Redhawk Caldera Misplaced hours

There was something about the late afternoons this time of year that drove him a little batty.  The light disappeared quickly, it was cold, and it was snowing just to make things even darker.  Annoying.  And here it was doing its trick again as Quixote wandered around the lower slopes without much aim to his path.  He was just debating whether heading off the territory at night to go recruiting was even a reasonable idea.  Certainly people were going to be bedding down for the night anyway, so maybe his first trips would have to start in the morning.

So.  Now what?

Honestly, he had no idea.  He could go get a snack or something.  Or just go sleep.  But he was awake and probably would be for a while longer.

HAAAI!!

Sebastian was limping through the territory. He made sure to stay on the evened out lands of the territory as he would probably slip and fall on three legs and the snow. The male tried to stay moving but pressure on his leg still made the deep gash on his shoulder bleed again. Sometimes he let it bleed because he knew as a medic that bleeding would clean the wound. It would only look so... gore-y. Today was no exception as the shoulder started to bleed, coloring his leg red.

Sebastian was out for a meal. He hoped to have a meal from the caches before he would have some more rest. However, he didn't think about the fact that he needed to dig, and the ground was pretty hard. Luckily for Sebastian, he ran into a pack mate. He was not sure if he met him before but still. "Hi there! Could you possibly help me with digging for a meal in the caches?," he asked the dark-colored male. If Andalusia was here then she could have helped him but he hadn't seen her in awhile now...

Quixote recognized him from the meeting regarding the war, but they hadn't exactly spoken.  Though he wagged his tail at first, it quickly halted when he realized that with him came the metallic scent of blood.  Though rather useless for finding the source of a wound, his ears flicked forward more alertly, acidic eyes not having to search far to spot the bloody shoulder.

Needless to say, Quixote was concerned. Could that wound be from the war?  Did he have someone pecking it open every night when he slept?  Had he been slashed open by an angry deer or something?  Honestly, just because of how long it had been, the war seemed the least likely cause.  He was a little too perplexed by that to offer a completely coherent sentence, so a slightly jumbled one that skipped from the mentioned subject to the obvious one would have to do. Uh, yeah-- no problem. Shouldn't you be keeping off that?  Quixote was not a medic.  He had enough field training to probably keep someone from completely keeling over dead before someone more experience showed up, but that was about it.  This guy seemed to be relatively unperturbed by it though, so he wasn't quite sure what to think.

Sebastian glanced down at his bloody shoulder. He slowly nodded at the other. "Yes, but all the resting is driving me crazy," he admitted. "And when I move it sometimes opens up. But, I am glad it is blood and not puss as it was before,' he explained to the male. Blood was better than puss. He was glad that the other wanted to help.

"The bleeding means that the wound is healthy now. Before I got here it was bad. Infectious even. All gross and dead tissue," he explained. "Thank you for helping. How have you fared during the war?," he asked curiously. His stomach growled as she sat down. He made sure to keep the pressure off his leg so the bleeding might form into a scab.

He nodded. If he knew what he was doing, Quixote wasn't gonna even attempt to interfere other than thinking to himself that he'd definitely be trying to keep off the leg if it was him -- it'd probably get waggled about enough just from him failing to hop about with a leg off the ground.  Either way, at least explained how he'd still have a wound from the war so long after.  Got a thing on my nose, but the group I was in did a pretty good job at running them off.   I think the ones we fought weren't too organized.  Tried to pick off.. Uh.  That older kid of Finley's.  The one from Drageda, now he's here.  Or at least according to timelines, the writer is pretty sure that's an apt description of Eljay.

They weren't too far from the cache now, were they?  Quixote wasn't gonna ask him to walk all the way over unless he wanted to. What are you gonna want?  A snack or something a bit more filling?  Though he was pretty sure he heard a stomach growl, he knew healing sometimes did weird things to appetites -- some got voracious, others much less so, and honestly as long as everyone ended up better in the end, he wasn't one to judge.  The only real problem was he wasn't sure what all was buried in the depths there besides the small items he'd added to it, which he kept adding and removing as luck struck him.  There was likely something, though, he'd just have to poke around for it.

Sebastian slowly nodded. He could see the scab on the other's nose. It looked good, from a medical aspect. He was glad for the male that their fight went well. "You were lucky. Our fight was tough, well for me. But then again I am not the best fighter," he admitted. Sebastian had to think when he heard about Finley's older kid. Lagan? He was not that old, right? Sebastian had forgotten about the timid Eljay. "Uh... yeah! Finley must be glad you were there to help."

Sebastian was hungry and really wanted a filling meal but he was not sure how much there was in the caches. "I'm very hungry. So whatever is in there I will eat," he offered. Sebastian couldn't really hunt on his own and he didn't feel confident enough to ask other's to hunt for him. He felt like he failed in the war and then he also took far longer to get back than he thought he did. He apparently was gone for a whole month with Andalusia.

Yeah, I think if something seems iffy again, we need to make sure that everyone learns to fight reasonably well.  There definitely wasn't time before.  I'm hoping things will settle down now and we won't have to worry about it for a good long while. He definitely emphasized that.  Quixote was done with the days of endless war.  If the Caldera became like the pack he'd left, he'd just leave and try again.  There were other lands and other packs.  The group I was in was maybe a little stacked fighter-wise.  Towhee, me.. And I think Finley held her own pretty well too, but I wasn't able to see.  He shrugged.  There was a whole level of being able to organize things if the pack all could fight.  Maybe in the future.  But hopefully it wouldn't be necessary.  He'd do what he could to prevent trouble in the meantime.

He looked towards the cache a moment, then back, Anyway, stay here and I'll be right back with what I find.

Quixote headed off up the slopes a bit at a quick pace.  It didn't take him long to get there, so the majority of his time was spent sniffing around trying to figure out what was buried.  There were a few smallish things, but he finally fond what he was pretty sure was an extra frosty hare.  That was what he focused on uncovering.  Once it was free, Quixote poked around and dislodged some kind of small rodent that he'd buried there earlier in the season (Gopher? Vole?  Rat?  Definitely an ice cube.) and buried it closer to the surface.

He wandered back and delivered the rabbit.  If it turns out that's not enough, it was missing a leg and quite a bit of its guts, there's like a rat or something I moved closer to the surface.  Should just be snow on it now.  It was one of the few good things about winter and early spring was the snow stored stuff incredibly well.

Sebastian agreed to what the man was saying. If there was another war, he was out of here. Loyalties or not he was not going in another battle again, so unprepared like that. He nodded firmly in agreement. 'It sounds like you were lucky. Though, I was with Elwood and Whip. I think we won in the end as well. I was just one of the worst out there and I probably gained the most wounds from it as well," he sighed.

Sebastian went to sit down, eventually went to lie down while he waited for his meal. It was kind of the other to go dig a meal out for him. When the meal was brought the male wagged his tail eagerly as he was hungry. "Thank you. I think this is enough for now," he assured the other and started to eat. The male attacked with great hunger. He didn't care that there were sand and frozen parts to his meal. He was glad that he had a meal.

At least it was over.  He wasn't going to go searching for any new fights, and desperately hoped none of the pack were going to either.  And I don't think I caught your name.  I'm Quixote, in case you didn't know.   At least then he'd be able to know what to call the dude instead of just "that guy, you know" if he ever needed to reference him in conversation.  Quixote, though, was a little short on words at the moment to begin with.  The war had been easy to talk about but now, what were his plans?  Shrug emoji.

Though if you want me to just buzz off and let you eat, I can probably do that too, heh.  He didn't much mind.  He knew that some would prefer to be left alone when eating, so he'd leave that door open just in case.

Sebastian blinked at the male's name. He never heard such a name before but he liked the sound of it. "Nice name," he complimented. "I'm Sebastian but some call be Seb other call me Bas," he explained. It was good to get to know your packmates! Sebastian looked up when he spoke again. "Oh no, you can stay if you like. I don't mind the company," he admitted.

"How did you end up at the Caldera?," he wondered. He hadn't seen the male much before the war, but then again, he had been rather isolated with all his kids moving out and his mate also abandoning him. He liked to think Pearl died but sometimes he was still struggling with it. Now the same thing happened with Andalusia. She also vanished.

He nodded.  It was good to actually get a name to  I think I remember seeing you at that one meeting and stuff too.  I showed up pretty late to that -- was halfway to Blackfeather for some scouting when the howl went out.  Would have been a nice time to figure out names then.  He hadn't run into any of the pups of the pack either, which he wasn't sure if that was odd or not -- they could just be well trained to keep away from non-relatives, or he just could have been unlucky (or lucky?) so far.

Eh.  Left my home pack because it was basically just endless fighting.  Like every pack in the area was endlessly pissed off at all the others for hell if I know what reasons.  Dumb stuff.  He shook his head.  He was just hoping it wouldn't happen here as well.  Was scoping out packs in the area, heard a little of the war from someone else, then ran into Colt who was gonna head here.  Ended up following. Quixote shrugged, tone darkening as he mused, slightly to himself, Not quite sure why I walked into another war...  But now hopefully it was over.  It was a dumb choice, but other than that, things hadn't gone horribly wrong to make him reconsider the few other good points though.  He had friends, a home...  Sure, he could do with a few other shiny things on the pile, but he wasn't gonna be able to pull those out of the air no matter what.  He'd just have to give fate a bit of time to work things out.

Sebastian was very interested to hear this wolf's story. Sebastian couldn't place if he had seen the other before. He had noticed his scent around so he knew him by scent mostly. Though it could possibly that they had seen one another before but never exchanged names. "Could be," he agreed between bites. He was glad for the company.

Then the black-furred male started to talk about his past and how his family was always at war. Silly enough he joined the Caldera to fight another war it seems. He didn't look much like a fighter. Sebastian quirked up his lips. "Well, I can tell you one thing. The Caldera and its wolves are worth fighting for. Maybe that is why," he offered.

Quixote nodded.  The ones he'd met here had so far been pretty good people.  There were still plenty he hadn't had in-depth conversations with, but eh.  So it went. Regardless, I just don't want to go through it again.  Eventually I'll run out of luck, ending in a nice swatch of gallows humor.

He shifted to something a bit less dark, but still not entirely serious, That's the other thing. Been around this kind of stuff so long it's like.. What else do I talk about now that it's over?  The weather?  It's not like I can rant about kids like some.  Hunting?  He left out the option of talking about the gender imbalance in the pack -- he didn't know Sebastian well enough to think that was a good idea, so would just save that one for Colt, even if the whole thing was at the front of his mind more often than not at this time of year.  Hadn't realized how socially stunted I got there.  Metaphorically living as a hermit in a cave, not just literally, apparently.

Sebastian hoped that he stayed lucky and that he didn't have to fight anymore. If it was asked of him then his loyalty to the Caldera would falter. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to hurt. He didn't want to lose loved ones. "I hope for you, you don't," he commented. Sebastian was definitely going to avoid-mode from now on.

Sebastian then had to chuckle a bit. "Well, you could talk about trades? Or get more personal with others," he spoke with a slight smile. "But those topics could work as well," he spoke. Sebastian didn't comment on the kid comment as his own kids all seemed to be gone. It was a bit of a touchy subject. "I think you are doing pretty okay so far," Sebastian assured him.

Trades.  There was part of the problem.  His voice dropped again, Main thing I've dealt with was fighting stuff.  Really wish I'd had a different childhood.  Young adulthood.  All that.  It kind of shamed him, in a way.  Sure, he knew enough about the world to survive, but there was no saying it was any good as far as quality of life went.  He couldn't go back in time and be able to be an awkward adolescent -- he'd spent that time being a scared one.  Quixote was gonna do the best with what he had now.

Anything else I can help ya with? Thought it was still a while off, they were going to need everyone back in tip-top shape to hunt for the pups and all that whenever they came around, assuming they did.  If they weren't, Quixote bet that there would be like ten pups suddenly appearing out of the ether to drain the whole pack of resources.   He was still feeling a little awkward too, like maybe he should skedaddle if there was a reason to so that he could prevent himself from saying something dumb.

Sebastian nodded. He could understand the sentiment. He wished he had a different childhood as well, but he couldn't change what happened. What he could do is help the male with some new skills if he was open to learning them. "I could teach you fishing if you like? Or herbs," he offered.

"I'm good, thank you," he spoke with a grateful tone. Sebastian offered him a smile as well. "Maybe next time I am a little better and we could do something more active together," he spoke. He sounded hopeful. Sebastian wasn't sure how long his shoulder would take to heal. Probably still awhile, but hopefully he could at least walk on all fours and dig soon.

He pondered this a moment, Will be a while for fishing is a great idea, I'd think.  Wouldn't you become a wolfcicle?  He thought back to his attempts to fish with Colt at the lake to the north.  It had been kind of chilly then, but right now Quixote still considered things winter, even if the calendar disagreed.  He'd have to figure out if he wanted to learn about herbs, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd be rather impatient about it.  He wasn't really an academic... Like at all.  And that sounded pretty book smart to him.

Quixote wasn't entirely sure how long a wound like that would heal, especially since it had been lurking around this long already.  Just the same, Sounds good to me.  Hopefully that'll heal up nice fairly soon.  I'm probably gonna end up just wandering around and seeing who else is in the area in the meantime -- lones I mean.  I'm pretty sure membership here hasn't changed too much.  His bit of specification there was in sort of an amused tone -- if it had and there were secretly more people in the pack than he could smell, they'd have to teach him how to be a ninja, dammit.  Chicks and ninjas sounded like a good plan.

Sebastian chuckled at that. "Not a northerner then? The cold makes fish slower which is actually an advantage," he explained with a nod. "But yeah sometimes you do have to go through a bit of cold. I'm used to it," he admitted to the male. He could imagine it wasn't for everyone. He liked fishing it reminded him of the good times of home. His mother had taught him.

"Yes, I feel like the pack could use some more members," he agreed. He felt that with Quixote's charm that he could manage to convince a few to join them. Sebastian was done eating. Usually, after eating food he got an after-dinner dip. Sebastian yawned and slowly pushed himself to his feet. "I think I will have an afternoon nap. Thank you for the company and helping me of course," he thanked the other before testing how much weight he could put on the leg.

Nah, sorta from the... Southeast I guess?  Ish.  Shrug.  Quixote had gone in enough circles that he wasn't sure any more, but that sounded right.  Either way, wasn't the main source of food there. Most fish were too small to be much more than toys.  Tiny lake fish rather than the salmon that would head up the rivers later this year.

It did seem like things were coming to a close here, Alrighty -- was no prob.  You go work on that whole getting healed up thing.  And lemme know if you need anything else. I'll be around.  Except when I'm not.  He gave Sebastian a lopsided grin.  'Til then,  Quixote bobbed his head, then started to head off to --- wait, what was he going to do today?  It had been mildly more productive than he'd been thinking.  At least he'd met another pack mate that he hadn't before.  That had to count for something.