Redhawk Caldera silverchair

aw, tags for ref/join! <3

teya was bedraggled and unkempt. eljay visited. food was brought. she ate without tasting and returned to sleep as often as she was able. 
it became more than healing, it became an escape.
today she stared again at her baby daughter, cuddled inches from her own nose. she had pushed @Sorana aside for the time being, unable to take the closeness.
but instinct bid the raven draw her back and set the girl against her flank. teya lay her head back and drifted.

sneakin in here....

A lot of things had changed since she had been here, including the territory itself.  Bridget barely noticed, however, apart from impatiently asking for directions.  There was only one wolf who she wanted to see right now. If anyone followed her, she didn't pause to notice.

She was immensely grateful to Reyes for coming to get her, but she'd pushed the pace the entire trip back.  As she approached the den now where Teya supposedly was staying, she was equal parts terrified and excited.  The latter drove her forward, the former she ignored.

She could make all the excuses she wanted, but it was her own fault she'd been gone all this time.  She couldn't blame anyone for being pissed off about that.  And it seemed like, in the process, she'd missed a hell of a lot of everything.  She didn't know how to feel.  What did she even have the right to feel?

Teya?  It took all of her willpower not to just barge in right now, but she forced herself to stop and check if she was welcome.  She still strained to see in, hovering at the entrance like an enthusiastic child.

Cameo only, feel free to powerplay as you like, just tag me for reference if something important happens!

No matter how many times Teya pushed Sora away, the tiny girl just kept coming back. They ought to have named her Boomerang. At first, it was not at her behest; she would find herself separated from her beloved mama and would begin to whimper and sniffle, but she was always pulled back in eventually. As she grew and learned the use of her paddling limbs, she began to find her own way back.

A gentle but keening cry took up in her throat when she found herself alone again. She began dragging herself along with ineffectual strokes of her stubby legs, searching for Teya. Like always, her mother pulled her back after a time. Each time was met with immediate forgiveness and affection, aided as much by an inherently loving spirit as her current inability to remember each rejection. Feeling and smelling Teya's fur tickling her pugged nose and growing whiskers, Sorana cuddled in close with a contented, squeaky yawn and curled all her paws in toward her belly.

that voice —
it was familiar and yet it felt as though she had not heard it before. the raven blinked and wiped the taste of sleep from her mouth with a vague tongue.
sorana was determined, and the little violet did not have the heart to disturb her again.
the scent of the visitor trailed to her now, and teya stiffened in surprise. but surprise was misplaced: she had expected this, right? and yet her pulse quickened with a hundred innumerable things.
"bridget?" she heard herself calling through a voice that cracked with disuse. "you are home?" she did not move to rise or greet the cardinal — not yet. teya wasn't prepared.

Bridget's ears pricked when she heard a small noise that was unmistakeable. She knew that a lot of things had happened, and that life had moved on, but she didn't realize Teya had had children. Her shock at that rooted her for a second, but she let it slide off. She absolutely needed to be filled in on how that had happened, but first... fuck.

This was stupid. I'm coming in, okay? She didn't wait for a confirmation. Teya sounded off, but she didn't sound upset or angry, and that alone gave Bridget all the permission she needed.

It was slightly awkward but she managed it. There wasn't a lot she could do to hide her gait, but she didn't have a whisper of self-consciousness as soon as she peered through the shadows and saw Teya. Instead her chest clenched. She didn't even stop to look at the puppy lying next to her. God. Teya...

She looked awful. Bridget knew that look well enough; she'd seen it a dozen different times on a dozen different wolves. She didn't know why or what Teya was struggling with, but something was wrong about her. Her voice, her coat, her expression.

She started to make her way carefully around, slowly. If her friend didn't stop her, she'd settle next to her to pull her in for a hug. And if she did stop her, she'd have to have a pretty convincing reason as to why she didn't need this. It looked to Bridget like she desperately did.

get out, get out, i don't want you to see me like this, leave, leave, leave, leave.
but bridget was doing just the opposite. teya squeezed her eyes closed and covered her face with a muddied forepaw. the red-masque spoke and the dam inside the raven finally broke as she was pulled into her friend's embrace. she hadn't registered the oddity in the other's gait, or that she was missing a leg; she was sobbing in shattered spates of salt because it felt so good to be held, even though she loathed the filth of her fur and its tangles and the smell of her own body.
"i not want this," she managed to choke out, even as her foreleg tightened around sorana's little body, the girl beloved despite her mother's harsh struggles. "and reyes say he cannot do this either, so —" 
she dissolved again, shutting her eyes and fighting for control.

Teya wasn't entirely receptive, but she didn't pull away either. Bridget settled in next to her and pulled her in, only to have her dissolve into sobs a moment later. While the medic wasn't surprised, she still felt her jaw tighten, and she pressed her muzzle heedlessly into her tangled ruff.

Where was everyone? Why was she here, by herself, like this?!

'I not want this.' Bridget didn't have to look far to find what she was speaking about. She hadn't remembered Teya wanting to have children, and immediately her mind went back to the last season. How she'd helped to prevent this from happening - and how she hadn't been here to do so this year. For maybe the first time since she'd met Teya, Bridget was at a loss for words. It was hard to know how to respond to this outside of simply holding her and letting her feel what she needed to feel.

I'm sorry. She could at least say that. Bridget knew that she didn't carry much of the blame for this, but she certainly carried part of it. If she'd been here, perhaps she could have helped. Evidently no one here knew the ways to rid one's self of an unwanted burden after it was seeded. She didn't feel any guilt thinking that, or how she could have offered it, even while she looked at Sorana. Obviously what was done was done. But if they had managed to stem this at the start, the pup wouldn't have even had the chance to be known. She could have had a life later, one that didn't bring her mother to tears like this.

Is there anything I can do? She hadn't even been officially welcomed back, but that didn't matter. Clearly she was needed - and she'd support Teya in whatever way she could, unconditionally. That was what was important right now.

her chin trembled. she shook her head and drew a breath that shuddered in her chest and throat. "no." the word was heavy and filled with a thousand sensations. "reyes ah, said 'can we kill them' when i tell him i pregnant."
it hurt. it hurt more than she could hardly bear, to say the words out loud. "you know he already have children. so; i not understand." the words here were rimed in bitterness. he had said that and then walked away from her.
teya sniffled and took several deep breaths. "her name sorana," she said quietly. "she good baby. quiet." as if somehow the child knew the situation into which she had been born. "eljay visit me and her. hymnal as well. i know i not need reyes."
and yet —
"maia pregnant too, due soon i think. sorana will have playmates then." a monotone. her eyes stared at nothing.

The phrasing of what Reyes said put Bridget up in arms immediately. She would have offered the same, but there were a thousand better ways to say it than that. How could he? How fucking stupid did he have to be to open with that, getting that kind of news? 'Do you want them' or even 'What should we do about it' at least. Holy shit.

She barely listened when Teya talked about the pup and about Maia and the rest of them. She was too stuck on the way she delivered the news and the way that Teya was acting. This wasn't at all what she had expected to find when she came home.

I don't care about them right now. I care about you. Bridget said, gently steering the conversation away from that. You aren't fine. You aren't even 'okay', and don't try to lie about it, because I know better than that. We don't have to talk about it, but you're the one I'm worried about.

She couldn't force Teya to feel better or to talk about what was bothering her, especially if there were no words for it. Was it post-birth depression? Was it Reyes? Or maybe it was some combination of the two. She'd heard of these things and sometimes, time was the only fix. Bridget really hoped that wasn't the case, though. Teya deserved more than that.

teya wanted to shove bridget away; anger sprang hot and irrational under her breastbone. that she recognized it as illogical did not stop it from happening. she lay her chin across her paws instead, silently commanding her body to untense. bridget had always been blunt and this would change nothing about how she interacted.
she didn't want to cry any more but the tears continued to come, albeit quietly now.
"i just sad," she said hoarsely. "i not even know if he want to ... do this with me."
the raven looked down at sleeping little sorana. she deserved more than this.
teya was exhausted. she wanted to sleep for a thousand years. 
maybe she should have waited for bridget. the thought collided with her love for reyes and her shoulders shook with a single silent sob.

Bridget was quiet after Teya answered. It was surprising to her that it was Reyes, but she'd been gone so long, they must have grown close in the time. It was hard for her to imagine it, but Teya had always been a mystery to her. They could have been close before, too, and she just might not have known. It had happened before.

She pushed aside her own feelings and focused on the problem.

Have you asked him if he will? Or told him that you want him to? She asked, her voice softer. Sometimes these kinds of questions brought out a defensive rise but Bridget was ready for it. Something told her that Teya hadn't, especially when she remembered their own arguments in the past.

teya shook her head from where she had lowered it. "when i feel it almost time, i send him away, to blackwater, to bring you home. he not here for the birth. and i not ask him before he left."
there was a burr of pain clinging to the underside of her ribcage, that reyes had seen her so pregnant and had not even protested a departure. she had ordered him as his leader and yet teya had hoped he would ask to say, or offer even a bare resistance to leaving just days before her labour began.
"did it alone." her head came up. teya stropped at the ground with her foreclaws and moved sorana toward her engorged chest. "eljay came after." she did not know why she kept saying names; perhaps she wanted to reassure bridget that she had not been left to her own devices, that brecheliant had not failed. only reyes had walked away and only teya had told him to do that.

Well of course he's staying away. Bridget might have laughed if Teya didn't look so clearly miserable. It wasn't hard to not feel the urge now, though.

He probably doesn't know what to do, then. He might want to be here, but he might think you don't want him to be. So he might be putting what he thinks you want above what he wants. She offered. She would not defend what Teya said he'd responded with initially, but it wasn't hard for Bridget to look past that and see what might be the problem now. No matter what talents he had, there was no way Reyes was a mind reader.

It didn't surprise her that Eljay had come, or that he hadn't really talked this through with Teya. He was a sweet guy but she couldn't imagine him prying into things the way you sometimes had to in order to get to the root of the problem. She had less qualms about it - by her estimation, Teya could tell her to 'fuck off' at any moment and she'd happily oblige and drop it.

teya felt her nape bristle and mentally commanded the guard hairs to lie still. who cared how reyes felt? he certainly hadn't been focused on her or sorana during all of this.
"i sure we get a chance to speak," the raven said in a rough tone that begged to be through with this particular conversation.
exhaustion swept her with a hot palm. teya closed her eyes again. "will you stay, bridget?" she knew that she had no right to ask but she could not fathom being alone tonight.

Bridget had hoped that her words might make Teya feel better and less... grey? It was hard to describe, but there just wasn't much she recognized of her friend right now. It was rough to see and rougher still to know that there wasn't much she could do. She had been gone for too long and missed her chance to make that difference.

Of course. She replied easily. With that she dropped the subject entirely and lapsed into comfortable silence. Unless Teya spoke, she wouldn't try to continue, and instead began to work on gently clearing the snarls from her pelt.

If this was the better way to help, she'd do it. Eventually Reyes would come and she would leave, of course, to allow them the time. It hurt a bit to think back to a time when she might have been enough, but it was clear to Bridget now that she wasn't the one who Teya truly had wanted to see come through that entrance. A small wellspring of disappointment opened in her chest, but otherwise, she let it pass by unsaid. It should not have been a surprise.