Redtail Rise ritenuto

Ashlar's meeting with Chacal had shaken him deeply. He still felt that his decision was as right as it could be but the guilt of it still hung over him like a heavy cloud. He was quieter and sang less often. The music was harder to find.

Instead he did his duties and spent whatever time he could with the pups who were growing here. It likely wasn't easy to notice the change. Most here were also quiet and Ashlar was never boisterous.

Today he walked the borders. Sometimes patrols worried him, but usually he figured those he met he would reason with or even recruit. He moved along silently, watching the shifting of the clouds' shadows on the neighboring flatlands. It might rain soon.

Hope you don't mind if I join!

She wandered along, patrolling the borders to do her part, though she wondered what she would do if she came across a stranger. She could not howl to draw the attention of the rest of the pack... Perhaps it would be better for everyone involved if she simply stayed well inside the Rise's territory. Something to think about.

She had caught the scent of another Rise wolf up ahead some time ago, and she approached from behind, still aways off, she purposefully scuffed her paws, disturbing leaves and rocks and stepping on twigs, her way of announcing herself. Despite her lack of speech, she wanted to meet her packmates, and she could only hope that all would be as accepting as Avicus and Ancelin had been of her perpetual silence.

There was someone new here? Ashlar froze as she came into view, worried at first that she was an intruder. Did she know there was a pack here?! They'd hurt her if they found her, he thought, stomach plummeting into his toes.

Then he noticed that her scent was not entirely strange. She'd been patrolling the same border he walked along. Ashlar was instantly relieved, though now he wondered how long she had been a part of the Rise. He usually tried to meet newcomers but he'd been feeling a bit under the weather these days.

My name's Ashlar. You're new? He asked this softly, but his tail swished behind him in a friendly gesture of hello.

Ashlar. Another name to remember, though she didn’t know how it would matter if she never said it. The man was soft-spoken, something she appreciated, and she wondered how he would take it when she said nothing.

In response to his question about whether she was new, she simply nodded and smiled and swished her tail behind her in a friendly gesture, her eyes twinkling. It would have to be enough.

Ashlar was disappointed when she just nodded but he tried not to let it show. Instead the bard smiled and nodded back, automatically, without really meaning to. I thought so. He hadn't recognized her but she walked like she was supposed to be here. He was glad she wasn't trespassing.

There were just so few wolves here he could talk with and that number seemed to be getting lower all the time. Performing his duties, and trying to heal, was harder when they could not tell him what was wrong. Ashlar felt that familiar self-doubt creep slowly across him. What if he couldn't do it?

He swallowed awkwardly, then ducked his muzzle towards the ground. This was his problem and wasn't hers.

S...sorry. I guess... do... do you have a name? He glanced up at her. It's okay, if you don't. I'm Ashlar. There were so many of them without names. The silent one (dubbed Augur), his mate and their children. She couldn't be the silent one then, to him, or known by the relation. She needed something of her own he could know her as.

She picked up on some uncomfortable emotion--the ducking of his muzzle, the stutter in his speech--and wondered how she could help, if she could at all. She felt bad that she could not give him her name, but she did not have a name, anyway, even if she could speak. Perhaps Ashlar was shy, and did not like meeting new people. Wanting to make him more comfortable, she lay down, tail thumping the ground, and flumped (I invented a word lol) over onto her side. Surely he couldn't be nervous if she showed how relaxed she was. Then she looked up at him, tongue lolling out of her mouth, eyes sparkling. There. How much friendlier could ya get?

She's trying so hard lol

It took Ashlar a moment, with his nerves, to realize he'd introduced himself twice. The bard silently rebuked himself as it became clearer she was indeed silent as the others. What if she felt like he was pressuring her?! He didn't want that at all.

Just as he was about to apologize she laid down and smiled at him in a way that clearly showed she wasn't bothered. It did do a lot to soothe the nerves he had, and he managed a smile back, his tail waving slightly. He didn't have the enthusiasm for his usual spark but that wasn't her fault - he just had a lot on his mind.

He didn't need to talk her ear off, but he did want to explain. Sorry. I'm not... it's not you. I just messed up a while ago, kind of, and now I keep making things harder. I don't know if I'm choosing the right things. He looked down again, stilling for a moment. I get it, kind of. Talking doesn't always make things easier. I used to think it did. Ashlar had thought before that there wasn't a single thing that couldn't be solved by conversation and working things through. He'd never encountered a situation like this, where hearts were so divided in what they truly wanted that no common ground could really be found. Even his own was split without compromise.

He didn't even know if she could understand him, but something in the way she reacted - and the glimmer to her gaze - made him think that she could. Do you sing? Or is it everything? He asked softly, both to turn the conversation to something else and because it was a question he'd never even thought to ask the others. But now he wondered. Music was something it would destroy him to lose, and it was also a language of its own, even when words were not present.

She'd always found it interesting that people poured their hearts out to her when she could not reply back with words. It was as if her silent listening invited a torrent from the soul. She continued to lay down as she listened to Ashlar, perking her ears and keeping her eyes on him from the ground to show that she was paying attention.

He was worried he wasn't making the right choices. Perhaps worried that he would never find the right words, or wondering if any words at all would help the situation, whatever it was. She offered him a sympathetic look, her eyes going soft and sad for a moment.

Then, 'Do you sing? Or is it everything?'

She blinked, the shook her head with a smile. No. No singing. But... She tilted her head back, breathing deeply, and swept her muzzle from left to right slowly, staring up at the sky. She swiveled in her ears around, too, all of which was to say: I don't speak or sing. I listen!

At first he felt sorry for her, when she confirmed that she did not sing. He couldn't imagine a world where he couldn't add his songs to it, or share those songs with others. He'd have never sung with Chacal, or shared Avicus' pain of losing so many things to change.

She wasn't him. And sometimes, maybe, he forgot to listen. He hadn't been able to sing in a while and maybe that was why. He'd been so tied up in his own insecurities, he couldn't remember the last time he'd simply stopped and let the music around him tell him what to say.

There's a lot of beautiful things to listen to. He replied, acknowledging it with a real smile. She reminded him a bit of Augur, except there was a softness in her that he didn't have. They were the same generosity in two different forms, but both had a way of helping him put things in perspective.

My favorite is a storm, but before the wind gets strong. It's like a song, with the rain and the thunder, but one we can't sing. So we have to make our own to go with it. He knew it sounded ridiculous and sentimental, and he felt self-conscious sharing it. There were other sounds he loved too - the thunder of a herd, or the singing of the birds. But the storm brought an entire experience, and the scents and sights only added. There was magic in that.

it's late at night here and im trying to get a post in before I get eaten by the sweeper so I apologize for whatever THIS is.

'There's a lot of beautiful things to listen to,' Ashlar said. 'My favorite is a storm, but before the wind gets strong. It's like a song, with the rain and the thunder, but one we can't sing. So we have to make our own to go with it.'

She smiled up at him, closing her eyes for a moment to absorb his words into her heart. If she could speak, she would've told him that he'd said something beautiful, but speaking would've broken the vow she had made to herself long, long ago. So, instead, she opened her eyes and continued to smile and took a deep, deep breath into her chest and released it slowly. She hoped that she had helped him somehow, and, based on his words, she felt that maybe she had. And she was content.

[Fade?]

She didn't reply (of course!) but this time the quiet didn't seem as awkward. Ashlar chose not to fill it immediately, and instead turned his ears towards listening. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been tempted to overwrite the sounds with music of his own.

The wind, the leaves, the birds. He picked out patterns and breathed out as he let the sounds relax him. Then he smiled at his new friend.

Eventually he would need to go hunt, and he would invite her as well! Two was always better than one. For now he enjoyed the lesson and the chance to remember where the music began.