Moonspear surging unto skies of fire

@Charon, if you wouldn’t mind? Any of the Cerberus are welcome as well, particularly @Alya. I had rolled a success for a hunt for Cypress eons ago and never got to play it out, so I figured it’d be good to use it for this. Actually, anyone from the Ostrega immediate family would be welcome, but Charon in particular. ♥

Despite the Frostfurs’ intentions to visit Moonspear together, Cypress went alone to the great mountain where a certain blue-eyed girl and her blue-eyed sisters lived. He’d been thinking of @Alya increasingly lately as things had grown a bit stagnant for him in the vale. It was his own fault. His penchant for falling into a routine had set him in a state of ennui alongside Rian, and although they served @Rannoch as faithfully as ever, their presence in the pack had become less and less prominent as the summer wore on and started to simmer. He associated Alya with happiness and emotion, so he struck out quietly for Moonspear after leaving word with Rian and Rannoch that he was going on a jaunt for a couple of days.

His travel time doubled when he stalked and slew a young deer with an injured hind leg. Little more than a fawn, it was still heavy enough to make him pant raggedly, especially with the afternoon heat beating down on his cinder-black fur. He was winded by the time he reached the mountain’s skirts, and he took a few minutes of respite before throwing back his head and requesting an audience — particularly Charon, though secretly he hoped he might see Alya again before he returned home. It just seemed like the polite thing to do to talk to her father first and make sure it was still okay that he was showing up on their doorstep, gifts or no gifts. Anyway, he felt he had a lot to apologize for: coming here without Rannoch because he’d snuck out on his own, coming here so much later than he’d meant to —

— and maybe coming here at all.

Hydra was nearby when Cypress called. And immediately upon arrival, Hydra knew who this male was. Alya had never forgotten him, after all. She noted the carcass at his feet and blinked at it before picking up her pace to arrive before him. There was a moment she debated pretending to be Alya, but she felt as he had not seen her in so long, Alya ought to greet him as Alya today. 

Cypress, she greeted, tail aloft and ears erect. Hydra was Moonspears appointed Beta now, after all; she wore the title well. It's been a while. They were of two differing packs, though, and she understood what might take him so long. His visit made her wonder if they ought to visit the boys of the Vale... Hydra breathed in the scent of Cypress. Even from this distance, she recognized Rian's mingling with it.

♥♥♥!

The wolf who approached caused Cypress’ heart to lurch unnaturally in his chest, but she wasn’t carrying a leaf. It was hard not to be attracted to her anyway, but he managed to stow it, breathing it in and breathing it out. Lyra-or-Hydra greeted him with a mixture of familiarity and pride, and he responded in kind, his Southern belle of a mother reflecting in the honeyed drawl of his reply: “Hey. I’m sorry, but I’m not real sure whether you’re Lyra or Hydra,” he said, slow and easy, his own ears falling back against his skull and his carriage dipping from neutral to neutral-with-a-side-order-of-submission. He kept his eyes averted from the dominant female out of respect and made an attempt to explain his presence: “Hope it’s not a bad time. I met Charon awhile back and talked to him about an alliance; he used to be good friends with my mama. I should’ve come sooner, but we had some trouble with a bear and I was laid up for a time.” He caught his tongue between his teeth.

To be honest, Charon had sort of given up on Rannoch and Cypress ever showing up. He supposed that they had their own stuff to do, or maybe they'd travelled beyond the Teekon and had left it altogether, finding a place too far away to properly visit him. Whichever it was, he'd only been confirmed in his stance on alliances — that they didn't work because life got in the way of information exchanges and pack always came first — and so when the call came that day he was surprised above anything.

He made his way towards the borders but when he came closer, he noticed Hydra's scent was already mingled with that of Cypress. He hesitated a moment if he should go too, until he decided to step forward. He didn't catch much of their conversation so far, though questioning eyes were laid upon Cypress upon his arrival, who he greeted with no more than a curt chuff to announce his arrival.

Hydra appreciated his change in posture, now more than ever. His inquiry was met with a knowing grin; he wasn't the first, and he would not be the last to be confused. Hydra, she informed. As he forged on, Hydra tilted her head. Another alliance? Well, she was partial to the wolves of the Vale... this she did not mind so much as she did hearing from a complete stranger. And that they too had bear troubles... that was interesting. What happened? You're alright, now? Rian? She knew Alya wanted to know, and she was sensitive to his health too for her sister—Rians name fell from her lips and, after an embarrassed beat, she added, Rannoch? The others?

When her father arrived, she naturally deferred to him. They had some bear troubles too, it's why we have not heard from the Vale in some time, she was empathetic toward that, if only because they too had dealt with the pest and it had caused Terance to be laid up, too. She handed the reins to her father on this matter; she was Beta, but a "yay" or "nay" on alliances was ultimately his call.

“Hydra,” repeated the Frostfur with an answering half-grin, the left corner of his mouth remaining mostly static in its scarred, quirked-down state. “How’ve you been?” he questioned, answering her questions obligingly on the same breath: “Rian and Noch are doing fine,” he said, deciding that it was true, all things considered. He and Rian had faded into the background a bit when it came to Northstar Vale, but Rannoch was never without their love and support. The grayscale alpha suffered from time to time with stress and anxiety just as his brothers did, but that was a private issue and Cypress was inclined to be tightlipped about it. “It was one of our younger members,” he said, beginning his tale about the bear just before Charon entered the scene. He pressed stop and rewind on his thoughts, adjusting his posture again for Charon’s sake. Carriage dipped a little more, long tail swaying amicably. “Hey, Charon,” he said, a guttural rumble of greeting punctuating his verbal salutations.

“Yeah,” he said, catching the tail end of Hydra’s segue and playing off it easily. “One of our younger members stumbled upon a bear’s cache while we were traveling and, well, the bear didn’t take too kindly to it. Everyone got out safe, but I got a little beat up. I’m all fixed up now, though.” He nudged the deer carcass toward Hydra and Charon. “I brought this — I planned on comin’ sooner with Noch, but things’ve just been so busy. I’m real sorry.” He spoke quietly, calmly, as was his wont, but the tinge of regret in his voice was genuine. “If it’s still okay with Moonspear, he’ll be visiting in the near future. He probably would’ve come today, but I didn’t ask him along.” Cypress fell silent then, awaiting the judgment of the palefurred alpha and his darkling daughter.

Charon nodded approvingly of Cypress' dip in posture at his arrival. He had always been easy to please with appropriate submission and it relaxed him to know that the statusses between all of them were clear, that there was no hierarchy that needed to be fought out. He glanced at the small deer carcass that Cypress had brought, curious how Cypress had taken it down and from how far he had taken it here. As far as Charon could tell, he was alone, so he must've been lucky to find it. Either way, Charon was happy to have it and nodded appreciatively as it was nudged towards him and Hydra.

"Thank you, we appreciate it," he said, though he felt less than pleased at how long this update had taken, despite the bear trouble. This was why he didn't want alliances; but, he supposed, he had not promised their pack anything and so anything he did receive was all for free. Still, it was funny in a way that they had faced similar problems as Moonspear had. "We had bear trouble too," he shared, though he looked at his daughter to share what exactly had happened.

Alya had been rolling in the mud when Cypress's call reached her ears, much to the triplet's chagrin. She'd rocketed to the creek to wash herself off, and then spent several harried minutes shaking the water from her pelt. It wouldn't do to be seen in such a soiled state by either of her boyfriends, although she felt slightly more comfortable appearing imperfect in front of Cypress than in front of Nikai.

"I'm coming! Cypress - I'm here!" she called out as she ran toward the sound of his voice (and her father's, though that hardly registered to the love-struck girl). She burst out of the trees and straight into Cypress's side, where she happily, glomped against him, glad to feel their fur mingling once more. "You came to see me! I missed you so much!"

An ear flicked as she heard the voice of Alya. Without question she knew that her sister would come; she wondered if Lyra would, too. In the space between then and the present, Hydra, once prompted, told their story. Yeah, there was a bear that got between one of my younger sisters and the pack. It caused a bit of trouble, but we were all able to bring it down. Her triumphant end-note was complemented by the proud flick of her plume as she looked at her father. Hydra had killed it, alongside her family. They had even been able to eat some of it. Though it hadn't been her favorite of meals, vengeance had been sweet in more way than one. Galaxy was returned and recovering, and the bear was not something they needed to worry about any longer. 

It was then Alya dove into the scene. If the girl wanted to make things harder for Cypress, she had succeeded in one literal fell swoop. Hydra and Lyra knew of Alya's feelings for Cypress, and now their father surely would, too. Lyra did, too, she informed. Perhaps by making it look as though all three of them were fond of Cypress, her father might think Alya was just being her overly-friendly, exuberant self to Cypress. Alya gave her very little to work with on that front, but she had done what she could.

Cypress didn’t expect overt warmth from the cobalt-eyed alpha, especially when greeting a near-stranger at his doorstep, so he wasn’t particularly perturbed by the pale wolf’s taciturnity. Even without the alliance, the eidolon would still have attempted to curry favor and cultivate a relationship with Moonspear — Eshe had loved Charon, and Cypress craved a relationship with the older wolf after having lost his parents so young. Though he didn’t recognize it himself, he wanted badly to find a mentor of sorts. Unfortunately, his clumsy social mannerisms didn’t exactly make him a great candidate for that.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, immediately and genuinely. He responded to the saucy flick of Hydra’s tail with a fierce grin. “Good,” he rumbled, his tail lashing his hocks in shared triumph. “Did you guys — is everyone okay, or at least on their way to being okay?” Bears ruined everything. That was the gist of what Cypress was picking up here. He wished he had a similar story to tell about defeating the bear who’d terrorized the Northstar wolves, but he didn’t — and though he’d once been one for embellishing, he wasn’t anymore.

“I’m coming! Cypress — I’m here!”

The grin that still lingered on Cypress’ lips, lopsided due to the scarring at the leftmost corner of his mouth, twitched wider still. “Oof!” he grunted reflexively as Alya barreled into him, checking automatically for a leaf — but he found the girl unmistakable in her exuberance. Hydra and Lyra would never be this happy to see him, he reasoned; he couldn’t imagine why either of them would pretend to be, either. He didn’t even really know why Alya was so happy to see him — he wasn’t really anything special — but he couldn’t deny that he craved this reaction from her. “I missed you, too, darlin’,” he said fondly, looking a question at Hydra for her follow-up statement. Why would Lyra miss him?

Cypress was intelligent and sharp but largely guileless and he didn’t understand straight out of the gate that his affection for Alya was something he ought to hide. “I was just talking to Charon,” he said, also unaware that flattery might have been the way to go here. “He was friends with my mother.” He glanced toward the pale alpha again, his lantern-yellow eyes falling upon the male’s chest rather than meeting his blue eyes. A quick whisk of his tail bespoke his gratitude for the older male’s audience even as he plucked a stray piece of debris from just behind Alya’s ears with a deft twist of his muzzle.

Boldly and baldly, “I’m real glad to see you again,” he told her.

Charon frowned when one of his daughters came soaring past and glomped against Cypress' side. He hadn't realised that Cypress was so closely.. befriended to his daughters. He watched the scene unfold and it was clear from the look on his face that he wasn't too sure what to think of what was going on in front of his own eyes. He looked in scrutiny, although his thoughts weren't all that bad; he was thinking that if his daughters'd end up with someone (and though he'd rather they stay his little girls forever, he wasn't so naive or blind that he thought they never would) maybe it was for the better that it was one of Eshe's boys. They'd been related, he vaguely noted, but he didn't even know exactly how and if their relation was so watery then he didn't think it would matter much for their children.

"Darlin', eh?" There was a cool frown on his face, just because he wanted to see Cypress' face and wanted to know more about the situation between his daughter and Cypress.

Actually, now that Cypress was mentioning that he was friends with Eshe anyway, Charon said with a grin, "Yep, Cypress' mother Eshe and I were cousins." He looked at his daughter, wondering if that'd change her mind about this boy. He didn't continue talking until after long enough to freak out the yearlings gathered. ".. Or something like that. I think our fathers were brothers, or whatever." It was hard to remember because he had never really known his biological family, so notion of them was vague for him. After having said it Charon actually hoped it wouldn't pick his daughter all the way off Cypress; he still thought that if they'd end up with anyone, Eshe's boys were as good as any.

Although a shocked expression briefly crossed Alya's face, she could find nothing unpleasant about the notion of being related to Cypress. Rather, she focused in on Cypress's relation to Charon, and how it made him so much cooler. "Cy's related to you?" she asked breathlessly, somehow more attracted to him than before. She shot an excited glance in the male's direciton, but didn't linger long enough to catch his feelings on the matter. She was too busy having her mind blown by the sudden possibility of even more relatives. Her blood were her favorite people in the world, and her relationship with her mirror sisters superseded such petty things as romance and attraction; her love for them ran deeper than her bones, and if either of them were male, she would undoubtedly want one of them to eventually father her pups.

Alya had no notion of squick in this matter. She'd encountered no precedent for it in her short little life.

Yeah, we're good. Only one was hurt and he's recovering, other than Galaxy, but she wasn't attacked by the bear... just stolen by it. Still, that much was true. While his body was healed, his mind was on the mend. But he seemed confident in himself still, so perhaps he was just totally fine. She needed to check in on him soon, she decided. But with his sister among them, she figured she'd not hog him and give them all the time to catch up and bond. 

Hydra tilted her head at the display of Cypress toward Alya. Well, if Alya was alright with it... so too was she. 

As her father informed them of their relationship, Hydra blinked and grinned. She, too, was not bothered by this news and it did not put her off of what was inevitable. Cool, she said, looking to her father. And it gave both Rannoch and Cypress points in her book. Family was put above all else in her life. And it justified the extended protectiveness she felt over the Frostfur boy. Said possessiveness extended unto Rannoch, now. He was theirs, by proxy.

wrapping with a fade!

Charon felt a little sick the way Alya reacted to the knowledge that she was related to this boy. He cast the boy a stern look of warning, hoping that it would at least drive him away a little to know they were related. Well, he supposed, if anyone then maybe it might as well be Eshe's boys that his girls would end up with... But not yet. "Well, thanks for the visit," Charon cut short then, and he bid his farewell to Cypress before turning round, gesturing for the girls to follow him and not stay around here swooning.