Heron Lake Plateau et je la douce fleur

There was discord in the air, though just what it was she could not quite pin down. Yet the pallor of such near indescribable things had been cast and laid. Several times she had considered posing her own questions to whoever could lend an ear, but her mouth had stayed firmly shut, the words closed in a trap that no one could break. Somewhere, she had simply decided it best to wait and see what would happen, and hope that whatever tension heard and linging would sort itself out.

It was a lazy day, even for her. Warmer than it had been but damp, the earth had greened considerably and the flowers swung into full bloom. She could have been out gathering meaningless petals or whatever it was that little girls were meant to do; she could have been out to gather things for her mother to hone her own craft should the need arise. But Phoebe did none of these things, instead having resigned herself to a flowerbed in full sun, soaking up the warmth of the day.

She drifted, her mind hazy and eyes fighting sleep.

HAI SIS  ;P 

Despite the golden warmth of the summery day, Owen couldn't find it within himself to lay down, relax and enjoy it. Every time he set his butt down it was if he'd sat on a bed of nettles, itchy and uncomfortable and unable to stay put for long. His paws crisscrossed the land restlessly, not looking for anyone or anything in particular, and indeed avoiding other wolves to some degree through most of the morning. Rather unexpectedly however he trampled across a spread of flowers in riotously bright colors and spotted a rather familiar shape and scent sprawled blissfully out across the fresh greens.

Almost, he changed direction to avoid her, but then changed his mind and wended his way up to the dozy creature instead. Hey, Pheebs, he said, with a stealthy poke of one paw. You stealin' all the sunshine there? That's not very pack-minded or sportsmanlike. Other wolves might need you to share a little on occasion, you know. His tone was light and teasing, but there was a faint shadow on his brow still that his small joke couldn't manage to lift, and apprehension lurking in his green eyes. He didn't really get what all was going on with his pack elders, but he too had felt something brewing in the air...something he couldn't help but feel boded ominous and terrible things for all of them. (Though, then again, this was Owen. What on earth didn't foretell doom and gloom in his overly-fertile imagination... Sometimes it was safer just not to even ask.)

Suddenly, a shadow cast itself across her features and the warmth she felt faded slow. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment as she heard Owen's voice, but she did not immediately stir. It wasn't until he continued that she felt compelled to crack an eye open at him, almost glaring at the mock accusation. Share the sunshine? Ha. Not happening today, she thought.

"It's not very sportsmanlike of someone to block the sun either," she retorted softly, a yawn splitting her features. She stretched cat-like, tail curling as she reached as far as her dainty legs would go. "What're you up to today?" she asked then; Owen was certainly the more active of them on this particular day, though there was no telling what the others were up to.

I am so horrendously slow of late, sorry  ;.;  RL has not been kind.

Aw, c'mon, surely you've absorbed enough of it by now, he teased. Look, your coat's already burnt up with all of it.

Though his tail flickered to and fro and a cheery glint was in his eye as he spoke, both of them faded into dull stillness rather soon. ...Dunno, he said after a moment. Just didn't feel like sitting still. As if on cue, he lifted one hind paw to scratch his belly vigorously for a moment. He stopped and sat, and then an instant later had to stand up again to turn and scratch another itch on the point of his hip near the base of his tail with his teeth. Feels like something funny's in the air around this pack lately, he half-muttered, plopping his rump down once more, though how long it might actually stay there this time was anybody's guess.

Burnt up with all of it—she snorted in reply to the jab he made. Funny thing, that, when he was the odd one of them. Of course, Kite was too, if she thought about it, and quickly withheld firing back something from a crueler arsenal at her disposal. It hardly mattered, too, as Owen was going right along, active both in tongue and movement. When did he ever sit still? Never. Phoebe was certain he even moved in his sleep.

"There is something funny going on, I think," she admitted, shifting gently. "I don't know what it is. I don't like it, though." Like the sense a storm was drumming up from the earth, she had felt on edge and uneasy with all around. Quietly, she added: "Feels like something's going to change."

But what? What would change?

Things were relatively idyllic on the plateau, even in spite of all that had changed.

She struggled not to consider that, even think about the faces that had left them to seek out their own happiness elsewhere. How could they not be content with everything they had here? To herself, she shook her head dismissively.

"What do you think about it? Have you heard anything?" Was someone else about to leave them, too? Or perhaps it were more sinister than that, but she had very little experience in what was truly sinister in the world. Any incidents they had faced were but a fading memory, replaced by whatever new and exciting thing cropped up in their quiet lives.

all good, i wasn't worried. :)

I don't like it either, replied an even-more-fretful-than-usual Owen. He wasn't at all certain he could chalk it all up to merely some sort of change brewing in the pack, either, but... Something changing...like what? Some of his deepset fears gleamed through as he turned bright, worried eyes to his sister, desperate for some sort of explanation. He shifted positions again, sitting hipshot the other direction and giving his ribcage another quick scratch with the hindpaw he hadn't put all his weight on. Felt like the very air was giving him fleabites, or something.

He was caught off-guard by her seemingly expecting him to know something about it all, though. Uuuuuhhhh... no, no I haven't heard anything. ...No one really ever tells any of us much, do they? he added a bit grumpily. He was a full-grown adult and everything, darnit, even if maybe he hadn't filled out and put on muscle as much as some of his elders—yet still somehow everyone treated them like newborn pups who couldn't or wouldn't understand a thing! ...Which was why Owen had to come up with all of his own very convoluted and bizarre explanations for everything all the time, naturally. Which if you asked him often turned out to be better than what the older adults claimed was true anyway, so there.

She made an agreeable note—it was true that no one really told them much of anything. It was the curse of growing pains; they were old enough to comprehend a lot more than they let on, but they were still young enough to be spared from the bulk of things. Phoebe thought to try and pry information from her mother, perhaps over the next time they went to gather herbs, but whether or not she would was another story altogether.

"I don't know what could change," she spoke, "but I hope it doesn't mean more of our family will leave." Like a dark cloud, the repeated departures of kith and kin had impacted her silently. "Mama said they wanted to go where they would be happy but... I don't get why they'd be unhappy here. No one really does tell us anything." Her ears folded back to rest against her skull, now bothered but the reality of it.

Her eyes narrowed as she crossed another idea.

"Maybe they're planning a birthday party," because yes, that was a much light-hearted alternative to what would actually come. "We're almost grown, right?"