Blacktail Deer Plateau don't let the colors fade to grey

@Osprey
sorry if it sucks :x

13 hours, 47 minutes and counting.
That's how much time had gone by since the last time Finn had slept. Despite the heavy weight of exhaustion dragging down his eyelids, he could not manage to get himself to shut his eyes; because every time he did, the teasing figure of her smile returned.

48 minutes.
By now, the mushed up pile of leaves that served as a bed laid empty and cold. He had resigned to lay on the ground only to find her image popping back into his brain. She had not only taken his heart with her to the Caldera, she had also stolen his peace of mind.

Like a complete lunatic, Finn began to pace around the lonely corridors of the Plateu, only accompanied by stars and the dim moonlight.

It was very late, when Osprey finally reached the borders of the plateau. Their last hunt had been a failure, her usual hunting spots couldn't satisfy her hunger, therefore she had resolved to leave the territories and seek food elsewhere. Taking from the caches would have been an easier thing to do, but, while she considered herself still capable of moving around, she thought that taking from the stashes was below her dignity.

Most of the day was spent searching and hunting, now she returned - if not very full - then content and ready to fall asleep immediately, when she would return to her den. As it happens to sleepy people, they tend to miss bits and pieces from their surroundings. Osprey was unaware of the other wolf, until she bumped into him and briefly lost her balance. "Watch it!" she growled at the big mass of muscle and fur.

As he began to pace around the Plateu, haunting the place with his sparkling platinum coat the notion of how many more minutes had gone by escaped from his mind completely. Now he was just walking around aimlessly, moving his legs in a mechanic manner over the Plateu's floor.

Then without noticing the black female coming his way, Finn almost tripped on her and sent her barreling to the floor. Her sharp yap was enough to bring his head back from the cloud it had been stuck in. He jerked his body brusquely and flattened his ears in an apologetic manner. The outline of the female was barely visible in the dark of the night, if it were not for the dim accentuations from the moonlight she might've as well been invisible.

Sorry, didn't see ya there he barked as he flashed a weak smile as peace offering. He then realized he had never exchanged a word with this wolf before, of course he had seem glimpses of her at the meeting but he didn't really know her name.

The other one seemed to be just as surprised to see Osprey as she was to see him. It would have been fair for her to apologize too, but since the male, who she recognized to be Finn, was first to do, she decided to stick to the irritated lady part and put up her angry face for a little longer. Her rank allowed that and it brought her a little pleasure too. Then she snorted and shook her coat to indicate that the brief moment of conflict was over.

"It's ok," she said and then added, "you just scared me. You are Finn, right?"

A simple air flick was then offered by the embarrased male, he had never fallen into the category of clumsy before, but now it seemed that he was owning it. Finally the dark coated female shrugged off their little mishap.

The male relaxed again, the little whiskers at the tip of his muzzle twitching with amusement as the female called his name. He couldn't find the name for her, she knew who she was of course, she was relative of Peregrine in some way.. oh what was it?

Yes,I'm sorry you are? he asked softly, not wanting to seem like a stuck-up douche who never looked past his own nose. My head's been all over the place lately, he tried to apologize quickly with a sheepish smile.

Frankly speaking - Osprey didn't know all of her packmates either and it was a pure chance that Finn's name and apperance had stuck in her mind. It was a shame, since she had climbed the ranks pretty quickly, since her return and she couldn't decide, whether it was because her contribution was really outstanding to the pack or it had been, because she had been Peregrine's sister and earned some sort of privileges.

Anyway - Finn didn't seem to know her by name and she took no offence. "Osprey - or, if it is too long - you can call me Oss for short," she said. "What's worrying you?" she asked politely, knowing that one way or another it had to be related to Perry's departure.

The Ollivander's eyes fell again onto her face, slowly making their way down the bridge of her nose and slipping past her jaw line. Now that he had a name to go along with her face he could achive it inside the messy files in his brain -- the title of 'Peregrine's somehow relative' was no longer needed.

It's my pleasure to meet you, Oss, he barked with a little dip of his nose, she held a higher spot on the totem pole and besides the sole fact of being older -- and in his opinion a bit serious looking -- was enough to make the insolent bastard son swallow any jokes and stand up straight.

It's uhh he stammered while feeling the little whiskers on his muzzle twitch and turn. He was no good when it came to speaking about feelings, but he had had to spill his predicament so many times over the past few days it simply came up as word-vomit now.

The Caldera that's what worrying me. he began, I don't even know the place and it already makes me sick to hear it's name, not because I think that the ones who left were traitors he admitted, even after knowing that speaking of them as friends would not be well seen he did so anyways,.. but because some who left were the ones I needed most he finished soflty. Fox was a good friend and Fin was well.. she was his literal other half.

A few days ago the very mention of "Caldera" and "Peregrine" had renewed the anger and disappointment Osprey felt fo the place. Now the fire had died down, the coals weren't burning anymore. All that was left were ashes and sadness for losing her brother in that kind of way. Therefore she understood Finn's reason for worries completely and didn't judge him for that. Almost everyone here in the Plateau had lost someone dear, who had ventured to new beginnings.

"If that is so - why didn't you leave with them?" Osprey asked in a calm voice. If the pull to be constantly by Perry's side had been that strong, when he had announced his departure, she would have followed him without a second thought. But since she had doubted her place in the pack with her brother as an alpha for a while, she hadn't. It was not an easy decision to make, she still felt the consequences of it, but deep in her heart she knew that it had been the right thing to do.

There was no stalling in the female's approach, she went in for the kill, twisting the cords around the man's neck with the same question he had asked himself every day now.
Why had he stayed?
Aside from Dante, he had no other ties to the Plateu. He barely knew the other wolves running around the pack, and honestly he wouldn't bother to get to know them. They were all faces with no names that in his world meant nothing but empty air.

The Caldera, on the other hand, didn't only hold captive the woman he dreamed of, but was basically made up of old friends or former packmates. If it were pointed to him that way the obvious choice would be the Caldera. But then, why hadn't it been obvious when the time to decide was laid out in front of him?

Had he miscalculated the pro's and con's of running of into the horizon with the Caldera wolves. Had he been blinded to his look-alike's offer by Peregrine's petty excuses? What argument had weighed more in his mind when the time to make a decision arrived?

I-I don't trust Peregrine and his promised land he managed to muster, it was a lame excuse that would never be able to make up for the discomfort that his decision had brought on him but it was partly true. The black male's 'emotive' speech had not reached the Ollivander's young heart, if anything it had only managed to make the young silver male scoff with incredulity.

Besides if something wasn't broken why replace it with something new?
Was this logic still valid, when the thing you tried to hold on to was now breaking you?

I-I don't trust Peregrine and his promised land Finn said after a moment of thinking. Osprey, who had prepared herself to hear all kinds of explanations aside from this, was a little surprised. She didn't know her pack-mate that well - only that he had arrived at some point, while she had been away. However, she had always thought of Peregrine as a leader one could fully trust and rely on to. Now she realized that her views might have been biased by the fact that she knew him better than anyone here.

"Sounds fair enough," she remarked. "But it doesn't make it any easier, does it?" she asked, feeling sympathy for Finn, who seemed so confused and heartbroken to her. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Osprey asked in a kind way, wagginig her tail and thus expressing her eagerness to make her packmates day a bit better.

After his the words were pronounced, a little buzz went on inside his head. He hadn't realized that maybe admitting to his waryness towards Perergine's judgement was npt the best thing to say to his very own sister after you've just met her. He expected her to defend him or simply frown -- even if she had chosen to stay too it didn't mean she had stopped being his sister.

Surprisingly, and quite thankfully the female didn't make a big deal out of it, maybe she hadn't followed because she had been skeptical too. His lips curled into a weak smile when she tried to get into his point of view, Not at all, he confessed with a certain ring of melancholy hanging from his voice.

He hated being placed in that position, where he was naked to another's eyes, he was so used to hiding under his armor that doing something different was scary to him. For a brief moment of awkward shuffling, he looked up at the female once more, his eyes curiously peeking at her now that she made the offer to help him, even if his vulnerability.

Advice, if you have some.. he croaked weakly, not knowing whether she'd be actually willing to share her wisdom or if she was asking just to follow proper ettiquete.

Osprey didn't mind if people were honest with her - even if the unpleasant truth was either about her or her brother. They weren't perfect creatures, they all had flaws and sometimes the others were better at seeing them than they themselves did. She observed Finn with keen eyes and noticed, how uneasy he was during this conversation and she couldn't decide, whether this was because of her presence or because of his conflicting emotions. Maybe both and she wished with all her heart that he would be able to get over it and see her as a friend and person he could trust.

"Advice," Osprey repeated thoughtfully and a moment of silence fell between them. She had offered help out of the sheer wish of making him feel a tiny bit better, yet had had no idea, how to achieve it. Now he asked for an advice and she didn't know, what could be the wise words she could actually tell him, to cure the whole situation he was in. "I would say - forget Peregrine, Fox or Caldera, or the choices made - think about the people, who you think were important to you. And if they are really worth it - fight for them," she finally said.

"Friendship doesn't disappear just because a distance is put between the people. The past might not be easy to let got, but it really helps if you decide, where you stand, what you want and what you can do about it," Osprey looked at Finn, hoping that this advice would be good enough for him.

For the briefest moment Finn got the urge to call it all off, to tell her he was fine and simply forget it all. Force himself to forget it all. The Caldera, the distance, Peregrine, Fox, Dante and of course her. But it wasn't that simple, it wasn't as if he could simply drop everything and go back to where he had come from.

The leaders of his birth pack had been explicit when telling him he couldn't show his face there again. He had nothing better there anyways, as much as he hated to think of it, it was more than likely that his mother's clock had already ticked off -- or it was about to.

He listened intently to the female's words, commiting every syllable to memory and analyzing each word in his brain. He liked to hope she would give clearer instructions and tell him exactly what to do, but of course she didn't. She wasn't a map, or an intruction booklet to tell him what steps to take. That was solely up to him.

For once, Finn Ollivander understood that running was not the answer.
Yet it was all he knew.

I want her he mumbled numbly, while furrowing his brows and biting his lower lip in deep realization. Regardless of the place, he wanted her. On the moon or underground where his heart could not beat, he wanted her.

"Then go for it," Osprey told Finn, hoping that he would take her advice the way she had meant it and not the literally. For a moment a mental image of Finn winning Perry in a mighty duel and then - all bloody and with a mad gleam in his eyes - kidnapping and running off with whoever the lucky maiden was, appeared before her eyes. But she shooed it away like an annoying fly - this was no time for fun, this was serious.

"And... even if it doesn't work out... you will at least have done everything you could," she finished, having a thought of whether this was the right thing to say and wouldn't this somehow bring Finn's mood down again.

Though the lovestruck silver male was not the best to decipher the code he had managed to grasp the general idea the dark coated female wanted to get into his thick skull. If he had been able to see the scene playing in her mind he would've assured her he had no intent of hurting her brother or challenging him the Caldera -- unless of course he tried to oppose to his feelings.

Like he had accepted the male's strange love triangle at the time, the least he expected from the man was for him to do the same. Besides, Finn held no interest for the Caldera, aside from being his look-alike's home it meant nothing to the platinum Ollivander.

Osprey, I'm glad I've met you -- thank you he barked, flashing a heartfelt smile at her direction. If she'd allow it he'd reach her shoulder with his nose, a sign or extreme gratitude towards the female that had with just a few sentences rekindled the fire inside his chest.

Osprey leaned slightly towards Finn, allowing him to touch her and returned his smile. It was a good feeling to know that she had done something to make the other person a little bit happier. Whether it worked out with his special someone or not, that was a different story. She only hoped that - in case of the worst scenario her packmate would be able to recover and move on. It would be sad to see him as sad and broken as he had been now.

"Good luck then. And keep in mind that I will always have an open ears and eyes for you," she promised him.

ooc: I think this is a good place to finish. Please, fade out this thread in your next post.

this thread was super fun to write thanks <3

Finn's coal black nose brushed against her cheek, a hushed 'thank-you' slipping from his lips as their faces stood near one another. He was insanely grateful for the support and advise he had recieved, not from one -- but three of his fellow packmates.

Though telling his predicament to three different wolves had not made his waryness about sharing feelings slip away he had at least learned that there was nothing wrong with asking sometimes. In the end, the other's opinions were objective and helped to see the issue from another perspective. Now if he could only get his runaway stunt double to see the whole situation that had developed after her departure perhaps it could all come to an end faster.


Again -- a thousand thank-you's for you Oss he barked, this time in a more affectionate and grateful voice. Then with a final smile and a brief dip of his muzzle he turned, leaving the female to carry on with whatever she was doing before turning into his shrink.