Crete had never before let his disability stop him from striving for his independence, though, admittedly, his designs of independence and the designs of his siblings and other family members, tended to be starkly different. In a way, he quietly envied his siblings as they shrieked with laughter and yelled childish curses at one another, and tattled on the other for cursing, when all he could do was grin goofily at them. No matter times how he tried to talk, tried to make the appropriate sounds to form words nothing would come out. He had ingested numerous plants and herbs in Aether’s kind attempts to help but it was not something herbs or medicines were going to fix. It was probably that his vocal cords didn’t properly form, or full form or something to that effect. Until now, it had never been big of a deal. A sibling - not always from his litter, older siblings would volunteer to assist - ignoring his icy glares of protest, would often accompany him, to “speak” for him. Some of his siblings were better at ‘translating’ than others, admittedly. Guard hairs bristled in slight irritation at the thought but not wishing to suffer an incorrigible mood swing - especially when someone did stumble upon him at their borders, he didn’t need to be in an insufferable mood. That, Crete had no doubt, would not serve to help him any, and this would be hard enough as it was.
A inky smudge came rushing in his direction, causing Crete to push himself to his paws in a quick, fluid movement, ready to defend himself if need be. However, the wolf, though easily recognizable when he was in Crete’s face so directly - though the mute had recoiled back - it was the scent that filled Crete’s nostrils that confirmed that he wasn’t seeing a phantom. ‘Peregrine?’ Puzzlement dominated Crete’s facial features, before relief washed over him, and tense stance relaxed with a heavy sigh. ‘Peregrine.’ It really was his brother - whom, like Crete, had suffered Tyrannus’ strange and worrying tyranny. Crete recoiled again, ears slicking back when Peregrine proceeded to nearly shout in his face, a sign that Crete took to be outrage at Tyrannus. Feeling a brief pinprick of insult, Crete’s lips pulled back to expose his teeth at the displeasure of the word ‘mute’ and in the way that Peregrine enunciated it - even though Crete inherently agreed with his crass brother. He, a mute, could never hold leadership, so what was there to be even measurably threatened of? ‘I agree,’ Crete’s facial features smoothed out into a stony, morbid expression of agreement, as he nodded his head once and rolled his eyes, ears lifting to rest half mast atop his head. ‘Clearly Tyrannus has gone off the deep end.’ So how was it that no one else could see it?
Or was it, simply, that they did not wish to see it?
Figuring it was safe, Crete stepped forward and offered a lick of greeting to his brother’s chin, before he stepped back, letting his tail wag once. Despite that their situations royally sucked Crete was infinitely glad that Peregrine and him had managed to find one another. Peregrine’s command was heard, and acknowledged with a sarcastically skeptic twitch of Crete’s lips. Where, exactly, was he supposed to go? And now that he’d found Peregrine his desire to continue on was measurably depleted. Peregrine inquired, with more force than was really necessary in Crete’s opinion, though this was something he was used too, as to Osprey’s whereabouts and Crete tried to remember if he had seen Osprey in the crowd when Tyrannus was forcing him out of the pack’s borders. It had been chaotic - Crete wasn’t even sure he was really aware of what had been happening at the time. He shrugged his shoulders, having no more of an answer than that. ‘I don’t know.’ Crete, for all intents and purposes, had assumed that Osprey and Atticus were back in Flightless Falcon’s safe and sound.