Redhawk Caldera friends break up, friends get married

Sylvie had been actively avoiding @Ceridwen. After their last encounter, she felt even more down on herself. Not only that, but her sister had been so mean, and she thought it'd be better for them to do her own thing and interact with the rest of her family.

Presently, she was eating her second lunch of the day; the stress of the near-constant ruminating was getting to her. She gnawed absentmindedly on a rabbit's foot, overanalyzing every detail of when she'd come home.

After the rocky reunion at the borders Dwin had not been too keen on seeking out Sylvie's company either. In principle - she understood that she had not acted either nicely or politely to the girl and she admitted this to her parents, but she did not feel any guilt either. With so much going on in the pack someone else's deep-seated self-confidence issues really seemed like such an insignificant deal. Having never doubted herself, she could not imagine, what it could be like to stand on the opposite side of the spectrum. 

Still she had promised mom to at least make an effort - Brecheliant needed new people and at the moment was not in a position to be picky. All that was left was to find the right occasion. And after much evasions and no-shows, it presented itself in a form of a dead buffalo in the fields not too far from the caldera. It had been there for a bit and a lot of scavengers had already had their take, but there was place for more. 

She found Sylvie without looking for her specifically, but she was the first to come across. "Morning," she greeted the girl, noticing that she was already having something to eat. "Care for an early lunch and some hauling?" she asked. "There's a buffalo carcass right outside our doorstep and I am gathering people to have it brought here," it was up to Sylvie, whether she took the offer or not. If not - Dwin would move on. 

"Morning," Ceridwen greeted, seemingly materializing out of thin air. "Care for an early lunch and some hauling? There's a buffalo carcass right outside our doorstep and I am gathering people to have it brought here"

Sylvie felt overcome with emotion, and although the idea of hauling didn't appeal to her, she forewent her aversion to agree profusely. Y-Yes! she said, climbing onto all fours. I w-would love to! But, really, only the lunch part. Wanna lead the way? Sylvie felt incredibly relieved.

"About the eating part or the hauling part?" Dwin arched an eyebrow and grinned. Then moved aside and beckoned Sylvie to follow. For a while she did not say anything, casting side-glances at her older sibling, as if expecting a melt-down any moment. 

Eventually she broke the silence: "Settling in well? No one else besides Big Bad Dwin is upsetting you?"

Creidwen's comment sent panic through Sylvie—had she not seemed willing enough to help haul? Heh, b-both! she said, masking her anxiety with a nervous laugh. She didn't want to appear unwilling and hoped she was coming off the right way, even if it was something she didn't want to do. These self-doubts swam through her mind as she got up and followed after her sister.

She kept it together for the most part. Oh, y-you're fine! she lied, feeling it was easier this way. But, y-yeah, it's nice to be back and see everybody. It's ... strange to be back living with mommy and daddy, but I-It's nice to be able to help them right when they needed it. This wasn't to say that they asked for her help often, but she always felt accomplished when she did.

B-But I should probably p-put on my big girl panties and find a den for myself, she said, softer, knowing she couldn't live with them forever.

"You do not have to lie to me, to make me feel better about myself," Dwin pointed out, because all things considered she had not treated Sylvie well at all. Just because she did not feel very happy and was frustrated, didn't mean she could take it all out on a stranger. "I treated you badly and I am sorry for that," she told and feeling that way too. Funny - a day or two before she would stuck stubbornly to the fact that she had not done anything wrong and that Sylvie's lack of confidence was to blame for provoking her. 

"It has not been easy the past few months," she explained, though did not do it to justify her behaviour. Again - even if it had been an earthquake and end of the world happening at the same time, still being a jerk to someone was not right. "Me thinks that as long as you all fit in there, you can stay. If mom and dad do not mind. I mean - the winter is almost here and you are less likely to freeze to death with them than on your own," she said. 

"What is that you want to do?" she asked, catching for the second or the third time that Sylvie wanted to do things, because others expected her to do them instead of her making a choice herself.

Sylvie wasn't used to being apologized to like this—especially when she'd been hurt as deeply as she had. Although she appreciated it, she also felt extremely awkward, feeling that she wasn't worthy of such kindness. And maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was only apologizing because @Eljay or @Maia had told her to do so. T-Thanks, Ceridwen, she said, her voice bashful as she tried to fend off his deep-rooted self-doubt, wanting to believe her sister was being genuine.

Not only was Ceridwen being considerate, she was being nice. Super nice. Y-You don't think that I-I'm a big baby if I-I want to stay with mommy and daddy? she asked, testing the waters again.

The way Sylvie phrased it made Dwin think that her older sibling was exactly that - a baby that had continued to grow and develop physically, but mentally remained a puppy. She gave her a quick quizzical look, then turned away and shrugged: "You can be, whatever you want to be. Be it a baby, a dragon or a warrior-princess." The experience with kids this year had taught her that you could not fight with the character of the person. You could only accept and adapt. She knew already that having Sylvie around would be hard for her, but she would give her best to not let it trigger her worse self. 

"Why do you want to stay with mom and dad so much? Did anyone harm you, while you were away?" she asked, very curious on, how could it be that they shared the same parents, but were two vastly different people. "I mean - Jay and Aiden buggered off the moment they hit the age of one. And Dee left too," she did not add that she would have gone as well were it not for her younger siblings being born. 

Although it was nice to hear Ceridwen say she could be anything she wanted to be—even though baby stuck out like a sore thumb—the follow-up question was concerning.

What?! N-No! Sylvie nearly gawked. I-I just really love and missed mommy and daddy and want to spend more time with them! To make up for lost time, to make memories as they got older—she'd missed out on so much! The only reason I l-left is because I thought that's what you had t-to do. I was already the b-big baby, and I'm s-sure people we're excited I w-was finally doing something with my life ... she trailed off and shook her head, feeling the pre-conceived notions pile onto her shoulders and begin to weigh her down.

Sylvie had just wanted to make everybody proud, even if it was at the expense of her happiness.

Dwin was very tempted to point out that no one really (meaning just her) had even noticed the great big step in the grown up life her sister had taken. But that would be nasty and, frankly speaking, didn't they all want to go out in the world to prove themselves? Even if Sylvie had thought she had done it to impress her parents, a small part of her had done it for herself as well. 

"Maybe you are too hard on yourself. You did not want to go, but you did and learned something valuable about yourself," she said. "I went out in the world during winter, when I really, really wanted it and returned home few months later thin as a stick and very hungry. I learned that traveling is better left for spring and summer. You learned that traveling is not your deal at all," she explained. 

"So - all this time you were a lone wolf or you lived with another pack?" she asked. Perhaps, Sylvie had told the details of her story to Maia and Eljay, but Dwin had not been around to hear it.

Ceridwen was kind in her reassurance, and Sylvie appreciated it. She glanced away, smiled, and tucked a strand of fur behind her ear. I didn’t t-think of it that way, she mumbled, feeling that maybe her time away had still been beneficial. T-Thanks, sis.

When asked where she’d been, she answered, I was staying with our cousins—they’re a g-group called the Frosthawks, led by Daddy’s sister, Liffey, her mate, Rannoch, and their friends Quixote and Raven. Apparently, they used to live here before? She’d heard bits and pieces of their lore, but she’d been too anxious to ask about the whole story. Have you heard of them? she asked.

Some names were familiar, others - did not ring the bell. For a while Dwin had been very good at keeping track of their family tree. But the gods had graced these two grand families not only with complex, polarizing character traits, but fertility too. She had lost count of the number of Blackthorn kids that the men of this family had sired. And some of the women were even better, having taking the last and final step in emancipation by choosing the best looking baby-daddies, mating freely and them kicking them out back in the world. Not that this was necessarily true, but Dwin liked this version of the family history better than the idea that anyone would ever want to abandon someone as amazing and unique as a Blackthorn/Redleaf woman. 

"Maybe they did, but not in the era that I remember," Dwin shrugged, giving an impression that the only era that truly mattered was the one, which began with her coming into this world. "Mom may know more about them - surely. I may be wrong, but she may have lived with Liffey and Rannoch for a while? Or was it Finley and Elwood? Damn them, giving similarly sounding names," she rolled her eyes and smiled at Sylvie sincerely. "What are they like? Do they have an awful lot of children there as we do here?"

I'll have t-to ask, Sylvie said. I'm curious about t-that part of history—what came before us, you know? She'd always been a history buff, as she used the past to learn lessons to use now, in the present. I'll be sure t-to let you know what mommy tells me, if you want, she offered with a smile.

Yeah, they were nice, and generous, and had so many more kids than mommy and daddy—I think they had around ... twenty, it still blew her mind. Why'd t-they need so many kids? And I don't think that they're done having them. They always kept t-talking about their next litters. She scrunched her nose at this, unable to understand it.

Dwin sensed that Sylvie had got more comfortable with her company over the course of their conversation. The moment her older sister mentioned having genuine interest in something she gained some bonus points in Dwin's book of people. Because this proved that, while Sylvie still needed a couple more vertebrae to have a spine, she had a personality that was independent of, what others wanted to see in her. "Well, with dad getting on in years and mom not getting any younger either - I think that having a young brain memorizing the family history to pass on to the next generations would be great," she suggested. "I myself am not good with facts. Coming up with things is easier," she chuckled and hoped that this comment would give Sylvie that little encouraging nudge to engage in this path. 

"There are people like that?" Dwin arched her eyebrows, wondering, whether their relatives really were producing kids just to hit a record or for the sake of populating the Earth with as many Blackthorns as possible. This also meant that the marriage market for her and her siblings was shrinking with every new cousin that was brought in the world. "Did they manage well? That many kids? I mean, having just six to herd around this summer was more than I could take and therefore I am forever cured of a desire to have any of my own. But - doing that willingly? Again and again? They must be crazy," she said this more to herself than to Sylvie. "How do they remember all of their names?" she asked, because 20 kids in her mind was the equivalent of millions of years in Earth's history. You understand that the number is big, but you cannot grasp, what it means.

Sylvie hadn't considered her knack for history to be something that could help the family, and her expression brightened as she thought it over. You know, you're right, she said, eyes gleaming for the first time since returning. I-I'll start doing that. She felt something she hadn't felt in quite some time: purpose, which felt good.

She shook her head, shrugged, and laughed at Ceridwen's question. T-That's a great question, she said. Although she didn't want to speak ill of the individuals who'd taken her in for so long, she agreed: it was weird that people like that existed. The whole family helps raise the younger kids, but I noticed that the older kids got burned out easily and usually left the pack. She didn't blame them—she probably wouldn't have handled that lifestyle very well. And they ... somehow manage to remember all their kid's names. I'm not sure how t-they do it. She could only remember a paw full of times that Rannoch or Liffey fumbled to remember their children's names.

"Do so!" Dwin encouraged Sylvie. "And if you need any help in polishing the facts and making them a tad bit more interesting - give me a call. I am pretty good at adding some colour to the tale," she added, thinking about the plethora of imaginary Blackthorn family members from a time long gone. She had referenced to them at times, when she needed to teach kids a moral lesson. Dwin was not very convinced that she had been very effective at that, because the audience seemed more taken by the story itself and did not pay much mind to the conclusion. 

"I know exactly, how they must have felt. There have been more days than I can count, when I have wanted to climb trees or throw myself off the ledge of the lake," Dwin sighed. However, now things had become easier. Maybe because children were older and more independent. Or she had simply got used to the way of life. What she did not say out loud was the hope that Maia would not decide on having another litter next year. She loved her mom dearly, would do anything for her, but... kids were a decision not an accident or something completely inevitable. 

"Well, just because they can remember their names, does not necessarily mean that they remember them all by faces," Dwin pointed out. "Unless they stand out spectacularly, toddlers look pretty much like one another. So the Joe Blackthorn named at birth may not be the same person running around later," she said.

Sylvie was not interested in embellishing their family's history, but nevertheless, she appreciated Ceridwen's offer. I will, she promised; maybe it'd be fun to talk about how they could change things up to make them more exciting, but she'd never actually present those stories as fact.

When 'Dwen sympathized with the Frostfur children, she frowned. Well, I-I'm glad you didn't actually do that, she said. And I'm sorry, for what it's worth, for not being there to help—you won't be alone with them anymore. She would make it her goal to help where she could, even if she felt down and had no energy like usual.

She shrugged—her sister had a good point. Maybe I just thought t-that they were doing a good job with it because I didn't know who was who all the time.

"Sylvie, I appreciate your good will and offer, but you do not have to do things you may not wish or feel like doing. Out of - I dunno - sense of guilt or just because it is something adults do," Dwin tried to point out that Sylvie had no obligation of helping with kids, if that was, what she did not enjoy doing in the end. "Being selfless is a good quality, if it does not come at the expense of your own happiness. I learned that the hard way this year. And... well... in the end I am glad that I stayed, I learned a lot about myself, but..." she paused, having hard time to find the right way to form the thought she wished to express. "At the end of the day, having kids is a personal decision of the pair. And if they cannot manage on their own, it is unfair to expect that anyone else should be obliged to help them," this was unfair to her parents and Teya, but it was true. 

"I mean, for a long time I felt that the kids simply bring out the worst in me, I just could not cope with everything. And at times I really did not recognize myself. I am not a grumpy person or unfriendly, or unkind, that's not me, but I could not break out of it, when yet again some crap happened, involving those kids," she said. Sharing this vulnerability with Sylvie did not feel as bad, because - surprisingly - of all people in the family she knew, what it meant to doubt oneself. "It is easier now that they are older and they can stand their ground or outrun danger. Their intellect is growing too, but still... Home did not feel like home I once knew and only recently it is returning back to me bit by bit," she finished and sighed. 

Sorry for the wait!

Sylvie felt like she was at a loss of what to say after Ceridwen explained her situation and how her opinion how grown as they had; she felt very similarly watching the Frostfurs from afar. Still, not wanting to seem like she was copying her younger sister, she tried to think of her own twist of an agreement, and came up with:

Yeah, I don’t think that a lot of wolves think about how much work it is to take care of children. H-Honestly? It doesn’t look like a whole lot of fun to me … I think it’d be better when they’re older … like … your age older. she laughed. Maybe this is why we aren’t the ones having kids. Sylvie couldn’t imagine herself as a mother. It seemed too stressful; she was still a child mentally, too.

"Yeah. Just like we did. We were born all grown-up and amazing from the get-go," Dwin laughed, knowing full well that without the help and care of such Brecheliant wolves, who had not had kids of their own, they would not be standing here either. Just from watching and spending time with Frolic Dwin had realized, how very difficult child to contain she had been. Maia with her more laid-back attitude had had it a bit easier, but Eljay, who always worried about them leaving and taking off and disappearing from his sight? She was pretty sure that at least a half of white hairs her aging father had on his head were because of her. 

When she looked back at this conversation later, Dwin would feel glad that Sylvie was self-aware enough not to have kids of her own just because everyone her age did. Nothing against her sister, but she was already a lot to handle. Having little insecure and crying copies of her running around would be too much of a chaos for her younger sibling. "Probably - a reverence to those, who go into child-bearing business voluntarily and make a good job at raising decent wolf beings," she said and stopped in her stride to make a deep bow to all those invisible, incredibly naive and romantic fools, who were going to enrich the world with numerous more furry sharks.

Sylvie laughed and followed Ceridwen's lead, stopping mid-stride to bow deeply for the invisible, incredibly naive, and romantic fools. May they keep their sanity, she added. When she straightened again, she looked at her sister with a smile, finally feeling connected to her. Although their first meeting had been tough, this conversation had strengthened their once-non-existent bond; her shudder vanished now that she felt more comfortable.

I'm glad you asked me to hang out, she said, her tail wagging. This has been nice.

While Dwin still did not have a very high opinion of Sylvie (she was not a bad person, but had yet to prove her worth), at the end of this conversation she thought of her as one of her younger siblings. Whoever the god was that had Blackthorn offspring under their wing, had skipped this particular kid, when they had handed out the typical characteristics of the family line. She could easily see that Sylvie had accumulated all of the insecurities both of their parents had and that single droplet of self-confidence or pride did nothing to balance it out. A year ago a younger Dwin would have been inclined to take Sylvie as her personal project to make a different person out of her. Frolic and encounters with Bronco's children had taught her that it was impossible to change people. You simply had to accept, who they were and adapt. 

Adapt she would no matter, how hard it would turn out to be. Dwin knew that despite this one encounter there would be still moments, where Sylvie would drive her up the wall or she would say harsh things to her only to regret them later. Hopefully, Sylvie too would learn not to take too personally Dwin's occasional outbursts of temper or lack of patience with her antics. Love and affection between the two would need time and care to grow, but after this encounter sibling loyalty was established. Even if their relationship never grew close, Sylvie could rely on Dwin to stand up for her.