Blacktail Deer Plateau I imagine we're all right

@Osprey

Snow fell lightly over the Plateau, blanketing Saena in a coat of white flakes. She wove through the forest, her nose pressed down to the blanketed earth. The scent of deer coaxed her onward. Naturally, the aspiring Gamekeeper was incapable of taking down a deer herself unless it was a particularly sick or elderly doe, but she was content to merely locate them. The trademark herd hadn't left the relative safety of the trees in spite of the wolves living there. Their food source, the bark, was more valuable to them.

It was more valuable to the wolves that they stayed, for the snow hindered them in ways that it didn't hinder the wolves. With paws like snowshoes, they could sail gracefully over the deepest drifts while the ungulates they hunted staggered and struggled through. Winter was a good time to be a wolf, even with prey making itself scarce.

She crested a small hill to spot a doe moving quietly through the trees on the other side. Saena crouched and remained silent, her eyes and ears fixated on the doe.

It had taken a surprisingly little time for Osprey to adjust at to the life of plateau. Stavanger bay had been a nice place, but it had not been her home. This was... even though her den didn't exist anymore - the roof of it had finally collapsed, leaving her without a place to sleep in. The temperatures weren't that low though, therefore she could dig in a shallow pit, filled with dead leaves, curl up in a ball and sleep quite comfortably during the night and daylight hours.

It was snowing today and for some reason it made Osprey think about all of the events that had taken place last year and that had eventually brought her to the plateau. It seemed so odd that, while so many things had happened in her life to change it beyond recognition, the flow of time had remained the same. As it didn't matter to it, whether people were born or died, loved or hated, or simply lived out their lives as good as they could.

It was the sight of a familiar face that brought Osprey's wandering mind back to the present. She stopped, observing Saena from the distance, trying to decide, whether she should approach her. She was a little afraid of how the girl would view her disappearance and recent return. Sadly - she was in the group of the girl's family members, who tended to leave suddenly. Then again - was there anything in Osprey's tale that she should have felt ashamed of?

Realizing this, Osprey drew courage and drew nearer, greeting the girl with a quiet woof.

With gentle sweeps of her tail, the observant little wolf tracked the doe with her eyes. She was a nice example of her species, with a seamless hide and powerful yet elegant movements. A healthy animal. Not one worth hunting without the aid of the entire pack, and probably not worth hunting anyhow. Gamekeepers and, in fact, all wolves maintained a delicate balance in the world of prey. They took out those animals too weak or too old to be of use to the herds, thereby strengthening the herds. In return, the herds produced many young, some which went to feed the wolves...

But her thoughts ended there when a whoof drew her attention. Saena looked back over her shoulder, expecting to see a familiar and friendly face, for things had been good lately... but when it was Osprey she saw, she practically glared. She didn't waste the opportunity, however. Osprey had disappeared again. She was not fit to hold a place of import in a pack she couldn't seem to stay with, though her reasons were completely (just as they had been last time).

She flung her tail up dominantly, met her aunt's eyes boldly, lifted her lip and head in defiance of her aunt's rank, and said, much more coolly and calmly than she expected, "go away."

Saena's greeting was less than welcome - it caught Osprey off-guard and made her wonder, whether her disappearance had really upset the young girl so much. They weren't that close after all, why would her leaving and returning matter? Her niece after all had done the same thing and no-one had reprimanded her for that. But she was still young - the world was black and white in her eyes.

Osprey had never been rank-driven, therefore Saena's open disrespect for her was met with calmness. It would have been easy to reply with aggression, but she was in no shape for a physical conflict. Therefore she sat down, briefly locked her gaze with Saena's and then turned it away. "Why?" she asked quietly.

ooc: post 500! Woohoo!

When Osprey met her gaze, although there was no response to her challenge, Saena puffed up like a pissed off cat. Her size wasn't very considerable, but she nevertheless did her best to show it off and intimidate her aunt into submitting to her, lest she have to force it as she had on Tauska. The juvenile wasn't kidding around with the dominance displays; she felt she'd earned a permanent place in the ranks, and had no illusions about how to reach the highest ones. If she had to scrap with her pack mates for it, she would.

Still, this wasn't a mere dominance display. This one was fueled with all of the betrayal Saena had felt in her life. Osprey was the least close of her relatives—her disappearance had made only a minor impact—but her reappearance was unwelcome all the same. "I don't want you around me," she said heavily, with a glare to back her up. "I'm sick of your family."

It was her family, too, but by stripping herself of their name she fancied she'd denounced them. She was a child of the Plateau now, felt a greater allegiance to perfect strangers here than to Redleaf-DiSarinnos who had left.

Now that was something Osprey heard for the first time in her life. Had she been younger and less experienced she would have felt deeply hurt. Now... oddly... there was a strange excitement for the tough game that waited her ahead. Her eyes lit up, they met Saena's glare without any fear, as if telling - I am not giving up. As cruel as it sounded - if she made through this conflict, this could make a good material for a story. They had been too good and fluffy (apart from the bloody one) recently, they needed fire. It seemed that she had found it now.

"That's just as saying that you are sick of being a wolf," she replied - it was silly remark and dangerous too, yet she continued. "You are part of my family - want it or not. If you hate it, you hate part of yourself too. Is it easy to live like that?" she tilted her head to the side, looking at the girl. "With so much hate?"

What Osprey said next made little sense to Saena. She'd thrown her family aside the moment Junior suggested it and, with the exception of her siblings, no longer associated herself with any of them. With Osprey's disappearance, she'd joined that group whether she liked it or not. She was a mere pack mate now, and while Blacktail Deer Plateau might operate like a family, she wasn't Saena's family any longer as far as she was concerned.

What that had to do with being a wolf—why denouncing her irresponsible aunts, uncles, father and mother had anything to do with her species—was lost on her, to whom it made no sense at all. Similarly, hating her family members meaning she hated herself was also lost on her, which was made clear by her unwavering glare. Osprey's appeal didn't work on someone as jaded about family as Saena was.

"I choose my own family," she growled, "because those I choose have been more of a family to me than any of those who should have been my family. You aren't part of it, and you never will be again." She lashed her tail, lifted her head even higher, pinned her ears tall—accepting the higher position of them, for Osprey stood now in a posture beneath hers and, having not reacted, Saena took it to mean she was free to take that power—and once again said, "go away."

Osprey watch Saena's game of power with mild amusement, but chose not to react to the provocation. She shifted her position slightly, but remained seated, regarding the girl with a searching look. It seemed that she was trying to find something familiar in the girl, something to attach herself to, yet there was nothing. Cold, hard stone wall and there was no way around it. For a moment she hesitated trying to decide between attempting to reach the girl or giving up here and now. She was a family member - a distant one, but still.

On the other hand - they had never been close, why not leave it at that? If she wished to hate her - so be it. Reasoning with her would be fruitless, trying to explain herself? She didn't want to hear. So - was there any point in doing anything of that? "I don't think that you are fair," Osprey finally told her in a calm manner. "I haven't done anything wrong to you. Whatever has kept me away from the pack has not been done with intention to hurt you or anyone else here," she went on.

"I was caught in a stampede, I got seriously hurt and I had no way of returning anytime sooner than I have," Osprey said, having a feeling that this would be of no interest to Saena. "If you don't want me to be your family - so be it. If you want to hate me, to hold me responsible for everyone's sins - do it, if that makes you feel any better. But I am not going to leave - because this is my home too and these people are my friends."

Again, Osprey tried to say something reasonable, and again, Saena tuned her out. At least, she tuned out all the parts except the one about the stampede. For a moment her cold wall faltered, but it was up again instantly.

After all, hadn't Atticus been hurt when he left? Hadn't Tytonidae left because of hurt feelings and never come back? Hadn't Peregrine left because Fox was so hurt, only for Saena to learn the truth a week later? And hadn't Junior been hurt as well and was now gone? But Junior had sent a messenger! And, although Osprey had no way of knowing it, it was this that made her vehemently turn against her aunt's reasoning.

When Osprey said she wouldn't leave the pack, Saena snorted heatedly. "I didn't ask you to leave the pack. I told you to leave me alone and get away from me. I don't want you in my personal life." But it was becoming clear to Saena, who was biased of course, that Osprey didn't really care about Saena's personal desires—or about all the abandonment she'd been through, at least not enough to simply apologize and spare her the excuses, which was the only thing that might have got through to her before.

Now, she turned her back on the woman, returning her attention to the doe she'd been tracking... but it was long gone.q

It seemed that they were done here, because Saena rejected Osprey's explanation and had made it obvious that she didn't want her to be around. Very well... she wasn't going to burden the girl with her presence any longer, she saw no point in insisting to stay and just make the situation worse. She could spend her precious time in a more reasonable way.

The gray she-wolf got to her feet and shook her coat, ready to leave, but feeling that there was something that needed to be said. She gave a long and thoughtful look at the young wolf that was standing before her, having pointedly turned it's gaze away. "Leaving and letting go is part of life," she finally said. "It is not in your power to keep someone from going away, nor it is a fault of yours or the one's, who leaves."

"You can't go around and hate people just because they decide to go. Don't forget that you left once too and no one held a grudge against you for that," she reminded the girl. "Grow up, Saena," Osprey finished and began padding away.

"It is entirely the fault of those who leave," Saena muttered acidly, but far too quietly for Osprey to have a hope of hearing it. How could it not be the fault of those who controlled their paws? Osprey had chosen to go somewhere. Maybe she had gotten hurt, but she'd also chosen not to send word. In a place as full of helpful wolves as an anthill was full of ants, her aunt had failed to send a messenger, something she'd no doubt been capable of doing, as Junior had and even Peregrine had. If she had to grow up, then she thought her aunt did too, for being too stupid and self-righteous to just leave her the hell alone like she'd asked.

Regardless of what the woman said at this point, or how right she actually was, Saena wasn't listening. She felt, in light of her previous thought about sending messengers, that this particular wolf had no right to preach to her about anything, least of all her reasons for leaving. Instead of responding or even caring what was said, she flicked one long ear back, listening for the sound of footsteps, and relaxed at last when Osprey was most definitely gone.