Blackfeather Woods a turtle has made it to the water

Please allow @Ramsay to post first. Their intention is just to visit but they might be inclined to stay a while depending how this thread goes. :)

"Hmm." The young wolf hummed thoughtfully as he stood at the threshold to his former home with his brother. They had not planned to come here so soon but the draw was strong to step among the forest's shadows and reminisce while they contemplated the path ahead. It was a surprise to find it occupied once more. Familiar scents marked the borders, which were clean of the bone and gore that Euron once perused for trinkets and amusement.

He was quiet at length as he considered the discovery. "Rams," he said eventually, licking his teeth as he turned his head toward his sibling. The noon sun was bright in a cloudless sky and he squinted as the ray's caught his eyes. "This is being quite interested, are you also thinking so? I am sure the me is smelling Kove. I am smelling also... Hmm." His recollection on whom the other scent belonged to was dim, a ghost in the dark he was not sure even existed. He shook his head. "Maybe someone. Maybe no one.

His memory wasn't so great and reliable as he thought it was, marveled Ramsay. He could have sworn that the pack abandoned Blackfeather Woods and housed themselves in a deep valley far to the north, but his recollection of even that was hazy. He remembered fighting and running with his pack mates, he remembered Vaati and his mental break, and he remembered returning to the woods with Cicero. They had left Maegi behind here, but no one else had come with them. How had they come to return to their home after war sent them packing?

He didn't have long to think on it. His high shoulders rolled in a shrug and he asked, "which one was Kove?" The names and faces of the Blackfeather pack were all blurred together in his memories. The only ones he could reliably name were Maegi, Vaati and Cicero, and none of their scents persisted on the borders. He noted the absence of all the macabre trinkets and tokens of the pack's past, and his lips pursed thoughtfully. Maybe war had taught them something after all.

"Maybe no one," he agreed, though he thought he could detect some familiarity there too. "They returned but are not the same," he mused, chancing a glance at his brother's face. Euron had always delighted in the pack's foolish border paraphernalia and feigned frightful air where Ramsay had deemed it all unnecessary; what did his brother make of all this?

i'm okay with PP - astara is also skippable if need be

towing in her jaws the worried form of a toad (one that caused her mouth to rime and blanch with the taste), astara paused under an overhang of weary trees and glanced outwards. her attention was affixed not on prey, but predator: two shapes that moved along the borders like formless waves of fog.

her gaze narrowed as voices carried through the trees. she had no use for speech, and therefore, understood nothing of it; and being a whelp that was rather uninitiated to the customs of the world, simply assumed these wolves might be friendly so long as all of their eyes were present -- she had not liked that wolf with no eyes, and had decided some time ago to be childishly prejudiced to anything resembling her.

these wolves resembled that sightless crone little. she nudged the mangled toad onto a root and approached them curiously, but not without caution. in her lithe frame there was no aggression or hostility -- only an insatiable child's interest. of particular interest to her was not the pied grey brother, but the black wolf -- which looked as if he had run too fast into the face of a willow, or perhaps been sat upon at some point.

gazing curiously at both of them, astara made no move to conceal herself (she had no skill for that anyway). instead her ears seemed to sway back and forth, from one wolf to the other, her eyes bright with intrigue.

at one time, relmyna had devoted herself daily to the rock of tongues, but she had fallen from that path. and yet the winds that twisted through the all but empty temple of blackfeather brought to her the scent of those she had loved. for a moment, the woman quailed; what magick was this that she had wrought?
but her stride lengthened; the patchwork wolfess would not be held back from what had transpired. and as she moved beneath the shadowed branches, her heart unburdened itself: sithis and mephala had heard her prayer. and relmyna knew then she no longer needed the stone to be transported to their world; her piety had seen fit to grant her succor. 
the sons and one daughter of cicero stood in communion when the gamma arrived, her steps slowing to gently appraise the three of them. euron, his sinewy frame and melonii gaze all but restoring sheogorath to the wood. and ramsay, the stamp of the illict parentage having only hardened the boy into sable muscle and fierce indigo eyes. astara, too, unaccompanied for now by the ghost.
maegi was not with her brothers, relmyna noted, but swept forward with a low croon of welcome upon her lips. she knew not how she would be regarded by euron and ramsay, but blackfeather was their birthplace, their birthright. and the dark brother who had been their father had been someone relmyna knew in another time she might have loved. it was all the she-wolf needed to extend a maternal affection to his children, tempered by her innate reverence of the melonii bloodline.

Unlike his fellow ghost, it was not the winds that lured him to the borders but mere chance; he often wandered and patrolled the outskirts of the woods, searching but finding nothing, and often knowing not what it even was that his subconscious searched for. But it was during one of these wanderings that he found the collection of wolves, a mother and her daughter, who stood across from forms he’d never expected to see again: Cicero’s children, the brothers of his once apprentice.

They had grown but changed little in appearance, overall, with the blackened half of the duo still missing his neck and the patchwork boy bearing an almost eerie resemblance to his sire. He looked them both over from where he stood, then between and beyond—but the palest of the unfortunate Melonii brood was nowhere to be found, his previously favoured child still missing. With a slow shake of his head, he rid his expression of whatever disappointment tried to linger and focused on the encounter at hand. And with several steps stolen in their direction, he let the sound of his footfalls announce his arrival, whilst his voice was used to say, “Welcome home.”

Their intentions were unknown to him and the northerner did not attempt to change that; what they wanted would be revealed, he was sure, so why ruin a reunion that appeared important to Relmyna? Keeping several paces away, he was otherwise silent so that Rel’s apparent joy might not be disturbed.

she licked her lips curiously, staring at both strangers in wide-eyed wonder. while she was careful not to meet either gaze, she felt compelled to unabashedly study them. she did not know they were siblings - or even relatives; she had no tether to them save simply a morbid curiosity as to who they were, why they looked the way they did, and what exactly had caused the stunted ridge of the dark one's spine.

as her mother swept towards them, astara did not miss that she appeared familiar with them; feeling protected under the shadow of her mother, the girl simply continued her blank glances to both. with the familiar form of kove now arriving, astara retreated -- though she sneakily peered at the grouping often between the trees.

last post for rel; i ended this but @Astara and @Kove, feel free to reply again or archive <3

kove arrived, and while he too greeted the boys, he allowed relmyna some distance. and astara too decamped, though not far. it was now the trio of them, while relmyna unsteadily assumed the delight some role between euron and ramsay she had not before: mother. 
in that moment, she realized it was cicero who drove her now, his memory. it was not within blackfeather to have the grace of normal families; there was no need for a mother. and relmyna did not understand the sort of love between meloniis — yet, she bore her own. these were brothers to her own brood, and whether or not they rejected her overtures, relmyna loved them for that alone.
in time the young pair left the wood, and relmyna was stood visible at the borders, watching them retreat into the fading light above the plains. and for some time after she could see them no longer, the woman remained, her lips moving in quiet prayers to the mother for protection and guidance upon euron, ramsay, and maegi.

no post for u kove kek

between the tall arches of oak and yew astara watched, her indigo gaze resting on the strangers. she understood nothing of what was spoken between the wolves, yet watched anyway. eventually the strangers departed: astara watched their alien forms until they were swallowed by the murky gloom.

turning to collect the hapless toad she had deposited at the roots of a wizened beech tree, astara returned to her mother's flank silently. whatever questions bubbled in her mind, they found no purchase in her throat -- and eventually, the girl too turned -- likely to find averna, or torment the toad in some distant reach of her home.