Redhawk Caldera It's keeping me up at night, hmm

The thread is backdated to the time, when RHC still lived in caldera. @Elwood

Wraen had not intended to visit Redhawk caldera, her sole reason of being in the vicinity being some hunting business in the prairie located right next to it. Winter still had got a steady hold of the lands - snow, ice and cold - and only the longer days and warmth of the sun indicated that it's time to put down the crown was very near.

She had scared a hare, whose winter white coat had begun to change, leaving it with an odd piebald markings and therefore easier to spot in the white background. However, it was an old and experienced being and the chase that followed was definitely not the first in his lifetime. By the end of the five minute long sprint Wraen started losing breath and the ability to follow it's chosen trajectory, until she came to a halt, when the animal jumped over the invisible line that set caldera apart from the rest of the territories.

As much as she wished to follow it there, Wraen had enough common sense to rein her raging hunting instincts and stop before trespassing and becoming a prey herself. This, however, did not deter her from lingering by the borders and looking after the disappearing lagomorph.

It was the same hare that caught Elwood's attention from a distance. He made to follow it as it scampered further into the territory belonging to Redhawk Caldera, and his senses were honing in on it when he became aware of another, larger presence nearby. He skidded to a halt, effectively letting the rabbit get away as he turned back towards the borders, where a dark grey she-wolf was looking longingly in the direction that the hare had gone.

While it was clear that it had originally been her quarry, he could see that she had respectfully stopped herself from crossing over into claimed land. It had been quite some time since he had spoken warmly to an outsider, but he didn't detect any threat from her as he moved to close the gap between them. With a small, lopsided smile, he said, "I guess that rabbit gave both of us the slip." A glance back over his shoulder revealed that the animal had disappeared from sight entirely.

If Wraen had had any previous misgivings about the Redhawk caldera wolves as rock-eating, growling beasts, then one look at the grayscale gentleman and the way he started the conversation won her over immediately. She was charmed by his presence and the calm confidence he radiated and felt that it might not be that difficult at all to extend their accidental meeting beyond polite and meaningless exchanges. 

"Lucky day for him - I guess. May he use it well," she replied and smiled, though she had no idea, how a brainless creature could spend a meaningful time. In her and rather self-centered/one species-centered world-view rabbits did not possess any intelligence. "My name is Wraen from Sunspire - and who may I have the honor to talk with?" she asked. Perhaps, if she had had a closer look, she would realize that this man bore some similarities with her friend Liffey.

Elwood nodded, wondering just how long the rabbit would last before someone else made it into a snack -- after all, it might have escaped the clutches of the two wolves presently speaking at the borders, but it had beelined into territory that was full of Elwood's hungry packmates. He stopped thinking of the hare, though, when the she-wolf introduced herself by name and the pack that she hailed from. The Sunspire didn't ring a bell, although ironically his daughter was the Alpha female -- but last time he had heard from her, she and Rannoch were living in Northstar Vale.

"It's nice to meet you, Wraen. I'm Elwood, and this is Redhawk Caldera. What brings you here, other than a missed meal?" he asked pleasantly.

"Incidentally - the same missed meal," Wraen replied, chuckling. Since she had found out a long time ago that her only direct relation to her mother had died, the pack at the foot of a retired volcano had not been of particular interest to her. Even more - most people from there had not seemed to be very friendly. Except for Raven. And maybe... what was the guy's name? El-something she had met at the lake almost a year ago.

"Pleasure is all mine - Elwood from the Caldera," she dipped her muzzle politely, as she said it. "Though... if you don't mind me taking up your precious time - could you tell me about the pack a bit? I am not a spy or anything - Peregrine, the founder, was my mother's brother. And she always spoke very highly about him."

His brows raised when she revealed that she was related to Peregrine. "Peregrine was your uncle?" he asked rhetorically, then his expression relaxed into a smile as he obliged her request.

"Well, you may know a bit about us then if you were related to Peregrine. He and his mate, Fox, came from Blacktail Deer Plateau and founded our pack together a few years ago. I joined them a few months later, and I've been here ever since," he said, thinking fondly of the bonds he had forged with the Redhawks. "What do you want to know specifically?" he asked; there was plenty of information he could divulge to his friend's niece, but he didn't want to waste her time with trivial details.

"An uncle sounds so much less awkward than a "mother's brother"," Wraen nodded in agreement, surprised a little that this was such a news to him. From the way of, how Osprey had spoken about Peregrine, she had assumed that their relationship was just as well known among other wolves. Apparently she was mistaken here. 

"What he was like? I mean - my mom was more in the praising-mode and I don't believe that any person could be flawless," she asked. "And what was Fox like?"

If Elwood's memory served correctly (and mine too), Elwood had never formally met Osprey; in fact, he had helped Fox chase her away from the Redhawk Caldera borders at one point. (My computer is too slow for me to dig back through his threadlog right now!) But if Wraen had mentioned her mother by name, it might have sparked a memory in Elwood's mind. However, she referred to her simply as "mom" as she asked for more information about Peregrine and Fox.

He chuckled. "He certainly wasn't flawless, but none of us really are. He was a great guy, though. One of my best friends. He and Fox became like family to me. They both could be sarcastic and were pretty open about, well, everything," he said, thinking of some of their more shameless moments. "They were very territorial of our land, though, especially Fox, and we stopped allowing visitors at one point," he added. Obviously, since he was here talking with Wraen, times had changed; he imagined that Fox likely wouldn't have been so receptive to the she-wolf's company.

"Flaws are the hardest thing about people to love, but at the same time they make people so much more interesting," Wraen agreed, leaving out the fact that admitting flaws in one's self and accepting them was even harder. There were a ton of things in her recent history that she wished she had not done or said or handled differently. 

"Sounds like someone I know," she remarked, thinking about her sister Sarah, who - although very stoic, cool-headed and never wasting a word too much - could also be quite sharp and poisonous in her choice of words, if provoked or "poked" the wrong way. 

"I understand that they had a lot of babies? My mom was aware of six cousins, but she believed that there could be more," Wraen asked - she had met Titmouse and Raven before, Towhee, as well - but she was curious about the rest.

Wraen's comment about flaws was quite insightful, and Elwood tucked it away in the back of his mind so that he would remember it later. She then asked about the Redhawk offspring, which was a question he could answer with ease, seeing as he was godparent to many of those children (now adults).

"Yes, they had quite a few litters together. Let's see -- their first litter was Wildfire, Raven, and Nightjar. Wildfire lives in Drageda and Raven is here with the caldera. Nightjar is no longer with us. Then there was Ferret, Gannet, Whip, and Peter; Peter passed away, and Gannet is with Moonspear, and I'm not sure of Whip and Ferret's whereabouts. And then of their last litter, Towhee and Orca are still alive and living here. Titmouse and Phox are on their own somewhere," he replied, picturing each Redhawk in his mind's eye as he spoke of them.

1, 2, 3, 4... 11? Just think of it - so many cousins in the world - Wraen wondered, what were they like and if any of them had a resemblance not only to their father, but to their aunt as well. With Osprey so far away and beyond reach, meeting someone, who was at least a little bit like her, would be amazing. Selfish reasons, really, but still. 

"I have met Raven - she is a healer. And Gannet was my friend, while I lived in Moonspear," she recalled the white wolf fondly and was a tad bit sad for the "was" in their relationship. It had been two months since she had last seen him and with relationship between Moonspear and Sunspire being very strained (to say the least), it was not likely that she would see them ever again. 

"And Towhee too," she said - if there had been a smile, when she had spoken about the first two - it disappeared, when she recalled the loud and angry she-wolf. They had not met under the best of circumstances and perhaps the girl was a lot different, when among her friends, but she had not left a very pleasant first impression. And come to think of it - Towhee probably did not care about it either. 

"So, there is one or two more to find and others to hope to meet someday," she concluded, saying this to herself rather than to Elwood. "Has that volcano," she beckoned to the geological formation that had given the pack it's name. "Ever been alive? Like going - kaboom?"

Elwood's brows raised in an indication of pleasant surprise when Wraen confirmed that she had met a few of the Redhawks that he had mentioned. Raven, Gannet, and Towhee -- all were quite different from each other, both in appearance and personality, so Elwood thought that Wraen had gotten quite a nice sampling of the variety that comprised her family.

She then gestured up at the flat-topped peak over his shoulder, asking if the dormant volcano had ever been active. He shook his head. "Not as long as I've been here, but I'm sure it was alive a long time ago. I'm kind of glad I've never seen it explode," he said with a wry chuckle.

"Why - definitely," Wraen agreed - she had never seen an active volcano, only heard stories of them. But after visitting the Fire Hot springs earlier this year, she thought that she could easily imagine the scope of the catastrophe, if this huge mountain woke up and began to spit fire like an angry dragon. 

"Mom and Peregrine used to play dragon-hunting, when they were little," she had a dim memory of Osprey telling her this, but more vivid ones of time, when she herself had been an avid fan of the game. "And I wonder - perhaps - an idea of a sleeping dragon underneath the mountain..." here her train of thoughts stopped, because she really did not know, how to continue.

And this is, when she recalled another thing that she wanted to find out, while there was still a chance to do so. "Do you know, why Redhawks? I mean, my uncle's family name is pretty long and complicated to spell on the first go, but why change it?" Because Osprey had taken pride in her family name, never had changed and even passed it on to her children. Whether Dante had his own and, if so, why had he chosen not to give it to his offspring, was something she had never asked and would never find out.

He smiled as she speculated about the possibility of a slumbering beast residing beneath the volcano's rocky surface. It couldn't possibly be true, but it sounded like a fun personification of the volcano, and Elwood could see some of Peregrine's playfulness in Wraen in that moment. Her voice trailed off, and then she changed her train of thought a moment later, asking about the name Redhawk.

It had started as just that -- a simple name change, to symbolize a new start. But it had become so much more than that. While he and Finley didn't officially share the moniker, they were part of the Redhawk family. The surname encompassed all of the wolves that he loved, which was a stunning thought; when he had first arrived at Redhawk Caldera, he had gone by the title Grove, and hadn't had anyone to call kin.

"I'm pretty sure Fox and Peregrine just picked the name," he said. "When they found the caldera, they were looking for a new place to call home. Fox actually hurt herself here and couldn't travel any further, so they decided to stay. And they combined their names, kind of, to come up with Redhawk -- red for Fox's fur, and hawk since Peregrine was named after a bird." It also helped that red-tailed hawks could be seen circling the sunken peak at times, so it was appropriate in more ways than one.

Wraen was glad she had asked this, because the story behind it - though short - was pretty interesting and made her wonder, if she ever came to starting things from ground zero, would she change her family name. Wraen Sunspire, for example. But she dismissed this idea immediately, because it sounded neither right, nor good. Bernard's silly "Renevermind" was better. 

"So - I understand that you aren't related to Peregrine or Fox in any way," she thought she had heard something like this mentioned in the conversation earlier. "Did you become a Redhawk too?"

Wraen's next query brought a smile to his face. She was right -- there was no blood relation between the Blackthorns and the Redhawks. And, in fact, he hadn't always been a Blackthorn. But the two families had grown very close together over time; so much so, that Elwood's children considered the Redhawk youth to be their siblings.

"Kind of. My mate and I didn't officially take the Redhawk name, but we basically considered Peregrine and Fox -- and all their children -- to be our family," he replied. "Our last name is Blackthorn, and Towhee even added that on to her own surname -- she goes by Redhawk-Blackthorn, I think. So even though we're not officially related, we were lucky enough to be able to choose them as our family."

Had Liffey ever mentioned her family name to Wraen, she would have realized that at this very moment not only she was speaking with a respected member of Redhawk wolves, but also to her friend's father. Perhaps, if she had cared to notice some similar features between Elwood and his daughter, she would have made the connection. But she was more focused on the facts he revealed and the fact that he was a wonderful gentlman to spend time together with. 

"I will remember that," she told him and felt that by this time she had burdened the busy man with her presence enough and that it was time for her to leave. "If any of the Redhawk-Blackthorn kin is ever interested in distant relatives - they are welcome to stop by at Sunspire. Call for Wraen - I don't think that my brother would be interested."

It seemed that their interaction was drawing to a close, and Wraen offered him the opportunity to visit her pack at the Sunspire. Really, it was a shame that neither of them realized the connection between them -- that Liffey was Elwood's daughter. But he didn't know about Liffey and Rannoch's move to the Sunspire; all he knew of the group now was that Peregrine's niece lived there.

"Thank you very much, Wraen. It was a pleasure to meet you," he said earnestly, and added, "Have a safe trip back home." Once she departed, he would attempt to find the pesky hare that had eluded both of them.