and realized she would only risk harming them if she attempted to rush into the fray. She settled back down, tension in her frame as she watched Raven and Towhee sprint towards her daughter in her stead, soothing herself that they at least had it handled. Her attention swept instead to the other kids, who took up a battle cry and took off after the offending doe like wild beasts avenging the deaths of their firstborn sons. She was torn then between worry and amusement, and honestly.. pride. It was incredibly stupid of them, but once again, absurdly, Fin found herself appreciating their reckless, courageous, loyal personalities. 

It was then that Fin considered her newest method of parenting might be to, simply put, be a terrible parent.

Eljay yelled for the young hunters to stop, and so did Towhee -- but they hadn't listened yet. Since Fiadh's fall at the hooves of the deer, Clover, Tegan, and Lucca had taken matters into their own hands, with Colt in pursuit, while Eljay and Raven rushed to tend to the injured girl. In only a matter of seconds, Elwood considered his options and acted on them.

"STOP!" he bellowed, echoing Eljay and Towhee as he leaped up from a sitting position. As he did, he watched Lucca bounce off the doe's side, which would have been funny if everything else hadn't already gone wrong. Aware that the two caregivers were prioritizing Fiadh, he raced after Towhee, knowing that he needed to stop the hunt before more of his children were hurt.

She was utterly dazed for a while, brought back to the moment she'd met Tynee in the fields. Only Tynee was a rubber duck, not a bear, and the fields were the Caldera's lake, but twenty times larger. She was out for only a few minutes before coming too, but in La La land, she married the rubber duck and they lived happily ever after.

Upon coming to, she was met with buzzing. Her yellow eyes blinked open and she could see the world, her sister looming over her and then taking off with her brothers, but it was like all the sound was gone. It came back slowly as chaos erupted around her. For the time being, Fiadh stayed down. Her head was spinning from the impact. A concussion was almost guaranteed, and the thought of sitting up made her feel sick to her stomach.

Only when she heard Towhee yell someone kill did she move; she made a halfhearted effort to rise and snap her jaws pathetically at the fawn that was stumbling away before she sat down heavily and groaned. Raven and Eljay soon crowded in around her, assessing her and comforting her, while the rest of the hunt went completely sideways.

oh and... down went lucca. unsurprisingly. tegan laughed at his brother as he went "you got four left feet, luc?" he called over his shoulder, but was still in hot pursuit of the deer. it was only when elwood yelled for them to stop that tegan stopped.

because FUCK THE SYSTEM, AAANNNARCHY!!!! and all that, but dad was fuckin scary, yo.

he let out a little growl of frustration as he skidded to a halt, turning quickly to focus on-- haha oh whoa, there was some kinda wreckage happening back there. whoops. tegan stood still and observed for a minute, black nose twitching, before he began to pad over to lucca to check on him. "you good, bro?" he asked, head cocking to one side, ignoring anything else being yelled in the distance.

next round! i think we can conclude after this one. :)

There was chaos everywhere. They didn't seem to be listening to him at all when he told them to stop at all. @Raven came down from her position by Finley's side and so did Towhee. Luckily the Alpha mirrored his words, agreeing that it was better to stop, which soothed Eljay's fears that he had done a terrible job telling them to stop so early. He turned attention back to Fiadh and then looked at Raven, frowning and said, "How is she?"

They were lucky that Fiadh didn't seem to be completely out. She mostly looked dizzy but her eyes were open at least. Eljay saw from the corner of his eye that Lucca fell and then when daddy yelled stop, the third to do so, finally they seemed to stop and call it quits. Relief flooded Eljay, knowing no more would get hurt for now, and he turned attention back to Raven and Fiadh, waiting for the verdict.

Raven and Eljay likely forced her to her side so they could examine her properly, so Fiadh didn't get to see the rest of the hunt; in fact, by the time her siblings were corralled and the hunt was ended, she was half asleep, head spinning lightly, though she would recover soon enough. A horrific headache would greet her when she woke and she would need to be checked throughout that night to ensure she was still in good health, but Fiadh would be just fine, if a little shy about going for deer again.

When Lucca and Clover presumably slowed and gave up the chase with Tegan, Elwood moved to round up the trio. He shot a grateful glance at Colt, then gestured for the three youths to follow him back to check on Fiadh. "You have to listen during a hunt," he said, shaking his head. "Communication is key -- you can't just go running off like that, especially when one of your teammates is hurt."

Although things had gone poorly, it had still been a learning experience for his hard-headed group of children, and once they were sure that Fiadh wouldn't suffer any permanent damage, he gave the remaining Blackthorn kids a mini-lecture before releasing them to their own devices.

Towhee couldn't know if she was yelling loudly enough for them to hear her—she had no way to grasp the concept at all—but when Elwood joined her, they were able to rally the yearlings. Lucca had stumbled too, though he appeared to be all right, as did Fiadh when the group returned to check on her. The Alpha panted heavily even as she shook her head at the total shit-show.

While their father lectured the foursome, Towhee approached Eljay. "I appreciate you trying. But we have our work cut out for us, don't we?" she said, giving Clover, Fiadh, Lucca and Tegan the hairy eyeball from where she stood beside their older brother. "Goddamn, that was bananas," she muttered loudly to herself, shaking her head again before eventually wandering off in search of the mysteriously missing fawn.

Eljay looked worriedly at Fiadh while Raven examined her. As Towhee approached him he looked up and nodded with a frown. He felt quite like a failure, but on the other hand at least they had learned something. Daddy was giving the kids a talk meanwhile, probably about listening to orders, and Eljay was glad the others had echoed his sentiment of stopping the hunt; at first when they continued he'd been afraid maybe he had stopped too early, been too careful. In the end he was glad the others agreed with his call.

"Yeah, that was crazy," Eljay said with a sheepish grin as he looked over his shoulder. He studied the look on Raven's face for a moment and then turned back to Towhee and said: "I think Fiadh will be okay." Raven didn't look she-might-die worried, mostly just focussed on Fiadh, which was good. Eljay opened his mouth to say something to the rest of the pups but they all seemed pretty scattered, so he then moved back to Raven to see if he could help her move Fiadh somewhere quieter or escort her back to the rendezvous site -- or wherever -- to rest. It had been a crazy hunt, but hopefully they'd learned from it and they would do better on their next.

i think this is good to archive soon, since it is getting old :) so i'mma keep this up another week for anyone to post if they'd like, and archive it then.