Hushed Willows our time will come, too

This is a mandatory pack meeting.  Rounds will last five days, and there will be no post order.  The next round will begin on November 25.  Those of you with two toons are more than welcome to PP one of your characters in the background, and Qilaq is exempt from this meeting unless her player wants to throw her in.

@Olive / Eleuthera, @Lily, @Khali, @Delight / Okeanos, @Brilliance, @Mali, @Ibis, @Sif, @Catalina

It felt like the world had shifted beneath her feet, like she didn't quite know where she stood any longer.  Things were getting a little easier; the caches were being filled, their border secured.  The pack had survived beneath her lead.  It hadn't burned to the ground, and those that mattered most to her had stuck around.  But just because things were getting easier didn't mean that it was easy.  She still felt like a failure as a wife and a mother ... but at least it seemed like leading was something she wasn't destined from the beginning to fail at.  At least not yet.

She had wanted everyone to have time to settle in before she started getting down to business, and it seemed as if that was happening so.. without further ado, she threw her head back and called for her pack — her family.

Lily, sweet and lovely Lily, was not far behind. After so many moons in her youth of carelessness and freedom, duty suited her. Love suited her. The willows suited her best of all. The blackbird came trotting up, a smile stretching her face, nudging Seabreeze's shoulder with her muzzle before taking her place by the cream woman's side.

How are you? she asked quietly, casting her fiery gaze over at the Seer. How are the children? Settling in fine? She felt slightly bad that she hadn't kept better tabs on her packmates' well-beings. Other things had kept her tied up.

She sat in easy silence, waiting for her friend's reply and for Khali--and the others, too, of course--to arrive.

She hadn't met many of her packmates. Instead, she had mostly kept to herself, not really feeling up to socializing most days. Being in a pack again and not really knowing anyone had been a big adjustment for Sif, and most days were spent just being overwhelmed by everything.

Today, she had ventured from her den, feeling unusually bold, but had frozen in place when she heard the leader's call. The thought of being around that many wolves at once made her want to slink back to the safety of her den, but she knew she couldn't do that. So, she began moving in the direction the call had come. When she arrived, she was somewhat relieved to see the only two wolves she had met. Her relief was short-lived though as she reminded herself that others would soon arrive. She sat a short distance away from the two women, eyes trained on the ground, and waited silently for the meeting to start.

the seemingly permanent disappearance of solomon is an ugly mark on brilliance's return, as glad as he is to have his (secretly, admittedly favorite) daughter back. stepping down from leadership, he knows, was the right call, and yet guilt hangs over him -- he spends most of his time hiding and keeping tabs on his children, a sad little hermit in the middle of the willows. 

maybe he needs a hobby.

seabreeze's call summons him quick enough, coming to stop near her and lily. he gives both of them a slightly guilty nod hello, but holds his tongue, watching for mali and brilliance and waiting for seabreeze to speak.

There was a stirring in the air that, at first, Olive believed was a sense of unsettled-ness; but upon closer inspection, she found that it was nothing of the sort. She was happy again, for as long as the gods would let her be happy. She was with her children, and her lover, and her lover’s loves, and all her friends, and how could it be better than this! Olive could not help but muse upon all the trials and tribulations acted as stepping stones towards this success, and how it was all not for naught. It all made so much sense, when in retrospect. 

Olive had been taking it easy when Seabreeze’s call came, which would have been a big surprise to no one. The pale sylph had designated herself as part of the council, where all the consulate were held in equal esteem, but Olive had always been partial to acting the part of behind-the-scenes support. She was not a wolf who enjoyed the hard grind of a public persona, or having to answer to a riotous group for unpopular decisions. Though this was clearly a part of leadership, Olive was happy to let others take the reigns and watch them perform as she sunbathed and loved on her babies. Plus, Seabreeze looked so damn good when she was calling the shots. 

She arrived not soon after, and was pleased to see that a small group had already assembled. Olive had a sneaking suspicion what this meeting was about, and it did not stir dread within her gut as most pack meetings did, so she gracefully took a place by Seabreeze’s side and exchanged facial pleasantries with those who had already amassed.

I'm fine with posting a couple times in this round if someone tries to get him (IDEK if someone showing up to collect him will even work, honestly, and certain chars will get very negative responses if they try).

 Mali had been dozing when he heard the call, tucked up in the foot of a tree -- never the same one two days in a row, of course.  He had to think about it a moment, then with a yawn curled back up to play dead to the world and pretend he hadn't heard it in the first place.  He wouldn't be coming, willingly at least.  And what were they going to do about it? He was way too big now for those dumb ladies to drag him there. They might lead the rest of the pack but they were nothing to him, and had also burned all his limited cooperation by dragging him halfway across existence.  If they got pissed? That'd be funny, because he just didn't care.

Nah, he was pulling the "teen doesn't want to go to church" card, good luck making him move. The once happy, creative pup got more and more ornery the longer he was here.

Their new home had felt like just that from the beginning... home. Things had changed in the past few months and they were for the better. Khali was sitting at what he thought might be his favorite place, the falls, when he heard the summons of Seabreeze echo through the willows. With his ears perked he raised his body from the soft, damp earth and headed that way. 

He hoped this meeting was for something good. Nothing came to mind of where it could have went wrong here. Thoughts had flooded his mind as he trotted up, heart fluttered as he caught a slight glimpse of Lily. A smile and nod had greeted everyone that was there so far. Most faces he knew but others were not so familiar to him, but he was friendly nonetheless. ”Hello” He said to Lily and Seabreeze, he nuzzled his mate and smiled proud that she was one of the leaders.

Ibis showed up a little late to the gathering because she hadn't  been paying attention (much like JB) and had gotten distracted (much like JB) and by the time she arrived, she just wanted to find her brother and settle in. But when she didn't see him she grew flustered and frustrated. None of the wolves were little-sized, they were all adults, and she wondered where the other kids were - if she wasn't going to see Okeanos then she may as well bundle up with another of the kids -- but they weren't here yet, or if they were they'd hidden themselves from view. So she slunk in, frowning and despondent, until she spotted a couple familiar faces. At first she noticed Khali - but she remembered how upset she'd been the last time she'd been near him - and she chose to avoid him. Then she saw Lily, and decided that the dark woman was better than nothing (that's nice) and finally sidled up to her, plopped down to her belly in the dirt, and with a dramatic siiiiiigh announced that she was here now so get on with it, mother.

okeanos is not yet at the meeting, dear sister, because he has taken it upon himself to appoint himself guardian over the other children. nevermind the fact that they are older than him and would, honestly, probably prefer for him to be dead, all things considered. okeanos is wise beyond his years and he knows it is his solemn duty to take care of not only ibby but poor mali and brilliance, because no one else seems like they're going to.

really, he'd happened upon mali snoozing by accident (again), and the call from his mama was coincidentally timed. he'd slowed, imagining that he'd walk with the silvery speckled boy, but then mali had yawned and went back to sleep as if he hadn't heard the call at all. now, okeanos is not naive enough (anymore) to think that maybe his ...friend?... really hadn't heard it -- mali has made his feelings about oke's family very very loudly clear -- but still! you can't just ignore a call from the adults!! 

"mali," okeanos says urgently, coming right up beside him and pushing at him gently with his paws, "c'mon, mama's callin for everyone!"

brilliance hears the call but she doesn’t feel like going. Big Surprise™. she moves aimlessly, somewhere between the direction the call came and somewhere else entirely. if she doesn’t go, delight will probably be mad, and if she does go she has to listen to what someone else has to say. delight made her promise once to be nice, and she… has. sorta.
 
ugh. she hasn’t put a lot of effort into it. okay, okay.
 
on her way to the source, she finds mali and okeanos—one laying down and one standing—and her brows knit together. “go answer your mama,” brilliance teases, coming up to mali to defend him against the suddenly bossy puppy.

Qilaq hears the call and for a long moment she does not move. She stares off into the distance, barely registering the summons from her caretaker. In one of her visits with food or herbs, Seabreeze mention a meeting and that she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to. The other wolves would be there, which meant Lily and Oke-Anos would be there. And Seabreeze, too, of course. But it also meant wolves she didn’t know.
 
After a few seconds, she slowly picks herself up and decides to follow along. It’s the most she can do, at least. Qilaq doesn’t really know the lay of the land and she makes a guess from memory and the sudden influx of smells congregating. Her steps slow once shapes start to appear, focusing into wolves she doesn’t know. Tattered ears fall back against her head and she doesn’t go forward, anxiously scanning the area for the wolves she does know.
 
Seabreeze? Her heart beats heavy in her chest until she locates the pale wolf, watching her, and then searching for the other two. By then, panic has set in and she shuffles back, realizing she can’t do it and quickly she disappears back the way she came.

Mali had treated the other pups with some disdain but was generally happy to just ignore them as long as he was left alone -- most of them seemed to have been okay doing so, but apparently Okeanos (though honestly Mali probably went out of his way to forget their names) missed the memo.  Olive and Seabreeze were a different issue: they were given the utmost contempt and every dagger-laced glare he could muster.  He saw them as so undeserving of praise or respect that it was why he pointedly was not gonna show up.  If it didn't cause problems now, it likely would in the near future, as Mali was no longer some easily ignored furball that could be dragged along by the scruff.

Though he heard someone approaching, he didn't move, staying in ball form even though his muscles tensed.  Maybe they'd just leave.  No such luck.  And he had the audacity to poke him!  As soon as he was touched, he uttered a sharp and sudden snarl which continued into a growl.  Mali coiled back and away like an angry snake, honestly tired of this one pup in particular.  If Okeanos really wanted to be his mothers' minion, Mali'd treat him like like the nosy snitch he was being.  He was tired of it and would be physical about it if he had to, as he was almost at that limit.

Mali was about to verbally go at him when Brilliance spoke and announced her presence.  Heck yeah, backup.  Now if this dumb kid tried anything, they could really teach him a lesson.  Mali spoke in a "wow aren't you dumb" kind of tone,  Calling you maybe.  Not us.  Hurry along, you're gonna be late.  How many times did he have to say some variant of "go away"?  His ears tilted forward and his lips stayed parted to let his teeth say the obvious threat.  He was lucky Mali didn't just jump right to attempting to extract his nose.

Eleuthera reeeeeally didn’t like being told what to do, but she didn’t like disappointed her mama’s either. Meetings and official pack business was cool, she guessed, but there was something about it’s mandatory natured that repelled her. She would go, eventually, but Eleuthera had not a stable pack structure in all her life and believe it would wholly be okay if she was late, or just got the spark notes from someone else, later.

So Eleuthera plodded along, heading somewhere kinda in the direction of mama Seabreeze’s call — but her entire demeanor and opinion changed when she happened across Mali and Brilliance and Okeanos. There was something going on here, and Eleuthera read the entire situation’s energy as bad. 

She must get involved.

Eleuthera, the oldest child on the scene, stood atop her tall-ish limbs and stalked towards them, immediately fuming as she tried to exert a mien of dominance over the the situation. “Are you freaking kidding me?” she asked, rather accusingly. Her gaze shot from Mali to Brilliance, notably drifting over Okeanos. He was her brother, the good sibling, which made him essentially perfect. Eleuthera walked closer and sneered.

“You're gonna get in so much trouble.” For what? Who cared. All Eleuthera knew was that she was going to be the one to rat them out for it.

She catches Qilaq's glance and tries to offer her an assuring look in return.  It's fine that she can't do this right now, she understands.  Seamus crawled out of some rock or hole he'd been hiding and showed, and most of the adults were here, but Mali, Okeanos, Eleuthera, and Brilliance were still gone.  Her ears falter, and she opens her mouth as she looks at Olive (for assurance) and at Delight (for guidance).  Two of them are his children, one of them's her own.  She tips her head back and issues a more pointed call, then looks towards the group, trying to hide the disappointment that nothing she tries to do will ever come to fruition.  Stay here, she mutters, then motions for Delight to follow her.  They'd deal with this.

She sets about them and is almost terrified to find their scents all gathered in one place; she crouches a distance away and, for now, she will watch them do — well, whatever is distracting them from important business.

They assembled a fairly respectable crowd, although the children -- save Ibis, sweet girl -- were conspicuously absent. In fact, Seabreeze headed out to take care of it, probably followed by Delight. Lily blinked once or twice at the scene, then gazed around at her packmates, an awkward smile on her face--or was it a grimace?

Sooooo. . . she trailed off. How's everyone settling in? Good so far, I hope? The blackbird pressed against her mate, seeking warmth and moral support, all the while casting her gaze toward Olive in silent apology.

Pups were difficult. Would she even be ready, when the time came? She scarcely felt like a grown-up herself.

Not very many bodies were drawn by the summoning call of her mother, which would've bothered Ibis if she was a little bit older and a little bit more political, except that the kids weren't doing it out of any political leanings, they were just being stupid stubborn nuisances. The girl burrowed against Lily when the older wolf began to speak, disturbed by the reverberation of her vioce; but then she noticed a passing shadow and lifted her nose, watching as Seabreeze moved hastily away from the gathering point. Her little ears twisted but she didn't hear anything besides the other adults murmuring - and she thought of chasing after momma, but she was so nice and toasty warm here with Lily -- so instead, Ibis settled against the dark woman and let out a yawn.

maybe the reason he feels compelled to "help" poor mali and brilliance is they remind him of himself and ibby, a  little--crueler, harsher versions, true, but the same stalwart sense of loyalty to each other no matter what. and so it's only natural that brilliance appears to back her brother up. her teasing gets lost on him--well, yeah, that is what he's trying to do!--but mali's apparent misunderstanding he can address. "oh!" he starts, "no, it's--"

he's cut off by the sudden intrusion of eleuthera, tall and accusing. though not aimed at him he shrinks a tiny bit anyway, feeling rather that she isn't helping. to make matters worse, mama calls again, more insistently, and he knows their absence must be felt. "oh, ellie," he says, pleadingly, "they don't gots to get in trouble, we just needa all go together." 

of course, the way mali and brilliance are posturing at them suggests thats still unlikely. between the two of them, okeanos has found brilliance to be...slightly more tolerant of him (though he WILL make mali friends with him one day, just you wait), so he turns toward her imploringly. "i'unno why mama's callin' but she'll be worried if we aren' there," okeanos tries, quite reasonably in his opinion, "an -- an i bet your papa, too."

-----

speaking of papa:

delight, like everyine else, has noticed the failure of his children and seabreeze's son to appear. still on edge from the loss of solomon, his mind immediately jumps to worst case scenarios, vivid and horrifying. they've left him too, sick of his failures as a parent. or they've gotten lost, or been kidnapped, or fallen ill again -- that they simply are rebellious teens does not cross his mind in his fluster.

brilliant seabreeze summons him to follow her -- with a slightly apologetic look at the rest of elysium he follows. he makes the same realization as seabreeze and feels his heart stop--the worst possible scenario of all, his children still unable to reconcile with seabreeze's brood. every instinct in him screams intervene you fool!!! but here too he defers to his friend's lead, settle in to observe, albeit with a comically anxious expression.

A little out of turn(?) with permission!

Like holy crud what was with these other dumb kids?  Now there was another one showing up to be a brat?  Insert eyeroll here.  While Okeanos started off babbling away, Mali sighed in irritation and drew himself up onto his feet, but he wasn't going to follow.  No, he was countering the grey girl's own dominance with his own because this was just not going to happen.  

Screw that all, if they were going to fuss this much, then he was gonna prove a point.  He looked back briefly to Brilliance to make sure she had his back   His expression hardened and his voice lost the playful quality, Yeah right, you just wanna get us in trouble just for fun, nobody cares.  So I'm going to say this nicely just this one last time, but it's obvious none of you will ever listen to us.  Leave. Us.  Alone.

He stared her down, tail arced high over his back, standing tall and muscles tensed in case he had to prove himself -- the whole nine yards.  This was how the disputes were supposed to be solved, and they were of an age where dominance became more important.  The question was if she would give up peacefully or not.  Okeanos, the most obnoxious of them in Mali's eyes, got pretty much ignored.  And he honestly wasn't sure if Eleuthera would cause trouble or run crying off to a mommy but he was totally ready in case she did the former.  He was pretty sure that though none of them (as far as he knew) had any fighting background, that he and Brilliance would probably be better in a scrap just from sheer spite.  He spoke on just the edge of a growl (in all his voice's adolescent splendor), face scrunching up in an even more sour expression the more he continued, I'm done with all of you bugging us, trying to boss us around.  Just done.  Go away.

But if there were to be any actual scuffles, Mali wasn't going to be the one to make the first move -- he just wasn't gonna tolerate, let alone bow to, them any more.

the girl puppy that claimed brilliance had killed her shows up a minute later to stand next to her brother (they’re all related in her eyes) and she stares hard, listening as they try to claim they’ll get in trouble or their parents are worried or some shit like that. brilliance dramatically rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to say something but mali cuts her off. she scowls in his direction but it’s brief and he covers everything nicely; she just doesn’t need him speaking for her! 

she brushes it off and bumps into mali with her shoulder and nips gently at him to get his attention and urge him to ignore them. ”come on,” she whispers quietly into his ear before taking a step. they don’t need this.

Olive was not the only one who noticed that most of the children were suspiciously absent. However, the mother, who was notoriously lax on forcing their 4 cubs to do things they did not want to do, was willing to let it go and get on with business — Seabreeze and Delight were not so accommodating. They whisked away to take care of the issue, leaving Olive and Lily to deal with the pack meeting and to practice their hands as hosts. Olive bristled internally, as this was quite a violation of the parenting agreement she and Seabreeze had struck [the one where Seabreeze was primarily business, and Olive took the helm of family matters], but this too was truly not of consequence. Olive quickly reprioritized, and opened up the floor to the Seraphim.

“How is everyone liking these willowed woods? Please, don’t ever hesitate to bring concerns or ideas to the council — for Elysium to function properly, we will need complete honesty and respect from all the council, and all the seraphim…”

and she continued talked to the wolves that amassed, surely deflecting from the meeting’s strange circumstances and learning lots about how the wolves of Elysium felt about the oncoming winter. 


—————

Unfortunately, as a child, Eleuthera didn’t really understand the concept of ‘letting things go.’ All she knew was that the input into her relationship with the other puppies — with her input being nothing but love and attention — was not matching the output she was receiving. Was it her abrasive and ill-advised method of communication that perhaps rubbed the other pup the wrong way? Was is their lack of a mother, and abandonment of their home, that inspired hatred in her fellow cherubim? Probably yes, to both of those statements… but Eleuthera chose not to see it that way. It simply did not compute. 

“I don’t get it — ” she barked, receiving absolutely no help from Okeanos. She stamped her diminutive paw into the dirt, hackles bristling. “We’ve done nothing except be nice, like our mommas told us to be! You’re the ones that are rude and mean and hurtful. No wonder your sister ran away!” While she spoke, the other children prepared to leave, but Eleuthera hadn’t delivered her parting shots yet. Eleuthera narrowed her eyes and spat as the spotted figures dismissed her and her volatile words.

“Well, I — we — don’t like yah either. Right, Okie? Right?” she simply wanted a reaction from them, and what she currently was getting wasn’t cutting it.

SORRY i have NO IDEA what the posting order is so im just wingin' it

ellie's words do make everything worse, as he feared. okeanos knows the easiest thing to do is to take her side, to let the other puppies go away and make his way to mama like he's supposed to, and he nearly does, shrinking a little bit away from mali's fierce expression. only... he wants to break through to them somehow. he wants mali and brilliance, but especially mali, to like him for some reason -- he can't explain why, only that it feels like the most important thing in the world.

so with a slightly apologetic glance at ellie, okeanos says, "i like you," aimed at both of delight's children but mostly at mali. his pleading expression is replaced by something defeated -- resigned to this strange standoff but determined to keep at it. sucking in a breath he says, "m'not tryin' boss you around -- i just like you," like repeating it will somehow magically resolve the situation. he's not an idiot. he knows mali doesn't  like him (brilliance, the jury is still out, he thinks). maybe mali never will like him, but ... maybe if he just tries hard enough, he'll understand where he's coming from.

Okay perhaps his following cackle was a bit villainous but it was hard to resist when she made such a big blunder.  They were monsters, and she dropped her mask, Wow, I wish your mom heard that.  I just want to be left alone and you say that? Awesome. Maybe you should listen to yourself.  There was this absolute thrill at the girl proving she was far worse than he.  Though Mali was sour at the best of times, he his words had only been voicing one demand: to be left alone by these intruding pups with personal space issues. After Seabreeze had attempted to convince him to "be nice" Mali had done his best to make sure that request was the main focus of most of what he said to them. He figured it was less likely to be turned against him as a weapon.  He wasn't always able to help himself, but eh. Close enough.

With a fiendish grin he turned on tail, quite happy with how things had changed, basically ignoring Okeanos. That poor kid was basically could be ignored, rather like a gnat or something in comparison.  There was no point going off to tattle as nobody would believe him anyway, but moral victory and all that.  Now Mali was quite content to head off with his sister somewhere the opposite direction of the meeting. They could stare at the confident arch of his tail as he retreated as long as they wanted.

brilliance is mostly annoyed by the girl puppy that shouts at them, claims they don’t like them, and she glances over at mali to see how he feels about it. okeanos’ desperate plea doesn’t go unnoticed and she turns, for a few seconds, to look at him too. her face doesn’t have much of an expression, uncertain how to really feel, but mali’s upset takes precedent and when he turns to leave the group, so does she.

The dumpster fire that was this pack meeting eventually came to an end, with tensions still flaring. The kids weren't gonna budge, and the adults were getting antsy. They scattered as such--skitter skitter skitter--oh who am I kidding I'm so friggin' tired someone bring me more coffee.

Lily went off to do borders, probably, or cuddle with her handsome bae. Seabreeze imploded from stress like any rational being would in this clusterfuck of a situation (yeah I got permission for that PP). The rest--you'll have to ask them.