Heron Lake Plateau Just talk to me, like lovers do

Someone please tell me WHY I have that song stuck in my head...

Having patrolled the borders a few times, it seemed to Fluke like it was time to visit the neighbours, to meet those that they were allied with and to introduce himself as the newest Firebird. He figured that he'd be the least threatening joiner that they would have ever seen, so he'd also be the friendliest neighbour he could be as well. As a show of good will, Fluke had actually managed to hunt down a rabbit- though it had nearly taken all the wind out of him before it had finally slipped up in the snow and made one wrong turn. Fluke was lucky- though he weighed much more than the rabbit, his feet were monstrous and really did help him in snowy conditions. 

He figured it might best be brought as an offering of good kinsmanship, a way to to show that he appreciated the fact they'd let a few of their members go to start a sister pack...As he was, of course, very grateful that he now had a home. He snuffled along, trailing toward the plateau he could see in the distance, grateful to be travelling West as the strong Eastern sun reflected off the chrisp white surcafe of snow. He rounded the borders and came to the North end where the thicket was, as the other side was pretty much too steep for him to climb- especially so in the winter. He found where the borders were marked- and noticed a few coyote bones scattered here as what he could assume was a scare tactic, and he stepped back, hoping these wolves didn't do the same with others they thought were unwelcome when they visited.

She watched the familiar figures of @Elwood and @Finley disappear in the direction of the copse and steeled her jaw. Were the only visiting or did they plan on staying there? Towhee didn't know and tried to tell herself she didn't care, not because she didn't love her godparents (she did, very much) but because Firebirds was only an hour's travel east. The thing was, she didn't travel. Towhee hadn't left the plateau ever since her accident.

Heaving a great sigh, she began to turn and head toward the top of the falls to catch some rest. But then she saw movement down below, close to the foot of the plateau, headed toward the thicket. Towhee kicked up her feet and loped in that direction, picking her way carefully down the slope to intercept the stranger. She ignored the coyote remains scatted everywhere as she approached him, eyeing the dead hare only briefly before her orange gaze moved to assess the wolf's features. He was a burly fellow, with the build of a warrior. But he looked sort of soft at the same time.

"State your name and business," the Beta said in her gruff monotone, wondering if he sought entry. They'd lost Wildfire and two of her kids, with possibly others (cue internal sigh) migrating later, so quite honestly they might be able to use a wolf who looked strong and was at least capable of catching rabbits.

Fluke didn't have to wait terribly long until someone came along. He dropped the rabbit at the sight of her and flicked his ears forward in interest, noting her unusual markings- and the sombre look on her face. She made her way toward him carefully down the slope, and he knew well enough to dip his head and keep his tail low, but still it waved from side to side, flicking against each ankle as it passed. He'd turned his ears back to show respect, but one of them flicked forward when she spoke. There was something different about the way she spoke- it sounded as though her tongue didn't move quite as much as it should, or something along those lines, and there was very little inflection in her tone- but then again, she was making a demand, rather than asking a question. Fluke wasn't the sort to judge a wolf by their accent anyway, so he bobbed his head and gave her a charming smile. 

"I'm Fluke Finchley, of the Firebirds," He said merrily. "Well, very newly of the Firebirds...I met Wildfire a few days ago, and she said that we were sort of a branch-off from this pack. I just thought I'd come and visit, to say hello, and to say that we're settling in," He said. Wildfire hadn't instructed him to do so- and he hadn't exactly said where he was going, either. But she'd told him theyw ere on friendly terms and he'd put his complete faith in her honesty.

He gave his name and the purpose of his visit, just like she'd asked, and all Towhee could muster in response was, "Oh." She knew they were meant to be sister packs and that Raven herself—matriarch of the group, even when she wasn't in active leadership—had given Wildfire her blessing and support. Towhee didn't hate the idea; she still didn't really know what to think. She supposed she was currently feeling resentful, though there was no solid reason for it... yet.

"I'm Towhee, Wildfire's sister. They only left two or three days ago, so where the heck did you come from?" she wondered, perhaps a little rudely.

It was hard to tell if his greeter was bewildered by having someone come visit the plateau so soon, as her facial expression didn't exactly change, but her monosyllabic grunt said as much. He realized that perhaps it was earlier than any of the plateau wolves would have expected, to have recruits from their sister pack come visiting so that they too, themselves, could establish a friendly connection. But he couldn't see it as a bad thing, necessarily- they would want for Wildfire to do well, wouldn't they? Towhee didn't look disappointed, not by any means- but Fluke did find her a bit hard to read- a d fairly intimidating as well. He thought she might be a bit older, simply by the way she looked much more tough and scarred- but no more older than him than by a year, if that. 

She voiced another question, and again he was lightly puzzled by the garbled sound of her voice. Did she have something stuck in her throat? Having never met a deaf wolf, he'd never experienced what it was like to speak to one, so he wasn't really sure what to make of it- but ironically, he found it was easier to understand her when he read her lips at the same time. "I'm from a nomadic pack. We didn't exactly share all the same ideals or morals, though, so I left. I just ran into Wildfire yesterday- or maybe the day before? Time flies! Oh- anyway, I brought this for you," He said, nudging the rabbit forward. He smiled hopefully. "Kind of as a good neighbourly gesture." How was he supposed to know how you treat neighbours? He'd never exactly had any, where he'd moved around so much. But this seemed about right.

He'd only met Wildfire a day or two ago. Well, that's convenient, Towhee observed with a surly look on her face. She then realized she was being ornery for no real reason. The spin-off wasn't hurting her or the Redhawks (yet...) and this Finbar fellow was being perfectly pleasant. Hell, he was offering her a fresh rabbit.

"For me? Personally?" the Beta asked, no sarcasm in her tone (because he voice was toneless as ever) but a glint in her orange eyes. "Thanks." She took a step forward to bend over the offering and grab it when a movement above caught her eye. Towhee looked up just in time to see X's shadow swoop into her field of vision. A heartbeat later, she felt the gentle pinch of his talons as his featherweight settled on her shoulder.

-You're just here for the free food,- she said to the bird, her neck twisted quite awkwardly to give him a playfully reproachful look. Even as she straightened it out to see what Finbar thought of the hawk, something occurred to her: she could always send X as a messenger back and forth between Firebirds, even if she didn't want to leave the plateau herself. It was admittedly a comforting thought.

If she'd been joking at all, it had gone over Finbar's head, so he nodded happily in response to her question. Did that mean that she felt touched by his gesture? Was he winning some brownie points with the pack? If he wanted to be an ambassador, he'd have to really hone his skills at making peace with others, and he wanted to believe that he was doing well right here- that is, until a bird swooped in and grabbed the rabbit. 

He hadn't seen or heard it coming, and flinched with surprise as it landed on Towhee's shoulder.  He bounded forward one step- afraid it was only there to steal Towhee's rabbit- only to freeze, slipping slightly on the loose snow, as the landed on Towhee's shoulder. He balked not because he immediately figured the two were friends (as the very idea of that was waaay out in left field for him still) but because he knew that Towhee could likely thump his chubby ass if he was overstepping his boundaries...He'd step in to help her get rid of it if she struggled. 

What confused Finbar further- and almost adorably so, given the fact that it caused him to tilt his head, drop his lower jaw and oggle the bird with wide, jade eyes- was the fact that Towhee didn't seem alarmed by the bird. She did react strangely; her mouth worked, and she jostled and shimmied her legs this way and that, but he didn't catch any of the words she mouthed, as he was too distracted by what was going on. Was she trying to shake it off? No, her motions looked too deliberate- and once they stopped, she simply regarded him, accepting the feathered bird on her shoulder, and instead turning the focus on him. 

He looked from the intense glare of the hawk, back to Towhee whose gaze was, discouragingly, as intense as the hawk's. He looked back to the hawk, and then back to Towhee. Something didn't compute. "You, uhm...You have a..." He said, gesturing with one large forefoot "Bird...On your shoulder?" He said. Instinct told him to pounce and scare it off- and he remained in the half crouch, half playbow where he'd stopped so suddenly moments ago, willing to follow her lead on this, but still completely baffled all the while.

Towhee couldn't help the loud guffaw that escaped her at his observation. "No shit?" she said, pretending to look over her shoulder again and doing her best to make a face of total surprise when she found X seated there. "Holy shit, you're right. This is so weird. This has literally never happened before." She looked back at Finbar, trying very hard to keep a straight face even as she pretended to marvel at the hawk that had spontaneously perched on her shoulder blade.

Fluke's ears flicked forward and backward over and over again as he tried to figure out whether Towhee was joking or not. She looked surprised...But there was no way this was a novelty- no hawk would ever be that comfortable around a wolf, right? Still, if she was feigning it, it wouldn't have had the gall to call her out on it. The hawk seemed completely unphased by Fluke's surprise, nor did it seem bothered by the fact that Towhee was eyeing it directly. He still didn't want to get too close to either Towhee or the hawk- both of them looked incredibly sharp. Towhee looked at him again, and he continued to gawk silently for a moment, flabbergasted. 

"You're, uh, kidding, right?" He asked, but even if she was kidding, it didn't make much sense. What kind of crazy coincidence would it have to be for her to have experienced this before. He didn't seem convinced that she was joking- or that she wasn't. "Just...Maybe...Stay really still," He said calmly, hoping that the hawk would just stay where it was, and not dig its claws in or go for one of her dark ears with its sharp, hooked beak if she kept cool.

Either she was doing a good job playacting or this dude was pretty gullible. She could tell by his body language that he didn't have the slightest clue what to make of the situation. Towhee practically had to choke down laughter as he advised her to stay very still.

In direct contrast to this advice, Towhee signed to X, -Are you following this? You should do something totally ridiculous.- The bird nipped at her ear, a sign that he hadn't really understood the message she was trying to convey because his wasn't exactly the best vantage point. He was usually on the ground when she signed at him.

Deciding to run with it, Towhee let out a(n ungodly loud) gasp and exclaimed something that sounded a lot like, "He bitsed mer!"

Fluke winced visibly, feeling very uncomfortable the moment Towhe started moving her legs and mouth again. He opened his mouth to ask her to stop wriggling around so much but the hawk reached forward and nipped her ear. He certainly didn't look like he was moving, and he figured the next time the hawk bit, it would likely really bite her. The first nip had been a warning- or so he figured. She complained, and he gave her a pleading look, his large, round eyes shrinking as he squinted and furrowed his brow. 

"I'll pounce it," He offered. "Just...hold really still." He said, his voice still very low and steady as he collected his feet beneath him, not lifting from how he'd been crouching since the hawk had landed on Towhee's shoulder. He dug his claws into the snow, hoping it'd give him enough grip- but he knew fully well that a guy like him couldn't jump very high from a standtill- not with his weight. He'd likely bowl Towhee right over- but in the very least, he'd knock the hawk off. "On the count of three...One....Two..."

As soon as he said the word "pounce," Towhee felt X's talons pinch a little harder in preparation for takeoff. She couldn't stop herself from chortling as Fluke began to count down. She didn't fear for the hawk—he would easily take to the air to avoid the attack—but abruptly she wondered if she should stop Fluke from flinging his—quite frankly, pretty hefty—bulk at her.

"Wait," she said emphatically to Fluke. But before Towhee could come up with some witty command to give X, the hawk took it upon himself to swoop upward. He appeared to fly away, though he quickly circled back, diving low over the two wolves and dropping the rabbit on Fluke's head.

Commanded to halt, Fluke stayed where he was, sensing the change in Towhee's demeanour the moment she laughed, albeit quietly. He felt grateful that he hadn't had to try and pounce the bird off her shoulder- he knew he probably would have just slammed into Towhee, as he really couldn't jump quite high. The hawk took off- the rabbit in its talons, and he frowned slightly. "Guess you did have to share after-OOF!" Mid-comment, the bird had let the rabbit go, and with excellent aim, had dropped it right on top of Fluke's head. He shook his head, his ears thwapping against the sides of his face, and he stood protectively over it for a moment, looking back up to see if the bird would try again. 

He had to smile as he watched the hawk circle, and chuckled as he picked the rabbit up again and placed it between Towhee's front paws. As he lifted his head, he was careful to avoid bonking her chin- but came almost nose-to-nose with her for a second, before he smiled bashfully and stepped back. "Might wanna hide that...It sort of appears the Redhawks have a bit of a....Red hawk...Problem," He said, with a small, guilty laugh.

Towhee cackled approvingly as the rabbit plopped on Fluke's head. His reaction was priceless. She would have to high five X for that one later (don't ask me how). She was too busy laughing to notice Fluke's well-meaning warning about a hawk infestation, which probably would've made her laugh even harder.

She fell quiet after a moment and shared, "I was actually kidding you the whole time." She paused, then with a completely straight face, added, "That was actually X, our Alpha."

He'd made her laugh- or something had. Laughter, coming from a stranger, could always mean one of two things- either he was doing a good job and being funny, or he was making himself into some sort of laughing stock. Though he looked like he could hold his own weight in a fight, the softness that framed Fluke's body was also present in his spirit, and the gentle giant's jade eyes glimmered for a moment when Towhee spoke, but that shine went away, slightly, when she said that she'd been joking the whole time. He chuckled softly, but the sound was fairly dry- especially when she went on to say that X was the pack's alpha, with a straight face. Had she continued laughing, he might have followed suit- but now she was really watching him, as though trying to measure out how dumb he really was. And by that point, he felt really, really dumb.

He didn't like the joke about the hawk anymore, but he didn't want to be a mope either. He usually got teased more when he started to show how hurt he was, so instead, he did his best to play along- though his spirit wasn't really in it. "Good thing I didn't try to pounce him then," He said quietly. She had seemed nice enough, but he wasn't so sure now- if she played these sorts of games on other wolves, he wasn't sure he was too into it. Innocent tricks were one thing- but he preferred to keep tricks among those he knew well enough that they knew he meant no harm. But here Towhee was, playing mindgames with a total stranger; it told him a bit more about her that maybe she hadn't want him to know.

She stared at him for two or three seconds, stonier than Cheech and Chong combined, before she busted up laughing again. Towhee slapped a paw against the ground, shaking her head. Unaware of her effect on him, she shot him a good-natured smirk and explained, "X is actually my pal and kinda sorta the pack mascot in a way. He's actually my ears, even though it doesn't even look like he has any. I'm deaf, in case that wasn't obvious."

Fluke felt uncomfortable under her stare, but as soon as it broke, he could tell that she was taking honest amusement in what had just happened. Though he still felt a little bit under the microscope, he had learned that certain things that made him anxious or nervous would often be funny in retrospect- so he might as well enjoy them in the present. It was a tactic one of the females he'd grown up with had taught him, as a means of not taking everything so personally. 

Besides, Towhee was actually a pretty interesting wolf. Despite the sharpness of her orange gaze, and the way he couldn't quite tell when she was joking and when she wasn't, she apparently had a friend, or pet in the hawk, which was very odd- but still pretty neat. And what also surprised him was the fact that she was deaf, and though he wanted to be empathetic- it looked very much as though she'd long since come to terms with her hearing impairment. He looked at her fondly, and shrugged. He wouldn't have guessed it. 

"You just sound like you have a different accent," He said- before he clarified, figuring maybe she didn't have much of a concept of accents given she couldn't hear. "Like...You sound like you're from somewhere else. You sound kind of like a group of wolves I met, to the South of here," He said. And smiled, shyly. "But...Louder." Fluke was a fairly soft spoken wolf- so it suddenly made sense why her voice had been so consistently loud in comparison to his, which tended to get softer and softer the louder his companions were. "How did you tame the bird? X?' He asked.

The soft look he gave her in response to this information made Towhee want to roll her eyes, though she resisted. He informed her that she had an accent that reminded him of wolves to the south, telling her she was louder in comparison. She huffed a laugh at this—she was well aware her volume controls were broken—and then shook her head lightly at his query about X.

"I didn't really. When I found him, he had a broken wing. So I looked after him, fed him. He stuck around even after he healed. Now it's like he's just an extension of me, although he's a free bird. I would never try to make him stick around against his will, even though I'd be pretty fucked without him."

She placed a paw on top of the rabbit he'd set back down at her feet. "Anyway, I appreciate the gift. Maybe I'll have X deliver something your guys' way sometime."

Towhee explained about how she'd formed a bond with the bird, rather than taming it, and Fluke cast an eye to the sky to try and pick out the bird's form again, but it had flown off. He'd never thought about trying to befriend another animal before- he, like many others, likely would have just let the hawk be, believing that nature would have its way with it one way or another and it would either heal or die...That was how nature worked. He was too much of a softie to consider eating another predator. Towhee, it seemed, had had a soft moment when she'd seen the hawk in pain, and he smiled. She seemed tough- but maybe there was more to her than what met the eye. She was definitely a unique wolf. 

"Or come visit," He volunteered, with a somewhat guilty smile. The idea of X dropping something off was nice, of course- but he couldn't exactly talk with a bird. "I'm sure Wildfire would love to see you, and show you around," He said, and he shrugged. "Or I could. It'd be my pleasure," He offered with a hopefuly grin.

He told her she should come herself and Towhee felt her back go up (metaphorically). She almost yelled "no!" at him but checked herself. She let him finish and then breathed for a few seconds, quelling the quite frankly disproportionately strong emotion before responding.

"I probably won't visit," she said slowly. "I don't leave the plateau," she explained. "I have a bad leg." That was kind of a cop-out these days; her leg still didn't work entirely normally—Towhee was pretty sure it never would—but she'd adapted so that it really didn't hold her back. "So thanks but no thanks, Fluke Finchley of the Firebirds," she said, softening the rejection with what she hoped was a relatively amiable smile (she wasn't altogether good at them).

This is how Towhee smiles, isn't it? XD

Fluke was disheartened when she refused to even try visiting. What if Wildfire had puppies? What if one of her family members needed her? Could she really stay confined to the plateau? It was a bit disheartening, and truth be told, he took it personally. This wasn't just her making an excuse not to go visit the pack- this was possibly also an excuse for her to not have to see him, or have him give a tour. Still, he wasn't quite going to let it go. He told himself not to shoot himself too low, and gave her an understanding smile. 

"Well, I'll just have to come back here and visit and update you on the news." He said. And if she shot that down, then he would know enough to leave her well alone- but he had to try. She could try and build up a wall of ice for her own sake- but if she was simply trying to protect herself, she'd find it hard to keep an icy wall between herself and Fluke. He was big radiator, and would just keep sending off good vibes and warm hugs until he could melt it down.

LMAO. #accurate

"Sounds good," Towhee replied, wondering if he'd catch the irony. Honestly, she kind of liked him, for whatever reason... maybe because he was so pure that even the likes of her couldn't resist his likability. "See you around then, Fluke. Thanks again for the grub."

Speaking of which, she nipped the rabbit off the ground, then stood there and held it in her mouth. Hopefully he'd take the cue and head home, so she could take the rabbit somewhere safer to imbibe. He'd said it was for Towhee personally, after all.

Having pretty much already forgot that Towhee was deaf, the irony was lost on him- and he grinned widely when she agreed to see him again. So maybe what she'd said about her leg was true- and that she wasn't using it as an excuse not to see him again...Because she'd totally just agreed to meeting up with him again, the next time he came looking for her at the borders. Naturally, he began to plan out when he would come by next, as he watched her leave with the rabbit in her mouth, before he too turned on his way. Now, he had to plan things out a bit. 

Was tomorrow too soon? Or the next day? He didn't want to leave her waiting or make her think he'd been lying about wanting to see her again...He'd have to ask Wifi. Maybe she'd have a better idea as to how long he was supposed to wait before texting a woman back again visiting Towhee again.