Heart to heart

@ Hawkeye

It was a month or so, since Osprey had joined the ranks and reunited with her family members. She was very glad to have Peregrine back in her life again, he was her personal sunshine and she was pretty sure that as long as he was in her life, no man would ever be able to overshadow him. She had made some new friends and all in all could say that she had settled in the new pack quite well. There were moments, when she remembered the Falcons and felt a bit homesick, but they became rarer and fainter with the every passing day.

Now there was one thing, however, which didn't leave her mind at peace. It was Perry's relationship with his mate. From what she had heard from her brother - he was head over heels in love and worshiped Hawkeye like a goddess. But their story didn't quite convince her. How long had they known each other - a month, few weeks. Then - wham - mateship, leadership and children on the way. It all seemed too rushed for her. Unless the mate was just as mad about Peregrine, Osprey had fair share of doubts about her motives.

So... the best way to get to know other person was to meet her eye to eye and talk. They were relatives after all. To fulfill this purpose she had come to the den, which her brother shared with his mate. She had caught a hare this morning and had brought it with her as a peace offering.

Hawkeye lay in the center of the den, eyes open and restless. She didn't feel like patrolling the borders today, otherwise she'd have been up much earlier. Peregrine had left hours before, and now she lay sighing and hmming all by herself. "Why can't something exciting happen?" she groaned outwardly.

As luck would have it, Hawkeye saw movement of shadows outside of her den. She shot upwards and darted out, only to run into a grey female she'd never seen. Peregrine, Atticus, and Crete's scents were all over her. "You're Osprey!" the Alpha exclaimed. "Hi!" It was nice to have company, especially a new sister to meet, on a lazy day sucks as this.

The sudden appearance of the alphess herself caught Osprey off-guard, therefore she dropped her gift and stumbled several steps backwards, until she fell awkwardly on her haunches and regarded Hawkeye with a curious look. "Well, good and hasty morning to you too!" she greeted and chuckled to herself.

"Perry is not hiding there somewhere?" she asked, craning her neck to see past the black she-wolf in the dark mouth of the den. "Because I want to have you all to myself," she grinned at her brother's mate, "with no one else around." She emphasized the last sentence, just in case she had been mistaken earlier and Peregrine was still here.

"Hawkeye - it is nice to finally meet you in person!" she said and dipped her muzzle politely.

Hawkeye shook her head, smirking at Osprey being taken aback by her sudden appearance. "No, he left earlier this morning," she added on, confirming that he was not present at the moment. "Just me and the fat belly," Hawkeye spoke, letting out a laugh.

"Well," she said, squinting her eyes and raising her eyebrows in amusement. "you have me all to yourself. I shall wave away anyone who intends to intrude." Hawkeye's black tail rose and twitched, her words touched with a false pretentious air about them.

"That is great," Osprey chimed happily and added, "I believe that you are a woman of your word." She really didn't want to have anyone else join their conversation. It was important, because this lady had become her brother's center of life and Osprey thought that she had rights to find out as much as possible about her.

"So... let's begin with a formal greeting?" she offered. Because they knew each other, even though they haven't met and talked before. "Hello, my name is Osprey Redleaf-DiSarinno. I am sister of Peregrine, Crete, Atticus and a lot of other relatives. What about you?" Osprey tossed the metaphorical ball in Hawkeye's direction.

Hawkeye smirked, wondering was Osprey was up to. It seemed as if a semi-interrogation was about to begin.

"Hello, Osprey Redleaf-DiSarinno. I am Hawkeye, mate to your brother Peregrine. I carry his pups, hopefully to be named Osprey, Jr. and Tytonidae." Hawkeye pictured her small family back home and wondered momentarily how familys got so big; then, she remembered that her parents may seem like an oddity to others, only having one pup every few years apart. The Alpha shrugged her shoulders, not caring if her family was unconventional.

"It's very nice to meet you," Osprey finished the formal greeting part of their conversation and fell silent, looking for more words to say. Truth to be told - she was not good at being formal and this was the only field, where here creativity hit a concrete wall and couldn't fill in the blank spots, which, of course, was annoying.

"So... err... how did you manage to charm my loud-mouthed and adventurous brother into the serene life of matrimony?" she understood that she sounded totally silly. "I am fond of good stories - so surprise me!" she added in a lighter tone with a glint of mischief in her eyes. This was an invitation to be creative and to embroider the true story with as much impossible details as possible (how odd it sounded).

"My guess is that it involved a lot of heroic deeds, house chores, impressing the fair lady and some witchcraft in-between. There is no good story without a bit of magic. Am I on the right track?"

Hawkeye laughed at Osprey calling Peregrine a loud-mouth. "Well... funny thing, I think we first started liking each other when I barely knew your brothers and made fun of Perry in front of Crete and Atticus, saying he had a small... penis." Hawkeye looked down for a moment, then began laughing once more.

"After that, we spent more and more time together. Your brother is a softy underneath everything. He said he was going to win me over, no matter what he had to do; it didn't take much, though, because it was his personality that won me over, not rabbits or other things." Hawkeye widened her eyes, with a little "o" forming on her mouth, and and small noise came in exclamation. "And of course there was magic! He loved to sprinkle fairy dust on himself to make his pelt glitter in an attempt to sway me." This time, the large black female bit back her laughter, though it wasn't without a fight.

Penis-jokes - I should have guessed... Osprey thought and rolled her eyes. Years may pass, they may get older and have grey hairs around the muzzle as well as wisdom in their eyes and still would Redleaf-DiSarinno boys find jokes about genitalia hilarous. The fact that they had managed to lure Hawkeye into it was a bit surprising though. But - who knew - maybe this lass wasn't all polite and noble at all.

"Sparkle always works," she agreed, as if this was the oldest trick in the book of magic. Good looks, gentlemanlike manners, kind character, a bit of rebeliousness and a lot of fairy dust for glazing - and you would make a man of every girl's dreams. Why else was a certain vampire so popular?

"All rightey..." Osprey liked the easy going manner of Hawkeye. They might get along very well. "I am his "other woman"," she said, referring to the special bond she and Peregrine shared, and winked. "But now I see you and I don't mind sharing. Can't have such a good fellow all to myself, can I?" this was her way of permitting Peregrine's mate in her circle of friends. It had taken only matter of minutes and Hawkeye had won her over.

Though she resisted, a twinge of jealousy panged in Hawkeye's stomach. She thought about the closeness of her mate to his sister and wanted to be fine with it. She tried. Smugly, she knew that she was Peregrine's number one, and by a long margin. She had to be... she was carrying his children. Though, it wasn't a hatred of Osprey that had built in her, for she liked the myriad of grey female in front of her.

Hawkeye loved the male air that was always held around Peregrine's frame. He was male through and through. Unlike a certain vampire, but very much like a popular wolf (who happened to win over the girl in this situation, like he was supposed to.)

"Well, Osprey, do you have a prince charming back home? ...Or here on the plateau?" Hawkeye smirked at her sister-in-law, wanting to know the juicy details.

If Hawkeye had walked in Peregrine's life, while they still lived in Flightless Falcons, it would have been a lot harder for Osprey to accept that she was not the center of her brother's life anymore. Of course, he had had his share of innocent flings, romances and dates, but they never counted for real in her eyes. He would always return to her at the end of the day and all would be fine. But The One was a different story - she would need a lot of time to accept her in the family circle.

But with things as they were - apart from a pang of nostalgia for the old times - Osprey was very happy for him and grateful to Hawkeye for helping her brother to get back on his tracks during a very hard time. Being all on her own for a while had helped her grow up a great deal.

"Plenty, however, unfortunate thing it is - they were all turned in frogs," she explained pretending to be very heartbroken about this fact. "And now I can't tell them apart from the rest of the ribbiting flock in the pond."

Hawkeye burst out laughing, not expecting the frog tale to come from Osprey. "Well," she began. "I see why Prancer wants to name a girl after you. I am glad." This was Hawkeye's way of telling Osprey that she liked her.

"As for the males..." Hawkeye wiggled her eyebrows. "Are there any handsome gentlemen you fancy on the plateau? I could always set you up!" Hawkeye was not very "girly", but when she was, it was all out. Matchmaking was something she had always wanted to do, and she wondered if Osprey would let her dominate such a situation.

"I grew up surrounded by boys most of the time. Even my mom was the least girly person you would ever meet," Osprey evaded the tricky question carefully. She was not very familiar with the term - matchmaking - but had a vague idea of what kind of "danger" it could enclose. "So I am taking a well-deserved rest from the male population," she chuckled at the irony of the statement, because she was surrounded by her brothers most of the time.

But what was a good chit-chat with a fellow lady, if it didn't involve the subject of possible suitors. "Well... you can always recommend me... I will hide in the bushes, observe them and then decide, if I want to get to know them on that kind of personal level," Osprey finished with a sly grin.

Hawkeye let out a chuckle. "Very clever. View them from afar, possibly interacting with me, and if you are interested you happen to hop into the conversation. If not... you run away." Hawkeye herself would prefer to directly interact with a male, like she had Peregrine, since she was so confrontational.

"We have got a plan," Osprey nodded approvingly and smiled at Hawkeye, "I like it." There was an itch behind her left ear, therefore she leaned down to scratch it and, while she did it, there was a little time to think, what they were going to talk about next.

"I told you already that I like stories," she continued the conversation and lied down, feeling more comfortable that way. "Tell me, how you became the queen of the enchanted forest."

A twitch of Hawkeye's mouth could have only been seen if one was looking at it at that exact moment. She thought, briefly, that it would be fun for herself and Pied to gossip and talk about the possible matches for Osprey. But, Pied would pass away before anything could happen.

The Alpha chuckled at Osprey's next words. "I am not a queen. Just an elected leader. Pied and I were a part of another pack in Blackfoot Forest. I don't know if you have been there, but it's black as night at almost all hours. Our Alpha ran off, and, after a few weeks, a small group got together to discuss what to do. Another wolf named Leto and I argued our points for being Alpha, Pied being on my side. There would not have been a competition if we had fought." A small bit of smugness was heard on Hawkeye's voice. "Leto became the Beta, even though I'd have preferred it to be Pied. We scouted out this territory, which were the lands of a rival pack. Koontz was the leader, an enemy. Her pack had disappeared, though. So we claimed the land as a little 'ha-ha we're better than you'. The only ones left from six or so of us are Pied and myself. I feel like Blackfoot Forest was better for who I was then, but the plateau reflects who I am now." Hawkeye looked around quietly for a moment before settling onto her haunches and returning her eyes to the grey female on the forest floor.

ooc: maybe let's fade this out in next few posts and have a more updated version?

Hawkeye really seemed to be involved with her family members. First Pied, who was Osprey's niece, now Koontz - her younger sister. The fact that they hadn't got along was a little upsetting, because she was a good person and she couldn't possibly imagine her being an enemy of someone. But whatever conflict Koontz had with Hawkeye was between them and Osprey was glad that she wasn't a part of it.

"Very deep," she remarked at alphess' last comment. Briefly she wondered, whether Plateu reflected, who Osprey was now, and she couldn't find a good answer for that. Flightless falcons - so far away and having been left such a long time ago - was still her home in many aspects and, although, she had settled here quite well, there was still a long way to go to admit that this was a real home to her too.

"That was quite a story. How many of those, who started a pack here, are left now? Besides you," she questioned further.

Hawkeye let out a gentle sigh. "Since Pied has returned, her. She was still a part of Bon Dye, and is part of the pack now. I've been the only permanent member, though." Hawkeye wondered if she and Pied would ever take journeys away from the packs, leaving their mates to tend to the pups. The black beauty smiled, confirming that she would speak to Pied about a trip once the pups were old enough and weened.

A large yawn stretched Hawkeye's mouth wide. "Well, I better head back. I'm sure Peregrine is wondering where I am, and I am pretty tired. I used to be able to go without much sleep. Now, I am always exhausted." She frowned at this statement, wondering if she'd always be tired from now on.

"Good luck then," Osprey wished her, got to her feet and, before going her way, stretched thoroughly. It had been a brief conversation, but that of a good quality. She liked the alpha female and all of her initial doubts about her being the good-match for her brother had dwindled. She reminded her of March Owl in a way, even though the two almost weren't alike, they shared a common streak Osprey could not yet put her paw on.

"Have a good rest!" she said and then padded away.