Heron Lake Plateau A beating heart of stone.

Towhee had always taken great pleasure in helping to guard and rear her younger siblings and, more recently, her nieces and nephews. She might have even made the blanket statement that she loved pups, full stop. But with strange youngsters in the ranks these days, the Beta came to realize it simply wasn't true. She found herself disinterested in @Caiaphas's offspring (regardless of how she felt about the woman herself) and a bit resentful that they took resources that rightfully belonged to her own family. She wouldn't mention this to anyone aloud, particularly because Towhee knew it wouldn't jive with the current leadership's take on matters. It was an interesting thing to learn about herself and that's where she'd keep it: to herself.

Despite her private feelings, Towhee included the Kappa's den in a wide sweep of the plateau's interior, a newer route she had been including in patrols ever since scenting the wildcat on their lands. She kept her distance, though her sharp orange eyes strayed to the den's mouth, wary of any sign of @Raleska or @Svalinn. She wouldn't do them any harm if they were to materialize, of course, but the Beta would strongly prefer to have nothing to do with them for now.

Despite Towhee's feelings, I'd love a thread with any of the peeps I tagged! It's otherwise open. :D

crashing but anyone else is welcome in!

a pair of sharp eyes watched from the hollow between the stone, their yellow surface reflecting the rowdy puppies that wrestled in the reeds. caiaphas, to beat the snarl of the sun, had carved a crooked hole near their densite, and watched them with a hawkish glare. the wildcat had been too close; svalinn's scrape with death too close - the wizened sylph could not afford any chances, and was now overbearing more than ever on the backs of her children.

the tread of footsteps caught her attention, and she glanced up in time to see the shadowed form of redhawk's beta prowling by. beneath the sundappled canopy, the wolf was not altogether obvious; her dark pelage blended well with the interspersed shadow, and the blade of russet along her back reflected the sun in the same manner the forest floor often did. the mother studied towhee's form curiously, yet made little move to discourage her puppies from greeting the wolf, if they so wished.

The den site appeared abandoned, though it only took a few seconds for Towhee's sharp orange eyes to pick up movement in the nearby brush. She could make out Caipahas's shape, partially screened by greenery and thusly dappled, and the reeds jerking behind her. Towhee imagined the playful sounds of scuffling children were falling on deaf ears. If they were there, they were otherwise preoccupied, and the Beta felt a measure of relief when they showed no sign of tumbling in her direction.

Maintaining her distance, she nonetheless dipped her snout in greetings to the two-toned caretaker. "Caiaphas," Towhee acknowledged. "Any more signs of wildcats?" Despite herself, she shifted closer, if only to better see her pack mate's lips.

the gnarled she-wolf remained under the shade of the canopy, stealing glances from the pack's beta to her squalling children. she had little energy to devote to policing the cries of raleska's unjust torment at the hands of svalinn, and even less energy in silencing them outright. as she briefly monitored their tumbling form towhee spoke; caiaphas' ear fluttered in attentive motion, and she pulled her gaze from the cubs and briefly acknowledge the she-wolf with a dip of her sharp muzzle.

"no," the siren answered with a shake of her head , her voice hushed - not that it would have mattered, for the shape of her lips were evident enough that had towhee been studying them she would have easily made out their forming. caiaphas had yet to learn of the beta's condition, and thus far, had simply assumed the flame-backed wolf's voice was simply an inexplicable quirk.

the bobcat had since moved on, yet she remained wary. she had lost too little to blithely trust hers or her children's safety. "you?"

Caiaphas's reply and subsequent question were nice and succinct, easy for Towhee to follow. "No," she concurred, not without a measure of relief. "Hopefully that's the first and the last time..."

She afforded the shapes of the pups a brief glance, then returned her attention to her peer. "So," she said in her usual slow, partially garbled drawl, "what brought you guys here anyway? Where did you live before?"

jesus another book im sorry rofl.

the siren gave a cant of her head in rejoinder: indeed, she hoped it would be their first and only event with the hell-cat. unfortunately, she knew life to not be that simple - and was certain if the beast had moved on, something far worse would have likely slithered in to take its place.

she kept her dark musing to herself, lifting her hawk-yellow eyes only when towhee changed the subject to her own journey here. something hardened and cold seemed to pass over her features, but it was flitting at best.

"misfortune, mostly." she answered, finding bile at the edge of her throat to think of her fractured family so soon. yet, it may as well be a story she was forthright with, for she had little energy these days for anything beyond simply dealing with the present moment. while her scheming ways were unlikely put to bed, they were sleeping, exhausted beyond all measure, as if their very spirit had been hammered out from her during her grueling months-long crucible in the wilds.

"we -- my mate, four pups, my adopted son and his son, svalinn, all lived on the coast." there were others, though she spared them any mention. "in ankyra sound. i have lived there four years now, and seen many packs rise and fall along its coast." a glitter of longing appeared in her gaze; she was a thing of the sea, and belonged in its swell reach -- to be so far inland, on the rough arm of some insensate mountain -- well, she looked withered and old, a crone out of its element and wilting swiftly. "a bear came." her voice was not stricken with grief then, but enmity. "he chased us from our halls and followed us for miles. i do not know what happened to lycaon, svalinn's father. we ran." and she was not a wolf that had ever run from anything; a bitterness spread across her sharp tongue.

"we ran for weeks; my mate and i gave our food always first to the children, but we were tired. our children were tired. we were farther inland than i had ever been when we finally shook the bear off of our tracks. at that point, our children were no longer tired. they were starved." she paused, thinking of how small and skeletal her children had been - how it had pierced her heart with a fierce tenacity she had never known. "we sought refuge in easthollow. we were turned away after we had told our story. the woman there suggested we go to bearclaw valley; ironic considering this sad odyssey started on the back of a bear." her tone was oddly flat - not that towhee would have been able to tell -- but perhaps the intrepid beta would catch a dull gleam in caiaphas' eye that gave away her true emotion: a dull and monstrous malice, that sat prowling in those yellow spheres. how she wished to enact vengeance on those wolves, that in her eyes had turned her away and committed her family to death.

"it was unfair, but such is life. we could do nothing to change their mind. we made further inland, and found shelter at the side of a great hill. while we pondered our options there was a storm of such might i have only seen in far-off seas. a deluge of water and lightning; ephraim was the first to run - that was one of my sons - terrified as he was, i do not blame him. my mate searched for him, and i for my mate --" it had been her own foolishness that had resulted in what transpired next: "when i returned, rhakios and illidan had fled too. i should have known better, but starvation does something strange to any creature unfortunate enough to endure it. you become desperate, haunted by an unthinking madness. i thought only of finding ephraim, and not of keeping my family intact. yet illidan and rhakios were gone - the rain fell so heavy i could scarcely see anything, and great swaths of water came down from the hills and swept all scent and pawprints with them." jesus, this was a long story -- caiaphas flicked her gaze to towhee briefly, just to see if the beta was still following.

"when the rain let up, i kept our remaining children close and looked for my mate. there were some tracks after the storm, his -- yet they met their end at an engorged and raging river." she reflected, thinking of those pawprints that said so little, and yet so much at the same time. "at that point i had little options - stay there and spend my remaining energy searching for children that in all likelihood were drowned in the storm alongside my mate -- or, expend my remaining reserves ensuring my remaining children's survival and future.

i chose survival."

She had not anticipated the tale that unfolded, nor her pack mate's excellency with prose. Towhee listened (read: watched the woman's lips), rapt. It was a compelling story, for sure, and what made it all the more intense was Caiaphas's skill with oration. As a titled chronicler herself, Towhee felt she could particularly appreciate her companion's ability to deliver a homily.

"You're a gifted storyteller," Towhee said after a long beat of silence as the details sank into her mind. "Although it's awful that you went through so much shit..." The Beta trailed off, unsure what else she could say in response to such a colossally terrible streak of misfortune, especially knowing she wouldn't have allowed Caiaphas and her charges to live here if it had been up to her. She couldn't hear, yet her own words sounded a bit like (crass) platitudes.

"You're in good hands here, especially under Raven's leadership," Towhee continued in the next breath. "Are you guys settling in okay?" It seemed like a pretty idle question, though there was genuine interest shining in her orange eyes.

caiaphas had finished, and so spent, drew a quiet gaze to her comrade. she had not expected the accolades that followed: it was with a grim mouth that she accepted them with a low dip of her sharp skull.

whatever she might have mustered in response was spoken for her; how strange it was that from wreckages, diamonds often appeared -- she hated the role she played in such an unraveling tale, and resented the loss with profound loathing. there were things she would have changed were destiny in her own gnarled hands: the fate of the bear, the fortunes of those at easthollow --

how fortunate it was then, that caiaphas controlled little destiny outside her own, for the world would have been sown to ruin in her hands.

towhee's platitudes were received with an idle shrug, but the following question elicited the lift of her simmering gaze. "yes, we are fine. grateful." in truth, caiaphas had felt rudderless since coming here; but her life was built around her children, and her children prospered.

that was all that mattered to the siren queen.

"although, if there is something leadership should require of me, i would be glad to receive it."

If Caiaphas found her reaction anticlimactic, she didn't show it. She accepted the Beta's niceties, responding with a small shrug. She then offered her services to leadership. Towhee fought the urge to shrug too, as well as an impulse to tell the she-wolf she (and her pups, eventually) simply needed earn their keep; that's all that was expected of them.

But then she glanced in the whelps' direction, then back to Caiaphas, and said, "Just the usual: contribute and whatnot. There's one specific thing you and your kids can do to help you integrate: learn ptero." She paused, then signed the words even as she said them, "Learn to speak our language." She dropped her forelegs and resumed regular speech as she elaborated, "It'll help you communicate with me specifically, but it's used by the entire pack, like our own secret code."

the sylph nodded in understanding; she was well versed to contributing -- and had done so, in more ways than she knew since her coming to redhawks. yet, her contributions felt empty to her, as if the cloak of brittle leaves on a bitter winter wind. there in their presence, yet offering little save for the image of decay.

she could not hide the surprise then, at towhee's request -- ptero -- a word unusual and foreign to the sylph, who was often not at all at loss for the meaning of words. her ears drew back as she watched the beta's pantomime with paws; but bit by bit, things clicked into place.

"ptero?" she repeated back, though there was no accusation in her voice -- "you cannot hear.." her expression drew into a thin-lipped ponderance; at length she lifted up her gaze and spoke again: "a reasonable request, that i can honor. is it all of redhawk that knows it?"

Caiaphas's statement gave Towhee pause. Was her pack mate just now finding out about her deafness? "Correct," she verified, then added in answer to the question, "Not everyone here knows it. And those who do vary in fluency. But I always encourage my fellow Redhawks to learn it. It helps integrate them," and it also made them less of an outsider to their hearing impaired Beta.

"I usually start everyone off with a name sign. It's a signal or series of signals meant to denote your name. You can create your own, use the known alphabet... whatever floats your boat. Here's mine, for instance," Towhee said, quickly flicking threw a few signs*. "And here's the first three letters of yours spelled out, to give you an idea," she said, signing, -K-A-I-, as it was the phonetic pattern she assumed from her lipreading**.

* I don't think I've described this anywhere, hence the vagueness. (Oops!)

** I assume Caiaphas starts with a hard "C," correct me if I'm wrong and I'll adjust the post accordingly!

some assumptions made plz whack me if not ok <3

as sharp as caiaphas could be, she had never assumed towhee's condition; her interactions with the she-wolf had largely been face-to-face, and as such, had never caught that any comment she made when towhee's back was turned was unreturned, or missed entirely.

she might have on one occasion found the rather intense way she was watched when she spoke curious, but had chalked it up to a personal quirk. at least now it made sense -- and caiaphas, aware of her own nonobservance, smiled bemusedly to herself as she watched the beta sign towards her.

an attempt was made -- but what she signed back was unintelligible. she tried again, recalling to mind the gestures towhee had articulated; with a slant of her gaze she replied: "what is yours?"

Caiaphas attempted to mimic some of the signs. Her movements were barely intelligible, though Towhee offered an encouraging smile. It took practice to get the hang of it, to acquire the fluidity of movement, not to mention the mental acuity to convey meaning with the motions and coordinate the effort.

The question gave Towhee pause. She'd just showed her name sign. Had Caiaphas missed it? It was entirely possible. Or maybe she meant the first few letters of her name? "T-O-W-H-E-E," she said out loud even as she slowly and emphatically signed each letter, going ahead and giving her entire name. For good measure, she added, "And this is my name sign again," before making the brief series of movements.

omg i misread and thought it was only k-a-i that was being signed. DOH. IM SORRY LMAO

caiaphas frowned, having realized towhee had indeed already signaled her name and the crone had missed it. were her mental faculties slipping? had stagnating here dulled her once sharp senses to the point where she had missed something so plainly in front of her?

first she had entirely overlooked that towhee was deaf (and now, looking back, realized how obvious it had been). and now she needed to be reminded of a conversation that had happened less than two seconds ago.


she tried again to wrap her mind around this; the motioning of her paws was difficult, and next to towhee's fluid, natural gestures caiaphas had the graceful presence of a boulder tumbling downhill; it took work.

after a few more passes were made she frowned again. "how did you lose it?"

It's actually my favorite when misunderstandings happen when communicating with Towhee; I figure it's pretty realistic!

There was a lot of room for improvement in Caiaphas's movements, though that was to be expected; it wasn't possible to master any language, much less an unspoken one, in a moment, an hour, a day or even a month. It would take plenty of practice and repetition before she became any good at it. Towhee did hope that she would make that effort, though it was ultimately up to Caiaphas how much she wanted to master ptero.

Once more, the older woman's question gave the mercenary pause. She realized the intended meaning after only half a second, though she picked apart the phrasing for a beat longer before saying, "I never had it in the first place. I was born this way." Towhee tried to smooth out the slight prickles she felt at the words that implied she was somehow missing something. She knew Caiaphas didn't mean anything by it but that was the story of Towhee's life: proving she wasn't disabled, just differently-abled.

Movement snagged her attention and she caught a glimpse of the youths springing about in the bushes. They would probably learn a lot faster—young ones tended to pick up ptero more easily, for whatever reason—and Towhee was tempted to call out to them, draw them out here to show them some signing. But she would leave that up to Caiaphas and only offer guidance if it was directly requested.

"I should get back to my patrol. If you or your children would like any more help with ptero, I'm always around, and there are several others who can assist." Towhee made ready to depart, her tail giving a sweep as she dipped her muzzle in farewell. -I'll see you later, Caiaphas,- she motioned slowly and silently, hoping her pack mate would understand without an interpretation, before Towhee took her leave.

as a silence lulled over them, the sylph realized perhaps her query had been misplaced. certainly it was an insensitive one, but the wretch was one who wished to know the whys of the world. she had heard of whelps being born with no eyes, and mothers faced with hard decisions. when they were that young, death came easily; a press of a paw, a rough shake, a toss in a river..

for a moment she wondered if she had what it takes to commit such an unnerving deed. being born without a sense was hardship enough on the whelp cursed to bear it - but it was torment for those who had to feed it, care for it, and ultimately, commit it back to the dry earth when its loss cost it the ultimate price.

 she would have chucked them in the grotto's pool, and moved on.

towhee seemed fine though. caiaphas supposed that was the boon of having a strong pack. certainly, the dark she-wolf was not without her assets -- caiaphas had noted in her time here towhee was no slouch.

her internal musings were cut short by towhee's words; she wondered if she had offended the beta, but in typical wretch fashion, did not apologize. caiaphas assumed it was not the first, nor last time, that the callous question would be asked. she dipped her head in silent rejoinder, watching with a neophyte's bemused mystification as towhee so fluently signed to her. if she had known bye she might have returned the farewell physically; as it was she simply canted her muzzle again and offered a quick "see you later," - hopefully before the beta's back was entirely turned.