Porcupine Ridge but i am drifting

AW - tags for reference

they made their way northwest, driven mostly by indra's vague memory of where the tangle sat. it was the furthest north she had been in her life, and while it was but a distant memory (reek and casmir too), indra was confident at least in her sense of direction.

she might make a slipshod hunter, but she was a seasoned scout -- and arguably, no wolf had walked as many miles as her in her short life.

@Laurel and @Marten were not so far behind, but indra did not pay them much mind as she canvassed ahead. as she glanced down the stony summit to the forest that crept along the promontory's shoulders, she wondered how long ago had it been since her parents had walked in this forest.

shaking the ghosts of her memory from her mind, indra picked up a trot and moved downhill, scanning for any sign of wolves or company.

feeling distantly uncomfortable around laurel, marten often found himself wandering alone when indra pushed ahead. he could sense that there was something about his aunt that just didn't sit right with him... but he didn't know how to voice this concern to her, or to indra for that matter. 

even though indra pushed away, maybe to talk to someone new, marten trekked after her, long pale legs stretched into great strides. marten was now 9 months old. if they would've stayed at the hollow, he would've been a full fledged adult. but they hadn't, they'd left, and so now marten was just leggy. not that he noticed any difference with himself. 

he spotted the firebrand she-wolf and gave a yap as he padded to catch up, joining at his mothers side and nosing her shoulder lovingly. but marten did not stay quiet, he had something on his mind. "mama?" he asked, his voice unwavering. marten did not get nervous often, never mind if he was silently afraid.

indra slowed her trot as a yap sounded behind her. turning her head over her shoulder, she caught marten's leggy form catching up to her. despite being alone, she welcomed the company -- marten held a fond place close in her heart, and she warmly received him.

admittedly, she had noticed a tension between her sister and marten -- though of its nature, she knew not. it was an impalpable sort of tensity - one that rode in their subtly cold glances, or their stiffened routines where often one would linger and the other would depart -- but of what stoked the fires of such rigidity, indra still remained unaware.

apprising marten with a soft eye, indra offered him a gentle shoulder. she had noticed the way he had framed her name -- as if proposing a heavy question -- it brought a slight crease to her brow, but she waited for him to speak his mind.

"i don't think aunt laurel likes me much," marten said to his mother as she gave him an inquisitive look. he got straight to the point, not really one to beat around the bush. marten never really had much problem with anything, so there was never any reason to keep quiet... he just didn't see the point, though. it was easier just to say what was on your mind instead of harboring ill feelings -- even at his young age, marten knew it was better for everyone to be completely transparent. 

his tail flicked. "i think it's because she doesn't like dad," he said, his ears flicking back, "and maybe my -- other mom." real mom didn't feel right. marten had never regarded anyone except for indra as his real mom. but he had met the lady who had given birth to him a few times. it was always strange and tense, and xan never seemed to be happy to take him to see her. marten didn't really care to see her. "and cause i was honest with her the other day," he added, as an after thought. that was probably more surface level than the rest.

marten spared indra no time, diving straight to the root of what was eating him. her ears cupped forward in silent surprise to hear so blunt a directive, but she did not question marten's opinion until he had finished. she had noticed the rift growing between laurel and marten - in that fretful way one might notice the change of seasons from summer to fall, and know in their heart the dark omen of winter was growing ever more present.

she unfurled a weighted sigh, her gaze filled with guilt. perhaps it was a flaw of hers to be so forthright (and perhaps, that was where marten had learned to be similarly straightforward), but indra did not mince the truth to spare her son his feelings.

"laurel does not like anyone, save me. and perhaps.. perhaps lucas." her brow knitted, for she felt sick to speak ill of her sister. "it has nothing to do with your father - or even, your old mother." she bent down and gave marten a soft kiss on his forehead, stepping back with a gaze full of only fondness. "being honest is always good. even if it spares you no friends in the end. what did you two talk of?"

marten listened, in no way offended by his mother's response. his pale head tilted to one side as he looked upon her, quietly absorbing all of her wisdom, waiting for her to finish. he asked, firstly, "if.. she doesn't like anyone but you -- and maybe lucas -- then why would she waste her time looking for them when you didn't leave?" his ears flicked back, only momentarily, flicking forwards again like little satellite dishes. it didn't quite make sense to marten, but he was pretty young, and what maybe made sense to him... maybe wasn't the way it would always be. 

he nodded. "that's what i think too, mama," he told her, tail waving a little bit -- happy that he had maybe done the right thing in indra's eyes. granted, he hadn't told her what he'd said to laurel just yet. "laurel was sad -- i think she was crying. i tried to comfort her and tell her that they were fine -- lucas and wyatt and piper, i mean. cause, i mean, we're... we're grown, mama," he said, his brow furrowing as he said it to indra, his mis-matched eyes settled upon her with a new emotion, something a bit disappointed, maybe confused, "grown enough, anyway. i think if wherever they are, they're happy and safe."

a little gingerly, marten added, "i told her they might've left on purpose." he was quiet for a second. "maybe that was a lil' too honest?"

indra sighed as marten recanted his last conversation with laurel, detailing with care that he might have been too forthcoming. that was his flaw, perhaps -- he was thinking logically.. and for a youth, it was an admirable method of thought -- but for laurel, it was as foreign as wolves living underwater. she shook her head slightly, her muzzle inclined in careful thought.

he would learn soon enough that it was not so easy to think linearly -- that sometimes, in matters of the heart, one must not think logically at all.

"you may be grown," she murmured, apprising her son with a soft look of awe (how much he had grown, too!) -- "but you and your cousins still have so much to learn -- and the wilderness is no place for a wolf barely past his first nameday." she frowned, pushing quickly the thoughts of what could go badly for laurel's children out of her mind. "it would give laurel some peace of mind to know."

marten silently listened, nodding knowingly as his mother explained what the flaw in his argument was. though he still stood by what he said, he understood what she was saying. "i know," marten said with a small dip of his head, "and i wouldn't venture out without you." he tried to put emphasis on that. marten knew the world was mean and bad, indra and laurel both had said it plenty of times before. marten was smart, suave, and knew that he would learn the most by sticking with his mother. 

"maybe they thought they'd learn faster on their own," he added with a little shrug, ears flicking. they probably had far more survival skill that marten at this point, who had lived lavish with the protection of his pack his whole life... save for now. but here he was, learning. with the guidance of indra. but he nodded again. "i wish they would've said goodbye," he agreed sort of sadly, brow furrowing.

maybe they thought they'd learn faster on their own.

an old, nagging thought returned to indra as marten finished, and while she was loathe to let such thoughts inhabit her consciousness, they did so with annoying frequency. like a cobweb might settle out of reach in a high rafter above, indra's darker thoughts collected well beyond her sphere of cognizance, drifting, gaining premise and volition until like an overweighed bough, they came to the forefront with splintering reckoning.

it was possible they had no choice in their departures, a thought indra had dreaded each time it rose: that they might have been stolen, thieved, purloined, gutted, or killed -- she thought of the beast that had taken her tail, the black realm beyond the kintla decorated by the innards of the deceased, the cruel men that had chased her across the hinterlands -- these men were certainly capable of such violence, and she, an adult, had only scarcely avoided having her life claimed from her.

a puppy was a far easier conquest.

she looked to marten guiltily then, for she was about to impart no small token of wisdom to his world -- and it was likely what she said would be irrevocable, that his innocent mind might suffer like a stone thrown across fragile ice to corrupt and sink into dark waters. "they may not have been able to say goodbye. there are many things in the wild that hunger to kill, and do so indiscriminately. all it takes is to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time." she blinked slowly, a long sigh drawn from her thin lips. "when one ponders the perplexity of the inexplicable -- a question they cannot answer, or one that seems without clues in which to guide you -- remember, the easiest explanation often correlates with the event's conclusion. meaning, the most likely answer is the one that is most easily explained..

so, a pronged question such as: why did lucas disappear? why was it with no warning, when it was neither his disposition nor his type to do so? and why were there no signs of his disappearance? a babe is easy to track in the woods, and yet, he left nothing.

the simple answer would be that it was not of his accord that he left -- either something ate him, or he was killed."

as indra stared at him, marten could sense the growing tension that she had something to say to him. unbeknownst to him, indra had nothing but dark wisdom to dispense onto him, and as she began to speak, marten grew stiller and stiller -- but he did not grow uncomfortable. maybe weary, but only because he could sense the sadness that seeped from his mother in great tides. towards the end, when she got a little more blunt, marten moved -- only to search her features more delicately. 

he asked only a single question, at first, his brows furrowed deeply. "then why would we look?" he was quiet then for a moment, wondering if it was a question that he should have asked. his eyes, mismatched but steady upon his mother, focused as he found in his mind another string of questions. "if it's all doom and gloom then... why would we bother?" 

marten understood the concept of hope -- was hopeful for many things himself. but the way that indra and laurel spoke made it seem like all hope was lost... all the time. and yet here they were, dragging themselves across no mans land for a lost cause. they were just so pessimistic. and maybe they were right to be, they're both grown up with a sizable amount of trauma but... marten, who had seen his own -- in different ways, his life was good and he knew it -- didn't understand why someone would spend so much of their energy being so pessimistic. and yet, hopeful, somehow. 

"i don't mean to upset you, mama," he added, a bit quieter. his problem with all their traveling had little to do with indra herself, and he felt he was taking out his grievances on her. "i'm just... trying to understand, i guess."

oh, marten -- he was so young, and yet.. so much more grounded and emphatic than indra had been at his age. her gaze swept across him with quiet wonder, for how had he come to be so sweetly intuitive, when the women that raised him were naught but wretches, carrying the burdens of their misfortunes on their back like brands or sigils that forever marked them apart from the rest of the world? surely it was his blood and not his raising that made him so naturally reflective, and not the blackened sisters that partook in his nurture.

she offered a weak smile, giving a roll of her shoulders in rejoinder. "you have to keep looking, to keep carrying that fire." it was a cryptic response, perhaps, but to indra, carrying that fire, that hope alive, was all that mattered. "the second it is extinguished and your hopes are gone, you are lost worse than them. you have to keep going, no matter what."

marten was silent he chewed on the metaphor that his mother had just given him. it meant a number of things to marten, some things not even related to what she was telling him. it said a lot about indra -- things marten didn't quite understand, but the horrors of indra's past certainly justified her thought process. marten understood it in his own way, searching his mother features silently before he gave a soft sigh and stepped to press the top of his head against her shoulder. "i understand," he murmured quietly, "if i ever lost you i would never stop searching." and then he stepped back from her, ears flicking. he still didn't really know how he felt about laurel, and held his belief that he was right to think it was pointless to search for her children... but he understood. 

and then, the youth gave a wry smile. "do you think rupert is still at the hollow?"

her eyes closed as marten's head brushed atop her shoulders in a gesture of affection. what followed, spoken by the boy with such quiet conviction, moved indra -- a fondness immeasurable spread across her sorrowed countenance, and she returned the gesture with a butt of her own head. "likewise." and certainly, if it had been marten instead of lucas or wyatt here, she would have cajoled, begged, and kicked until laurel searched alongside her. in the end, that was what family was for, right?

drawing away from the rather heavy conversation, marten offered a wry look and asked of rupert -- with a jolt, indra recalled the boy's pet, and a smile fell to her features. "oh, sure. he's probably asleep and somewhere deep in the mud."

jostling marten gently, indra supplanted a tender kiss to his forehead and looked skyward. "we should hunt, the afternoon light favors it." without waiting for an answer the redleaf skipped towards the beach, ready to find sustenance along the shoals.