Stone Circle Say it to me

This morning, he stood upon the ground of towering stones. Old stories spoke from the grounds. Flowers bloomed along the edges.

He was alone. For now.

His nostrils stroked the ground. Dew coated his nose from the tips of the grass. History crept between the strands of his fur and wrapped around his flank in a hug. The hairs upon his neck started to raise, before dampened down by the air.

His atmosphere was calm this day.

Hint of bone.

He'd avoided this place.

His steps were jagged and mismatched. The hitch in his hip worse now. His muzzle grayer the steel of his eyes just a little duller. Age was catching him faster than he cared to admit. He still boasted a stocky figure, but even he knew he wasn't as strong as he'd been and it changed daily.

But it did his heart glad to see the boy scarred and sad, but here where he belonged. As far as Gunnar was concerned.

Hello Bonnie. It's good to see you home again.

His entire body slammed backwards in a skid that halted halfway. Quickly locking eyes to Gunnar with hairs on end and a pounding head, his nearly wrinkled maw instantly responded. 

"GRRAH! Don't sneak up on me like that!" He spat at himself, trying to halt his nerves as he did his cower!

Clawing his posture back up straight, those spiky hackles slowly lowered and his head quickly turned. Back to the dirt. "Hey, old man," he greeted, swishing his tail Gunnar's direction. 

If he'd noticed his aging, he'd not acknowledged it. Not said it. Then, his nose nudged the dirt by the stones, deeply inhaling. Surely, soil was creeping up his nostrils from how he was vacuum sniffing it. "What's down here?" he squinted. His nose told him. 

Gunnar froze surprised. His own hackles raising at the reaction. He hadn't realized the boy hadn't heard his shuffling gate. That he felt everyone could hear. Though he had been lost in thought.

He smiled softly. I'm sorry. Didn't realize i could still sneak, figured you'd hear my old bones rattle.

He studied the ground as Bonnie sniffed. And then a question. He thought he had told him, but perhaps he hadn't.

Taktuq's kin lay here in their last sleep. It is where my old bones will go when my soul leaves for Valhalla. A sacred place for those who pass on.

"You're going to rest down here?" Nosing it again, he felt his stomach turn over after enough given thought. The dead sat here.
He wondered of Starclan's existence. He also felt nothing, being on top of spiritual grounds.
In a final sniff, he reeled his head back. 

"How long ago?" His interest was piqued. No one had ever explained to him death nor spirits. Not even decay. He figured it out on his own. At straws, he grasped for a long-needed concept of mortality and past lives.

Gunnar chuckled. Yes. Though I'm not sure which stone Taktuq will choose for me. They each have a meaning or symbol, but unfortunately I haven't learned it.

Gunnar sniffed amd preened through his memories. I believe that they have been burying their dead here since before Taqtuq was born. In the times of her grandparents and before.

Gunnar looked it down. every village has their own ways of mourning their dead. My father's people would set them out to sea. Though my mother chose to bury him with vikings rites as it was too dangerous to release him to the sea for those still living. There are some that never speak the deads name again and others who relish and celebrate their lives.

Weird. The dead were weird.

He was standing over them. He moved, whipping his head around over his shoulder, away from Gunnar, squinting his vision at the distance. "Yeah?" There was a sort of lostness to his look, as if he no longer knew where he stood, or if he was looking for a certain presence. No one, for now.

Then, he turned back while he spoke. "Well, there's certainly time before you're put in dirt." He tilted his head as a motion towards it, leveling his neck to his shoulders. Head hurt. Always hurt. He sniffed his nose, staring directly ahead at Gunnar with lazy eyelids. Bonnie felt awkwardness crawl along his back. With a small huff from his nose, like a dragon taking its rest, "Thanks."

He looked away once, nudging his nose towards his general direction again. "For going to get me out there." Closing his eyes, he thought of that night. Wasn't sure how he felt about it anymore, or if he himself truly understood everything that happened. Just that it did.

Gunnar couldn't deny that the yalk of dying and the dead filled him with such melancholy. However, it was a passage of life. Everything died someday, everything.

Gunnar watched the mocement of the youth. Poor lad was looking for enemies that had gotten him. And there was no denying someday they may come back for him. Gunnar knew this. He just hoped they were all prepared. He didn't know what had happened that night, but everything came with consequence.

A softening of gray eyes. Of course if i am able i will always be there if I can. Always if I can.

Gunnar would always try to be there for those he cared about. He knew there would come a day when he couldn't and that a sad thought, but until then he would be there

He felt stiff.
Gunnar didn't know.
If he did, he didn't say it. Wasn't telling him. Why wouldn't he tell him if he knew? Out of spite? To see if he could fish it out of him?

Yet he had this sickly feeling rolling about his skin, his mind falling into a deep, deep dark thought. A storm cloud rolled over his mind, his thoughts, and his body. 

His every sway, heavy and slow, his eyes like a million weights dragged behind their walk. This was nauseating.

Oh, Bonnie.
Oh, Bonnie.

Bonnie.

Bonnie.
He shifted on his leg, his weight wanting to crash to one side as his eyes were settled upon the man with a face new. One that had been slowly dragged from his veins, and after all this time of repressing it, guilt finally surfaced in waves. Plenty. But an emptiness, as if hope had faded long ago. Buried.

"Do you know what happened?"

As in there were ways that he could have.
And soon Gunnar would learn.
That Bonnie made a mistake.

Gunnar didn't know what happened, but he could guess at it. He had a visit from that time from other pack members. He didn't know the logistics and he didn't need too. He had figured Bonnie would tell him or he wouldn't. Regardless, it would come to light someday. These things had a way of making themselves known. And it would be then that Gunnar would take care of it.

And it seemed today was the day. He blinked and settled to his haunches.

No. I figured you'd tell me or you wouldn't and we'd deal with it then.

Broken ear twitched, the stump of what once was. Grey eyes honed on the boy and he waited. No judgement in his eyes. Only ernest kindness and the want to help figure it all out.

"Well, you were right about one thing." That guilt remained, but utter defeat and annoyance did too. Annoyance. Annoyance? Annoyance. But not of selfishness. Annoyance that Gunnar had been on to something, unfortunately, and it pitted his stomach out, because now he wondered if it would have been smarter. To say nothing.

"I wasn't going to tell you," he put plainly, calmly, either an admission of his own guilt or a statement. Both. He offered the honesty of it- for Gunnar.

His teeth felt cold.

"Because if I'm being honest, chief. I shouldn't be alive."

The tip of his tail came to a feline curve, tucking and tensing as if that terrible storm was beginning to burst its thunder through his cracking ears. Cracking in this silence, that he now had brought himself to break.

Here it goes.

"I smelled blood." A gruesome tale unfolded.

"It was raining, but the wind was strong. Blood- So, I followed it." The tip of his tail unfolded and curled, back and forth. So vividly in his mind, rain fell once more. One could see it, each word he recounted. He squinted in recall. "There was a body. Dead- dead body. A dead mother. I don't know how long she'd been dead.. And a woman beside her, doing I don't know what. Just there. And a newborn. I assume the mom died in birth. I don't know," he uncomfortably shrugged it off, choosing not to think deeply into it. There could've been many reasons for a death. None of it changed anything now.

"Then someone else followed after me- said it was their pack member, or somethin'." Was that how it went? He had to second guess himself. Yeah, something like that. That was it. "The other woman, I guess she wasn't part of their pack, or whatever, had her get her pack members. Didn't take long. I waited over the dead moms kid. You know, so no funny business." He didn't trust someone to not take it, or kill it. "Didn't know if it was actually their pack member. Nothing else to do about it." Wasn't his. Wasn't the stranger womans. He remembered just waiting for someone to claim it.

"Then some kid, just a pup, charged at me and went to grab it. So, I gave them a warning snap. Didn't touch her. There were plenty of adults around to take it- not some rampant kid to kill it on a clumsy slip. And then," he thought hard again. Things got blurry. He struggled. What happened? Gritting his teeth, he shook his head, tail lashing and tensing. Headache.. Headache.. "This woman lunged at me. Acted like I killed her child and wouldn't let me go. Told me.. they were swiftcurrent creek members." His eyes pinned, like blood dripped before him in a meal. A meal he did not want. 

"It was like I couldn't hear her. I couldn't stop. It was too late, by the time I learned. She engaged me. I didn't want to fight. She hurt me." And the small bit of color and care Bonnie had shared in the moment for a person not himself, a being so fresh to the world, it spiraled. Perhaps it had been a reason that he'd stopped caring of what happened to his being then. "It wouldn't have changed anything anymore," he shook his head, saying it gently and factually. "We fought until we couldn't. She didn't mean for me to live. At some point, I couldn't do it anymore." A pitiful laugh from him, solemn and broken. He knew he was dying then. "I just stopped. I didn't know what I was doing. Or what the point in any of it was. I couldn't feel my limbs anymore. Couldn't even hear. I just stared at her, and at some point I just left. Or tried to. Til I couldn't."
He only wanted to help.

There was much said and within it all. Gunnar listened. He said nothing. And he let nothing show in his face.

Finally as the tale ended he twitched an ear. That all sounds harrowing and confusing and I'm sorry you had to go through it.

He hmmed softly. she attacked you first?

If this was the case then Bonnie wasn't completely alone in the blame. They both had struck each other. They had both let blood take over their senses. They had attacked rashly and with the overcomfident ego of the young. And it just wouldn't do.

There will be consequence in this Bonnie, but you aren't alone in it. I want you to stay within Kvarsheim, while I make a trip to Swiftcurrent. Can you do this?

Gunnar looked at him softly. Im so sorry. I wish i could make your burdens my own.

And yet perhaps he would. If Akavir wanted blood, shouldn't it be his? He was leader and therein the fault to lied with him.

At all given moments, he rejected numerous ideas, each with their own holdings and each that he could find no bearings.

He didn't answer- no, not at first. Instead, only stared and watched Gunnar ring it through his mind. All of it, quite frankly, still hurt his own head. It certainly would disturb Gunnar's.

In disgust at the series of events, the stress of it all and its sickly amount of needed thought, he scrunched his nose and stared at it. Like an awkward, fidgeting young boy. 

"Yeah." He mumbled, looking away before his head nodded back over. "Yeah, I guess I can." His eyes squinted. "Not like I have much of a choice. But Kvarsheim doesn't need you going and gettin' your head lopped off the map either." How much more danger was this going to cause?

Gunnar was not disturbed in the usual sense. Nay, he was disturbed that it had happened at all.

If either one had spoke first and attacked second perhaps there would be more to go on, but Gunnar also knew were he attacked as a younger man. The outcome would have been much of the same.

Gunnar smiled sadly and shook his head. I don't believe it will come to that. There is a peaceful solution there must be. There has been enough bloodshed.

There wasn't much else to say. Though Gunnar placed a paw over the boys if he let him. Thank you for trusting me, Bonnie.

Bonnie believed that peace was no longer an option once violence had been engaged.

He tried to remind himself that, in this instance, in all his petty thoughts and ferocious storms that took him through his last winter, that these were pack wolves. Overly friendly, compliant pack wolves, and they had a thing with trying to sort things out and create bonds. Should he trust Gunnar, that there was a peaceful option for such a crime committed between them?

The boys paw flinched at the attempt of touch; though, not far away enough to stop it. After the jolt, he looked at their touching paws, as if he did not know what he was doing or if he should have expected more. Because he did not know what physical affection was. It took a moment of acceptance, but when he did, he let out an 'mph' and a nod with an awkwardly low head. "I'll, uh," his ears sheepishly twitched, "try not to bite your friends again." Sniff.

Gunnar always believed there was peace. Even the brutal grew tired of violence eventually.

Gunnar was not cut the same as many. Somw would say he was too kind, too friendly, but he had seen too much in his years to be anything but.

Gunnar chuckled softly. Were it one of his sons he'd have soothed his brow. But he doubted Bonnie would sccept such a touch. He needed to get used to physical affection in small doses.

See that you don't. But it sounds as if in part it was warranted.

Wrap up?<3I love their dynamic so much

With slow, ticklish nods, he found himself replaying every word they'd just spoken to one another. Each uttered sentence, every motion.

There was a certain, settling depletion that was draining into his eyes. Cold, hollow eyes that felt no warmth in that moment, but upon the touch of Gunnar's, Alpha, Fadir of Kvarsheim, there grew a strum in his stomach. A wise man would have thrown him out.
Why hadn't he?

In an averted gaze, he slowly turned and crawled his tired body away with unsure nods. "You have a good night."

Gunnar saw as the boy worked it all out. Bonnie was love starved. Someone only needed to show him he mattered. Gunnar hoped he had enough time to do so.

You as well.

He would stay and watch the boy go. The ache creeping into his bones. He would need to make the short yet long way to Swiftcurrent. And he wanted to cry for he knew the pain would be horrific. But he would do thia for Bonnie. For Kvarsheim.