Redhawk Caldera Have you come here for forgiveness

@Peregrine - reply, when you have time. It has been nine long months!

It was evening of the fifth day, when Osprey finally had reached her destination. Tired and hungry, yet the moment of glory, when she saw the familiar area and the knowledge that her brother might be within figurative arm's length, made every mile and difficulties that had come along the way, worth it. Though eager to draw nearer and call for the one person she had come to meet, the memory of her last ill-fated visit was still vivid. You just don't forget a threat of getting killed that easily - no matter the time and change of circumstances. Therefore she spent the first half an hour lying in the grass, resting and trying to come up with a good line to start the conversation with, in case: A) she met her brother in person; B) if she ran accross someone else and had to convince them that she cam in peace and had no interest in harming anyone. 

Yet for a person, whose life revolved around stories, it was not that easy to come up with the right words. So eventually, when it felt that she was more likely to run away than to come up with things to say, she simply got up and against her better instincts drew nearer and nearer to the borders. Until her courage left her entirely several feet away, she stopped, lifted her muzzle and howled for Peregrine.

It had been close to a year since he'd heard her voice last, yet Peregrine recognized it instantly. He nearly dropped the stick in his mouth on his eldest son's head, yet managed to clench his teeth at the last possible moment. Gently, he set it on the ground, then exchanged a glance with Fox across the pups' heads. "I'll be back in a bit," was all he said before turning and loping toward the borders. On his way, he passed a patrolling Eljay and asked him if he wouldn't mind going to the den site to help the Alpha female watch the pups for a little while.

He arrived at the borders perhaps twenty minutes after the call had gone up and spotted her slim silver figure immediately. Peregrine paused, thinking back to their last encounter. It had gone well enough, though Junior had gone and ruined everything shortly thereafter. He thought he remembered hearing about Osprey approaching the borders after that only to be chased away, though only dimly. The Redhawks were still vigilant, yet not so severe toward guests as back then.

"Oss!" he called out to her, moving closer and waving his tail in a clear sign of affability. "You're a sight for sore eye," he quipped, aware that Osprey wouldn't understand his offhanded remark. "I'm happy to see you," he rumbled sincerely, stopping about a foot from her and grinning, though unwilling to crowd her space unless invited properly. It had been a while, after all, and he didn't know if there might be lingering bad blood for the events of the past.

Waiting was an excruciating process - Osprey did not know, what to expect and who would come to greet her, therefore she shifted from foot to foot, casting worried glances around her, while her mind came up with all of the worst case scenarios. The good thing was that she was out in an open space - if anyone else but her brother would come out of the caldera's territories, she would flee without a second glance back. Somehow standing so near the claimed area, made the immediate threat of getting murderered very, very real. And she had promised Dante to return home alive after all. 

Twenty minutes, which seemed like an eternity, passed, and finally she saw him coming. Her heart leaped in joy at the sight of this familiar form. One she would recognize unmistakeably among millions of faces. "You!" she whimpered and unlike Peregrine, who had decided to keep a polite distance between them, she breached the private space and threw herself at him, both laughing and crying in joy, momentarily unable to say anything else.

He needn't have worried about encroaching on her personal space, if her reaction was anything to go by. Peregrine laughed aloud and braced himself as his sister threw herself at him. He couldn't tell if she was laughing or crying (perhaps both?) as he rumbled an affectionate growl and nipped at her ear before dragging her against his chest in a wolfish hug. His tongue swiped in the velvet space between her ears and he just clutched her wriggling form against him a moment, savoring her presence after so long.

"It is seriously good to have you here," Peregrine said, drawing back only after several minutes. "How are you, Silver Bullet?" he asked, smiling fondly even as he bent to nose a (hopefully happy) tear off the corner of her eye.

"It's seriously good to be here too," Osprey replied, enjoying her brother's embrace and affection, taking in his familiar smell and feeling just like in the old days. Now it felt odd that she had given up on him last summer, let the hurt pride and emotions overshadow the common sense. Despite what had happened, she still loved her brother like no other person in the world and it would probably take a lot more to weed out this strong bond between them.

"Oh... there is lot to tell," she replied, stepping back and looking over Peregrine's shoulder. "But first - would you mind, if we walked further off? The last time I was here, Fox promised to rip my throat out. And you know... I don't think that she has crossed me out of the "Naughty list"."

Although Peregrine liked to think that Fox wouldn't simply show up and attempt to murder his sister, he was not about to decline her request to move farther away. He nodded his head, motioning for her to lead the way further out into unclaimed territory as he fell into step behind her. As they walked away from the caldera, he could not resist the urge to arch his neck and nip playfully at the tip of her silvered tail.

Once they were a safely comfortable distance from the borderlands, they slowed to a stop. "I want to hear all about it," he said simply, seating himself and bending an ear to Osprey even as his jade eyes lingered fondly on her gray features.

Peregrine complied with Osprey's request and they walked, until she felt that the distance between them and the Caldera was safe enough. Her bother's pack was still in the view, but no one from there would consider her as a potential danger. 

"I am a married woman now," she told him without hesitation and had she been human, she would have waved her hand with the golden ring proudly. "And I have every reason to be smug too, because I caught my Prince Charming on my own," she added, without getting in the details of, how she had been the first to propose. Women did not usually do that. 

"And, since you have given me the honor of being an aunt twice... perhaps, thrice over already?" she gave him a questioning look and then smiled. "I might be returning this favor to you. Whatever you fancy to be - an uncle or aunt."

Her announcement took him by surprise, if only because Osprey had never seemed the sort to want to settle down, even after coming to the Teekon Wilds and watching him do that very thing. His lips parted but he began to grin, instantly feeling happy for her. He chuckled at her declaration about her Prince Charming and of course Peregrine wondered who the guy was. Chances were he wouldn't know him, but maybe...

But before he could ask about his identity, Osprey dropped an even bigger (and more welcome) bomb on him. "Oss, that's—I'm thrilled." He remained contained, yet he was beaming now. "Who's the lucky dude? And are you actually expecting? Can I be both an aunt and an uncle? An auntcle?" he quipped, snorting in his outright delight.

"Auntcle? Sounds more like a tentacle... and I wouldn't want my kids to think that you are an octopus living in a boiling hot volcano," Osprey chuckled at the very mental image of him being that way. She was glad that he was glad - as silly as it sounded. And she realized it only now - he was the very first person she had revealed her secret... or rather a hope that the secret would become true. 

"It was about time too, wasn't it? I ain't getting younger," she smiled at him, her expression getting serious then and she looked down at her paws. "I am not sure - too early to tell," she shrugged. "But I do want to have a family and I know that it would make Dante happy too."

Something about the mental image of an octopus in the caldera triggered a memory. Peregrine remembered telling Osprey about a dragon who would throw ingredients into the makeshift pot—whole trees and entire herds of deer, if memory served—to cook a stew. She had been sick at the time. She had been pregnant. He had forgotten all about that until just now. He sucked in a breath, meeting her eyes, and knew better than to bring up any of those memories out loud. He would leave them in the past, where they belonged, and look forward with her toward a brighter future, with a family.

"Dante?" he echoed dumbly. The information didn't really bother him, it just surprised him. He blinked, then smiled gently. "No dude is worthy of you, of course, but I guess I'll allow it." He winked his good eye and clucked his tongue at her. "I'll send, uh, fertile thoughts your way," he quipped, his face screwing into an awkward expression before his lips parted on a laugh. Perhaps it was an unusual offer for a brother to make toward his sister and her mate, yet the sentiment was genuine.

"No-one is as good as you, of course," Osprey replied with a grin, "but starting a family with you would be plain awkward." Not that she had ever thought of Peregrine that way, but she had to give him a bit of a scare and what was better than a good old dark joke. 

As for the "fertile thoughts" - she pretended to grab her brother's wish with her teeth and gulped it down: "Happily accepted." She then wondered, if she should tell about the small things that went on in Donnelaith, but was not sure, if he would be interested in teenage romance/love-triangle or the fact that she had been "agile" enough to hit a tree. Or that she didn't remember half of the things that had gone on during her heat. 

None of the subjects she could offer seemed good enough, therefore she thought it would be only fair, if he shared some information too: "What about you - am I an aunt thrice over already?"

The incestuous implication might have made someone else uncomfortable, yet Peregrine only laughed. Growing up, he and Atticus had been the ones with filthy minds and even filthier mouths. But here was a reminder that Osprey could sling a dirty joke right along with the best of them. The Alpha felt something loosen, then tighten, in his chest as he momentarily thought back on their childhood. He missed that closeness with his sister, that camaraderie with his brothers. But he was glad that he and Osprey still had something, all these years later.

He had been so intent on hearing all about her life, he hadn't even thought to mention his own pups. Peregrine huffed a surprised laugh, the nodded. "Yes, you can add four more nephews to the list. We call them Ferret, Gannet, Whip and Peter. They're about a month old," he reported, unaware that they were actually exactly one month old today, as a matter of fact. "I don't think you'll actually have to worry about fertility, not with our genetics," he quipped, thinking not only of himself but their very prolific parents as well.

"Geez... you don't waste any time, do you," Osprey nudged Peregrine's shoulder in a friendly manner. "How many kids you have in total now? A mind-blowing number definitely," anything that was above five meant "a lot" to her. All in all she was happy that the life was working out for her brother and that... from what she could tell - he had no problems in his second mateship. 

"So - all of them birds or animals, but why there is a Peter suddenly? Does he have six toes or two tails?" she asked, trying to imagine, what would they look like, and feeling a bit sad that she won't be seeing the kids' pretty baby-faces. "Well... you never know about these things. You and the guys might have taken the lion's share out of the fertility pool," she replied. Not getting her hopes too high would be her tactic this year. If things did not work out - then the disappointment wouldn't be so bad.

Her question echoed one Peregrine had asked himself lately. If he counted his adopted kids—which he did, even after all this time and strife—and even Junior, then he had a solid dozen. That was enough to fill a carton of eggs the ranks of a pack. True, he didn't know where half of them had gone at this point in time but that didn't take away from his pride as a father. Surely some (maybe even most) of them were out there doing great things. Hell, some of them might even be cranking out his grandkids, a thought which only just now struck him.

But Osprey's question about Peter drew him out of his mind whammy. He laughed at her wild guess, then shook his head. "We named him after a story from Fox's childhood. Peter's the runt of the litter but he's perfect," he rumbled affectionately. "His middle name is Pan, after a dear friend of mine we lost a few months back. Peter Pan. Oh, and Whip's full name is Whip-poor-will," he added, knowing she would appreciate the naming convention there.

He playfully raised an eyebrow at her modest remark. "Don't think it works that way, Oss," Peregrine replied laughingly. "Here's the thing, though. Whether you have one or twelve, it doesn't matter, as long as they're happy and healthy. And thank goodness love is a finite resource." He probably didn't have to tell her how the love a parent felt for its child was deep and all-encompassing; he was sure she'd experienced that with the pups who clearly hadn't survived to see this day.

"I did not know that Fox was fond of stories," Osprey chose a more polite way to say that she had never thought Perry's rational and business-like to the core mate would fancy something as fleeting and impractical as tales. "And as funny as it might sound - I do not know the story about Peter Pan. What is it about?" she asked, being genuinely curious about the details and hoping that Fox had revealed more to her husband than just the character's name.  

"We will see, what happens," she shrugged in reply to Peregrine's counter-argument regarding the children issue. "It would be fun to see our kids playing together one day, wouldn't it?" 


ooc: my laptop's touchpad seems to have a life of it's own and it begins to get annoying. Until I buy a mouse, I apologize for not putting the conversation text in bold.  23/04 - SOLVED!!! :)

Osprey's comment reminded Peregrine of how differently the rest of the world tended to see his wife. They saw a coldblooded, territorial bitch, where he (and the rest of the caldera) saw the other facets of her personality. One of those included a penchant for stories. Unfortunately, the Alpha did not share this interest with his mate whatsoever, so when his sister asked about the tale in question, he drew a major blank.

"You know," he said sheepishly, "I have no idea. I just know the Peter Pan in the story was a runt too." Peregrine chortled. The sound tapered away as he considered Osprey's proposition. It was a pretty idea, yet he didn't know how they could make it work in reality. They would have to meet somewhere in the middle. He didn't actually know where Donnelaith was but assuming it wasn't particularly close by, that meant a lot of traveling, which wasn't exactly conducive for young pups.

But he couldn't bring himself to rain on her parade with his pragmatic logic, so Peregrine simply smiled softly at her and bobbed his head. "Better yet, what if they one day team up and found a pack or something, branch the families and carry on our legacies...?" Wildfire had proven to him that his offspring could overcome his history, so it wasn't even that far-fetched.

"Geez, Peregrine," Osprey shook her head in disbelief, when her brother admitted of not knowing, what the story about Peter Pan was about. "You agreed to name your kid without finding out, what the story was really about? What if that Pan guy is a Lauren? Or a cold-blooded murderer, creepy stalker?" She added the last questions with a smile playing in her lips. She was joking, of course, the name sounded too cute to be tainted with a bad history. "Make sure that, when your son asks you, why is he named the way he is named, you can tell more than just "I have no idea!""

"That's the logical row of events - it will happen regardless," she thought about March Owl's batch of kids and how scattered around the world they were. Had she known more about her family history, relation to DeMonte's even if it was through adoption would make the already branched family tree even bigger. "Though the idea that we are just tiny particles in the bigger scale of events... is scary."

"I trust Fox not to give our kids shit names," was all he said, albeit laughingly and with a lingering sheepishness. Osprey was right, though: he should ask his mate to tell him the story. Actually, she should regale the entire family with it, when the boys were old enough to understand. Peregrine jotted that down on his mental calendar (which he didn't actually keep). "But on that note, I'd be totally fine with it if she named one after a Lauren or a murderer," he finished.

He shrugged a shoulder at his sister's comment about the universal scale of things. "I wouldn't bother pondering that too much. To the world, you may be but one person. But to one person, you might be the world. You do mean the world to me, Oss," Peregrine said cheekily before abruptly rearing onto his hind legs and throwing his arms about her shoulders in an attempt to give her a noogie, for old time's sake.

"Well, you still know the right words to charm ladies," Osprey blushed beneath her fur and looked away from Peregrine so that he did not see the tears welling up in her eyes. She was moved and didn't say anything for the next few minutes. 

"Tell me all about the chicks that have occupied the nest," she would likely not see them until they were adults and, when this thought came to her mind, she realized that she knew nothing of what had happened with the last batch either. "Even better - what came out of the last year's litter? All of them survived, I hope?"

It appeared Osprey needed a moment and, for an instant, Peregrine feared he'd hurt her somehow with his overpowering hug. He loosened his grip and slid away, head cocking silently. When he realized there was no pain or tension in her demeanor, he smiled softly and gave her cheek an affectionate nudge. He then backed off minutely, giving her some space.

When she spoke up again a moment later, he fell right back into the rhythm of conversation. "Not much to tell at this point. They're all great... well, except Ferret, our eldest. He's a little tool." Peregrine grinned fondly, despite the epithet. "As for the Firebirds 1.0, well, Raven took off, unfortunately, and nobody knows where or why. Although I heard she wandered in your direction before disappearing again...? And Wildfire recently moved to another pack. She actually came by the other day and mentioned you two had met." He smirked. "And Nightjar's still around here, kicking," he finished, unaware that the yearling wasn't actually far behind his sisters these days.

"You have to have one in each litter," Osprey replied, thinking about a very colicy and loud kid from the last year, and wondering, which one - Raven, Wildfire or Nightjar - had it been and where was he or she now. She was slightly disappointed not to hear more about the new guys, but probably there was little action in life of a newborn. The biggest drama at the moment could be not getting the meal on time. 

"I think we have met, but it was a while ago," she admitted seeing the girl, but she had met so many at the borders and beyond afterwards that her face had been forgotten by now. "Is it hard to see them go? Just to know, what should I prepare myself for."

He didn't even need to contemplate her question. "Yes," Peregrine replied simply. "If it was up to me, they'd all stick close to home, live out their lives here. I know that's not how it usually works. Even we," he continued, gesturing between them, "eventually flew the nest. Granted, we didn't do it on purpose like my kids did. But it's sort of the natural order, I guess. And, hey, I've got one out of three still here. And the others..." Because he counted Ty, Saena and Pura, of course. "Hopefully, they're out there spreading the legacy and whatnot."

The conversation was starting to feel a little one-sided, so Peregrine decided to make some inquiries of his own. "So, what sort of naming convention do you think you two will use for them?" he wondered, genuinely curious. "If you want to name one after me, I have no problem with that," he quipped, fondly recalling Osprey's initial objection to naming a child in her honor.

"I haven't really thought about it,"  Osprey shrugged. While it was still not certain, whether there were going to be any puppies this year, she had not planned anything beyond noticing the first,unmistakeable signs of pregnancy. "I see that the bird names are taken already," she said with a smile, though the idea of a naming a kid after a bird wasn't such bad. "Perhaps Roman names - I still remember some pretty cool ones from Aether's stories about his ancestors," when you started to think more about it, the possibilities were endless.

"Or fairy tales - if one looks particularly like having stepped out of an amazing tale. As for you," she smiled now, "we will see. If not this year then the next - definitely. Unless you name one of your kids after yourself before."

He and Fox really had cornered the market on bird names, hadn't they? Maybe even animal names in general. It was sort of their thing, not that Peregrine would have minded sharing and extending the tradition to his sister's family. But he liked the sound of giving them Roman names, honoring their father's legacy where Peregrine had favored their mother's.

Of course, he wasn't serious about Osprey naming one of her children after him, so neither was his next response: "I'll allow it." He snickered. "I have no plans to name one after myself. Feels way too damn narcissistic, even for me," Peregrine added with a snort.

"Hey," he said in the next moment, gently switching gears, "Lasher and I have a sort of standing date. I know that if all goes according to plan, you'll be housebound for a little while. But when you're mobile again, maybe we could plan to meet up every so often too? Even if it's just once or twice a year, it'll give me something to look forward to. I want to stay in touch better."

"Can there ever be a Peregrine too many?" Osprey replied with a joke and laughed, bumping her shoulder against his. Maybe one day, when she has had a lot of kids and run out of all the good and great names for them. It would be very likely then that she would turn to her family tree to reuse some of the names. 

She became silent after his next request, for she too wanted to stay in touch and not let the bond between them wither away. On the other hand she couldn't give any promises - life tended to throw the most surprising events in her way at the least proper moment. "I will think of something," she said eventually and looked her brother in the eye to show him that she meant it too. "Do you have to run back now?" she asked, since they had sat and talked for a while and perhaps he needed to take his share of caring fo the kids.