Redhawk Caldera Strawberry Season

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what is time and space even

Following his escapade at Ouroboros Spine, the seafarer turned South yet again. @Erzulie had provided him with some rough idea of the Caldera’s location and his curiosity could not be staved. There was history between his leaders and the Redhawks. It was something Njord wasn’t entirely privy to, but hungry to understand. Perhaps he could be an ambassador like Meerkat.

He stood on the pack’s precipice, looking down at the great lake in the center. The red-tail tipped his head and politely howled for an audience

The howl called her attention to the caldera's rim, where a stranger stood. Although she didn't fancy herself a guardian, she was protective of her family's home, plus the little ones who lived here. She marched directly toward the wolf to let him know he was actually trespassing, though as she approached, Meerkat realized this was no stranger at all.

"Njord?" she said with some surprise, freezing for a moment before she smiled and waved her tail. Meerkat glanced around as if expecting to find a Redhawk nearby. But there was no one, only him. Well, she was here with him now, so no harm done, though his presence begged the question, "What're you doing here?"

Abruptly, she wondered if something had happened to @Reyes. He'd left to visit Sapphique some days ago, after getting some directions from her. Maybe Njord was here with news of some kind. Meerkat's brow furrowed.

It wasn’t long before a familiar face made an appearance. “Ahoy, Meerkat!” he greeted her, reciprocating a friendly wag of his fire-colored tail. Sea blue eyes cast over the Redhawk’s figure to see if she had recovered from her long trek.

“I was travelin’ down South, an’ thought I’d pay ya a visit. Check ta make sure ya made it home safe…” the seafarer quirked his brow in question. Meerkat had arrived on Sapphique’s doorstep worse for wear. “An’ I wanted ta see where you an’ yer kin lived. Don’t know much about ya, but me captain’s do. Thought I’d change that.” He couldn’t grasp the complicated histories that entwined the wolves of Teekon. He was still new to this land; an outsider.

When he explained why he was here, he made no mention of her mother's mate. Meerkat let out a relieved breath. The timing was really rather coincidental, almost as if the packs had intentionally swapped its patriarchal figureheads.

Her smile grew when she really absorbed his intention. "I'm alright," she let him know with another twitch of her tail, "and it means a lot that you'd come all this way." Meerkat felt a twinge of guilt too, though she reminded herself Njord was here for other reasons too.

"Well, welcome to Redhawk Caldera," the yearling offered in the next breath, sweeping her foreleg to gesture at the picturesque vistas around them. "I guess our packs are technically family through Reyes," she shared, wondering if the two men knew one another.

It pleased Njord to know that the young scout had returned home in good health, and he stole the moment to quietly admire her work ethic and amicable personality. Her pack was lucky to have such a focused individual. Njord knew he could not say the same about his youth… he had been quite the rowdy teenager.

She introduced her pack’s territory as Redhawk Caldera. It smelled of lake water, pine, and mountain air – but heavy with the aroma of an established pack who had lived there for many years. The vistas were breathtaking, but Njord could hardly imagine a life away from the sea.

Meerkat spoke of a familial tie between the Redhawks and Sapphique… and this new fact piqued his interest. “Reyes?” Njord parroted, “M’sorry lass, I don’ ken tha man. Who is he?” Njord cocked an ear, curious.

She hadn't expected that reply, which probably showed by the slight raise of her brows. But Meerkat quickly recovered, happy to fill in the blanks as she told him, "He's my mother's mate and, I believe, Erzulie's son?" She wasn't completely confident in this knowledge and couldn't even recall where she'd learned it: from Towhee or perhaps Reyes himself? That uncertainty came through in her inflection.

"Can I ask you something?" she queried in the next breath. "Sorry," Meerkat added for abruptly changing the subject, "but I can't help but be curious about the way you speak." She'd gathered "ken" meant "know," just by the context, but it wasn't just his word choices but his accent too. "I've never heard anyone talk like you. It's kind of pleasant on the ears." Well, ear, though Meerkat hardly ever mentioned her partial deafness.

“Ah, I’see,” Njord replied as the connection between Sapphique and the Redhawks came into light. Erzulie had told him she had ten children before this pregnancy, and it made sense that some had left to start their own lives (as he, himself, had done). Njord knew that Kaertok was Meerkats biological father, though it seemed one of her mothers had chosen a different man as her husband… Reyes, Towhee, Niamh, Phox, Kaertok… Njord was both confused and impressed by the complexity of relationships in these families. Life back home, on Meares Island, had been so simple and rigid by comparison.

He gave a small hmm of approval when Meerkat inquired about his accent. “Ya flatter me, lass,” he said, “’Suppose I get it from my Granda. He always spoke this way.” Though grandsire Axolotl and Njord had never seen eye to eye, the seafarer was more like him than he wished to admit. “I’m from a place called Meares Island,” he continued, “‘Aven’t even lived in Teekon fer four seasons, yet… but I’m sure ya figured that by my lack of knowin’ tha many names ‘round these parts.”

She listened astutely as he explained a bit of his background. "Granda" was such a cute title, sweeter somehow than the more common "grandpa." Njord mentioned his birthplace: Meares Island. She immediately thought of Yuèlóng, picturing a sandy paradise. Or perhaps the landscape there was more like at Sapphique: rocky, shear and a little treacherous.

He'd only been living in the Teekon Wilds for about a year, sort of like her, but of course Meerkat had been born and grown up here. Her lips twitched as she replied, "Oh, I've been here for a little over a year. Don't worry, as soon as you hit that year mark, you're bequeathed with an innate knowledge of the lay of the land, just like that!" She let out a breathy laugh at her own joke.

"While you're here, would you like a tour?" Meerkat invited in the next moment. "I probably can't take you any further into the territory, though we could walk around the rim here and I'll point out the important landmarks," she added a little apologetically.

Njord gave a hearty laugh, earnestly tickled by Meerkat’s joke. @Merlin usually occupied the role of jester in his life… but, recently, his friend had been quite elusive. Must be all those headaches he’d had recently… In any case, it felt good to laugh. A break from the rigor of his structured life.

“I’d like tha, indeed,” Njord said. “I nev’r ventured much ‘round these parts. I don’t quite know the lay of tha land.” It was true… these days, Njord found himself bound to the coast. Especially since the passing of Raleska, Rosencrantz, and Kaertok.

He shifted his weight, ready to follow Meerkat wherever she should lead. When they got going, he would interject his own questions. “Yer mums are tha leader of tha Redhawks?” he would ask, unaware that one - Niamh - was still missing. "Or ya Da, Phox?"

She almost offered to regale him with some Redhawk history as they went, though Njord beat her to the punch. Smiling to herself, she quelled a laugh and answered, "My mom is the Sovereign, or Alpha. We have two Betas, which we call Regents: Ruenna and Fennec. Fen's my older sister. My dad was a Regent. So was his mate, my Neema. Before they... left." It pained her a little, to recollect that aloud, but her expression didn't falter as they moseyed along the top of the caldera.

"Just in case you couldn't guess," she said, pausing a moment to point down at the vast body of water, "that's actually the caldera itself. The territory is named for it and, of course, my family. Which is quite... convoluted, as I'm sure you've noticed. Phox is actually my uncle, for instance, though I could never think of him as anything but my dad."

She wondered, briefly, what he might've thought about being called "granda" by Fennec's incoming offspring. But Meerkat didn't linger on that thought long, nor mention her sister's pregnancy. Instead, she resumed walking, pointing out the beaver dams, the various creeks, the evergreens. She told Njord about the sights unseen too, like the caves she never really visited much.

Eventually, she led him down the outer slope, back toward the borders. "I'm not trying to get rid of you, I swear," she joked, "there's some cool stuff to see out here too. And you have to see the caldera from every angle, of course, otherwise how will you ever complete your mental map? Anyway, did you know this place used to actually be a volcano?"

The ruby dutifully followed his chaperone around the borders to see every angle of the territory. It was so different from the seaside cliffs he called home. Softer, in a way… more earthy. It was a grand expanse, and one the Redhawks should be proud to call their estate.

Njord listened as Meerkat explained her mother was the captain of their crew. He stashed away the names of the others in his mental library – Ruenna and Fennec. She went on to explain her fluid family, and how Phox was only her father in role. The seafarer admired the way the Redhawks were communal.

“A volcano?” Njord said, taking her word for it. “I’ve only ‘eard of those in fables. It’s ‘ard ta imagine this peaceful place all fire an’ brimstone." He looked around at the lush greenery. ”Are ya afraid it’ll come alive again?“

She pictured it too, for a moment, but Meerkat shook her head at Njord's question. "I've never known dead things to come back to life, have you?" she rejoined with the slightest ruefulness. She had intended it as an entirely rhetorical question, though even as it hung on the air between them, she blinked her amber eyes and laughed lightly, thinking aloud, "Except for all the plants in spring, I guess."

But that was an expected turn of the seasons, an annual cycle of dormancy. Her eyes swept up the nearby slope as she speculated: was it possible? She couldn't see the water from down here but she could easily picture it in her mind's eye: placid, sometimes rippling if the wind found its way inside the basin. Meerkat shook her head, sure there would be warning signs should anything like that ever happen.

"C'mere," she said in the next moment, motioning for Njord to follow her as she led the way along the caldera's foot, pausing in the shade of a tree. "Look," she told her guest, tipping her head back to peer up at the boughs, "it's an apple tree! Have you ever tried one?" Her gaze dropped to the ground, to see if any had fallen from their perches, and she lucked upon a single fruit.

Turning it over with a paw, she observed, "It has some rotten spots, though you could nibble around them, if you'd like to try it." Her eyes drifted momentarily to the dark forest looming just over Njord's shoulder to the south, then found his face as she wondered if he would imbibe.

A jest, a laugh, and then Meerkat whisked him away to another sight. He followed readily, enjoying this tour and Merkat’s easy company. The young woman pointed out a tree which was dwarfed by taller pines, but it had whimsy gnarled boughs and an interesting shape.

“An apple tree?” Njord parroted. He had never seen or heard of such a plant before – especially one that grew fruit on its branches. No such species existed on Meares Island, or thrived by the costal territory of Dragoncrest. Meerkat foraged until she found an old, misshapen apple on the ground. He inspected it, sniffing. “I’ve nev’r smelled anything like this,” he explained. “Plenty of berries where I’m from… strawberries, blueberries, mulberries an’ tha like.”

The seafarer curled back his lips to pinch at the apple with his incisors and found the flesh to be harder than he expected. He gave it a second go and managed to get a good nibble of apple. It was both sour, sweet, and a bit overripe. “Mm!” he proclaimed, “It’s good!”

He regarded the envoy kindly. “I thank ya, Meerket, fer yer ‘ospitality. Yer Caldera is a bonnie place. I better be gettin’ back ta Dragoncrest… Erzulie’s bairns are due soon, and I shant be strayn’ far fer too long.” The redtail smelled the wind to get his bearings. “Yer welcome ta visit Sapphique anytime ya like,” he added with a smile. “Ya av’ a good air about ye.”

With that he would wait for Meerkat’s closing statements, if she had any, before turning Westward to follow the coast back home.

Before imbibing, Njord mentioned a slew of berries. It made her mouth water, though she'd never heard of nor tried a mulberry. "Apples are sort of like big berries," Meerkat said even as he set his teeth to the fruit and began to nibble, "although they're... firmer, I guess?" She laughed, eyes brightening when he seemed to enjoy the treat.

After his apple tasting, he made a point to thank her for her hospitality, using several words that tickled her fancy. Meerkat thought she could listen to Njord talk like that all day and never grow weary of it. "Bonnie"? "Bairns"? She'd never heard such terms, though they were easy to guess based on context. And they were so pleasant to the ear.

"Well, I assume 'bonnie' is a good thing," she quipped, nodding. "Thanks for the invitation. Consider it mutual. And maybe next time I come up to Sapphique, I'll actually stay a while." Meerkat let out a self-deprecating laugh at that. She really ought to pay a proper visit, rather than always show up on their doorstep, tired to the bone and demanding answers of some sort. Especially with Alyx living there.

"Take care!" she called out to his back, sandy tail swaying. Meerkat smiled to herself as she watched him slowly disappear into the distance. She'd spent so much time scouting lately, it was a nice change of pace to act the ambassador at her own homestead.