Blacktail Deer Plateau 'why' is a crooked letter and can't be made straight

@Grezig - just outside BDP but wanted to put it here just because

she was leaving, he felt.

grezig had not had an easy time with them, and he knew that she had struggled. there was an innate knowledge that flowed through him - an understanding - that spoke of when others would leave. he had felt the urge to turn away from what had been given to him, too. to leave seemed normal, but he didn't understand it from her. 

all good things had left him, though. wasn't it only fitting that the woman who had aided in his raising was turning her back on him? he had imagined that there would come a time when he would no longer get his hopes up that those he cared for would stay. he reflected on the loss of his father and knew his mistakes in growing attached; it was foolish and it served no purpose. the world had already shown him what it would do with such vicious folly. illidan knew that he should not have been surprised.

instead, he battled with the emotions within his mind and heart and he sought her out. he knew that she could not have gone far – that even covering the territory was challenging to do in a single day. his long limbs carried him swiftly across the plateau and out beyond where their markings reached. he was short of breath, but he still searched for her familiar frame with haunted, yellow eyes. if he had missed her passing, he would have been furious with himself.

dipping his head to sniff against the earth, illidan thought he might have caught a whiff of the elusive woman just before it seemed to vanish from him. he cursed, drawing his crown upward and furrowing his brow tightly over his gaze. how could she leave? how could she turn her back on all the things that had been good to her?

how could she abandon him...

sorry for wall of text and so much talking. wanted to get the meat of the thread down first so the beginning of this didn't take forever.

The wind changed and Grezig caught a scent of Illidan. She sighed, retracing her steps back to where she had been minutes before. She released a low howl, letting him know she was coming, and soon, she stood before him. He had grown so much in the four months that she had known him, but in her own mind, he was still just a … 

“Boy,” she said, a greeting that slipped from her mouth before she gave it much thought. She cleared her throat. “Illidan,” she corrected. “You are… not much of a boy now, are you?” It wasn’t really a question, merely an observation—one that made her feel strange. “When did you get so big?” She felt even stranger now, sounding so much like his mother. 

“I must tell you something,” she went on, ploughing through whatever words he might have been speaking. “I am… leaving the Plateau, soon. For good.” Little did she know, he had already guessed it. Her heart would break if she knew what he was feeling right this second. “It has nothing to do with you. I… Liri and I have not been getting along recently and I feel I am not doing well remaining the Beta of this pack. I must leave to make my own way.” She paused. “I will not tell you what to do. You are welcome to come with me, or stay here. I do not plan on going very far away. Perhaps a day or two at most from the Plateau. I just… wanted you to know. I would never leave without telling you first.” Her voice had grown gentle towards the end, remembering the conversation they’d had months ago, when she’d promised never to abandon him. She’d meant it, and she still did.

boy...

didn't she know? he had grown from his boyhood, but it seemed as though she caught herself before that devolved into anything beyond what it was; a simple means of addressing him. illidan did not feel as though he needed to correct her. grezig was capable of knowing when things had changed. no, he was not a boy anymore, but the world had not yet tempered him into a man. there was still room for growth.

the flurry of words that fell from her mouth did not illicit a response from the rugged young man. his brow remained furrowed. his fur stood jaggedly along his neck and shoulders – like quills – but he did not seem to twitch in response to the things she admitted. the boy had inherited much of his father's gruff demeanor. he was a fierce young gargoyle.

he had also inherited the fire that had once burned within his father's breast.

“why?”

the burning growl had left him without much restraint. the wayfarer drew his crown upward and flattened his ears to his skull. there was defiance in the glint of his hawkish yellow gaze that seemed to latch to her without holding back. illidan was not pleased with what she had told him. he chose to cast aside the kindness of the message that was being relayed and focused instead on the idea that he had been correct. all good things left him, and he had damned himself for having gathered his hopes after they had been demolished with his father's death.

“i should have expected it. life has a funny way of showing you how quickly things can be taken away,” the dark-hooded youth spoke between his teeth.

was it all just a test of his will? was this a way to determine his strength in difficult times? illidan did not care much for the ways that life had turned his luck. he could not appreciate the hardship for what it was worth, because he lacked faith in a greater plan. the anger of an atheist's heart was all that fueled him. there was no greater being that could help to wash away the pain he had been faced with.

“i will not go with you.”

he could not... no matter how he felt about the pack, he did not know that it was right to abandon kavik and liri after all they had given him. had they not given grezig the same? weren't they both lost, at some point? perhaps he cared more than he thought he did. more than this, illidan felt as though he could not walk away from them without having managed his debts to the pair.

’Why?’

The question, the way it growled, and the way he looked at her with piercing yellow eyes, stunned her. A thorn punctured her heart. She opened her mouth to speak, to try to explain further, but no words came. Then he spoke again, harsh and angry.

’I should have expected it.’

She flinched. She had not meant to cause him this much harm. 

’Life has a funny way of showing you how quickly things can be taken away.’

“Illidan,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “My leaving has nothing to do with you.” A thing she’d already said, but she felt the need to repeat it. “Pack life here would only get worse for everyone if I stayed. Leaving is my only option—but I told you! I’m not going far away. I can come to visit if you wish. I…” The words sounded weak and pathetic to her own ears. She sounded like a desperate mewling pup. 

’I will not go with you.’

Her spine straightened. “What you feel about this is up to you. I do not leave to hurt to you and I have no intention of going off and never seeing you again, Illidan. Trust my word on that or don’t. I cannot control you, nor do I want to. I am not your mother.” The last sentence hurt her and she regretted saying it, even if it was true. She had grown afraid of her attachment to the boy, but had never thought to be afraid of his attachment to her before now. The words were meant to add a layer of separation, so that he would understand he did not have to be quite so sad about her departure. But they did not have the right connotation.

In the end, it only sounded like she was really was abandoning him—just another mother leaving him in the dust. She turned her face away in shame and sorrow.

how was it that her decision could have nothing to do with him and yet it affected him so much? how could she say things in that way, knowing that they were not entirely truthful? surely, she understood how it must have sounded to him... but she seemed dismissive of anything that he really had to say about her admittance. whether or not he was really a boy anymore was beside the point. if she were going to speak to him as though he was still a child, well, maybe she did not understand just how much he had grown.

“you speak as though it's something i'm unable to understand,” the young man spoke carefully, drawing his crown upward and meeting her gaze with the sharp yellow of his own. “if it has nothing to do with me, then why does it affect me so?” illidan then demanded of her, drawing his chin upward so that he was looking down the length of his dark muzzle toward her features. in that moment, he looked very much like his father's son – defiant and wild – but he would never have known such things.

when she cast him aside and spoke of their relationship, he felt his lip curl and his eyes spark with anger. it was the way that a parent spoke to their child, he could tell as much, but she threw away that bond before he had a chance to comment on it. the way that it was spoken was cold, and he felt his frame stiffen beneath the weight of what she was implying.

'i am not your mother...'

“only when it is convenient for you,” he growled in response.

Illidan’s words only served to further upset Grezig. She had no idea how to respond to this sulky boy. Yes, he was still a boy. If this was how he handled it when things didn’t go his way then he was still very much a boy, in Grezig’s mind. Still, his words stung, and she turned away from him so he would not see the hurt in her eyes. She’d tried her best to stand by him and now she was leaving. And even if it had nothing to do with him, she still felt bad about it. But she didn’t want to try and explain herself to Illidan anymore. “I’ve said all I came to say,” she murmured, and then got up and walked away.

[Exit unless stopped.]

that was it, then; grezig had relayed her message and move on. the heat of resentment flooded him, but the young man did not prevent her from turning away. he was too stubborn to admit that what he'd said had been wrong, and he did not feel as though he owed her an apology. in his mind, illidan was right and grezig was wrong. of course, he did not know what the future would hold for him, or that he would turn against his own words and abandon the very people who had offered him a home.

instead, the boy waited until she had vanished from sight before he turned back to the pack with an aggressive huff and vanished into the territory. he sought a quiet portion of the pack where he would not have been disturbed, and he allowed his thoughts to swallow him whole and send him floating into a dark oblivion.