Blackfeather Woods i like irons, but i love fire

backdated sometime between the 24th and today

She wondered whether he felt the same as she did about Spiderlings' Glen. That it was like stepping into your childhood room and finding out that the furniture's been moved around, the toys are off the shelf, and it smells so much different than you remember. Even the carpet beneath your toes doesn't feel nearly as plush and kind. And you fall asleep on the bed that is just wrong and wake up and not know where you are for a few moments.

Maegi had always been fond of the Glen. She had spent much time here both before and after the war, the latter period grieving over the loss of her brothers. But other litters had been born here since Potema's twisted trio; other mothers had made it their own. It was changed, and there was nothing she could do about that.

But she dreamed—oh! she dreamed of the times that had been so innocent, hobbling after her brothers, one dark and stocky, the other silver, lithe. It brought her immense pleasure to immerse herself in memories and an equal measure of pain when she realized that they were just that. . .memories. Never to be relived, in full, again. Days gone by, etched in time, like the scar upon her mouth.

Did @Ramsay dream of those times, too? Or had he let them go, a leaf on the wind, and she was just a sentimental fool for dwelling upon a childhood that, while sometimes joyful, was also filled with pain—and without substance. Did he miss their youth, or was he more than happy to grow up, despite the troubles that adulthood carried with it?

It took Ramsay time to re-familiarize himself with the layout of the woods, from the sprawling marsh to the deep woods where the spore-spitting willow slept for winter. Even with winter having stripped the trees of their leaves, even with the sun beaming high in the midday sky, Blackfeather Woods was perpetually gloomy. It was the dimmest locale Ramsay had ever been in, and he'd travelled a lot since last setting foot within his homeland.

Ramsay hadn't delved into the intricate cave system, nor had he returned to the glen where he and his littermates had been left to more or less fend for themselves, until now. The slope was just as steep as he remembered it, but he picked his way down it easily enough, if not painlessly. His broken ribs would continue to be an issue for a while, he could tell. With gritted teeth, he slid the last couple feet down into the shadowy little vale, where he was surprised to find his sister.

Ramsay didn't reminisce as much as Maegi did. He also didn't know anything of the other pups who came after Maegi, Euron and him. It would be foolish to think that in the intervening time no one had given birth here, but somehow, the glen still felt like his playground. What are you doing here? he wondered as he stepped toward the little creek that wound through the glen and down into the caves below.

Speak of the devil. . .

She turned to face him, a tiny smile gracing her mouth before fading back into its usual bland impassivity. I like it here, Maegi responded, shrugging a little. Her eyes lifted to the canopy, where several ravens stared down at them with their beady dark eyes. It brings back good memories.

Maegi looked over at Ramsay, whose pelt was just as dark and glossy as the birds above. He was quite handsome, even with his deformity. Had he been born normal, he'd be a heartbreaker, for sure.

Oh, Maegi hated that word. Normal. What was normal, anyway? So many had made it clear, though—there was a normal, and Maegi and Ramsay weren't it. So the best they could do was stick together, right?

Ramsay, I'm sorry, she said softly, a sigh in her voice. There isn't a single day that goes by where I don't regret not going with you and Euron. Euron—where was he? Her more volatile sibling had been even more furious with her when she'd made the decision.

He'd been too caught up in reuniting in their grim fashion to notice that something had disfigured Maegi's face before, but now that it was just them, he couldn't help but notice it. It made his belly swoop sickeningly to think of who likely had caused that injury... and what other injuries might have been done that couldn't be so easily seen. Good and bad, he grunted in response. Every good thing that happened to him had happened here, but every bad thing had happened here, too, sans Cicero's death. He ought to have thought less poorly of Vaati. It was through their brother's hard work that they'd even survived their infancy. Their mother and addled uncle certainly hadn't played any part, and Cicero only made himself known when they were past the most dangerous days of their youth. So the memories were bittersweet at best for him.

Maegi's subsequent apology was wholly unexpected. His lids fluttered in an astonished blink, then he drew his whiskers back on his muzzle as his lips pulled into a line. He'd been angry at the time. Not as angry as their brother. Time had tempered that anger into something a little more like worry and discontent. It eased him to know she'd come to no harm... besides the face thing. You didn't miss much, he said with an awkward rolling shrug. Cicero dropped us off at a pack near the southern mountains, and he didn't make it any further than that. Euron and I stayed with them for a bit but they weren't for us, so we left. Wandered a lot. Starved a lot. Found another branch and stayed there for a bit. Thought about coming back. Almost did, he admitted, but we weren't ready. We went our separate ways a while ago in pursuit of different teachings. I don't know where he is now.

His indigo gaze sought hers for a moment before he added, he never forgave you, Maegs. But I... I just felt like we could never mean more to you than this place, but I don't hate you for it. Not anymore, anyway. He'd been more hurt than anything... he hadn't essentially disowned her the way Euron did. What happened to you?

She conceded that, at least, if only to further ingratiate herself with him. Maegi listened with rapt attention as he told the story of their exodus, her stomach plummeting as she finally learned of Cicero's fate. So Relmyna had been right. . .he was dead. She felt sadness tug briefly at her, but it was gone quickly as it had arrived. As much as Cicero meant to her, she hadn't known him well at all, nor he her.

Her fault for that, too, she supposed.

And Euron was gone as well—but not dead, it sounded like. Just gone. I didn't expect him to forgive me, Maegi admitted. Her face had contorted as Ramsay spoke his truth, and she couldn't resist a shake of her head, his last question forgotten abruptly in the guilt that came up like vomit.

I hate that I made you think that, she murmured. She stared at him, eyes intensely pleading. It's not true. Nothing has ever meant more to me than you and Euron. I was just a little stupid girl who made a big stupid decision. By the time I came to my senses, you two were long gone. I went out—

Well, she supposed this did segue into an answer to his question. I went out looking, though, Maegi continued. Headed toward the mountains, toward the place where we stayed after the war. I didn't get very far before this woman knocked me unconscious and took me to her mountain. They kept me prisoner. Just like Vaati kept Cass prisoner, said a mocking, shrill voice in her head.

A man there became angry with me and tore my face open. But Moonshadow tracked me, fought him off, and I escaped, she concluded. Perhaps the rest of the story would come in time—the flight to Undersea, the problems with the red girl—but for now, this was where she would stop. It was enough to satisfy his question, for she assumed he was most curious about her scarred visage. Everyone was.

They were all once stupid little children. At times he wondered if going with Cicero had been a wise decision. Certainly he'd clung to the only family who ever showed him an ounce of compassion besides his littermates, and had trusted the threadbare Melonii to shelter them. When Cicero perished, cracks formed in Ramsay's belief that they made the best decision... and now, about a year later give or take, he still wasn't sure that was the right call. He shook his head as if to say, we all make mistakes, we move on from them. Staying in the woods apparently was the better choice, as evidently Maegi had been fine until she went out looking for them.

His lips writhed silently as she recounted events. He couldn't help wondering yet again if it was the man he was thinking of, but he would let her finish before he began an interrogation of any kind. Turned out there wasn't much more to the story. Moonshadow, a name he didn't really recall despite its familiarity, had saved her and presumably she'd been here ever since.

Was it the black one, the one who fought Vaati? he asked, with a steely glint in his eyes to suggest he was expecting her to say it was. The mountains were where Iliksis found he and Euron, after all... it wasn't far-fetched that he might have located Maegi as a prisoner there and maimed her. The thought made Ramsay feel ill.

It took her a beat to connect Iliksis with the challenge, having seen him more recently than that, but she shook her head after a moment. No, it wasn't anyone I knew before, Maegi said with certainty. And I haven't seen him since. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad. She would be disappointed if he was dead by any other wolf but her.

Iliksis is around. He disturbed the whelping den when Relmyna had her babies— Maegi abruptly stopped, the parentage of the girls suddenly coming to mind. Did Ramsay know? No, he couldn't, surely. He had been gone, and presumably not come back. But the knowledge had implications for both of them.

She drew in a breath, feeling as unsettled about it as ever before. Relmyna has two girls, one white and one black, she explained. They're Cicero's daughters. She told me. Which, I guess, would make them our sisters. It felt wrong in her mouth, still. She had to come to terms with it, though, as it would never change.

And Ramsay, Euron, and Maegi were still double the Melonii—literally—that they were.

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Truthfully he didn't know what he would have done if Maegi confirmed his suspicions; flown off the handle, probably, and gone off to hunt down the sicko himself. Luckily it was someone else entirely. The knowledge did little to ease his mind, but at least he could rest assured knowing Iliksis hadn't found Maegi after a—

Oh. Just kidding. Relmyna had kids? And he was supposed to believe they were Cicero's? He gave his shoulders a peculiar sort of wobble that sufficed for shaking his head and frowned lightly. He didn't care too much that Iliksis had bothered Relmyna. He hadn't known her very well and was only glad he hadn't bothered Maegi. That isn't possible. Cicero was with us the entire time. We never saw Relmyna. Maybe she lied hoping you would care for them more. There were plenty of times that Cicero could have impregnated Relmyna without anyone's knowledge, as evidenced by Relmyna's cubs, but he felt pretty confident he was right.

Besides, Regardless I would have only one sister. She's standing right here.

Oh. Well. Maegi had just sort of taken it at face value that they'd been Cicero's, but if he'd been away. . . Then again, how long were women pregnant? Maybe they'd been made before the war. Maegi really didn't know how most of that worked. Pretty sure she thought kids were planted in bellies like seeds. (Which wasn't, you know, altogether false.)

I dunno, she said uncertainly, staring at Ramsay. The dark one, she looks a lot like you. Same pelt, same eyes— And then she cut herself off, both because she didn't want to disturb him, and because he had said something else. Something she didn't think she'd hear again.

Maegi sucked in a breath. Gods, Ramsay, she whispered, feeling both pleased and guilty—like she didn't deserve his recognition, after everything she'd done. I've missed you so much. I missed you and Euron worse every day we were apart.

He firmly believed that Relmyna's brood being fathered by Cicero was impossible, so he had a rebuttal ready when Maegi claimed they looked the same. A lot of our bloodline look this way, he said, having met a fair few Melonii during his brief stay with the sect from which Meldresi hailed. Miraak had looked identical as well, if Ramsay's memory served. Anyone could have sired them. I'm certain it wasn't him, there was no time.

With that matter settled, and with no means of convincing him otherwise, Ramsay sought to move onto a more important topic. Maegi stopped him before he could ask the question, however, with a heartfelt admission. I've missed you dearly too, he said quietly, not quite as saturated with feeling, but he never had been all that expressive. She would recognize from his tone he meant it greatly. He couldn't speak for Euron, but he had always entertained the thought of trying to find her and bring her back into their fold. He was pleased he had the chance now, even if their brother wasn't present.

What are your plans here? he wondered, casting around with a slow turn of his compressed form to sweep his gaze through the trees looming over the glen.

Right, she murmured, her pre-conceived notions beginning to slip away (Ramsay had always been good at that). But if Cicero hadn't sired the girls, then which Melonii had? Miraak, possibly, but then why would Relmyna lie about that to keep Maegi in the woods? She'd known how dear Miraak was to Maegi, after all.

Maegi shook it off, just in time to flash Ramsay a grateful smile. Grateful that he seemed to have forgiven her, after everything that had happened. At his question, she gave a shrug, looking around with a sigh that captured all the weight on her heart in one sound.

I didn't really have a plan, she admitted. All I wanted was to get back here. Now that I'm here—and everybody is gone—I don't know. I just know that I'm not leaving again. They'd (whoever they was) would have to drag her out stone-cold dead; she wasn't walking out of the forest under her own power, not for anything in the world.

Ramsay wasn't surprised by her response; he didn't really have one either when he ventured down from the mountains. He'd been looking for a place to take refuge, but knew he would have chafed beneath Vaati's rule had the man still been Dark Master of the woods. The only reason he stayed was likely in front of him. The return of Euron or the appearance of Maegi had always been the only things capable of soothing Ramsay's wayward heart, ever since they were taken by Blackfeather for their own safety by a threadbare wolf clinging to survival.

Vaati was a poor leader, he remarked, seating himself with an awkward folding of his limbs. With his drastically shortened spine, he hardly came up with Maegi's elbows like this, but he knew her to be free of judgment for his condition. He wouldn't have sat easily in front of anyone else. I always entertained the thought that one day, I would oust him. Be a stronger leader than him, and prove mother and all the others wrong about us. It would have given him immense pleasure to witness the reactions of the so-called purists. No one was more pure of blood than Ramsay and his siblings, after all.

Too bad he isn't here now, he said, but it was without the wistfulness of a young wolf missing their older sibling. Vaati may have kept them alive in the beginning, but he'd done nothing for them—and, worse, he'd done nothing beneficial as Dark Master of the woods—and Ramsay had long since decided that his elder brother had to go. He would have liked to be the one to do it... but there was an opportunity here nonetheless, and Ramsay was nothing if not an opportunist. I'm staying, he decided.

Once upon a time, she would have vehemently disagreed with any criticism lobbed at Vaati. But the rose-tinted glasses that Ramsay had perhaps never worn in regards to their brother had fallen off, and now she nodded in agreement with him, lips pulling tight in a frown. I ran into Cass by the ocean, Maegi said, wondering if he remembered her as well or as fondly as she did. She told me that Vaati abducted her and took her prisoner. She disappeared because she escaped.

Maegi didn't mention that Mou had been a prisoner as well, or that her best friend was a Redhawk. She didn't know how her brother felt about Redhawks or that situation as a whole.

What she always had agreed with was the notion that Ramsay would make a good leader. She smiled at the sans-nostalgia remark. Me, too, she answered, speaking both of his past plans for the future, and for her own intentions to stay.

If only Euron were here.

In fact, Ramsay hardly remembered Cassiopeia at all. He only recalled that she had been Vaati's right hand, but apparently not by her own doing. He found it surprising she considered herself a prisoner and chose to escape when Vaati had all but handed her the Blackfeather Woods pack, but kept his judgments to himself. He wisely perceived that Maegi probably didn't think poorly of Cass, so it was unlikely she would agree with him how odd it was the woman had ran away from a life easily won.

Good riddance, then, he said with a quick, dismissive shake of his shoulders. He spoke of Vaati, of course. He remembered the man as something of a fanatic with an inflated sense of self worth, and if he'd done things like abducting Cass and sowing the discord leading to the attack on Blackfeather Woods, it seemed unlikely he'd held his seat for long after the pups left. Indeed, if Iliksis was to be believed, then Ithrik had won the fight for Vaati's rank... and presumably had led Blackfeather Woods into ruin, for the pack was gone now.

They were in agreement on their purpose, at least. There's much to do, he quietly remarked, if we mean to be smarter than those who came before us. Where shall we start?

Maegi pursed her lips, thinking. Hmmm, she murmured. Her eyes drifted up the walls of the Glen, toward the woods as a whole. I think we need to get rid of everything that illustrates what we once were, she said, glancing toward Ramsay after a moment. Any weird bones left on the borders, any signs that the wolves that did all those bad things still live here.

The girl thought of Flicker, and the woman's insistence to bring her to Damien. But she wasn't going to Damien. Damien was part of what once was, and Maegi would no longer associate herself with those wolves and those dark deeds. Mephala, the Dark Brotherhood. . .it was all dead to her. She wanted to make a life of her own, a life with her brother, her best friend, and her beloved forest.

She turned to fully face her brother, then, resolve etched into the lines of her young face. We're not them, she declared softly. We're better than them. Always have been. So let's leave them behind. They're the past—we're the future.

fade here?

Agreed, said Ramsay, who had long felt nothing but disdain for Blackfeather Woods' openly malicious displays. They didn't need the negative attention either, so Maegi's plan to dispose of it all. Mephala was a dark mistress but not some childishly evil bogeyman, and they didn't need to act like pups either.

You're right, of course, he said, inclining his head as best he could with his ghoulish shoulders. To the future, then.