Hushed Willows I was angry with my friend

With a mother who feared and avoided his distaste for her, and pack mates who were otherwise too preoccupied with their own work and frisky winter travels to notice him go, it was not very hard for the child-wanderer, Kavos, to quickly and very suddenly disappear.

He was not led astray like his sister, and nor was he content to nobly behaving like his brother, so he wound up entirely on his own, having escaped The Crook between snowfalls in a coincidental bout of fortunate timing. The snow was difficult for him to move through, but the boy was dauntless in his progress; carrying with him the savage, survivalist spirit of his absentee father, and something more sinister even than that— something he had not inherited, but had been plagued with, by his mother's tortured and anxiety-ridden pregnancy. Her self-loathing had done her son harm even before he'd been born, and his calloused attitude was not solely due to a stunted emotional capacity for joy.

There was something wrong with young Kavos.

He kept close to the mountainside, feeling somewhat protected by the sheer rock wall, knowing (yet not knowing) that he could only be accosted from one side. Surely a primitive and underdeveloped instinct. It wasn't long before it began to snow again, and he pulled his tired body into a rocky shelf and curled up to sleep there.

An equal amount of fortune and misfortune befell him that night. He became snowed in the small alcove, trapped by a mound too large for him to shovel through himself, but he was also sheltered this way; shielded from much of the cold that could have easily taken his life. He mostly slept, and having no concept of time, he didn't know how long he was in there, but it was forever to him; and when he dared to be awake, he mostly thought of Tambourine: his only true bond within the Keep. Kavos wished and wished and wished that it would be him to rescue him— not that he wouldn't have been grateful for anyone to show up by this point..

He was aware of a uneasy sensation inside him, but could not perceive the stimuli that was most certainly pain; the severe pains of hunger and cold. His stomach was eating itself as surely parasites, but he didn't feel any of it. He only grew weaker and weaker by the hour, right up until his body simply began to react on its own to the inner distress by forcing him to whine. Like Pavlov's dog, he had been conditioned to know that sounds, distressed or otherwise, typically garnished him some attention... And he needed it now.

It had been three days.

With his own issues he hadn't truly thought to check in in the state of Amara and her brood. He'd just assumed the mother would be as watchful of her children as Octavia had been of Tambourine. Maybe it was harder with three. Maybe Amara just didn't care. Stark wouldn't know. It was purely coincidence that he happened along the sharp wall that formed one protective well of the Keep - Stark was doing his own little angry pacing, cutting the pack lands in haphazard ways. A sound made him freeze, tiny and meek and muffled. The alpha couldn't spot any tracks, not with the snowfall lately, but there was the faintest scent and it wasn't one he was personally familiar with.

Stark was a hunter though, on instinct and passion, and he slowly worked out the source of the sound just behind a bank of snow that the mountain itself seemed to place there. Stark was shivering by the time he dug through the embankment only to find one of the puppies. It wasn't Eros, wasn't the girl, which meant it was Tambourine's friend. Stark sunny hesitate to wrap himself around the puppy, giving a little sigh. 

"Kavos.. "  

The noise— the sound of snow being pulled away from the crevice— so close to him, was faint in Kavos' ears. And the light, once it struck him, almost didn't register to his eyes as brilliant and brightening air. What he felt most aware of was the wind; the stab of cold oxygen that raked along his body and bit into his wet nose like a wasp-sting repeating each time he took a breath. His thinned body heaved, trying to adjust to the fresh sensations, not quite aware of how much pain he was truly in. His nerves shot by both the cold and by his (so far) depraved upbringing.

He was too weak to pick his head up from between his paws, but he was able to slide his skull instead, pulling it over his arm so that he could look into the source of this change. Kavos wouldn't know it, but one of his eyes had begun to transition into gold.

There was a pit of black, haloed by sunlight and proverbial rainbows... Death. He didn't know anything about dying, not the concept of it or even the general semantics of how prey met its end, but he felt the sensation of knowing Death as surely as he felt his normal indifference and the brief stints of happiness he'd experienced with Tambourine and Banner. The boy swallowed, making slow, shallow breaths, not making a sound as he waited bravely for the beautiful shadow to envelop him.

Death wouldn't take the boy, not if Stark could do a thing about it. He thought first of wrapping himself around the boy and so he did, tail tucked around him as Stark tugged him close, all too aware of the gaunt body and sharp angles. "We'll get help Kavos, " Stark said softly, his head over the boys as he tried to give him as much sent as he could. He aimed his head towards the mouth of the little nook and called for his wolves, thinking of their strengths. @Talewi might be worthwhile for his injuries and his message was clear and urgent of injuries. He called @Banner, @Gwen and @Silas to bring food, @Tambourine to comfort him - knowing they were close.

He hesitated to call @Amara outright. Thinking of their last conversation he worried that she had left him there, maybe to die, maybe out of neglect. No alarm had been risen to her lost child, and there were, in fact two missing. Already the male had concerns about how fit she was to parent but had not risen them with her. Harlyn knew his concerns, maybe it was time to step in. It took a village after all. "Helps coming kiddo,"  Stark said quietly as he held the boy close, hoping that the pack would respond to the urgency in his call. 

she had assumed the boy had run away; truly, she had not cared. from the moment he could grasp emotion, kavos had hated her. within each passing glance and every dismissive glare, a calloused hatred bore within the young boy's eyes, shrinking into her like the weight of a thousand knives. in searching for her own self-validation, she had forgotten a boy who had never made one move to love her, even when she had tried. amara had struggled to prove her self-worth to others so many times before, she had stopped trying to impress a child that loved nothing but his own ideas of what kind of monster she was. 

however, she could not ignore the call of the alpha. with haste did small legs rush to meet the call; a call that was not intended for her. upon the scene did she smell the scent of blood and fear, a child. her child. was it relief she felt, to see his collapsed form, huddled by only stark? that the demon to plague her life 'till its end was vanquished and not by her own hand? amara was not so heartless no, however, it was not dire concern she felt for the boy but a muddle of emotions ranging from terror to confusion. jaw hung open, her eyes were unable to break away from the boy lain flat; until the blood from her head ran free and she surged forward, taking the boy in her grasp and comfort. it was an odd feeling of maternal instinct, so much so that subconsciously did she snarl Stark away, unable to think clearly but of one fact: this was her son, and her son was hurt.

sry, forgot to say, slight pp of kavos but lemme know if you'd like me to change it!!

He'd called urgently for food and so she obeyed.  Banner only allowed a fleeting moment to think that she hadn't heard such a a call from Stark before, but it was not her place to question him.  That - among other things - had been made very clear to her.  And so she galloped toward her brother on swift, short legs with a hare clenched gently between her jaws.

What she saw upon arrival was nothing short of bizarre.  Kavos!  Oh, poor little Kavos.. what had happened to him?  Banner approached the three wovles just in time for Amara to rush forth and snarl at Stark.  The hare fell unceremoniously from her mouth as her jaw went slack - what the hell?  Her ears pinned back against her skull a second later and she lowered her head while stalking angrily forward.  Part of her knew it was a rightful show of submission, but the other part of her saw only red and fell easily into defense mode.  Amara, she snapped, her voice much louder than usual.

he's just a weak little pupper, you guys can pull him around all you like ;D

As the shadow descended upon him, taking almost all light with it, so did it slowly take up a shape he thought he could recognize. Kavos watched as Death, an amorphous black specter, became wolf, and wolf became relief. The respite of seeing another of his kind flooded through him so heavily that his previously flaccid body suddenly tensed up with the pressure of all his unbidden emotions, and at last he began to shiver.

He was alive. He could feel.

A whine croaked past his dry palette, tongue curling reflexively as warmth began to shield his quivering body from the lashing cold. He shook tremendously, racked with uncontrollable shudders as his body recognized the opportunity to survive and remembered its will to live. He hardly heard anything except the howl, though he hadn't the strength to even wonder what the bereft music meant.

He could feel Stark's voice better than he could hear it, and he huddled instinctively into the man's body, eager to be caressed by the vibration of the alpha's body as he howled. The music stopped, but Kavos was becoming aware of things beyond this— other sounds and scents that he'd been senseless to just moments ago. His own tremors were only just subsiding when the body surrounding him tensed suddenly, and he found that he was being dragged away from the resplendent heat, only to have it replaced by something else.

Mother.

He knew her scent from his hatred of it. He knew Amara only as weakness, and sustenance, and displeasure. He knew her as fear. As sadness. And he knew, in that moment, that she loved him.

She enveloped him with her own body, and her presently feeble son was too worn to deny her. His repulsion was staved by his desperation for warmth, and so he burrowed into her, unable to force his body in any direction besides towards the heat source of the body nearest to him. He could not see Banner on the other side of his mother, but he heard her muffled voice from where his head had buried itself beneath Amara's armpit, and recognized it instantly. "B-B-Bann—" he chattered nonsensically, his own voice too quiet and strained to be made out for certain.

For a moment the boy curled into him and Stark was gentle as he nosed along the boy to tend to him. They waited together, the boy's motions feeble and Stark curled into the boy's tiny frame. He had to step in - how could he let Amara take the boy back when she'd let this happen in the first place? What if she'd wanted this? His thoughts kept circling to something far more sinister and though he didn't know the boy he knew he was a child. Stark worried that they might not be able to save him, and failing the puppy might be enough to push Stark over the edge. 

Surprisingly Amara was the first to arrive and she did so with a snarl - pulling the puppy from his grasp and into her breast. He hadn't realized Banner was there until he heard her say the woman's name so sharply and he bared his teeth at Amara, jaw clicking shut. "Don't push me," He hissed, looking from Banner back to Amara. "You didn't even tell anyone he was missing!" Because this couldn't have happened in a day, the puppy looked like he'd been suffering for weeks. 

Stark reached for the hare, nosing it towards Kavos. He ripped a couple pieces free for the boy before giving Banner an appreciative look. He couldn't stay mad at her forever, and especially not when there was something as important as the puppy's health at stake. 

Gwen heard the call, and she believed it must be urgent, so she headed through the territory and found Stark, a pup (She believed his name was Kavos - though she couldn't be completely sure, since she hadn't really met him), Banner, and Amara - at least she thought that was her name.
Gwen rushed to the crowed wolves, a rabbit in her jaws. She was late, she realized, but nobody would pass up the opportunity for prey, especially in the cold Winter months. "I'm sorry I took so long to get here...." She frowned, putting down the rabbit so someone could take it and eat it if they needed it.

An injury. of what nature, she hardly knew, nor was anything but the vague call provided. after a few minutes of nosing over the herbs she had amassed(mostly from the dens of the two past healers) she simply decided to take a small amount of each the basic herbs, and when her maw was full of a mass of faded greenery did she trot out of the den, moving carefully as not to drop anything (of course she did this all the same, and the time it took her to re-gather the herbs hampered her greatly).

she arrived a while later to the scene, Stark and Banner and Gwen, an agitated mother curling around a pup with which something seemed quite simply wrong. not knowing what to do, she lingered at the edge of the scene, gaze farming to stark, I ting for orders on what, exactly, to do.

the woman ignored the snarl of a woman who was not her alpha and did not answer the shout of a man who called judgement long before he had the right. instead, she concerned herself with only the boy and the boy only; all else did not matter enough to her and it shouldn't have. the mother nosed the boy over, searching for blood and cleaning it from the wounds she found. truly, she had no idea how he came to be in such a state. kavos had always been very clear about his independence, it seemed the headstrong boy was not all as resilient as he believed. perhaps, now, he would recognise his own mortality than live isolated from all that could ever love and care for him. 

amara willfully blocked out the shouting and the snarling as she had ignored the sneers for the wolves she had once sought to lead. instead, she held on to the boy closer, sharing her warmth with him with no plans on letting go.

Hurt flashed briefly in her bright green eyes when Stark lashed out first at her and then Amara.  Banner dipped her head even lower and took several deep, quiet breaths to calm herself.  Hours from now, alone and with only her thoughts for company, she'd realize that her brother had every right to react the way he had.  Her own struggles with her new place among the ranks - his ranks - were not his problem and she needed to respect that as quickly as she possibly could.

And just like that, the small voice of Kavos brought her back to Earth.  Was that.. did he say her name?  She could only hear the "Ba" for certain.  The rest of it mght have been her imagination hoping that they boy would remember their time together.  Her heart fluttered just a bit and she swallowed hard.  Hey kid, she replied in low, soothing tones.  Banner shut everyone out for a precious few seconds while she drew closer and strained to see his gentle little face.