Redhawk Caldera when i see you again.

"So this is where they put you..."

Fin's voice was soft as she sat upon the cold ground, staring down at the site where her former alpha had been buried. The numbness she had felt when first she'd been told of Peregrine's passing had not left her. At times, she thought it might be thawing, but then moments like this one would come where she knew she ought to be a mess and yet... She wasn't. No matter what thought the Blackthorn grasped in her mind regarding her now departed best friend, it seemed to simply bounce right off of her and leave her just the same as before - empty. Completely, utterly empty.

The wind that ruffled the long fur along her nape sent a shiver across her shoulders. Her tail curled across her toes to protect them from the chill, though it wasn't particularly helpful. Her head tilted as she stared at the ground and furrowed her brows. How strange it was that Peregrine was there, beneath the ground, right in front of her. He was in the ground. Her best friend. Her alpha. The first wolf to have ever put his faith in her by making her a leader in his pack. Fin had thought he was insane for doing it. He was insane for doing it. Was he still insane? Even now that he was gone, in some afterlife with Tiger and Sun SPark and that one dude with the gross teeth that had lived there for a while?

He was gone. Gone.

"I'd have put you in a pool of mud, at least."

Had I been here...

Finley shut her eyes as the wind blew again.

*plays with self* anyone else can still pop in :D

Liffey hadn't realized when her mother had slipped off on them. She'd spent so much time sleeping and recovering her strength that the little Blackthorn hadn't even suspected that she might do something like this. Excitement had taken her when she discovered her mother's scent, and it was with eager pawsteps that Liffey followed, her imagination racing with thoughts of the adventures they might be about to have together.

When Liffey found her mother, she had no idea that Finley was experiencing some inner turmoil over Uncle P's death. She trotted bouncily up to her side, reaching to nuzzle her dam's chin with a happy growl. It wasn't until she came around to spy the woman's face. There was a smile on it, but the little river could tell instantly that it was not her real one. This one was a fake, and so the pup's features fell. Still, she offered a smile of her own. Getting to be with her mom was something to smile about after all, whether it was a happy mom or a sad mom she was with.

"Hi mom," Liffey said quietly, her tail wagging gently as she settled down onto her haunches at Finley's side, "You got up."

The sound of footsteps broke her out of the moment. So close had Finley been to shaking that terrible feeling of unfeeling, but now she was listening, and then turning to see her daughter. The girl looked up at her with eyes so very, very orange. She was reminded of pumpkins and their thick orange skin. She and Peregrine had tried eating them once. She planted a kiss on Liffey's crown before glancing again at the patch of earth that held her friend.

"I did indeed," Fin answered, gazing at the grave, "About time too, don't you think?" She had been so lethargic since coming home, a failure, and then hearing the news about Peregrine. It was probably a good thing as rest was needed in order for her to heal. But still, guilt tugged at her for not being there more for her family. They all had lost a lot, and they needed their matriarch to be strong now, not listless and heartsick.

Liffey felt almost nervous as she looked up at her mother, waiting for her to respond. Finley was her mom, but it had been so long since they had actually spent real time together (watching her nap didn't count). She smiled at the words her mother spoke, but was uncertain how to respond except to giggle softly. Her eyes wandered to follow Fin's gaze and her ears fell back when it occurred to her where they were and (subsequently) what her mom must be feeling sad about.

Now she really didn't know what to say. Liffey had inherited much from both of her parents - some good, some not great. Finley's inability to articulate when it came to emotional situations was one of the not great she had gotten. The girl kneaded the ground with her toes nervously. Though her anxiety was caused by her struggle to come up with a way to comfort her mother, she pressed herself against Finley's side, seeking comfort in reverse for her own inability to comfort. Liffey was unaware of the irony, however, as she pushed her muzzle into Fin's soft fur and sighed.

Finley felt her daughter lean into her and turned her gaze down to the top of the little wolf's head. She was so big now. Soon enough they'd probably be the same height, though Fin would have been surprised if Liffey were to ever surpass her. She had been so much smaller that day she'd left the Caldera, standing at Elwood's paws, gazing up at her with eyes that held confusion and worry. Fin hadn't seen that face at the time, but it had haunted her while she was away. She'd left all of them while they looked at her like that, each of them the same hurt, miserable face - Liffey, Eljay, Elwood, and Peregrine too.

That was the last look he had ever given her.

"Did I ever tell you that one time, your Uncle Peregrine told me I reminded him of his brother?" Fin said suddenly, her voice quiet but touched with humor, "His brother who was at the time suffering from brain damage and couldn't remember his own name?"  She chuckled to herself as she remembered it - the two of them, covered in mud, bantering back and forth together while attempting to drown his fleas. Fleas that she, to this day, did not at all suspect were STDs.

"That was the day we became friends," she added, thinking of the deal they had made that they would always be permitted to be shits to each other so long as they both always took it when it was the other's turn to deal it. She'd leave that part out for the five-month-old.

Liffey's ears perked when Finley spoke again. She twisted her neck to gaze up at her mom, listening curiously as she told her story. She giggled at the idea of her Uncle comparing her to his brother when she was a girl. The brain damage part went over her head, but even without being in on that part of the joke, Liffey enjoyed hearing about her silly Uncle being silly with her mom.

"When was that?" Liffey asked. Her imagination was already embellishing the story, creating a location, a time of day, the weather, the season. She felt a sense of magic as she considered it - a time before she was born when her mom and dad and Uncle P and Aunt Fox were all kids like her and the younger members of her family, playing together and becoming lifelong friends.

Finley's mind had begun to wander from the day she'd met Peregrine to the others they'd spent together. The day they'd christened Lake Rodney, the day she'd nearly killed him making him hunt buffalo with her, the day he'd named her his beta. Liffey's voice distracted her from these thoughts and she glanced down again at her daughter.

"Oh that was years ago... Maybe two? Three? I think just two..." Fin paused, trying to remember, "Time seems to blend together once you get old like your moms." A smile flickered across her muzzle. She hadn't even thought of it before, but she was four now. Four. Where had her life gone?

"It was back when we lived at Blacktail Deer Plateau, when I first came to the Teekon Wilds. Well, not when I first came here, but the second time when I actually stuck around."  Her first visit to Teekon had been little more than a brief fling. She'd set out shortly after taking a look around. There'd been no real reason for her departure the first time, but nor had there been a reason she'd come back. She'd just done whatever she felt like in those days.

That was indeed a long, long time ago.

Liffey listened eagerly as her mother shared more about her past. The the pup, two years seemed like ages and ages. Of course, she had little real concept of time, but even so. Her tail wagged gently as she considered, a smile sticking faintly to her little muzzle. She chuckled as Fin called herself "moms" , liking the sound of it.

Curiosity ignited again when Finley mentioned there being a first time she'd come to the Wilds. She'd never considered where her mother had been before she'd arrived, but it suddenly seemed so excitingly apparent that there was so much more that she didn't know - that she wanted to know. "Where'd you go before you came back? Where were you before you came here? What's the Plateau? Where's that?" The questions came in a flood. There was so much she didn't know, and she wanted to know it all. It was even more powerful than her fascination with the stars in the sky - this was her moms.

Finley was ready to lose herself in another memory when Liffey bombarded her with questions. She looked down at the pup in surprise, but delight. When had her daughter become so inquisitive? Like a sudden cold splash of water, she realized it had likely been when she'd been away those past weeks. Elwood probably wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear these queries sprouting from their daughter's mouth. This was just her, learning more about the young wolf her child was becoming.

"Well, I grew up far away from here to the South," Fin explained, "You actually have a really big family on my side. Your grandma and grandpa Blackthorn have lots and lots of kid, including me. You probably have more Aunts and Uncles than even I'm aware of at this point." Her parents were quite the kid-factory. "I came here just on a whim. I wasn't really looking for anything and actually didn't find anything when I first came to the Wilds. The second time though... I found a family."

The painful, intense throb in her heart made her breath catch. Her eyes moved so suddenly to Peregrine's grave that she felt her head spin, or perhaps it was just the sudden crash of the emotion against her. She shifted a front paw across the ground as though to steady herself and sucked in a breath, trembling as it all came to her, so randomly, unbidden and unbridled.

"Your Uncle Peregrine." Fin tried to continue, but stopped. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them furiously away, trying to hold back the tidal wave. It took her a moment, but finally she looked down at her daughter again and smiled.

"Why don't you go find your brother? It's getting late," Fin said, realizing that she'd given no excuse for the sudden dismissal. Her mind raced trying to find a reason, but nothing came. She just looked at her little River, pleading without speaking that she would understand and look away while her mom fell to pieces.

Liffey held tightly to every word her mother spoke, her fascination apparent upon her youthful face. She thought of her grandparents and imagined a packload of aunts and uncles that awaited her somewhere to the south. More and more questions raved through her mind, but she held them back as her mom continued. They would not disappear - they would merely wait for the appropriate time to be asked, and in the middle of Finley's story was certainly not the right time for it. She wanted her mom to keep going; to tell her everything so that she could daydream and then just dream about these fascinating new characters in her mother's life.

But, then it all came to an abrupt and awful halt.

The girl's face fell as she saw it happen. Almost like a true, physical blow, she witnessed her mother crumple under the sudden, terrible misery. Liffey whined as she nudged her mom, feeling guilty that she had somehow caused this to happen. There was nothing for her to say, and nothing for her to do as she watched her mother fight back tears, then put a on her bravest of false smiles and ask her to find her brother.

Liffey heard the dismissal in her mother's voice. She felt the sting of it in spite of herself, but she nodded obediently nonetheless and stood. She paused, uncertain before reaching to plant a single kiss on Finley's chin. "Love you, moms," Liffey murmured softly before she turned and trotted off back towards the rendezvous site - tears pooling in her own eyes. Liffey's tears had little to do with her own hurt, but were mirrored to the ones that she knew were sliding down her mother's cheeks now, even though she did not turn back to look and see them.

Finley watched her daughter leave. Her reluctance was evident, and Fin felt a flicker of guilt kindle in her heart. A better mother would have held herself together so that she could share this moment with her children. A halfway decent mom would have at least not sent her kid away like that. But Finley had never considered herself a very good mother, and this just went down as even more evidence of the fact.

But as the pain reached out to swallow her whole, Finley found herself unable to hold onto her guilt, or any thought of Liffey at all. Her eyes were on the ground that covered her friend, and soon enough she couldn't see even that as tears flooded them and she crumpled to the ground under the weight of her silent sobs. She crawled over the dirt until she was nestled on top of the recently disturbed earth. It was as near to him as she'd ever be able to get again. She tucked her muzzle underneath a forearm with a pained whine as she succumbed finally to the heartbreak.