Redhawk Caldera Homeward Bound

The Caldera came in to view as he climbed the hill but even after noticing it, Mou's gait did not change. His head hung level with his chest, making his gaunt shoulders stand out, while the rest of him was slovenly, with bits of debris from his travels still clinging to his sparse silver-white coat. The look of a defeated man.

His wife was dead. His children gone. What was left of his family was in the wind - or it was here, living in the comfort of the Caldera and the family that had, at least once before, excommunicated him. He had nothing.

Prevost? Lost. The vestiges of connection, family, normalcy that the child represented to Mou, shattered weeks ago. Yet here he was climbing the hill anyway. Finding his way back to the roost. And when Mou traipsed across the border, he noticed absences there too.

Towhee focused on getting everyone sorted and situated, though inevitably she would have to figure out what to do with herself. In the meantime, she remained at the caldera. She even did a few patrols just for old times' sake before realizing it was a total waste of her precious energy. Instead, she climbed to the rim of the territory's namesake and sat. It wasn't time to feel yet, but it was time to think.

Her thoughts meandered before taking a turn in an odd direction. Towhee turned to peer over her shoulder at the inner slopes of the caldera, scanning the landscape wonderingly. The angle hurt her neck a little, so she faced forward again and stood, preparing to set off in search for any sign of her parents' graves.

Then she saw movement, her orange eyes immediately drawn by the gray figure roaming her roost. Of course, it didn't really belong to her or anyone anymore, did it? Towhee's fur prickled, then settled, only to raise again when she realized she recognized him. How peculiar that he should suddenly turn up now.

This place really was a ghost town.

The last time he had been here had been a brief affair; long enough to get the children squared away with their blood-father, but without much reason to linger at the time, Mou had distanced himself. It had been difficult to leave behind the creature wearing Maegi's face - worse, to leave Vesper. He had used Prevost's absence as an escape.

And now that he had returned, there was nobody to meet him. If the children remained he did not find any sign of them. Phox' scent had vanished. The wind howled through the valley and rattled the trees, much as it had in the desertion of Blackfeather Woods.

Mou did not know why he had come back here.

He advanced up the slope, which opened to a barren knoll, and saw Towhee sitting there, watching him. She must have been there a while. Her fur looked puffed and thick, while her expression was serious.

Would she chase him out? Mou wondered. She had ample time to exert her will up until this point, yet remained where she had planted herself. He drew closer, grim-faced and cautious.

He looked back at her and Towhee's eyes narrowed. She wasn't going to react to his presence here, though that didn't mean she wanted him anywhere near her. She didn't. Her ears pulled back as he took a few steps in her direction.

Surely, he was wondering. What was going on here? Where was everyone? Maybe if she gave him some answers, she would be rid of him quickly. But part of Towhee didn't even want to give him that. Where the hell had he gone? Why should she tell him anything?

Apropos of nothing, Towhee said, "Knock, knock."

Mou wasn't home here, or anywhere. He knew that even as he had crossed the border and begun his climb. He knew it more keenly while his sister stared him down.

She did not need to move to make it known that he was unwanted, he knew it. As well as he knew the Daedra. As well as he knew that his wife was dead and something was walking the wilds with her face. But he could see that the power of the Redhawk had faded in the same way as the Blackfeather.

He watched Towhee and was watched back, until she opened her mouth and in her drawling manner, spoke. His ears shifted forwards attentively and then fell back again to where they naturally sat pressed to his skull.

Was she playing a game?

A frown deepend the tired look upon Mou's face. He did not open his mouth to speak, but after a moment to consider things, motioned an answer, sloppily, in out-dated ptero: Whose there?

The setup for a joke seemed to baffle him a bit. She carefully watched his face, the way it pulled into a frown. She'd made this joke a time or two in the past, yet she didn't recycle her typical punchline today.

Instead, she simply said and signed, -"Nobody."-

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Nobody.

His singular eye blinked emphatically.

Down went his hips as he sat, frowning, then scowling, then blank-faced, scrutinizing the stages of the conversation and trying to make sense of them. Mou was at his wits end on a good day; he was tired and haggard from his roaming, so today was not one of those.

Clearly he did not understand.

Couldn't find Prevost. He murmured a moment or two later, when the worst of the confusion had passed. He didn't see what good it would do Towhee to know this, except maybe she could tell Phox, since it was one of his and Niamh's children.

He looked left and then right in sweeping glances before resting his attention upon Towhee again. Wondering where everyone else had gone — but figuring it wouldn't be worth it to ask outright, given her cryptic words earlier, and strange mood. Plus the whole I once threw you off a cliff thing.

He didn't laugh, but then the joke wasn't meant to be funny. Towhee's eyes carefully tracked Mou's movements as he sat down with a scowl, which fell into more of a hangdog expression. She didn't feel bad for him. He deserved every bit of his misfortune.

Of course, she'd never met Prevost, but she felt her brother's sense of loss: Phox's, not Mou's. For the nth time, she thought about trailing him to Frosthawks. Towhee would find peace and quiet with Raven and her family. They could all do "yogurt" together every day. It wouldn't be a half-bad way to retire.

Her body went taut. Towhee wasn't even five years old yet. She still had several fighting years left in her. It felt like every title she'd ever worn had been peeled from her. It left her bereft in ways she hadn't fully comprehended yet. But it also gave her a unique opportunity to start over.

-"Everybody leaves,"- she said in way of reply to Mou's statement. -"And it's taken me five years to accept that reality. It's not even good or bad. That's just is."- Towhee paused, shook her head thoughtfully and grumbled, -"There's nothing left for either one of us here. We should leave too."-

She had been skirting the edges of the territory, looking for @Vesper, when Towhee passed her. Curious, she followed the deaf woman, face scrunched in concentration. They crested a hill and then—

Oh. Ugh.

Her "father" came into view.

"Couldn't find Prevost."

WHAT ABOUT ME?!?!

Ignoring the weird signals Towhee was making, Blueberry surged past the dark she-wolf, barreling a haphazard course toward Mou. Her indigo eyes glittered hard, like precious jewels, boring into him with the force of gravity. It was only when she'd come within a few paces that she spat:

FUCK. YOU.

Ah, yes. She'd heard it, learned it, absorbed it. It felt good on her tongue. And it was perfect in this air.

They weren't close. They'd never been all that close, and there wasn't any hope of reunification between Mou and the Redhawks, not really. While Towhee contemplated what to do with the rest of her life (as if it were over, which it absolutely wasn't), Mou couldn't comprehend such a state.

He was a wanderer; he couldn't find solace with the Frosthawks (mostly because he didn't know they existed, but also because - Raven). Towhee was blessed in ways that Mou wasn't. She had more options; he had only the memory of his late wife to keep him warm from time to time.

Her realization, voiced and signed, wasn't such a revelation to Mou. Everybody left. He had learned that with Blackfeather; been forced to confront the same lesson with Onyx Hollow, and again with Prevost. It burned each time — but the biggest hurt was Maegi, and knowing she was lost to him forever.

Perhaps that was why he commiserated now with Towhee. This loss might've been new for her and hurting, while Mou hurt over this other, deeper loss, but together they were in equal levels of misery over it. Or so it seemed from his perspective.

He snorts softly in response to her commentary, but cannot think of anything to say. Anyway, someone new approached the pair and erupted with a shout; the little shape wasn't so little when Mou focused his eye upon it, recognizing first Maegi and then, with a shiver, a shake of his head as he shot to his feet and all but jumped from his skin, Blueberry.

His little Boo, seething with hatred.

Mou's heart couldn't take it. He staggered and sank to the dirt again, deflating. Par for the course.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Towhee turned away about half a second after grunting out this bleak declaration. She didn't so much as glance backward, the angle of her pivot timed perfectly with Blueberry's arrival, causing her to entirely miss the confrontation as the girl hurled curses at Mou.

Despite what she'd just said to her estranged litter mate, she didn't leave. Rather, she trotted slowly downhill toward the caldera, arcing along the waterline as her orange eyes roved the surrounding slopes. Towhee could hardly remember where they rested, as she'd never been particularly sentimental about their physical burial site, but she wanted to visit them one more time and pay her last respects to the founding Redhawks.

By this point in her life, Towhee knew to never say "never." But she was pretty sure that once she finally left this place, she wouldn't be coming back.

This is my last, so carry on without me!

Her face, scrunched tight with anger, lapsed into disgust as he folded down upon himself. Fuck, she said again, for good measure, and rolled her eyes. Where's Mom?

Mom had to be around somewhere, right? If he was here sniffing around.

God, she hated her life.

Get up, Blueberry barked, sparing the briefest of glances to Towhee as the woman departed before snapping her gaze back to Mou. Where is Mom?

Ought she call for @Vesper? Probably. But she was stunned into relative silence at this pathetic display.

Towhee departed without much comment. She wasn't the type to commiserate with creatures as pathetic as Mou, which he knew well enough, and he did not think about it; his focus was his daughter.

The way she ordered him about - sounding so much like her mother, and also somehow her aunt who had left them to their own melancholic devices. Powerful in her hurt.

Where is mom? A question Mou did not want to answer from a person he did not want to face at all; but he looked to Blueberry and devised an answer for her as best he could:

She should be here, they should have been here together, but he couldn't stay while someone paraded around wearing Maegi's face, not when Prevost was still missing; a good excuse. If she isn't, then I don't know.

Had the creature gone away? Maybe it had gone to follow him - and in his hunt for Prevost, Mou could have led the thing on a wild goose chase. He hung his head, not knowing what else to do or say.

She's GONE! Blue spat at him, angered that he had as much of a clue as she—which was none. She bristled, heart hammering hard in her chest—

But she loved him—

But no one cared. She had long since kept believing that anyone was looking out for her but herself. It was a lost cause. . .

Her eyes were molten blue as she stared at Mou, seething. Fuck you, and fuck her, too, she managed, and then Blueberry headed back up the slope after Towhee, leaving the one-eyed man to his own devices.

He could handle it. He was an adult. Unlike her.