Bramblepoint Soundwaves of shimmering sands

Wraen had carefully edged around the most recent claim of Moonspear - the glen - and walked southwards from there. Once upon a long time ago Bramblepoint had been her favourite outpost to be - there in the middle of the tangle of bushes and trees had stood an old wilow tree, which she had been able to climb through a secret entrance at the base and then perch atop and watch the surroundings, while not being seen herself.

The willow had been fallen and died, while she had still roamed the wilderness two years ago or so, but the happy memories of times spent here remained. She was glad to find out that this place had not yet been colonized and that even after all the time that had passed, it was still pretty much as she remembered it to be. And finally she found the little stream that ran right next to the remnants of the once grand tree and she was glad to see that despite everything, new shoots had sprouted from the old trunk, thus indicating that the life went on. 

Wraen sat down and regarded her old friend fondly, realizing keenly that it would take many, many generations for another such special willow to grow and flourish here and that it would be an entirely different soul than hers, who would make it her secret hideout.

@Phox

Phox had managed to catch that pesky muskrat earlier, and it had been a good start to the day. His feet led him north toward another one of his favorite hunting grounds: Bramblepoint. The brush was thick with thorny, berry-filled plants, although the trees were no longer fruiting this late in the year. Phox was not particularly concerned about either of those things. No, his mind was very much elsewhere. He was currently tracking down a rabbit warren. Lo and behold, it led him right to a friendly face.

Well, I'll be. If it isn't the Sovereign herself! he chirped. Wraen did not, of course, hold that title officially any longer, but he couldn't help but use it. That was how he had known her for most of the time they'd spent together. How's the traveling life going? he asked. Normally one nose-down in his work, he couldn't help but stop and chat with an old comrade.

Of all the faces Wraen might have expected to meet, Phox's was not among them. His friendly greeting came as a pleasant surprise. She turned and looked her former packmate up and down, as if not truly believing, what her eyes told. But then - realizing that the Redhawk man was truly here in flesh and soul, she beamed at him. 

"Well - you do know, how to amaze people," she told him. "Life's treating me pretty well, but I see that you too have taken to wandering. Firebirds is far away - what prompted you to head out in the wilds again?"

Oh, that meant that Wraen didn't know. And why would she? It was sometimes hard to remember that she wasn't "in the loop" so to speak. Not anymore, anyway. Phox would have frowned at that, but he was too happy to have run into her. We actually moved, he replied, wondering how she would take the news. The Regent motioned to the flat-topped mountain. Eljay, Towhee, and I were born up there, and we had a few neighbors move in that we weren't too fond of. We wanted to get settled before winter really hit.

The mention of Eljay was an easy segue into another conversation point. I'll bet Eljay would love it if you stopped by. If Maia's still with you, he'd probably enjoy a visit from her, too. Little did they know the two would meet soon, although it wouldn't be a planned meeting. Heck, I'll bet even Towhee wouldn't mind a visit. Phox was realizing just what a loss Wraen had been to the Firebirds. It really was a shame she'd felt she had to leave.

They had moved and this made her a little sad, because the Sun Mote Copse and Firebirds altogether had ceased to exist. It had been two years not without challenges and difficulties, but still enough to leave a mark. Maybe the cause had been doomed the moment founding members of the pack had passed away. First, Wildfire, followed by Colt and Finwood. Who knows, what would have happened, if they had remained.

"We have settled in a plateau up north - a place, where my mom lived formerly. But Maia set out to travel two or three days ago. Did not tell me, where she went, but if you happen to run into her, say hello from me too," she said. "And I promise to meet Towhee as well. I miss that old hag," she grinned. "Aside from the recent move - what has changed in the pack - what's new?"

Blacktail Deer Plateau, Phox muttered when Wraen mentioned it. His own parents had lived there, too. Phox's memory was fuzzy on how he was related to Wraen (a fact he often forgot entirely), but it seemed like both of their ancestors had lived there at some point. Perhaps they had even lived there at the same time. It was good to hear that Maia was still sticking around, but Wraen didn't mention Arcturus. Did that mean he wasn't with them any longer? Or perhaps he just didn't have the same ties to the Firebirds that the others did.

He made note to keep an eye out for Maia, even though it didn't sound like she was Missing with a capital M.

When asked about the recent happenings with the Firebirds/Redhawks, Phox pondered for a moment, trying to remember what had transpired since his cousin(?) had left. Niamh and I are both Regents now; really fancy stuff. We got flooded out when all that rain hit a few months ago, but everybody made it out safe and sound. All the kids are getting personalities now, and I think Alyx is the most ambitious of the bunch. He conveniently left out the part where she'd called her mother a bitch. No need to throw her under the bus for that.

We visited the Frosthawks right before we moved. Raven and co. are all doing really well down there. That seemed to brighten Eljay's spirits. Well, that and the move to the caldera. I think he missed it more than any of us.

"Exactly. That's were Osprey and Peregrine lived first, when they had left the Flightless Falcons," Wraen explained, as if she had sensed that to Phox their status as relatives was a bit ambiguous. How different would life had been, if her parents had been still around the time Phox and Towhee had been born. Imagine the family picnics, New Year celebrations, birthdays and - as it was not unsual in wolf kind that some died young - funerals too. But they had skipped all this, met each other later in life and become friends still. 

"Oh, wow - I heard about the flood from the flatland and coastal wolves, but I had no idea that it had hit you too," there was worry in Wraen's voice, relief too - they had survived it and were fine now. "I am glad to hear that you and the rest are doing well," she added. Then her sympathetic expression turned to a surprised one: "You got Eljay to move? Anywhere?" Change in the fellow must have been the most profound. He was like a dusty piano, covered by a cloth, standing forgotten in the corner of a ninth floor apartment and you wanted to get rid of it (read - you wanted Eljay to get out in the world), but the heaviness and sturdiness of it got in the way and time after time you decide to leave it on its own.

Now all of a sudden - by sheer luck, magic or god's good will - this piano had got a couple of legs, had lifted itself from it's cozy spot and rushed down the stairway. And Wraen felt as if she was the person, who had met that running piano in the corridor. "How did you do that? Tell me the secret, because I tried to move him for a year and he was very consistent in his refusal to do so."

Wraen was quick to fill Phox in on their biological relationship, which he was thankful for. His memory really wasn't what it used to be ever since the concussion. He hummed in confirmation when she spoke of the flooding hitting them. Phox didn't bother to add in the part where Alyx had been lost in the midst of everything. She was home, safe and sound, even if she was a bit sour that she couldn't go immediately live with her friends in Rusalka.

There was surprise in the next thing Wraen said, and Phox had to chuckle. I'm not sure how we did it, the Regent replied. But I know that he's always missed it since we moved away. And I'm sure seeing Raven again brought back those memories, too. There was also Weejay, who had done a lot to cheer her father up. I think he wanted to show Weejay all his favorite spots. Honestly, maybe it was good for him to get away from the copse, away from the tragedy that had befallen him there.

I don't think he would have moved anywhere else.

"Maybe he has reached a point, when he is finally able to move on," Wraen suggested, feeling happy that for once Eljay had made a radical choice to change his life. Whether it was for something better - time would tell - but between losing his wife, son and both of his parents - he had nothing good left in the Sunmote copse. She wondered, if she could have persuaded him to move back to caldera, if that had ever occurred to her as an option. 

"I sincerely hope that life in caldera brings him more happiness than it ever did at... " home? she caught herself saying, but left it out. It was no longer a home to her. "... the copse. He deserves it and I wish that he does not turn his back on it." She thought about Maia briefly and all the what-could-have-beens that had never taken place, because people had not been bluntly honest with each other. 

"Is Niamh still Sergeant-at-Arms? And is Quetzal just as loud, Alyx - inquisitive and Prim adorable?" she asked, wondering, how the three kids had turned out during her absence. "And - by any chance, do you know, what happened between Penn and Fennec? The young lad has been tagging along and has not said a word about his travel buddy, though, if I recall correctly, when the left Firebirds, they were quite a formidable force together," Wraen smiled fondly.

Wraen offered her support of Eljay's happiness, but Phox couldn't help but wonder if she felt bad for not being able to help him more when she'd been around. Phox knew that Eljay had a rough go if it when Wildfire passed away. Maybe moving away from the copse with all its bad memories really was a good thing for him.

The conversation swung easily to talk of the other Firebirds/Redhawks as Wraen asked about Niamh and the children. Alyx is getting antsy about only being around family. Pretty common at her age, I guess. Quetzal has not lost any of her volume, and Primrose is turning into quite the romantic. Phox did wonder where his youngest son had picked up on that particular trait, but he figured as long as the boy was happy, it wasn't a bad trait to have.

Oh? Phox asked when Wraen mentioned that Penn had been hanging around. I'm not sure that anything happened. I don't think Penn felt particularly excited about the prospect of hanging out with us older folks, but I wasn't aware of him being sour with Fennec. And perhaps that was because he wasn't sour with her at all. Phox had assumed they had just grown apart when Fennec had returned home (or at least close to it, now in Firefly Glen). He realized Wraen probably didn't know about that either.

Bronco, Meerkat, and Fennec actually all live in Firefly Glen now. Hydra's son, Osiris, has taken the lead there. Phox was vaguely aware that the alliance with Moonspear was part of the reason Wraen had left the Firebirds to begin with, and he hoped bringing it up wouldn't sour the mood.

"Nah, he has not told me anything either and I am not going to pry. I am glad to have him around. All that boisterous and off-limits Blackthorn charm makes me smile every single day," Wraen grinned, recalling, how they had made a poem together and then looked back at other just as amusing encounters in the past. He never ceased to entertain, made her wonder, if he was anything like Finley in his youth. Because he sure sounded a bit like her. 

"Well - that's big news. Last I met Bronco he was all excited about Moonspear and what he is learning there and so on. There was not a mention about him hitting on his own together with others, but I am glad that they have progressed," she replied, feeling genuinely happy for the guy. "I understand correctly - the pack consists of mainly young wolves like them? Or did they drag a grumpy elder from the mountain tops too just to have fun?" she asked with a smile.

"What about Towhee - has she met a man that has wooed her and rocked her world?" she did not think it to be likely, but you never knew. Story went that there was someone for everyone out there, though even she did not have the capacity to imagine, what would a perfect man for the firebird could be.

Phox was glad that Penn had seemingly found a better place for himself. When he'd dropped Fennec off at the Firebirds, he had been terribly salty. Perhaps he'd moved on and found his own footing outside of family. Well, kinda. Wraen was family to the Redhawks, as was Maia. But maybe they were disconnected enough that Penn didn't mind as much. Whatever the case, it was good to know where he was.

I get the impression it's mostly younger wolves, Phox partly confirmed. He hadn't been over there to check it out himself, although he imagined it wouldn't be too long before that happened. Meerkat made it sound like there was a standing, open invitation for anybody who wanted to say hello from the caldera to the glen (and of course it went the other way as well).

Wraen then asked about Towhee, and the thought of Towhee finding a man who would "woo" her was pretty hilarious. In a rare moment of quick thinking, Phox replied. Of course she has. And he's standing right in front of you! The Redhawk stuck his tongue out teasingly.

"Is incest a strictly Redhawk thing?" Wraen countered, expressing honest surprise first and then a smile broke through and she began to laugh at her own joke. Yeah, just as Maia was a soulmate of hers, no one would ever take place of Phox in Towhee's life. If there was such a man (or woman), they would have a very tough competition and high expectations to live up to. 

"I find it is great that in an unpredictable life she has a stable rock to lean on," she said with a sincere smile. "The longer I live, the more I realize that we take far too many things for granted. People around us most of all," she mused. "And there are many that come in and walk out of our lives, but there are so few that remain."

Phox chortled at her question, glad that he had been able to get the joke across well enough for her to play into it. Despite the joke, Phox realized there was a rather dark undertone to it. His brother had attempted to assault Raven at one point, and there was a serious ick factor to that. Needless to say, Titmouse was no longer welcome, and Phox would have a hard time doing anything but attacking him on sight should he ever see Screech again.

Wraen gave her own words of wisdom on the subject, and Phox nodded in agreement. He had once been one of the very ones she spoke of: one that had not remained. Now, it tended to be the other wolves that left him, Wraen, Maia, and Arcturus included. Not that he could fault them for it. They were adults, and they had every right to choose what they thought was best for them.

What about you? Phox asked, You got a special man who has 'rocked your world' as you put it?

"Well, I think that we are similar in this sense - Maia is the most important person in my life," Wraen replied, smiling about the fact that the very same joke had landed on her side of the field again. "And it is so peculiar that you always imagine that this "love of your life" is of opposite gender and someone, who is wandering out there without realizing that you are the "IT". Yet... there is no shame in love and devotion to a sibling too. It is by no means... wrong or any less valuable," she said. 

"After all it comes down to that there is not a correct way to love someone, it is important to love at all," she said. "But that got too philosophical. Men are not known to gossip, but - I will take my chances - anything juicy I might pass on to the world?" 

Phox smiled and nodded. He could completely understand that sentiment. He just happened to have it all: Towhee and Niamh. Both amazing women who made his life better. He had never imagined as a boy meeting the "love of his life." And when Camilla had come into his life, he had simply gone along with it. Niamh may have been the first person he'd actually had some attraction to (and later, feelings for).

Hmm. Juicy, you say? Phox said, pondering the question for a few moments. He wasn't willing to put Alyx in a bad light, but he supposed he could pass on Fennec's new venture.

I don't know how 'juicy' it is, but Fennec took an interest in being a medic. Eljay was teaching her some, but that's why she moved to the glen. She's hoping to learn a bit more from one of the healers that lives at Moonspear. Phox didn't recall the healer's name, nor any of the specifics surrounding that situation, but it had made him proud that she had found something that interested her. Phox just knew she'd excel at it.

"A medic - wow, that's a sudden change of mind," Wraen replied, remembering baby Fennec, who had wanted to become an adventurer, a mercenary - basically conquer all those things in spite of her limitations. "Though I should not be surprised - she has always been ambitious - I once caught her trying to run from home," she remembered the event, but not the specifics. 
 
"Another time she wanted to learn to fight and defend herself too - was majorly upset that Figment - I think - or someone else could do something like this, while she could not," Wraen said. It stung a little though that Firebirds had not been able to offer Fennec something that Moonspear could with ease. But then - as she had already learned from meeting Bronco - it did not matter, where the life took them, they were always her firebirds in her heart.

"Is she happy there?" she asked then.

Phox laughed at her reaction. Fennec certainly was ambitious. Either despite her inability to see or because of it, she'd always been a little more rambunctious than her brother. Phox wasn't sure what Quetzal's excuse was. Maybe she was just a wild child.

Wraen asked if Fennec was happy with the glen, and Phox shrugged.

She seems to be happy, he said. And I'm happy she's close enough to visit.

"That's good," Wraen agreed, because it had to be easier on the parents to let their children go off in the world, if they knew that they weren't really that far off. And that they could visit them any time they felt like it. Her life up until now had been a proof that she preferred the exact opposite. Were it leaving her family pack, Moonspear, Terance and Rannoch, Firebirds - she had always wished to put as much distance between that previous life and present as possible. Was it an inherent, subconscious belief of hers that she would improve and find a new path for her to tread, only if she was far away? That was something to think about in the future. 

With this last paragraph their conversation had run out of topics to cover and therefore met it's logical end. "I will stop by at Redhawks, if we happen to be in the vicinity," she told Phox, getting ready to leave. "And if you happen to run across my adventurous sibling - remind her again that I eagerly wait for her return," she finished, not knowing that in a matter of few weeks she would fulfil that promise, simply because one of Maia's adventures would have taken a wrong turn.

Feel free to archive here; last one from me!

I'll keep an eye out, Phox said. He was glad that Wraen, Maia, and Arcturus had left on good terms, even if he wished they were still around. He was still a little wary of the whole sister pack idea with Moonspear, but having Wraen on their side, even if it was a small group she now led, was really nice.

I'm going to get back to hunting, he said then, remembering the rabbits he'd been after. See you around!