Redhawk Caldera An only child of the universe

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a trio of royal pups. Well, actually, there was no royalty in their blood whatsoever, but the pack leader had every intention of abducting them and raising them as her own, which was close enough. Before that could happen, the pups were whisked away by their mother to find their father, who happened to be very dead, and they eventually settled into a routine along the coast not far from the Wilds. One day, the trio of pups was discovered by a bear while out hunting, and they scattered to three of the four winds in hopes of escaping. Wylla, as it turned out, had ended up very far inland and spent the next half-year trying to get back to the coast.

She was a damned good solo hunter by now, but still hadn't found the coast, and there was ice on the wind that told her she was running out of time at a rapid pace. Fine hunter or no, she wasn't equipped to live on her own in the harshest of seasons. The prey was easier to catch for a pack, but much harder for a wolf on their own. Wylla, stubborn though she was, knew this in her heart.

So she decided to petition the very first pack she found, whose borders she happened to be standing at presently. She stood there for a time, peering up at the strange flat top of the mountain with a quirked brow, before planting her skinny buttocks and tossing up a yip-yip of a howl for someone to come find her and graciously accept her with open arms. That was obviously what was going to happen.

Hoping to nab the spot that'll open up if Ben becomes a PPC, and if he doesn't, totally cool being turned away (or turned away period if she cops attitude)!

It made the most sense to leave the injured hawk with Raven while she did patrols, yet he refused to let Towhee out of his sight. Stupid bird, she caught herself thinking with an exasperated sort of fondness, wincing tolerantly at the stinging scratches littering her shoulder blades. He had gotten better about not digging his talons in too much, yet it would still take some time for them to perfect his posture. Regardless, she had to admit that she felt really cool, strutting around the place with a red hawk on her shoulder, even if he did have a busted wing.

It slowed down her patrols significantly, however, as she was entirely too conscious of her extra cargo and putting a ridiculous amounts of effort into not unseating him. "You know," she said, coming to a sudden stop, "I can't let you slow me down like this. Either we figure out how I can move quicker without you falling off and/or gouging me, or I'm going to have to leave you behind next time." Towhee wasn't entirely sure how much he understood, yet he must comprehend somewhat as he clicked his beak unhappily. "Raven says your wing should be better in a few weeks, then you can fly overhead. In the meantime, though... buckle up, buddy."

And without any further warning, the she-wolf dug her toes into the ground and darted, a trot speeding up into a lope and eventually turning into a full gallop. She felt the pinch of his yellow talons and a weird pressure against the bones of her shoulder, yet it wasn't intolerable. Towhee experienced jolts of alarm now and again as she felt him swaying precariously but he seemed to compensate and, anyway, she refused to temper her pace. Patrols were already grueling enough without taking twice the time to complete.

When they'd gone quite a stretch without the hawk flying off and crashing to the ground, Towhee skidded to a stop and whooped, "Giddyup!" in an overly loud voice that resembled a donkey's bray. She received a screech in return; she didn't hear it but she felt the slight vibration through his feet. She turned to grin fiendishly at him, only for the hawk to refuse to return her gaze. He was staring at something in the distance. His beak opened again and he gave her a telling squeeze.

"Ow, don't f—" she began, only to whip around and spot the dark wolf planted on the borders about two hundred yards ahead.

A chill wind blew past the short-coated she-wolf's shoulders, drawing a shiver from her core. She glanced narrowly up at the flat mountaintop again, wondering in spite of herself what had caused that. Natural phenomena were so far beyond her fathoming that something like a mountain literally blowing its top never occurred to her. Her eyes traced along the light-limned lip, noting a chip on one side that was begging to be viewed from above. In that moment, Wylla made the decision that she would see it whether or not this pack formally allowed her to.

She readjusted her posture and scanned the mountainside, starting when she noticed a dark form racing down the slope in roughly her direction. Wylla often met situations head-on with a hearty dose of sass, but the sight of a wolf barreling directly for her was enough to make her shrink back and flip her ears to the side. She didn't realize Towhee was running for reasons not related to her at all, and that only became clear when the wolf suddenly stopped and brayed the most horrendous sound into the air, causing Wylla's ears to flatten fully.

She noticed the hawk at exactly the same moment that Towhee noticed her, and squinted incredulously. "What the hell?" she blurted aloud, rather forgetting her decorum in the moment, but fortunately, the combination of bafflement and uncertainty painted a convincing enough picture of submission. Was this a pack of nutjobs or what?

The stranger's mouth moved, though Towhee certainly couldn't read lips from this distance. "Hang on," she said to the hawk whose talons dug into the skin behind her shoulder blades. A second later, she was running again, making a beeline straight toward the outsider, who went from a nondescript smudge to a svelte pewter she-wolf with yellow eyes that distinctly reminded Towhee of her older sister, Raven.

She braked to a halt so suddenly that the raptor clinging to her was flung forward and forced to flap his single good wing in order to avoid being thrown. "Sorry!" Towhee yelled, feeling distinctly out of sorts having to divide her attention between the outsider and the—stupid freakin' bird, she thought irritably as he managed to situate himself again.

Doing her best to ignore him now, Towhee's orange eyes pierced the gray(scale) wolf and barked, "State your name and business." Unbeknownst to her, the hawk punctuated this demand with a loud hiss.

Well this was certainly a new and unusual sight. Wylla's squint grew narrower and narrower as Towhee closed the gap between them, nearly unseating the very out-of-place hawk in the process. She quickly surmised that they must have gotten stuck together somehow, though strangely enough, neither wolf nor hawk seemed overly distressed about it. The wolf—larger than she by a good margin with very distinct red and white markings that would be impossible to forget—even shot an apology over her shoulder at the bird, which made Wylla's ears fall back once more.

"Uh, what the heck is—?" she tried to loudly ask, but was cut off by the brusque command of the pack wolf, followed by the hawk's own iteration. Her eyes darted between the pair of them as Wylla tried to decide which of them deserved a withering look more, but she remembered herself and where she was long enough to answer, "Wylla. I'm, uh, looking to talk to the leader...?" Though if said leader arrived with a bird on their shoulder too or, heaven forbid, this was the leader, then she didn't know what to think. She wasn't really in the market for a weird hippy "food is friend" freak-fest pack.

The stranger thought it prudent to ignore the command and question her in turn. After a beat, Towhee decided she couldn't really fault her, could she? How many wolves showed up at the borders with a hawk attached to their backs? It must be an incredibly strange sight. With that said, she raised her head a little, proud of her little mascot.

"Before you can speak to a leader, you have to get through me," the mercenary said in her flat, clunky intonation. "What's your business with Redhawk Caldera?" she pressed again.

What a self-righteous, conceited, stuck-up little bitch, was Wylla's prevailing (unfair) thought when Towhee refused to call a leader and chose to press the issue. Wylla didn't know the first thing about how some packs worked, what mercenaries were, or why some kid roughly her own age had the balls to act like a leader in her own right. Lusca would have smashed Wylla's face into the ground for being so audacious back home, which hadn't stopped her from growing up to the self-righteous, conceited, stuck-up little bitch she seemed to think Towhee was, but that was there, and this was here. She didn't have the luxury to be a jerk, even though all she wanted to do was tell Towhee to get lost so she could talk to someone who was actually important, having no knowledge of Towhee's own well-deserved importance. So she mustered a smile with her teeth pressed together so tight it made her jaw hurt instead.

Wylla shot another glance up at the hawk, weighed her options, then decided that if this pack turned out to be full of lunatics with pet birds, she could eat all their prey pals for easy free food before she was kicked to the curb. "I want to join," she said, as plainly as she could put it. "I'm a hunter," at least that was honest, "but I can do pretty much anything else you want, too, 'cause I'm pretty awesome that way."

It struck her as odd that a perfect stranger could appear at their doorstep seeking to join. Did Wylla know the first thing about the caldera? She must; otherwise, why would she want to toss herself into the ranks? What did she know then? Rather, what did she think she knew?

Before she could ask, Wylla made a remark that sidetracked the young mercenary. "Anything else?" Towhee retorted. There were so many ways she could toy with such a declaration, yet she didn't have time for games. "If you're a hunter," she continued, "then prove it." She arched her neck to glance at the hawk sitting stoically astride her left shoulder blade now. "Are you hungry?" The hawk made no reply but Towhee faced Wylla again and said, "Make a kill and bring it back here. We'll wait."

"Sure," Wylla replied with a swaggering confidence. Hunting was the only thing she was actually good at or cared for besides kids, which was one thing she would never admit, so for once her arrogance was at least semi-deserved. Wylla's sense of humour threw an unfortunate wrench into what could otherwise have been a smooth demonstration of her one and only skill, for she flicked her muzzle at the bird riding up on Towhee's shoulder and said, "just put him down and you'll have your kill."

Before she could have her face ripped off for that comment, since she got the sense Towhee kind of liked her weird food-friend, the vagabond hastily added, "kidding!" then swung away from the Caldera to strike out into the field beyond. Assuming that Towhee didn't plant a pair of teeth in her ass (because that would make her leave and never return), Wylla was going hunting.

It took a lot longer than she wanted. The two jackrabbits she scared up got away from her easily—the second was a narrow miss, but enough to make Wylla curse loudly at it—so in the end, she returned to the borders almost an hour later with two plump gophers swinging from her jaws. Even with two, there was less meat than one jackrabbit could provide, and gophers were hardly a great demonstration of Wylla's capabilities, but she had done as asked, so she figured it was good enough. She sincerely hoped the meat would not be going to the stupid hawk, since she was also hungry and could use it herself, but as she approached, she knew she had no say in that and had to suck it up no matter what if she wanted a pack to survive.

If Towhee would be offended enough to bite her, you can assume the hunt never happened—and if Towhee would have left the borders due to the length of time described, you can also assume Wylla howled again!

Because Wylla redirected her muzzle, Towhee nearly missed the comment, though it was easy to decipher even if she didn't catch it word for word. She debated between baring her teeth or rolling her eyes. "Ha, ha," she eventually rejoined, voice as dry as ever, which worked especially well in this case. She decided to go ahead and do both (bare her teeth and roll her eyes) as she added, "We don't have all day."

When the loner turned away to complete this task, Towhee said, "We might be here awhile. Why don't you get d—" Before she could even finish her sentence, the hawk had dismounted, bouncing onto the ground with an ungainly flap of his good wing. He folded both wings together and looked up at her, clacking his beak. Towhee stared at him, wondering if he was trying to speak, and then noticed the tufts of black fur stuck in his toenails.

"Man..." she said pointlessly, dropping to her haunches and trying to arch her neck far enough to inspect her shoulders. She couldn't, of course, and nearly hurt herself in the attempt. "I'll have to have Raven look at it later," she remarked, looking at the hawk as she spoke, wondering again how much he could understand. Towhee continued to stare at him—and he continued to gaze steadily back—in silence so long that their little staring contest only ended when Wylla reappeared sometime later.

The guardian eyeballed her catch with critical eyes, though she made no comment on the size or quality of the kill. She only said, "Give them here." When that was (presumably) done, she tossed one to the hawk, rearranged the other one between her forepaws and sent up an absolutely stentorian summons for @Elwood and/or @Finley.

Wylla couldn't believe her eyes after she dropped the rodents for Towhee's inspection, and she couldn't stop herself from saying, "dude, what the hell?" when the pack wolf tossed the perfectly good meat to the bird. Selfish as she was, it was hard enough for her to part with her spoils for the benefit of anyone but herself, but it was easier to swallow the notion that it might feed others of her kind. Wylla was very food possessive, but at least giving to the pack meant the pack would help her in turn. To see good meat wasted on a non-wolf that would do absolutely nothing in return for it twisted a knife in her gut. She was just desperate enough for a group to survive the winter with to drop her head down and pull back her ears, remembering her place as a complete stranger and subordinate, but her teeth ground together audibly.

She fought against the prickling sensation of tears in her eyes as her frustration built. Must be nice to live such a cushy life you can just waste food like that, you ingrate, went Wylla's very dramatic inner monologue as she fixed an icy stare on the hawk that was picking at one of the gophers, but you'll never take a morsel of food from my mouth again, or I'll kill your little pet and you along with it. She sucked a deep breath in through her nostrils, willing herself to calm down enough that she didn't just scream at the leader that showed up following the heinous sound that bleated out of her companion's mouth.

No wonder she's such a selfish swine, Wylla thought sourly as she stared down at her toes, she's not even a wolf.

S'hard to write so much irrational teenage angst hate from Wylla when I really like Towhee hahah.

Elwood couldn't help but wince when he heard Towhee's howl. No matter how much she tried, she was simply unable to improve because of her hearing loss. And no matter how many times Elwood was exposed to the sound, he could never quite get used to it. Nonetheless, he hastened towards the borders, and there he found his goddaughter, her new avian companion, and an outsider.

While he was always willing to welcome family back into the fold, he typically approached strangers with more reserve; not Towhee's open hostility, but a cautious hesitation. Since Wildfire's attack, however, he was more defensive of his home -- and for good reason. While the petite she-wolf did not look like she could cause much trouble, he was somewhat mistrustful; but because Towhee hadn't attacked her, he relaxed slightly. Still, his head and tail were raised and the friendly smile that usually adorned his lips was missing.

"Who is this?" he asked, gaze shifting between the two young females. He glanced briefly at Towhee's hawk, frowning as it snapped up some fresh meat eagerly, but he quickly looked back at his Delta.

There was a look of horror on Wylla's face as she watched the hawk eat the dead gopher. Towhee felt a little smug, though the feeling quickly turned to agitation when her godfather promptly appeared and gave the hawk the same dirty look. The guardian immediately felt defensive of the bird and stepped toward him, making a silent signal for him to resume his post on her shoulder now that he was done eating. She left the other gopher behind, so it now lay at Elwood's feet.

She felt biting words shoving against the back of her teeth, which she clenched against them. -She's a hunter. She brought these. She threatened my hawk and I don't like the way she's looking at him.- Towhee signed to her godfather, mentally adding, I don't like the way either one of you is looking at him... -I'm sure she can fill in the rest.- Since we're clearly not welcome here...

The young guardian glanced at Wylla, then woofed a perfunctory farewell note to both wolves before turning away. She gnashed her teeth as she strode along the borders, the by now familiar weight rocking gently on her shoulders, surprised at her own attachment to the hawk and the vexation her uncle's simple look had in particular incurred.

Wylla sat in silence—awkward silence, if you asked her—until Elwood's arrival, refusing to look at Towhee or her piece-of-shit bird. She kept her gaze averted and ears down until the sound of paws on the slope drew her eyes beyond the "spoiled" adolescent to a handsome older fellow draped in shades of grey. They could have been family. Elwood's yellow eyes were a shade sunnier than hers and his patterns were more layered rather than mottled like hers, but he could have passed for her father if he wanted to. He wasn't, but he was a hottie, and Wylla passed a grin up at him that oozed interest. She parted her lips to introduce herself—

—and blurted, "What is wrong with you?" with a sharp glare as Towhee began to dance around like some kind of freak instead of answering the handsome devil's question. Wylla pursed her lips, watching carefully, but Towhee's reply never came. Instead, she concluded her freak show and walked away as if nothing had ever happened, ignoring Elwood's question entirely. What the actual fuck, she wondered, but her eyes went back to Elwood and she sighed through her nose. Towhee hadn't answered him at all, but Wylla had a voice that worked properly, and she wasn't afraid to use it.

"My name's Wylla," she said, notably more submissive and soft-spoken now than she would have been if Towhee had continued to pester her or even if Towhee had remained present. "I'm a hunter and I want to join. But I ask that my food go to other wolves. I don't hunt for damn birds."

Elwood watched as Towhee gestured to the bird and it moved deftly to sit upon her shoulder. It was odd, but he didn't comment on it, although the tightening of her jaw didn't go unnoticed. Hawk aside, she answered Elwood's question, speaking wholly in ptero -- which wasn't usually her practice in front of strangers. Her response was short and clipped, even in sign language, and lacked the detail that he had anticipated. Before he could ask her anything further, she glared at the other female and then departed.

His ears had tilted towards the unfamiliar girl at the sound of her stunned query while Towhee "spoke," but he didn't turn his attention to her until his niece had taken her leave and Wylla had introduced herself. His brows raised and he found himself feeling a little defensive of Towhee (perhaps the same way she had felt just now about her bird). The outburst certainly wouldn't earn Wylla many points, although Elwood did recognize that she was young; likely not too much older than Towhee.

"Her name is Towhee, and she's deaf. She communicates with sign language," he said, pointing towards Towhee's retreating form with his snout. "The bird isn't your concern. I can see that you're a skilled hunter -- but you've already gotten off on the wrong foot with one of my guardians. Why should I trust you?" he asked.

When Elwood explained the reason behind Towhee's weird behaviour, Wylla balked, but not because she was shoving all four of her paws in her mouth. In fact, she had no idea what deaf was and mistook it for a disease. Explains a lot, she thought venomously. Hope it's terminal.

She was careful to keep her expressions guarded from her inner dialogue, but her tongue was another matter. "Look, she was rude to me first, so if you wanna pick a bone about getting off on the wrong foot, you should talk to her. I didn't do anything wrong." Being a pack wolf was not a free pass to be a total dick to lone wolves in Wylla's mind. Loners had it hard and worked hard for their survival; they deserved respect as much as anyone else. She hoped that Elwood at least could get that, even if a spoiled pack brat like Towhee couldn't.

"Plus, I'm literally starving here," she went on, gesturing to her rawboned figure, "and she went and gave my food that I caught to prove myself to a bird. Sorry if that hit a nerve. But I am a good hunter and am willing to help feed your pack in exchange for somewhere to stay. You can decide for yourself if I'm trustworthy once you know me better, and likewise." She wanted to be given asylum, but she wasn't going to beg for it, not from hottie and certainly not from Towhee. Wylla wasn't the groveling sort; in fact, she was already being too honest and straightforward than she was used to because she was fired up.

I wanted Wylla to stay OOCly, but Elwood thought differently, haha! Sorry! <33

Wylla's rejoinder didn't necessarily surprise Elwood. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that Towhee had been less than friendly with an outsider, and he couldn't say that he agreed with feeding Wylla's catch to the hawk. But things in Redhawk Caldera were tense as of late, and the last thing he needed was internal strife. A few months ago, Elwood probably would have given Wylla the benefit of the doubt and allowed her the chance to see if she could get along with Towhee. But at this point in time, he knew that everyone in his pack needed to be on the same page.

He did feel bad, but he put his foot down firmly. "I'm sorry, but I don't think my pack can offer you the security that you need," he said, shaking his head. There was much more he could have said, but he remained close-lipped about the war brewing on the horizon. "There are other packs not far from here that may be able to benefit from your hunting skills, but stay away from the forest to the east. Good luck," he added, but remained rooted to the spot in order to ensure that she took her leave.

Wylla's stare went from blank to completely deadpan when Elwood closed the door of his pack in her face, just because they were too weak to provide security or something like that. She childishly blocked out everything else he said afterward and continued to stare until well after he was done, flabbergasted. Who the heck up and admitted that their pack wasn't secure like that? It was like telling a stranger that there were no locks on your vehicle and the key was in the ignition.

"You're right," she decided haughtily after a moment, turning on a dime and strutting away without another word. She felt a little like she'd dodged a bullet with that one, what with the leader practically telling her to her face that the pack was weak. What kind of idiot was he, anyway? Oh, right, he let his wolves give food to birds. Thinking about it stoked a fire in her breast all over again. Speaking of which...

"I hope that bird eats your pack's babies, you sack of shit!" she rudely called back over her shoulder before breaking into a flat out run away from the caldera.

Elwood blinked after Wylla as she took her leave with a few carefully selected parting words. Her shouted farewell only solidified the fact that he had made the right decision. She was young and hot-headed and certainly not the right fit for the caldera. While she was obviously offended, he had bigger things to worry about than her hurt feelings.

He stood motionless, waiting until the fleet-footed yearling was out of sight, then he marked the borders and continued on his way.