Fox's Glade and I don't feel no remorse, and you can't see past my blinders

@Dakarai

The girl made quick work of the carcass she'd found, not there had been much to it. She'd chanced upon it early that morning, the clearing tainted heavily with the scent of cougar. The cat must have brought the deer - as she'd determined it to be after an examination of the skull - down in the past few days, and had been returning intermittently to eat its fill. By the time the shadow finished with it, it was little more than hooves and a skull, which she'd cracked open with some difficult to gain access to the tender bits within. Bones scattered the clearing, along with numerous prints and tracks. These attracted her gaze now as slowly, she stood. Surely one of them out to be fresh, and proved a more filling meal than the deer, which bordered now on carrion. Giving a stiff shake of her pelt, and moving to a promising line of tracks, she began her inspection of those nearest the deer.

After all the happenings as of late and the feeling of wrongness that had settled over him, he'd begun to patrol outside the territory of Bearclaw Valley. He carried Onyx's scent and that of the pack upon his fur heavily to alert any loner that approached that he was a pack wolf. As he entered the hollow, the gentle breeze blew to him a scent of a female. It held familiar undertones and he breathed it in, immediately on guard though he stepped forward to follow it. Ahead he spotted the shadow furred girl shaking out her pelt beside a carcass holding little more than bare bones. Giving a low whuff to announce himself he continued forward, not able to place how he knew the scent quite yet.

Her head twisted upward to find in her sights a dark-furred man, the dull winter's light revealing his eyes to be an oddly striking blue. For a moment, her ears pricked warily, before realizing that he must be here for the same reason she was. "there's nothing left," she offered, moving to rise as she surveyed the stranger. A brief test of the air revealed pack scent, along with the particular strong scent of another, stranger to her too. Surely a pack wolf was not here to pick at carrion as she was, which led quickly to the question - what did he want. This she did not voice, instead, she regarded him silently, mirroring his own caution.

She turned upward to look at him and in that moment the recognition hit hard. Those eyes...green just like her mother's but so much more vivid. He breathed in her scent as he just stared, wide eyes and stricken. His daughter.....his daughter was before him alive and beautiful and looking healthy enough. She spoke but he didn't respond right away. He wasn't sure what to do here....she didn't seem to recognize him. He wanted her to, but he also feared what she'd think of him. So instead he shook his head "I am not here to eat....I was just patrolling the area." his voice finally came back to him as he took a step forward, studying her with a sad yet curious expression. His daughter....she was so beautiful. "You're beautiful....just like your mother Cassiopeia." he finally summoned the nerve to make it known. He'd rather know how she felt and move on rather than be a coward and not tell her who she was.

her gaze narrowed as he stared, wide-eyed, and her hackles shifted with irritation as she recognized the recognition in his eyes. to be recognized and yet not recognize in return bothered her greatly, and not even the noisy arrival of a pair of grey jays could shift her gaze away from the male, brow furrowing as she attempted to elicit some similar response yet coming up empty. 

the birds - brazen as they were - moved down to pick at the carcass as he finally made his explanation, though Cassiopeia was only made more wary by his hesitation. his next expression had her ears flick, for she did not understand and wondered briefly if this were some Moonspear wolf. his next comment, however, had her lips curl as soon as the words left his maw. to have some infuriating stranger call her beautiful crossed the line, and she leaned forward a fraction, gaze hardening.

she was stalled only by his next words, and she faltered, ears flicking in confusion and annoyance. "who are you?"  the question was half a query and half a demand, and she veered near simply leaving the male behind. and yet she was stilled, kept mostly by the vague recognition in her gaze that, infuriatingly, was unable to match the male's face with any of the shadowed memories of her youth.

She went from wary to wary and fierce in seconds and he almost flinched back. Admiration and pride wer the emotions felt beside sadness and the mild hurt that she hadn't recognized him yet. He supposed maybe it was easier for a parent to remember their child than it was for a child to remember a parent that hadn't been around much at all. As she leaned forward and snapped the question he lowered his rump to the ground and hesitated. Here's where it could go very wrong. "Dakarai Svartell....I'm your father." he answered honestly, still looking at her with fascination. He could see that she was already pissed off, but he couldn't help himself. He was afraid if he looked away that she would disappear like an apparition.

she did not expect him to give the answer he did, and yet some small part of her did. she wavered, a moment, between interest and anger, and for a long while she was silent. only the chattering of the grey jays filled the silence, and even they, when finally she shifted sideways, fluttered off to lurking in the nearby branches. "my father is dead." she knew she did not mean the words when they left her maw, not completely, though there was dull anger in them still. "he died when he left us." unfair still, and this she knew, but she was not interested in being fair. selfish, surely, for her own departure from Moonspear had not been warranted. 

she did not utter the words, but the gaze and it pierced through the space between them was blunt, and questioning, enough. aries had joined blackfeather, her mother - she'd been the last to stay. she did not know what had become of sirius, and wondered if the faded memories of him were even real, sometimes. she had not had the time to ask her mother.

The sadness in his eyes dulled and changed to something more akin to anger at her words. Yet that too died out until he sat there almost expressionless and dropped his head. "My life as your father died the day Olive abandoned me for the gods."He said in an almost tired voice. He was getting tired of the aching that started every time he thought of Olive, every time he dared to think of the way she used to look at him, or pictured their children. It hurt too much, to know that Cassiopeia as well as Olive blamed him for everything while he blamed it on his sweet Anthousai's betrayal of his devotion. "I was beaten,bloodied,starved,kicked in the head for that woman...I made sure you and Aries got to Moonspear safe...that she would have a good life. Yet she chose invisible beings in the stars over my utter devotion. She pushed me away. She caused me to run from Moonspear that night." the mutterings began in a hushed voice at first but suddenly he lifted his head, eyes fierce.

"I was coming back. I was only going to blow off steam, but the storm misguided me and I ended up falling to the sea, almost dying, and washing ashore somewhere I didn't know. Yet your mother chose to believe I'd abandoned her. After everything,the blame was placed on my shoulders. You were raised to believe I abandoned you. But really it was she who abandoned me, who broke me!" his voice almost raised to a shout as he released all his pain onto her ears. When he realized what he'd said he huffed a sigh and stood up turning away. "Perhaps it's better for you to continue to pretend I died. It's easier for everyone that way. Your mother...she didn't intend any of this. Neither did I. We loved you all, even Sirius who was forced to stay behind. We loved you and we messed up." he continued to stand turned away from her. He would give her a chance to respond before once again leaving her behind and heading away. It was official now, Olive and his children were to be put behind him. The story of star-crossed lovers and their star born children was to come to an end here and now with his painful reunion with Cassi.

she knew her mother's devotion to the gods, and yet could not suppress a forced snort. "no. you could have stayed, for me, at least. you died when you fled." her gaze flashed with growing anger as he tried to cover his own mistakes, tail shifting behind her. "you're a coward." in some ways, his story mirrored hers; taken from their fractured little family. she wondered, then, if the gods her mother loved so were, in fact, more than minor beings she'd never paid much mind to, and if so, what fault they found in her family. but she was spared delving deeper into the thoughts by her father's continued words, and gradually, her gaze grew to the same intensity it had upon meeting her brother in the shadow-streaked cave. by some miracle, her anger did not snap as it had then, though she wondered briefly how she could have ever loved such a coward.

but it was his final words that had the hackles rise along her nape, her gaze to bore into him with an intensity. "don't pretend it's easier for me to think you dead. we're your mess up, and you'd rather cut us away and start your better life with whatever bitch's scent is so thick on your fur." her gaze burned with the same green fire she'd regarded her brother with so long ago, and here was that fragment of her old self, reemerging once more. "it doesn't work like that, father. you don't get to cut out the parts you don't like." for once, she felt an odd sense of pride in her terrible messed-up self and her family, the one her father would rather have never existed. she realized now that she'd rather accept all the twisted parts of herself than be a coward like the stranger before her.

an ugly snarl grew low and deep in her throat, and the wild, dark anger that had grown steadily during her time in the wood reared its head, and she stalked after the retreating form of the man she'd once called da. unfairness, anger and disgust coiled in her chest, and she knew she could not let her father simply walk away. "coward." the decree was hissed moments before she moved, fangs poised to grasp her father's hind leg as she lunged, determined to make her father's final departure as messy as she could. it was an action driven by some of the same anger she'd sen upon meeting her brother, and yet this was clearer, more direct.

and this time, the shadow knew how to fight. 

It would seem that she didn't hear the part where he said he was going to come back before the storm took him away, or perhaps it was easier for her to be angry at him and believe that he had abandoned them. Even so any desire he held within him to be back with Olive and gather up their children died the moment she called him a coward. His eyes went void of emotion despite the sharp throbbing ache in his chest that made him want to weep. 


He was fully prepared to play the part of the cowardly father and run away until she called Onyx a bitch. Then some ungodly amount of anger made him livid and he whirled to face her just as she came toward him.  As her fangs wrapped around his foreleg he too lunged, jaws seeking out the side of her throat where he would bite and pull her away from him if successful. He too had been in many fights and while he would never kill her, he'd definitely wound her until she was forced to hear what he had to say. "If your mother is so perfect did she tell you that I came back? That I came back dying but still trying to fix shit?!" he shouted in her ears, voice bellowing with rage. Granted he'd once again vanished during a hunt, having been forced into shelter during a storm and then collapsing ill before he could return. Perhaps these God's olive loved so much, were to blame for all the mishaps that had kept him from returning no matter how hard he tried.

her fangs hit their mark, sharp ivory tearing through fur and skin before her head was wretched to the side, her father evidently being more prepared for her attack after she'd called whichever scent lingered in his fur a bitch. it only served to fuel her anger, for it seemed almost comical the way her slimy father tried to sever his past life to make easier his next. fangs caught in her scruff, tearing as they tore her head away from his limb. she ripped away from his touch, feeling the sharp burn as her flesh tore but paying it no heed. 

she moved back, hate simmering in her gaze as she paced stiffly around him as he yelled. "none of us are perfect. but you-you're a filthy coward" her stiff words broke as again rage spurned her onwards, a thousand angry questions crashing against the confines of her mind as she rushed him, jaws agape as she moved to strike at his face, tear at it with fang and claw.

permission given to pp

She was to angry and he knew he'd have to put her down to be able to get away. This hurt him more than physically, his breathe wheezed from his lungs and eyes moistened with tears. Perhaps she was right. He was a coward. Yet hadn't he done what he could? He'd provided for Olive and the children, kept staying around Moonspear even after olive had originally turned him away because he knew she needed help with the kids and he loved them. Even dying and scared of being turned away, he'd crawled from the coast back to cassiopeia's view to find Olive. Even not fully healed and weakened he'd gone off to hunt for his ex wife. Yes he'd originally ran, but he'd also done what he could to come back. 


As he watched her pace he saw her muscles tense and sighed. She was too obvious in her rage and as she went for his face he ducked underneath her throat and clamped his jaws down around her windpipe. He held tight but didn't squeeze enough to cause damage and once he secured his grasp he twisted and shoved her down to the ground, moving with her till he stood over her using his weight to hold her down. He gave a warning growl and a squeeze of his jaws that would cut off her air before loosening his grip "I may be a coward but you don't know the full story. You don't know what your mother did to cause me so much pain that I wanted to run. You only see what your anger and what you've experienced allows you to focus on, Because you are a child. It sickens me. My children remind me of blackfeather wolves and one has even become a blackfeather. Letting darkness and pain and rage guide their actions instead of seeing the full picture." he growled the words into the fur of her throat, his eyes now brimming with tears of both anger and pain. 


The stench of her blood made him fall silent and he peered at her throat, horrified to see blood seeping from it. Yet he wouldn't let her up and to prevent her from moving he placed a large forepaw against her throat and pushed as he released his jaws to speak. "This woman you smell on my fur is someone I am protecting from a very dangerous man. He raped and beat her. Her scent is on me because I sleep next to her,guarding her. She is my friend and yes, she is someone I love. Olive didn't want my love anymore, she is not my mate, I don't belong to her. Should I not move on? Should I always try to crawl back to a woman who doesn't want me, children who hate me? No. I will move on. I tried too long to win olive back. I'm not your father anymore, not because I died back there but because I choose not to be."  at that he felt himself break. His only purpose in living was Onyx now if he didn't have her to return to he'd figure out a way to kill himself. "I am leaving now. If you come after me, we will fight, this time to the death. I regret everything I caused for you, I regret what's become of this family. I regret having entered these lands at all. My romances should have ended with Oxsanas death."  with that tidbit he leaped off of her and wasted no time in bolting for Bearclaw Valley.

it was something vaati had taught her - rage did not allow the advantage in battle that she'd have thought it would. it lent her nothing besides making obvious to her opponent what she would do next, in this case, her father. he was bigger than her still, and her charge was only abruptly halted when he made for the underside of her neck, shoving her to the ground beneath him. she snarled, but the sound was abruptly cut off when he closed his jaws warningly, and the hate increased tenfold in her gaze as she struggled for breath a moment.

he called her a child, and she hissed through her tightened airway, blood pounding almost painfully. "I am not the child you left behind." She would have spoken further, but the dull pain suddenly snapped into focus, and breathe came harder, suddenly. her father wrenched back, instead pushing a paw onto her bleeding throat, and again she hissed, this time in pain. 

he spoke again, and this time she felt only disgust. "no. you failed, you messed up, and you don't have the guts to fix it. you just found another vulnerable woman you could feel powerful beside. you're disgusting." he regretted Olive, he regretted her, and she hated him with all she had. he lept off her, bolting like a frightened hare, and suddenly she could breath again, and the blood pounding in her ears didn't seem quite as loud. she moved to her feet, only to fall back onto her haunches, suddenly dizzy. the anger left her as quickly as it had come, and she stared dully after her father, mind tracing the steps of what had just occurred, staring sightlessly to where he'd vanished.