Moonspear As if you knew who I am, as if you knew my name

Fat, sulky, and fit to burst, Raleska marched her gravid form to Moonspear.

It looked like a miserable place. Her gaze swept the grey spires, unimpressed with the monotony. It looked cold and unwelcoming. It looked nothing like her gorgeous coastal home, full of life and joy and the whispering breeze..

She was pretty sure this was where Dacio lived. The scents matched the wintry smell that had clung to his fur - of stone and pine and cold mountain air. She had spent the whole trip rehearsing what she'd say to him - it would start first with a hysterical 'Look what you've done to me!' and would gradually devolve into a decision about what to do with it all; maybe they'd have some mountain mystic who could just make it all disappear..

Fantastical thinking, and not at all in line with the grim mood of this place. Raleska's gaze passed over the stony arch marking Moonspear's entrance, and then threw back her head in a howl for any wolf within that could procure Dacio.

He was close when the call raised, but the wolf he found there was not the sort he intended to see. Several long moments passed where all he could simply do was watch her, take stock of her, and draw a very short list of just why someone in her state would be calling for a dead man at their doorstep.

The overwhelming answer was a grim one—he thought it better that he attend to her than that of Hydra. Better he than any number of others that could have come creeping up along the passages in; he wanted the distraction over the drama, even though this would most certainly be a drama of a different sort.

He made his presence known through a thin ribbon of trees, but his attention was not immediately upon her. Instead he found himself surveying the backdrop behind her, wondering what sort of farce he was stepping up to... when the tickle of sea salt crossed his nose over the damp.

The coast. He hadn't thought about that place in a long time. He didn't have time now to miss it.

"You're a long way from home," he opened up, his attention now on her.

The man that wove his way through a thinning swath of trees was not Dacio. Raleska watched his approach in stuffy silence, her gaze sulky as it traced his casual and yet careful approach.

Was that what her little action in the bush had been to Dacio? A surge of frustration and hurt rose bitterly to her throat - what, he had hit and quit it, and now he couldn't even give her the decency of meeting her face to face? Did he know then? Was she just another of the faceless many, a one-and-done quick spin, easily put to the back of his mind like all the others?

Stupid, stupid girl. Raleska knew that voice -- that cold assurance, that dry huskiness. No, you're dead -- she closed her eyes and waited for the brute between the trees to meet her.

When he spoke, Raleska mistook his observation as admission he knew why she was here -- that he knew about her. She ignored the pleasantries, feeling her chin tense. "Where is he?" She looked behind Dirge as if expecting Dacio would be there cowering in the bushes, unable to look her in the face after what he had done to her.

She watched from afar from her usual perch above the tree line, watching as the dark shape made her way towards their borders. The scent she carried was enough to make Lyra's hairs stand on end — salt, sand, the faint musk of milk. Pregnant. Already another of the coast had come here while in heat, Hydra had told her, foolishly travelling whilst in such a vulnerable state. Now, another, only she bore the consequences of the season. Why?

Her answer came with the howl that came from the girl, and Lyra's features hardened. From the ledge, she quickly began her descent down the trail, noting Dirge's own scent as she made her way to the borders.

He was already there as she came upon the scene. Of course, he was Hydra's mate and the rightful alpha, but Lyra's own posture as she strode forth commanded the same amount of respect just as her sister would have. Where is he? She caught the tail wind of the stranger's terse question, and the Ostrega's cold gaze drifted over her. "Dead," she stated with no hint of grief.

@Lyra had permitted him to resume his duties; Osiris, ever-focused on his aspirations, had allowed himself the time to heal mostly. The occasional headache still troubled him, but he was determined and did his best to disregard them—but those efforts were generally unsuccessful. 

Osiris arrived as Lyra spoke, and he felt a pang of sadness as he realized that Dacio was the one they were discussing. Curious, and not putting one-and-two together, Osiris wondered why Raleska was looking for him; he didn't recognize her scent, nor had he recalled ever seeing her before. He placed himself in-between Dirge and Lyra, and offered each of them a sideways glimpse before placing his undivided attention to the visitor—for now, he saw no reason to speak.

Lyra's voice followed the trail of the she-wolf's question swiftly and his gaze cut to her only to find Osiris in her company. It was the presence of his son that stayed a disapproving tongue; he would have rather led in gently than be a keening blade to someone so obviously in the dark. Instead he drew his gaze back to the coast dwelling mother-to-be, and supplied more information as he had intended.

"Infection took him some time ago after an attack outside our territory," he explained, "so unfortunately he won't be able to answer your call. Are you his kin? His kru?" The foreign word slipped off his tongue with less finesse, but Dirge did not know much of Dacio and Opalia's origins. Perhaps she was tied to Praimfaya as well.

While Raleska's gaze pressed Dirge for answers, more wolves arrived at the scene. The first was in the mountain's upbringing; a tall, sportive yearling near Nieve or Reyes' age. Raleska spared him only a minute inspection, for what came next was a wolf with such arrestive bearing she nearly assumed it to be their leader -- up until the calllous, brusque delivery of Dacio's demise.

What kind of pack -- or person -- was this that could deliver news of a packmate's death without even flinching? A soft gasp left Raleska's lips, and she beat herself internally for it -- it was likely the reaction this wolven piece of obsidian wished.

Surely this was a joke. He couldn't be -- she looked to Dirge and saw truth in his somber gaze she wished she had never beheld. His countenance was every bit as genuine as Lyra's was sharpened like a cut of calcite. For half a second Raleska was tempted to lie - to say yes, she was his kru -- but it would avail none of them if she did so.

"No." Raleska answered, almost opting for the same brusque delivery Lyra had employed. 'I'm the girl he fucked'  had such a rude ring to it. Her stomach dropped -- they had been a far cry from an established couple, but even then she felt the fraying edges of grief nip her. She forgot all about her warpath in the face of his demise. "Did he suffer?"

The immediate change in her demeanor told him much of what he wanted to know. The fire within her extinguished, and the absence of flame may as well sucked the oxygen with it; the ire wound in her frame followed it. The unavoidable, no matter how gently the information was offered, and it seemed it truly was not the answer she had sought.

He charged to beat Lyra to the punch this time.

"No," he told her; he may have been lying, for he didn't know in full. Only snippets, smatterings that came from one mouth to ear. "My stern-mouthed counterpart here tended to him, but there was little we could do." Infection itself was a terrible beast, not that any of them needed to be told.

He cleared his throat then, moving on to more pressing matters.

"Did you come here alone? The woods beyond here as of late are rife with misfortune. If not for Dacio's efforts, the fiends of that wilderness may have claimed my son in our hunting grounds. They hunt their own for sport."

SORRY FOR THE WAIT have a novel

A soft gasp escaped the woman, though Lyra's demeanor did not change. In truth, she had blamed herself for a day or two after Dacio's passing. Surface wounds were easy to heal, even bones she could mend with little consequence, but infection was a different monster. It slowly took away bits and pieces of the wolf before it ultimately killed them - there was no stopping it once it had gotten hold, no way to medically fend it off (at least not here in the wild). The most she could do was hope she eased his pain and treated his symptoms, all the while angry with her failings as a healer. She should have done more, somehow.

Yet the grief she felt was fleeting, and she reasoned that if more of her focus had been on Dacio, perhaps Osiris would have been the one who succumbed. The sacrifice was justified, in her mind. It was an outsider versus one who shared her Ostregan blood. And she would always favour blood.

So Lyra stood emotionless, staring at the girl as her questioning - pleading - gaze flit from her to Dirge. At her question, she drew in a breath to answer but her sister's husband quickly interjected. No. Whether he knew it or not, that was a lie. No matter how many herbs she had for the pain, she knew Dacio would have endured dull, never-ending aches and body-wracking shivers that she had watched many smaller creatures go through during her experiments. If Raleska had looked to her for confirmation, she would have only seen the bleak affirmation reflected back at her. However, in a rare show of empathy, Lyra held her tongue, realising it was needless to correct him.

Dirge moved on then, and Lyra then noticed Osiris had wedged himself between them. As his father spoke of the attack, she moved ever so slightly closer to her nephew, her shoulder only just brushing up against his own as a small show of protection, her gaze hardening. She better have hoped she had come alone. Lyra looked past the woman for any sign of movement beyond where they stood. "Wolfkillers," she muttered after Dirge's words, before she added her own information in a louder voice. "It was a woman who attacked my nephew," she said, lightly gesturing towards Osiris with a swing of her muzzle. "We do not know her name, but she travels with another, a one-eyed man named Merrick."

There wasn't much that Osiris had to say; the subject of Dacio was still delicate, but time had begun to heal his wounds. 

On the tail-end of Lyra's report, he added, "There isn't much that I remember that day—only that the woman was black-furred and she was alone." The remainder of his recollection was gone. "She attacked me before I even realized what was happening—be careful out there." His voice grew gruffer by the word; Astara was not a wolf to be messed with. 

Raleska was plump, and the scent of milk was heavy on his pelt— like Hydra and Kututux. Osiris took a moment to regard the curve of her abdomen curiously. He couldn't help but wonder if her unborn children were the reason for her visit, but he couldn't know for sure.

Raleska thought of Dacio that night, the split across his wrist and how he had favored it at first. To think that little thing had been his undoing..

She swallowed, feeling sick. Feeling horrified. Feeling weak -- but at least she was feeling while Dacio slept forever in the dirt. Grief snaked its fingers through her composure as she listened to each recount what little they could spare -- first Dirge, then Lyra, and finally, the yearling that the dark healer pointedly seemed to protect.

It was not the first time she had heard such a thing: Dacio had told her too, while he was still alive. Her throat seemed gripped with something impassable. She didn't care about the bastards in the woods -- she cared about Dacio being dead and selfishly, how it was to shape her life..

"I came alone." She whispered, for once appearing incredibly small. "What do I do?" Panic edged into her voice, beset by a desolation that her hopes of rectifying this situation were now dashed forever.

As Lyra shifted beside him, he took notice of her guarded stance. Though he had grown used to Hydra’s sisters being there to help rear and tend to their children, they had required less of it now in the present. It was a grounding beacon in a very dark world, enough to soften the mild annoyance he had harbored for her earlier curt, cutting words. She was right to be guarded—wolfkillers was a more apt name than the fiends he thought them to be, though they were ultimately still very fiendish in their delights.

Osiris could have been just as harsh in his choice of words, but instead was not. Perhaps not too dissimilar to Dirge, he was a fountain of information; he was fair about it. Yet it stirred discomfort somewhere in the depths, reminded him that if nothing else they deserved to hunt those fiends down and finish them as they had sought to find their own. Despite that, it had been better that they simply protected their own, to lie in wait on the chance that they would strike again as they had.

His gaze returned to the would-be mother instead, and her plight.

“Where are you from? Perhaps if it isn’t too far, we could arrange an escort of sorts. In good faith, of course. The wretch and her companion are not the only ones who lurk out there that we or our neighbors have had issue with—perhaps it would be best to inform your leaders as well.” Best for them to gain another ally if nothing else, he thought, and believed such a thing would appease Hydra as well in the exchange.

The notion her worry could be for anything else was but a hazy thought elsewhere.

While it seemed Dirge and his son were more worried for the woman's safety, providing information for her own sake, Lyra only offered what she knew in case she could get information in return. However, none came, and instead the broken stranger simply pleaded to them once more in a meek voice that would have tugged on her heartstrings had she any real concern for outsiders.

At Dirge's reply, Lyra glanced at him sidelong, hesitant to sacrifice any of their own to escort the woman home, wherever it was she had come from. "Some of the Nightwalkers could serve as a guard," she piped up after, turning to her sister's husband. "They are fearsome warriors, are they not?"

The tone was perhaps a little too eager and chipper for the sombre situation, but her expression that she fixed Dirge in was pointed and sharp, wordlessly asking if he was sure he wanted to send some of their number on a trip to help some stranger they barely knew.

Raleska's plight was unfortunate, but Osiris knew that there wasn't much that he could do. He deferred to Dirge and Lyra concerning his reply, ready and available to assist them if needed.

The longer she spent here, the more she realized this was a mistake. That Erzulie was right -- it had been foolhardy to attempt this journey.

"I don't need a guard. I'm not a fucking baby." She was incensed. She had traveled miles, and this is what they offered her? The Babysitter Brigade?!

"This is all Dacio's fault." Raleska's demeanor shifted, for she was furious they offered her guardians when she had made it here just fine herself, thank-you-very-much. They were supposed to offer reparations for being pregnant with Dacio's kids, anything -- not these sad, pathetic platitudes about wolfkiller this or we'll get guards for you that. Useless! It did nothing to help her condition, nothing to spare her the agony that was bearing Dacio's children without a father in the world. They should be offering her help with the offspring -- they should be offering to take the babies -- paying child support, anything but 'Can we offer you this Escort so you get off our Mountain' BULLSHIT.

Pointing a proverbial finger at them all, Raleska snarled a stiff "You'll make this right." She didn't wait for any more of their hospitality. So far, she had seen squat.

With a lash of her tail, Raleska turned to leave. She kept an ear turned behind her, especially in case the bitey looking female attacked, but she wasn't going to beg and she didn't want to be on this mountain a moment longer.

PP granted by all thread members!

 

Irate and entitled, Raleska made her demands and then turned to leave—Osiris was relieved to see her go. Based on her actions, he had decided that she was a baby, and he no longer harbored any sympathy for her situation. 

Osiris held his ground and fixed Raleska with a look of aversion; there was nothing left to say. She received the message after and pause and stepped away with a loud sigh. 

"I'll keep watch," Osiris said once Raleska was gone. Coinciding with the plan, Dirge and Lyra left soon after, leaving him alone. Osiris remained at the borders for some time, keeping watch until the sun began to set. As he was sufficiently convinced that Raleska would not return, Osiris then retreated to the heartlands of Moonspear's territory in search of the nearest cache. It had been a long day, and he was ready to eat.