Falls of the Hinterlands New Goodbye

This is the song he's humming.

Finbar's first relations mission had been pretty decent, and he felt he'd done well with his meeting with Towhee. He ventured beyond the borders despite the howling winds, ignoring the fact that they might be warning of a storm coming. It was morning, and he felt it would be a good idea to explore just beyond their borders- so he knew what the terrain would look like, should he ever have to know where a visitor was coming from. He made his way East, choosing to go in the opposite direction from the plateau, and found that a river bordered their territory all along its Eastern side- and just across the river, the slope grew up into a mountain range. It would likely mean that they were fairly well protected, as it would certainly tire a wolf out to come down from the mountain and then cross the river. 

Presently, though, it was frozen solid and covered with a thin layer of snow. The wind seared down along its surface, sending little veils of snowflakes flying and whirling into the drifts along the banks of the river which had really become quite deep. The river itself was perfectly flat, and as it was unprotected, the wind had brushed most of the snow from the surface until only an inch or two remained. He was careful as he made his way out onto the river's frozen surface, humming softly to himself as he crossed, jade eyes gazing along the distant shore. He occasionally brought a few words into his song, which had a simple, pleasant melody- but he was a fledgeling lyricist, so he was completely content to simply utter lines here and there, concentrating more on the movement of the melody. 

"Get your things...We're leaving...When the morning birds are singing," It was a fairly repetitive melodic pattern, and he hummed it a few times, before he found a few more words to put on the melody. "But I'm not taking it anymore. 'Cause the only thing I've ever learnt...Is when trusting a stranger- your trust will be returned." The melody seemed to conclude there, like the end of a musical phrase, and he was satisfied with that. The two lines didn't exactly go together- so he felt he might save the latter for later on in the song. He continued to rove up the river, stopping only when he heard a low, rumbling sound, like distant thunder, coming from the mountain. He turned his jade gaze up, but saw nothing. He waited, silent, half expecting to hear the same low, rumbling sound again.

Wraen was not very musical herself, she would describe her singing skills as such, which would make ears bleed and birds explode. But she was very fond, if the singing was performed by someone else. Ibis had been a promising kid and she would have loved to follow her niece's progress and see her skills grow. And then there had been few, who had not sung, but she had enjoyed the sounds of their voices, when they spoke. 

Therefore no wonder that, when she heard Finbar's voice echoing in the woods, she was drawn to it immediately and left the trail she had been tracking to see, who the source was. And rather soon she came upon a black-pelted man, who she greeted with a happy woof and a praise: "That was very beautiful."

FLuke flicked his ears this way and that, waiting for the low rumbling to start again. It was a fairly clear day, so he was sure that it wasnèt distant thunder- but something about the rumbling had concerned him, and had kapt him stationary until he heard a woof coming from the woodlands at his back. Figuring that the rumbling from up high in the mountains really wasn't a bit deal, he turned to see a green-eyed female coming toward him, and she complimented him on his singing, which made him bow his head appreciatively and blush. 

"Well thank you," He crooned appreciatively. "I don't often...Have an audience. Or look for one," He said with a faint laugh. He was perfectly content to sing on his own- and didn't necessarily want to find himself an audience for the pleasure of having compliments, which often made him feel awkward. You must be f-" He said, but stopped mid sentence when he heard the distant, low, dark rumble again, and turned his head to gaze up at the mountainside. "That's the third time that's happened," He explained softly.

Wraen had prepared to use her stash of pleasantries and compliments, when her attention too was drawn to the ominous sound from above, reminding her of thunder during the summer days and thinking it odd for it to happen here and now. She had yet to find out that sometimes thunderstorms weren't confined to the warm months only. 

She followed the direction the guy was pointing to - at the mountainside and upwards to the mist-covered top and recalled her recent encounter with Epic and, how a rat had dropped from what had seemed at the time thin-air and landed heavily on the rocks. If small things could fall, bigger could too. Much bigger...

"Well, were we in a story, I would say that Ice Giants are wrestling and with them being prone to throw rocks and ice blocks around... being so close wouldn't be safe," she said, looking now at the guy. "But even without the big guys, I would much rather move away and not find out, what causes that noise. Could be something bad."

Finbar wasn't necessarily frightened of the sound he heard- as thunder had never done him any harm in the past, and he knew too little of wintery mountains to know what the sound might mean. Wraen, interestingly enough, offered a story which made him feel more confident about the whole situation, if nothing else....But as she said that she, personally, would prefer to avoid the area, he thought twice about asking her if she wanted to investigate further. "Ice giants," He said, trying to picture two massive wolves, made of ise, pushing each other around and slamming each other against the mountainside, causing the hills and trees to shudder. 

"Let's cross back. The river's plenty frozen," He assured her. "My pack lives just over here-" He said, gesturing back toward the banks he'd come from, "but I'm sure nobody would get angry at me for escorting a stranger along if there was a threat of ice giants," He said with a smile. The river was fair wide and he'd made it a good distance across without any harm, so he didn't fear that it might give out beneath his feet. There hadn't been enough warm spells recently for the river's ice to weaken. "You must be a good story teller though?" He asked. "I never would've thought to call that-" He said, and as if on cue, another rumble shook the mountain. He paused; he could almost feel the vibrations beneath his feet that time. He shook it off. "Ice giants."

"I don't think that anyone will mind me there, because I happen to belong to the same group. Are you a fellow Firebird?" Wraen asked, walking alongside him and not recalling that Wildfire had mentioned this guy, when she had introduced her to the lands. Maybe he was another new recruit.

She stopped, when she felt the vibrations coming from the ground and liked it even less than just the thunderous sound from above earlier. Whether this was good or bad, it made her uncomfortable and, once her companion resumed his walk, so did she, very eager to put some distance between this odd place and herself. 

"Well, in my experience the best way to gain control over something you do not know or understand, is to give a name for it. My best guess is that wolves of the far North, who came up with this story, experienced something similar that we do here," she explaiend. "And it is always better to have a fiend or an enemy with a face than not, don't you think?"

Fluke skipped sideways slightly in surprise when his lovely companion mentioned the name of his pack. His hind feet slid a bit, angling him toward her a bit to show off the surprised, but very pleased grin that came across his features, wreathing his cheeks with smile lines. "Yeah! You are too?" He asked. She must have been new- but he didn't douibt at all that she was really a part of the group- not many knew about the Firebirds, or at least, he didn't think that the word of the new pack had travelled enough for others to know. If she knew about the Firebirds and said that she was one, she must have been. "That's awesome! Welcome to the pack!" He greeted, scooching forward to touch his nose to her cheek as a greeting, and so that they could breathe in each other's scent, so they would know it for future reference. 

She had a positive outlook, when it came to things which would otherwise be frightening, and while he'd not though about it that way, he agreed with what she'd said as they moved a bit further across the river, and away from the mountain which seemed to hold its breath, for the time being. "That's a really good idea. Especially for pups, or even for adults in really bad times," He said, casting a glance over his shoulder. He then glanced back at her, and winked. "I like the way you think. I'm Fluke, by the way," He said.

"I and my sister joined recently," Wraen nodded affirmative. "Her name is Maia," she added, but given the fact of how small the pack was, it would be no time at all before the fellow - Fluke - got to know her. "We are cousins to Wildfire - my mom was her dad's sister," she gave a bit of family history there. "But we had not met our cousin up until now."

"Well, it works for adults as well - are you familiar with religions?" she asked, remembering now an encounter with Amsu, who had been very kind and patient in explaining his beliefs and way of life. "When you look at them as whole... they have one purpose really - to give some sort of structure in a universe that is ruled by chaos," she said.

The courteous storyteller introduced her sister, mentioning that both of them had joined the pack. Doing a bit of quick math, Finbar assumed that they would then have four or five wolves who were adults, and two juveniles; though he'd also heard that there were a couple other wolves from the Redhawks who were still making up their minds as to whether they'd stay on the plateau or join the Firebirds. Presently, it seemed that they were mostly a family group- what with Wildfire having her daughters, and Wraen and Maia being her cousins. He and Corinna were the odd ones out then, but he didn't mind at all. They'd treated him, thus far, like nothing but family so that was enough for him to stick around. "And your name is?" He asked, as she hadn't yet volunteered it. He'd have to keep an eye out for Maia, and get to know her the next time he saw another wolf in the area he didn't recognize. She was the only one he hadn't met yet- that he was aware of, anyway. 

She asked him about religion and he squinted slightly. Religion had been discouraged where he'd come from, though he hadn't much minded what he'd heard of it. The reasoning that Wraen gave behind it, though, was not something that he was unfamiliar with. He'd always been told that religion had been invented for cowards who were too frightened to meet their death, so they'd come up with something to make the life-to-death transition easier...And fear death a bit less. Nevertheless, it had been forbidden for him to have any sort of religion. Apologetically, he half-nodded. "I didn't really....There was no religion where I came from. They...They kind of thought it was for cowards who needed a reason to not fear death." He said. "I don't really believe that....I'm a very, 'you do you' kind of wolf. So there's possibly something out there- I just don't know- but I'm cool with everyone believing whatever they want." He said simply, hoping that his answer wasn't offensive.

"How rude of me - Wraen Redleaf," she introduced herself, omitting the second part of her long family name and hoped that her grandfather Aether was not therefore turning into his grave or frowning down at her over his customary lyre from his cloud in the Heaven. She knew that, once Peregrine had settled in Redhawk caldera with his second wife, he had began a new family line and left past behind and sometimes she wondered, if she should not do this herself. In case she never found a mate with a good-sounding, but easier to spell version of surname.

"Oh, I disagree. Death in itself is always incorporated in every belief system I have come to be familiar with. And it's never about fear - there are tales of guys, whose faith was greater than it," she countered. "Anyway... I think it is a more colourful world, if you have some whimsy and creative ways to make it just a bit different. For example... I would much rather believe that I will have an interesting journey ahead of me after I die than the simple and cruel fact that I will simply cease to exist."

"The rudest," Fluke teased good-naturedly, sarcasm showing in the playful roll of his jade green eyes as she introduced herself. Like Wildfire, she was a Redleaf, and he supposed the majority of the wolves that lived in the Copse were also Redleafs; which wasn't a bad thing. The surname was close enough to that belonging to the Redhawks that he felt it would further tie the two packs together, maing them even better allies. All the Redleafs he'd met thus far had been wonderful wolves- though Fluke did tend to think wonderfully of everyone at first glance. Still; they'd given him a home, and were treating him like family. That was more than enough to earn Fluke's respect, devotion and trust. 

She began to speak more about religion as they neared the banks, and he thought she had a very interesting opinion about life, and what might come afterwards. She'd called it 'colourful;' which was a concept that the completely colourblind Fluke could still understand, given that he could see shades. He liked that Wraen was open to creativity and not just believing in things which were tangible. He opened his mouth, likely to give her another compliment, when he felt the ground start to shudder beneath his feet. 

He stepped closer to Wraen and turned to look over his shoulder, putting his body between the mountain and his newfound packmate. Just above one of the peaks, a fair mist began to rise; it was white, like a cloud, but it seemed to rise on the air, rather than as a part of it. He flinched as a loud crack echoed through the valley, and from just beyond one massive, rocky shoulder, the thick coating of snow and ice began to shift and slide down the mountainside in a swell that began almost as a wave, but very quickly turned into a rocky, dirty storm as the avalanche began to pass over trees and cliffs. They were quite far away- but Fluke couldn't be sure they were far enough away, so he nudged Wraen's side, hoping she would instinctively just start to run. "We need to find shelter," He urged, hoping that they could find something to put between themselves and the steady, looming stream of snow, ice and rocks that was thicker than his haunches.

Wraen turned around just in time to see a specatcular sight - a huge white cloud, which had formed at the top of the mountains was rushing down at a great spead. For a moment she froze and stared at it with wide eyes, when Fluke's words came through, making her turn away and wordlessly nod. In the next second she was running, as if devil herself was going after her and headed away from the clearing towards the trees. She had no idea and no time to check, whether her packmate was following her or had chosen a different direction. If he had said something along the way, she would not have heard it, because the roar of the snow, rocks and ice, when it hit the ground and raged forward was too loud.

Taking his own advice, he fled just a few paces behind Wraen- and then a few more as he fell back. She certainly was a quick one- and she outpaced him easily. The rumbling he'd heard before had transformed into a roar which grew louder and louder until it seemed to hit a breaking point, and a gush of cool air shot past him. As it did, he stole a look back to see the small white cloud from earlier rising higher into the air- but the cracking and groaning of felled trees seemed to have slowed, potentially because the avalanche had hit the river. He turned his head forward to concentrate on picking up the pace, following after Wraen's dark backside as she fled into the cover of the copse. 

Almost as quickly as it had begun, though, the rumbling began to quiet, and Fluke stole another look back over his shoulder before he slowed, panting heavily. He barked to catch Wraen's attention, as she'd shot out of sight through the trees. He stood and waited for a moment, watching carefully to see if the angry, rolling burden of snow and felled trees would come peeling through their woodlands- but it didn't. He was still breathing heavily as he barked again, and turned to peer through the woodlands with hopes of catching sight of his much quicker companion now that the threat seemed to have diminished.

Wraen returned Finbar's second call some 10 - 15 minutes later. She had sought out refuge in a small hollow behind a sturdy oak tree and sat down to regain her breath and let her racing heart calm down. Somewhere far off (and to her mind - a comfortable distance away) the noise of breaking ice, falling rocks and trees died down and then came silence. Only now did she recall that she had lost her companion and feeling guilty for abandoning him like that, got to her feet and looked around. 

The bark once and then for the second time made her leave her hiding place altogether and she responded to his call with few coarse barks of her own. "I am coming," she called and retraced her steps, until she caught sight of Finbar's black pelt and broke out into a run towards him. "Are you alright?" she asked, when she had come close enough and could give a quick once-over look just to be sure.

Fluke was still huffing and puffing lightly by the time Wraen returned, and he gave her a cheeky smile. He wondered how far she'd gotten before she realized that A. she was safe and B. Fluke had been left behind like yesterday's news. It didn't bother him at all, though- especially since they'd both escaped from the entire situation unscathed. She came over to check him out and from what he could see, she too had been uninjured, so he simply chuckled, touched his nose appreciatively against her cheek and nodded. "Oh, I'm fine. Fat guy here just can't run," He chortled softly at himself and gestured back toward the river. 

"Wanna go check it out and see how much damage it did?" He asked. It was worth knowing, at least, if the avalanche had come across the river and left a bunch of trees and rocks on their borders, or if it had broken through the ice. They'd need to know sooner or later if it had messed up their borders, and they would have to re-mark the entire area if it had crossed the river. "It's pretty quiet now," He said, looking up into the air where the cloud of snow had begun to fall softly back to the earth in perfect little snowflakes.

Wraen was glad that she would not have to feel responsible for any harm that may have come Finbar's way during that... whatever that had been. She nodded in agreement with his suggestion and followed him back to the riverside, where all the main ruckus had taken place. While looking for a proper description of, what it had been that she had just experienced, she suddenly chuckled. It was easy to understand now, where ancient Greeks and Romans had got inspiration to invent a divine being and interference for every single occurrence in life. After all hadn't she said it herself earlier - Ice Giants fighting, hurling rocks and blocks of ice and, perhaps, some massive snowballs at each other at the top of the mountains?

"They must have had a pretty big argument," she told Finbar, without realizing that she hadn't said anything allowed and therefore he was quite clueless of, what had been going on in her head right now. She corrected this mindless mistake quite quickly by adding: "The Giants up there. I recall a story, where giants and gods were at a war and there were two tough guys, who could put one mountain atop the other in order to reach the Heaven, where their enemy resided. After experiencing something like this here... it's not that difficult to believe that..."

Fluke was interested to see the damage that the avalanche had caused. They made their way back through the woodlands that they called home, which thus far had been untouched by the farthest reaches of the avalache's destructive fingers, though the snow that fell gently down from the stratosphere from where it had been hurled would add probably another centimeter or two once it had all fallen back down to the earth. It made the air smell clear and cool, and Fin didn't mind that. 

He glanced at Wraen with a concerned face when she first mentioned an argument. What? Who'd been fighting? But she went on to continue and steer the topic back to the tale she'd been talking about before and his expression cleared quickly, though for a second he felt like a gullible idiot for so quickly thinking someone had actually been fighting up on the mountain. He liked Wraen's story; it was an interesting way to look at things- and gave him a bit less fear regarding nature's wrath when he envisioned nature not being some faceless, inevitable, all-powerful thing, but simply a larger, conscious version of what he might have been. It made it tangible. 

"Did they make it high enough?" He asked, and blushed slightly. He knew it was just a story- but she made it seem as though it was something that could actually be true. "In the story- did the tough guys make the mountain tall enough to fight the Gods? What was the fight about?" He asked.

"I don't think so," Wraen shook her head. "From what my mom told me... my ancestors believed that there had been several generations of gods. The old ruled and created new ones and than the latter fought for power. Kind of like it happens in life. The king is dead. Long live the king," she said, trying to give a context to the slip about the war that had broken out on one such ocasion of war.

"I do not remember it entirely, but I think that this time it was giants fighting the Olympian gods, who had seized the power just recently. Giants dwelled on Earth and the gods lived in Heaven, therefore they try to reach them there by piling up mountain atop mountain and they managed to pile up a third one, when the big boss Zeus struck them with the lightening bolts and threw them in Tartarus - that's kind of hell, but worse," Wraen finished, not feeling entirely satisfied with what she had told. The story was like a patchwork blanket, roughly sewn together. But that is the way of the story being passed over from one person to the next. Every story teller misses something and adds something new.

Finbar couldn't quite believe what Wraen was telling him- he understood how it related to real life, in terms of successors and kings, but the whole giants piling muntains and there being gods that could throw lightning bolts was well beyond anything he'd ever heard or imagined. Such stories wouldn't have been entertained in the pack he'd lived with before- he would have been laughed at and told to clam up, as he was whenever he sung or tried to exaggerate a scenario just for the sake of entertainment. The preferred form of entertainment had been, of course, sparring or teasing Fluke- and naturally, he hadn't enjoyed either of those. 

"So lemme get this straight," He said. "There's some dude in the sky who can throw lightning bolts?" He asked, but his tone wasn't skeptical- he was genuinely curious. "Girl, you've gotta catch me up on a bunch of your story stuff," He said, and  nearly tripped over his own feet. They were beginning to near the river's edge, and the snow was thickening. "You mom taught you all this stuff?" He asked, recalling that she'd referenced such.

"There is not only one dude there, there are plenty, as well as dudesses? If that has not been an official word yet, then I claim it now," Wraen laughed merrily. "Not to mention their predecessors the giants, the titans, the primordial entities and I am pretty sure that the history is very long and complicated even before them," implying that it would take her days to tell it all she knew and still it would be just a drop in a the vast sea. 

"This sort of thing runs in my family. My mom was a walking magpie's nest of stories, her mom - my grandmother - had a huge knowledge on bird species. Story goes that she could walk in the forest a name every bird by it's song," Wraen said. "That's in part, why half of my family is named after birds - though that tradition might predate my gran March Owl - and the other half take after Greek and Roman names."

"What's your story?" she thought it fair that it was Finbar's turn to spin some yarns.

From what he could tell, Wraen was definitely a wealth of knowledge- not just about the gods and titans and whatever else it was that lived in these legends of hers, but of nature as well. He assumed that Wraen too had gathered some of her mother's knowledge of birds and their songs, which was a pretty interesting concept to him. He liked the expression she used to describe her mother, and was beginning to realize exactly just how fascinating he found Wraen to be. She was young, but had this sort of old soul to her that made her an excellent story teller. So when the topic was flipped and the attention drawn to his story, he blushed and fumbled slightly. 

"Well, uhm," He said, and suddenly found himself slightly ashamed of his past, and of the wolves who had raised him. But he couldn't very well just go about hiding it. Still, he hoped she wouldn't be offended by the coarseness of the wolves who had brought him up- and hoped she would see that he wasn't like them at all. "I was raised by a pack of nomadic wolves...They just kind of roamed, and were kind of...Thieves." He said, shrugging one shoulder. "They'd ambush another pack just after they were tired from making a kill, raid their caches...So that was the sort of place I was raised. Never cared for it," He said, finally allowing a bit of humour into his voice. "Guys like me don't exactly like to be travelling all the time," He said, shimmying his sides just enough so that she could see how his stomach hung and jiggled. "They stole kids too; and I never really found out if I was born to them or stolen, but I guess it doesn't make much of a difference either way- I never really fit in...So I left when I was old enough," He said.

That very extreme part of Wraen's personality, who would trade the soul for a good story, thought that this was by far the most interesting tale, of how a person had found it's way here. Vagabonds, thieves, con-masters - which part of Finbar's biography was not brilliant? Yet the part, which was called conscience, tact and sympathy, noticed that for some reason the fellow was not too happy to recount his past life and, as much as she would want to ask him 100 questions, she should not, if he himself did not seem willing. If it was true, what he had said, about preferring a more stable life to travelling, she would get to know all she wanted in time. Patience was a key. 

"From what I can tell - they have raised a really pleasant fellow to be around," she smiled at him, wanting to add the part about having a good heart as well, but kept this to her. After all she did not know him that good and he could turn out to be a wolf in sheep's skin after all. "And here we are," she told him, when they arrived to the scene of the events. "I know one thing for sure - my sister will kill me, if I do not bring her here," she said, because the installation of ice blocks, snow, pieces of rocks, earth and some unlucky trees, which had been broken along the way and taken down with the rest. It looked scary and horrible, but at the same time so captivating that she had hard time looking away from it.

Fluke was flattered when she spoke, but he couldn't help but feel just a little bit ashamed of how he'd turned out- just because it had been reiterated so many times, how much of a disappointment he was. He had never fit in, and he wasn't sure if he was a result of failed parenting, or if he was simply so governed by nature rather than nurture that their parenting tactics hadn't even stood a chance against the genes he had which potentially came from another pack with strong family values and morals. It was impossible to say- but he did appreciate the fact that at least here, others like Wraen thought that he was a good guy, and that he was what the pack needed rather than being useless and soft. 

He stared out over the piles of snow, clumps of ice and rock and tree trunks that jutted out of the snow like twigs, and beyond all of the wreckage was a trail down the side of the mountain where the forest had been turned into a passage of stumps and rocks littered here and there. "Woah," Fluke whispered, and took a couple steps forward. If the avalanche had broken through the river, ir was impossible to tell- the break in the ice, if there was one, was hidden underneath several feet of snow and debris. "Glad we weren't underneath that!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah. Unlike most fellows, I would like to die of old age in a comfy bed of soft moss and sunlight," Wraen offered a bit of a grim joke, that fitted the situation anyway. Then she ventured to explore the wreckage closer, though only a day later, when she would take her sister here, would she be brave and daring enough to climb up the pile of rubble and do some digging. 

"I wonder, what they could not share up there," she mused pawing a rock and then upturning a piece of ice with some grass and dirt stuck to it. "The giants, I mean. Or maybe they weren't fighting there at all - imagine that they were cleaning out their dens and this is basically a big pile of garbage. What do you think?" she turned to Finbar.

"With a full belly," Fluke added to Wraen's statement. If he had any choice in the matter, he too would want to pass away peacefully in his sleep, when he had reached a ridiculous age and in a spot of sunlight where he was warm and comfortable and ready to just slip away. He hadn't agreed with his fellow packmates who had thought to die in battle was the best way to go- he'd instead dreamt of simply falling asleep in a patch of daisies, plump as a Thanksgiving turkey, when all of his black fur had gone grey. It hadn't gone over well with his family- but clearly he and Wraen were fairly similar. 

She referenced the giants again, which made him smile. He liked how she seemed to see the world, or how she'd take whatever parts of the world she couldn't see and make something new of it. His ears perked at the sound of the giants digging a den, and he found himself nodding along. "I'd like to think they weren't fighting at all," He said- ever the peacekeeper. "Maybe you're right- they're just making their den bigger because there're going to be puppies in the spring," He said with a soft smile. "Baby giants, up in the mountainside," He said, trying to picture it. "How big do you think a baby giant would be, compared to us? Like...Would I be baby giant-sized? Or would they be bigger? Ohhhh!" He said, and inhaled deeply, suddenly taken by a new idea that hit him by surprise. "Maybe I am a baby giant! Maybe that's where my parents stole me from! Oh wouldn't that be neat?" He asked, laughing. It'd certainly make things interesting.