Wapun Meadow do we stand a chance to rise above it all

hoping for a @Marten thread?! :D set during this

They'd all fallen asleep together -- Indra, her soulmate and sister, and Marten, who'd naughtily followed. Admittedly, Laurel had tried to send the boy home, but he had refused and at some point she'd just given up because she didn't have the energy, and Indra didn't help much. She was a sweet soul and a joy in her life, but not the best at disciplining children and getting them to listen.

When she awoke, she saw only Marten's body beside her but not @Indra. Laurel frowned as she looked around but she didn't see Indra anywhere near. She did have the tendency to wander off alone, a thing Laurel worried for. She'd lost Indra before, after all. What if her sister disappeared again one day? It was Laurel's biggest fear. She'd locked her heart off from everyone else, but she could never lock out Indra.

It was probably fine, and Laurel tried to shake off the gut feeling that something was wrong and she'd never see Indra again. She took a few steps away from Marten to shield him from how she felt. Laurel glanced at the mountain range up ahead and uneasily looked up at the stars. She wondered if Lucas and Piper were looking up at the same stars that night, or if they were tight asleep somewhere. She wondered if she'd ever see them again. At this thought and the lack of Indra by her side Laurel felt overwhelming loneliness. A few sobs involuntarily shook her body as she looked down at her paws again, suddenly feeling small and insignificant, a feeling she didn't remember having ever before.

marten was sound asleep. he knew that auntie laurel didn't want him here, but he wasn't going back. he refused. if it made her mad, so be it. the one time he'd ever disobeyed anyone would be now -- and it was for indra. but something stirred him, be it laurel or a cold wind or just the sense that something was wrong. marten woke slowly, head raising, eyes blinking sleepily. he gave a giant yawn, mouth smacking a few times, before he looked to laurel. 

he noticed indra was gone, but he didn't worry like laurel. he had never lost his mama before, and he never would. he blinked a few more times, nose twitching, ears pressing forwards. "aunt laurel?" he said sleepily, shifting where he was curled, "are you okay?"

She was so engulfed in her own grief that she did not notice Marten's approach, not at first. Only when she heard his voice behind her Laurel realised that he was still there and she startled at first. Having travelled the lands before with just Indra, she was wary of dangers on the way and quick to be defensive. But she recognised his voice. Laurel did not turn around to face him, unable to confront him with the pain that painted her features. She and Indra had wanted a different life for their children.. but it had been doomed to failure from the very start.

Now she didn't even know what to say to Marten, who wasn't even biologically theirs but his mother had doomed him just as much as Laurel and Indra had their own brood, and his second chance. Laurel sniffed away the last sobs and said, still turned away from him: "Everything is okay. Go back to sleep, sweetie." She somewhat-accidentally used one of the words she usually only used for her own pups -- for Piper and Lucas -- that she had never used for Marten before, but it was out before she realised it.

his ears pressed to his skull, his brow furrowing. he heard the sniffles. he was not stupid. marten was still young, immature in his own way, but he knew what sniffles meant. "please don't lie to me," he said softly, his ears still down.

boldly, marten came closer, slowly and with his head low in case laurel would chase him back. he knew that the two sisters didn't like showing emotion -- his own mama. marten knew they stayed strong, maybe even for him, but he didn't understand it. marten thought it was great to feel feelings, it meant you could. "what's wrong?" he asked again.

His words came out and stabbed at her heart like a sharp knife. She felt caught out and also frustrated that Marten would speak to her in that way. Laurel felt the urge to reprimand him, and she might've had she not been so grabbed by grief moments ago. She just hadn't the energy to spare, the fucks to give.

It seemed - to Laurel - obvious enough what was wrong. Everything had fallen apart, and her children were all gone. She had nothing left... except for Indra. And, apparently, Marten. So she didn't even really know how to answer the question. What was wrong? .. Everything. I wouldn't even know where to start, she said, her voice lacking the energy and pep -- whether real or faked -- and sass that it usually possessed. She felt a ghost of her former self, and she didn't know where to start with explaining why it was so to Marten.

she didn't reprimand him, something that shocked him. marten was a good boy. if marten was your pet pooch, you would've just had to ask him nicely not to pee on the carpet and he would've listened. but the relationship between him and laurel was different, in that marten didn't place laurel so high on a pedestal -- but he did put indra way up there, and of all marten's misbehaving, the majority of it appeared to happen within the last few days. 

but so marten settled before her, nose twitching. 

"start at the beginning," he said quietly, feeling it was such a easy answer to her question. i mean, that's how you started stories... right? not that marten was trained in anything except toad watching -- oh, rupert, the toad must miss him so much -- but he was good at talking. he liked talking. and he hated when everyone was sad. everyone always seemed sad -- he just wanted to help. "i'll listen," he urged in gentle encouragement.

Marten went to sit in front of her and told her to start at the beginning. Laurel didn't want to at all, and every part of her screamed that she should just tell him off and they could both go to sleep. She wasn't really too sure why she ended up telling him anything at all. The whole time she was talking, Laurel wanted to scream and run and all those things or at the very least, stop talking... but somehow she didn't, for reasons that she could not fathom. But she saved feeling ashamed for it until the morning. Now she was weary and tired and just done.

I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know where to find my babies, where we should go. I just want to hold my baby Lucas again. Laurel gritted her teeth to prevent herself from bursting into sobs again, because she did not want him to see her like that, but just the image of Lucas just as he was -- youth still clinging to him, his attentive smile and the way he was just such a sweetheart -- made it increasingly difficult to stay unemotionally affected.

marten listened silently as laurel began to explain. it was a vague explanation, anyone with eyes could've seen what she was saying. but she'd said something -- marten had never heard laurel sound so broken before... not in this kinda way. it hurt him to see, to hear, he just wanted his family to be happy. silently, marten wondered what he could do to be enough for indra and laurel -- if there was something he could do to stop them from running all around the wilds searching for something that they had right with them all along. marten and nuna would never leave -- never. at least, marten wouldn't. he wondered if he was such a burden upon them that they would rather give up happiness with him than they would be sad and hopeless wandering the world. 

he wondered if that was the case. but it was such a bad thought, marten had never thought something like that before. it scared him. he pushed it away. 

"i don't think you're supposed to know all that stuff," tried marten quietly, ears flicking forwards, "but i think you're a good mama for trying." he meant it. if he ever went missing he would hope that indra would at least try to find him... but marten never strayed far from her anyhow. he added, a little gingerly, and a little quieter, "we're not... babies anymore." he expected backlash from that comment... but it was true.

Laurel scoffed at Marten's comment that she was not supposed to know all that stuff. Of course she was; how else could she protect her children against the horrors of the world? But she didn't expect him to know anything about what her life had been like and what she tried to protect her children from (ironically, because he had faced many of the same pain that she had in regards to his parents). She felt her heart warm a little when Marten called her a good mama. She just needed someone to tell her that she was doing good because she was trying her best, even if she was failing miserably.

Thank you, Marten, she muttered, a little under her breath, not as audible but clearly a rare Laurel thank-you nonetheless. He was a sweet boy, even though he wasn't really family; the only thing that made him so was Indra's soft heart, bless her.

But she didn't like his comment about them not being babies. She didn't mean it like that, obviously -- she just meant that he was her baby, her little boy, because he was her son. I didn't mean it like that, she said, her tone snippy and the ice around her heart freezing up a little again now that the tears were gone. When she spoke next her tone remained cold: But I wouldn't expect you to understand. Because it wasn't like he had any children, so he couldn't understand like Laurel or Indra would such things.

"neither did i," insisted marten, his ears pressing forwards. he wasn't trying to say he wanted to be treated like a big adult, this wasn't about him, he was just saying that... well. "i just mean that they can take care of themselves now," he said with a frown. they didn't need someone to watch over them relentlessly. maybe that was why they'd left in the first place -- or maybe they'd just gotten lost. either way, marten imagined that if they wanted to come home... they would've. 

"i can't understand if you don't tell me," he added, not appearing it on the surface but feeling rather hurt that laurel had told him this. as if she was to know what marten knew and didn't know. he'd grown up such a strange life, he'd seen more than most wolves had to in their early childhood.

Laurel didn't want to face a reality where her babies didn't need her. It seemed unfair that they would leave her, like her parents had left her, when she was trying so hard not to leave them! The thought that Marten inserted that they would leave her be inserted a bit of malfunction in Laurel's brains, one that left her infuriated because the only way she could deal with the emotional pain was anger.

Are you saying you think they chose to leave? she said, her voice clearly on edge. Marten would likely recognise that it was one of those tones that meant she could explode if she received the wrong answer.

marten shrugged, rather meekly. "i'm saying it's not impossible," he said quietly, entirely braced for whatever explosion was going to shoot from laurel. he wished she'd just listen -- but maybe he didn't understand necessarily that some wolves didn't want the truth. or maybe they just wanted their own version of the truth, and marten was giving her an entirely different view.

The ice around Laurel's heart closed again and she frowned darkly as she looked at Marten. He was Indra's child -- well, sort of -- but she couldn't control herself when she told him: Well, fuck you and your stupid opinions then, Marten. You know nothing about how the world works. Her voice was shaking though she wasn't shouting yet, and she got to her feet and started to leave in a random direction. She didn't want to be in his presence right now -- the thought that Indra's child would choose to be by her side even though it wasn't his real mother and even though he'd been told to stay behind while hers ran away from her to live somewhere else without so much as telling her about it was too much to handle. Was she really that unloveable that even her children ran away from her? Firm strides took her away from Marten, and she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that he wasn't following.