Hushed Willows Hit the ground running

It had been a while since Tavi had roamed about the territory, but she did so now, thinking primarily of her conversation with Valette and doing her best to seek out @Stark so that they could talk. She didn't know where anyone was - the Crook was practically vacant, and as she went along through the atrium of the cave and in to the back room where her children had been born, Tavi thought she'd at least find Harlyn or one of the other kids. Not that she wanted to... but the thought of apologizing had popped into her mind while she sought the dark wolf. Upon finding even that room empty - and being oblivious about the missing Pippin as well as his father's hunt - the Alpha was perplexed by the emptiness. With a tired sigh she headed for the cave mouth, but stopped short, and then surveyed the world from her shaded and well cooled vantage point.

Stark had napped most of the day, finding it too hot to do anything else. He was headed back to the Crook when he spotted Octavia, his tail wagging a bit. He was faster to come back, approaching her and giving a gentle nudge to her temple. "Hey," He hummed out, sitting down still close to her, but trying to give her some space. "There's another dark male running about - Rhodes, my best friend. He found me here, I had to bring him home. He's a solider, I think he'll do well here." Stark explained, wanting to give her a heads up if she saw the male.

Stark found her, rather than the other way around. And when he came in to view, she seemed to look right through him - not exactly focusing on anything specific, like she was deep in thought. It wasn't until he nudged her that she sort of jumped, her fur trembling and rippling, and abruptly returned to herself. She looked around as if in a stupor, hearing his words as if they were coming to her ears under water, and then she saw him - and Tavi's eyes widened in surprise, and she smiled.

I was looking for you, she murmured, disregarding everything he had just said about his friend Rhodes - that didn't really matter at this point. Just that she had found him. In fact, had she actually heard what Stark had been trying to tell her, Tavi might've been a little annoyed; this place was meant to stay secret after all. We -- we need to talk. Not to sound ominous, she wanted to add somewhere, but by that point it did sound ominous, and all she could do was laugh nervously, which made everything worse. I mean, not.. Not a bad talk. I think. I just.. I dunno how to do this.. Feelings were hard, y'know?

Secret or not, Stark's thoughts still went to Octavia's concern over Reek and Tambourine. He didn't know that the male had already gone off to find his other children. It might have taken some of the pressure off him but as it stood he was too busy trying to appease Octavia's paranoia. She jolted so sharply that Stark drew back a couple steps, concern in his eyes. She was acting so strangely lately and he didn't know what was going on. Everything that had happened just kept him on edge, enough that he felt the Keep sometimes was suffocating to him, it drove him to worry over what he needed to do for the sake of peacekeeping. 

"Talk?' He repeated, biting his lip for a moment. That sort of thing never went well. "Y-yeah. Sure. What's....uh. What's on your mind?" Usually he was far more silver-tongued, but this was a matter that they had both been avoiding talking about anything more than just letting it all go with the flow. Thinking of actually facing things head on? Well. He wasn't that brave.

Alright. She could do this - right? This talking thing? This sharing of the feelings, which Valette had suggested? Or had Tavi suggested it first? Whatever. Her brain was going off topic. But then she was thinking of Valette and the conversation from before, and sort of drifted away from the present, although this time it wasn't enough to drown out what Stark was saying. Idly the woman sank to her rear by the Crook's opening, having turned to face Stark, but she was sort of staring off in to space again.

I... Saw an old friend. Okay, not what she wanted to talk about, but, baby steps. From back when I lived in the Maplewood. She was good friends with me, and Reek, and Saena -- Reek's uh, wife, I guess -- now things were going a bit wonky, but at the very least Tavi seemed to return to herself and focus on Stark, and she seemed much more lucid in recounting these facts. Anyways, uh, she was with them when they moved away, and then got lost, and now she lives on a mountain. Valette, I mean, not Saena. Um, This was all a jumble, and the more she rambled the less clear it seemed.

At the last second, thinking she could clear it up by just blurting out one of her many thoughts on the subject (and having veered away from the entire point of the conversation by now) Tavi announced: I'm taking Tambourine there, and Harlyn can have this mess of a pack, and you can come with us -- I would like that -- but I want what's best for him, and this is it. At no point had she really thought this through; it had been a little notion at the back of her mind after Valette had departed, but not something Tavi had truly entertained. It made no sense, except it sort of did to her, in the way that she could avoid talking about her actual feelings and distract him with this... Strange decision.

Octavia was rambling, talking about Reek (god, had she read his thoughts?) - and Stark's eyes just got wider and wider. Before he could ask anything, get some background, find out about Valette or Saena or know anything about the life she'd had before he'd come along she said something that he wasn't expecting and Stark's mouth actually fell open. 

That she would leave him behind - leave their pack - and run off to the mountain. He didn't even know where it was, he'd climbed several mountains but not that one, because he'd never encountered a pack along their slopes. Stark's mouth snapped closed for a moment and he looked at Octavia long and hard, his blue eyes narrowed slightly. "Don't do that." He didn't ask, and god knows he didn't beg. "Don't go. Don't take him away." It was softer then, and it was then that he knew he had to do something.

"He's happy here, and look - if I...If I claimed the pack, we could make sure things were okay, that he was safe. Don't take him anywhere." He repeated, his blue eyes imploring her. "He's too young to travel so far, look what it did to Harlyn and Mordecai's kids - they're still recovering." 

She knew it was all stupid, what she was saying. That it wasn't even logical. There had been no real consideration for anything; none for Tambourine, none for him, or the pack that she still had to run on her own. But Tavi was running her mouth — talking to him like Valette had suggested, but not about the right thing, because really Octavia wasn't prepared for it, and somewhere in her mind she knew that. Somewhere, beyond the threat of her disease, she knew she couldn't put her feelings in to words. So she ran, verbally anyways, and escaped from that responsibility by jumping on the next best thought.

His reaction made sense. It was logical. But the way it drove him against her, bringing reason where before there was none, made Octavia angry. Her anger was abrupt and just as meaningless as the threat she now posed before him of taking the child and abandoning the entire pack — but it flared up inside of her, and the Alpha puffed and bristled, recoiling as if he had struck her with a physical attack. Stark had never come against her in this way before and she, in her current state, couldn't understand why he resisted.

That, and knowing that she was the Alpha, meant he did not have the right to fight her on any decision. Whether she made this decision with a sound mind or not, he was merely a Beta - and she could take that away from him.

And then, before Tavi could form enough cohesive thought let alone a single word in protest, Stark did the next unthinkable thing — he threatened to take it away from her. Not just the pack, but her son. Force him to linger here with the crazy woman Harlyn and her awful little children! Octavia did a mental 180 when she heard him speak, and her body went rigid as if she were about to lash out at him - but it was almost like she couldn't remember how to do that. Instead of baring her fangs like she wanted, or even lunging as her posture implied she might, Tavi sputtered and looked utterly overwhelmed instead.

You -- you what? You can't do that, and she believed that. He had no right to take anything from her. And don't you dare compare Harlyn's -- Harlyn's -- shit, had she really forgotten the word for 'the next generation'? Tavi's mouth was a hinge as she struggled, but within moments she passed on that line of thought and ploughed in to the next: Tambourine is mine, and he's strong! He's a survivor. Aside from that, he isn't yours! Her voice rose in pitch and became something viceral, something primal, as if she were rallying all of her energies and all of her pent up feelings about Reek against him; and maybe she was, because for a split second Octavia thought she hated Stark as much as she loathed and feared the king of the grotto.

What burned him so much was that Octavia wasn't thinking of Tambourine. Sure, superficially, yes - but after that what would happen? They set off towards some random pack that she didn't even know would really take them in - and if they were hurt, if Tambourine got lost, if they didn't get enough food, if they were rejected. The list went on and on and on. Stark felt himself bristle, stepping back further from Octavia as she puffed and snarled at him. 

His head ducked automatically to protect his neck and his chest. She looked like at any moment that she would launch herself at him, and Stark sorely didn't want to see that happen. He wouldn't fight against her if she actually took things to the physical realm. "Don't you get it? I'd do it for you -" He growled out. "Like I've done everything for you since I got here!" He'd played diplomat, brought in wolves, tried to engage everyone make sure that they were fed and happy. He was the only one trying to clean up the mess between Octavia and Harlyn and their children.

But what she said - what she screamed for everyone to hear, was that Tambourine wasn't his. Like he needed the reminder, that he wasn't so aware of the fact that no matter how much he cared, he'd never change that. "You say that like I don't care - like I haven't basically acted like he was every single day. If you really think that way, I can't change your mind." He said coldly. It just made him hyper aware of the reasons why he didn't do this. Why he didn't get involved with actual relationships, especially not with children. At the end of the day it wasn't a choice that he or Tambourine got to make. Octavia would do that against their wills. 

You'd take the pack, for me? Bullshit. She really didn't know what she was saying now, and barely understood where this conversation had gone, or how it had gotten so far away from its original intent, but that was all because of her sickness. Except to Octavia, the only thing wrong was Stark; there was nothing wrong with herself, or her judgement, or anything, just him, because he was threatening to take everything from her. The woman stepped towards him with a lurch, and was up on all fours, her spine rising like an array of angry quills.

You'd take my -- my -- Tambourine -- again, she forgot words, but she would chalk it up to her immense rage and not the idling of her thoughts, again and again, until she could no longer speak. Take him, keep him here, against the wishes of his mother? You're just as bad as Reek — As those words left her mouth she thought, oh, and briefly imagined that her face shifted to some expression of surprise at herself, because she felt that somewhere. Except she couldn't seem to control her expressions, and the angry contortion of her features did not in fact change, leaving Tavi looking utterly menacing and out of her mind.

She bared her teeth, mostly at herself, and then seemed to thrash towards the Crook's gaping entrance. She stepped in to the sunlight and let out a frustrated bellow, a snarl of sorts, and then turned to look at the dark figure of Stark as if she were trying to ward away an evil spirit; her eyes were wide, and the cascading sunlight around her face had ignited her like some sort of monster risen from the depths. Her voice, oddly cool but holding an undertone of malice, shot through the cave to him: I won't -- won't step aside. If you want him, this, then you'll have to take it. But she did not linger nor let him have a chance to do anything further, and instead turned away from him, choosing instead to storm away down the ridge.

How could she? She'd misunderstood - or he hadn't explained properly - it didn't matter really. "Not from you!" He grit it out, watching Octavia warily. He couldn't process things fast enough to try and keep up with the slide she was falling down, the way that she was stumbling through her thoughts and her body seemed sluggish. As she moved there was a flash of concern in him that she was coming after him. He thought back to all the time that he had spent with her, curled up next to her, talking about their plans and their hopes.

How did it get to this? 

She might have slashed his face open with the words that she leveled against him, that he was no better than Reek and Stark felt a shudder run down his spine. It was impossible to consider himself and that bastard the same. "I never would ask that of you." His voice was as even as possible against her accusation, and what he'd wanted was to be able to take the burdens from her. He wanted to make this the home that she had hoped for, and now that her son was quickly approaching three months old he was terrified that he wouldn't get to see the rest of life. 

Where was the fairness in that? How was that in the best interest of Tambourine? 

But as Octavia had so sweetly pointed out Tambourine wasn't his son and would never be his son. It didn't matter what he wanted. It never had.

The entire conversation - at least from the initial descent to this final breaking between the two of them - must have carried across the whole world. It would not be surprising if this spelled the end of the Keep as a unified front — with the attack on Harlyn and Tambourine being the starting point, this final nail in the proverbial coffin would at the very least spell an end to Octavia's purest relationship. Or maybe not, maybe Stark was strong enough to see through her posturing, and maybe one day soon Tavi would wake up and be alright in the head, and not feel so absolutely powerless about the world around her. But it was unlikely.

She didn't hear anything else that Stark had to say; she didn't think of anything aside from getting away, because the conversation had burned through her, and the woman's fight-or-flight response was taking hold. While her old self had chosen flight when things got rough, this one had stuck around long enough to put up a fight, but in the end Tavi was reduced to doing what she always did: she fled, stomping a path away from the Crook and towards the willows. She didn't stop to say anything, did not even raise her head from its downcast position, and marched until the borders passed beneath her paws.

Some instinct told her, find Tambourine, but her body did no obey. Instead she set out from the Keep and headed north, maybe to confront the beast that now dominated her every obsessive, out-of-control mind: Reek Redtail.

While his mind had given him a million possibilities for what might happen between himself and Octavia this was never one. He hadn't seen a time when he would be rejected so utterly and wholly, where he would have the kindness he'd shown thrown back at him. The Beta didn't move - body still as could be, still half heartedly expecting her to turn and attack him - even as the woman took herself far away. 

It would be a mistake later to not go after her, but the man at his core was prone to mistakes when it came to his stance of acting first and then thinking things through. For now he wanted to go find @Tambourine, maybe curl up with the boy what could be a final time. His heart ached and his head was heavy. It was what he'd heard of crowns anyway. 

With a small sigh the dark coated male turned and retreated into the Crook - hopefully if the pack had heard their argument (How could they not?) no one would try and ask him about it. Not for awhile anyways. 

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