Redtail Rise silence

brother gone.
mother gone.
father gone.
ancelin bearclaw returned to the rise in rage.
it simmered silently beneath his coat, his eyes, his teeth; he could not assign blame to any and so swallowed all the darklick taste of it.
ancelin was heavier now, broader. muscle filled his shoulders and his body had taken on the rangy look of a wandering hunter.
in a plume of steam he tilted back his head and called for his aunt @Avicus, announcing his homecoming, voice ending in a long growl.

the lone call surprises her. she recognizes the voice but figured it would be accompanied by others. instead, it's solitary.

she comes down from the comforting enclosure of the mountains to meet him;

he's grown! time has passed—she looks upon the lone boy with pride and with query, head cocked.

where your fah'her? she asks, swallowing thickly.

the answer may not be to her liking.

"it doesn't matter," ancelin rasped in a tonality beyond his young months. the indigo eyes remained hard.
"i am here," he told the red wolf, straightening. "we didn't find my brother."
ancelin did not speak of arielle. he waited only for readmission or denial, body at last sloping in submission and relief to be home.

she watches him with mouth slightly parted as he speaks, unable to process what he's saying. 

no Aventus. 

no Atreus. 

no Arielle.

just Ancelin.

well, she can hardly turn him away.

come, she beckons him forward, surging into a patrol along their closest borders. summons him alongside, glancing sidelong at the young man he'd become. you back for goodh?

he must be.

where is her brother?

ancelin wanted to laugh. where the fuck would he go? but the boy knew this was unfair; he shut his mouth hard and nodded.
"the rise is my home."
he followed avicus into the borders of redtail, his body relaxing in subconscious response. and in silence he kept pace with the unchallenged leader of the rise, pacing easily in a low trot.

the rise is my home.

puhh' your 'hhmell here, she commands, and squats and urinates where she stands, layering the border with her acrid smell.

she tosses her head sideways for him to do the same, eyes insistent.

he will have his scent along these borders, alongside other Redtail wolves. he's one of them—

she'd always thought so, but hadn't wanted to challenge her brother's might. now she has young Ancelin to herself, and she will mold him in her own image. 

beyond worry for her brother, she is pleased.

ancelin lifted his leg where avicus directed, musky urine spattering the snowy ground. it satisfied something deep in him to be welcomed back, and so directly.
the boy meant to wind his scent through them all, proclaiming his arrival home.
the wind tore at his shoulders; his fur was riffled, tugged. ancelin looked at avicus and for the first time perhaps truly noted the coloration of their eyes.
bonded. bound.

she'd never realized the mirror of their eyes, either.

she'd known his baby blues, and then had been consumed by war.

but now they stare at each other, indigo into indigo, and she knows him for her own blood.

lehh' go, she commands, moving them along the border. she doesn't know whether they'll hunt, or spar, or speak along the way;

it doesn't matter.

he's here.

he's back.

the loyal son. and she is so proud.

ancelin followed.
his time away had hardened and embittered him, but now that he had returned, it was with ease he accepted avicus' leadership as he had before.
the boy did not reach to spar. he only touched his muzzle to her chin and kept pace along with a rangy lope, pausing to rub his shoulders along a tree or mark where she indicated.
home.
home, but the discontent inside ancelin was not aimed toward the rise.