Sun Mote Copse First thing we climb the tree

Had to find a way to excuse poor Niamh from her scouting mission as I wasn't able to post for over a week. I'd like to have her do a scouting mission someday- just turns out I was unable to commit to it due to a few unexpected gigs that came up...And posting from a phone is no fun! attn: @Wraen @Towhee

Failure. 

But was it really failure, at the end of it all? After all, Niamh had managed to return alive, and there had been a point when she had felt entirely certain that she wouldn't survive. Just as she had begun to make her way through the foothills, whiteout conditions had obscured her vision and the terrain had shifted since the last time she'd made her way through the rocky areas. Something had slammed into her side and had sent her flying- she'd hit her head, and everything went black. 

Over a week had passed since then- and she hadn't been able to go on her scouting mission at all. Her plans had been foiled by a family of three wolves who had been trying to cross through the mountains- but they had attempted to set things right by nursing her back to health. The female had been an excellent medic- albeit somewhat rough with her administering techniques, and the fact that not one of the three of them spoke any English had made things all the more difficult. At the end of a week, they had finally motioned that it was alright for her to move again- and with great trepidation and moving slowly, Niamh began her trek back to the Copse. 

She should have been halfway through her scouting mission by then, so she resented those three wolves greatly. One of them had gone tumbling down the mountainside, and had sent a boulder flying which was what had bashed Niamh off her feet in the first place, breaking a couple ribs and heavily bruising a few others. She had a concussion and was still fighting off headaches on a daily basis. But they'd hunted for her, and had looked after her, but had been interested in getting on their way as soon as they saw that Niamh was fit to travel again. Muttering profanities to herself, she gave up, and retreated back to the copse still favouring every movement that brought pain through her ribs and spine. 

When she reached the borders she called out, but her howl was hoarse and short; it hurt too much to howl. She knew that she would be fine- she'd been able to diagnose her condition a bit, and knew that her ribs would just take time to heal...And until they did, there wasn't much she could do about it but not breathe too hard, speak too loud or move too quickly. It was a pain in the ass. At least she was home though, as sour as she felt having failed her journey and ended up in bad condition. She would be alright- but would the pack?

It had been a while since Finley had spent time regularly patroling the borders. She had been quite content for some time as a retiree, leaving the "heavy lifting" to the rest of the pack. But then their numbers had dwindled and there simply weren't enough of them for anyone not to pull their weight, including their elderly.

Besides which, something had clicked in her head in the wake of Colt's death. His death had seemed so unfair, so untimely. He had died so young, and here she'd been all this time, acting like she was the one on death's door. If her littermate had been too young to die, it seemed to Finley that she might be too young to behave as though she were about to die.

And since when had that ever scared her anyway?

So, when Niamh's voice sprang out across the wintery wood, Fin hadn't been too far away. She'd turned her steps immediately, concern driving her to move faster than she usually did (I mean, she may be too young to die, but she still wasn't exactly young). She was panting by the time she arrived, but she closed her mouth and perked her ears when she spotted her sister-in-law.

"Damn, Legs," Fin said as she trotted nearer, "What happened to you? You alright?" She was clearly exhausted and a bit rough around the edges, but Fin didn't think she was in bad enough shape for need further alarm sounded.

Wraen was close second to arrive and meet Niamh on the borders. The resident Sergeant-at-arms had been gone for a while on, what the Sovereign believed to a be a scouting mission. What could possibly go wrong with a feisty, young and lively wolf as her? And it obviously had. Because, what greeted her was not a tired, but victorious and content scout, but a beaten and battered wolf, slumped on the door-step with a sour expression, twisted by pain. She did not look good at all.

"Hey," she acknowledged Finley with a quick nod and, since the old Blackthorn matriarch had asked all the necessary questions here, Wraen remained silent, just drew nearer to have a good overall sniff and examine the injured she-wolf. By now she had stopped to worry about, what would be the next bad thing to happen to her pack as a whole. Now it was simply a question of, when.

Niamh sat down and hung her head slightly when she saw Finley approach, knowing that she was at least to be welcomed, and that if she needed any assistance, she wouldn't be alone for long. She felt Finley's gaze travel over her, though she was aware that she didn't sport much in terms of external injuries; it was only when Niamh was in motion that the presence of her ailments showed itself. She nodded to her sister-in-law, and tried to summon a wry half-smile in response to her retort. It meant a lot to hear her old nickname again. 

"I've been better, but I've been worse too," She said, shrugging one shoulder and wincing slightly at the pain it caused her. She would've gone on to explain herself, but she caught Wraen's scent, and knew that it'd be easier for her to simply explain herself only once, so she waited a moment, catching sight of their leader approaching, and nodded her head in greeting, trying not to move her shoulders or sides too much as she did so. 

"Din't get far," She grated reluctantly. "Some doofus and his family were traipsing about the mountainside and pushed a small landslide of boulders and rocks down. Got slammed. Broke a couple ribs or something like that. They took care of me for a bit- din't speak a word of English...I came back as soon as I could...But I didn't even get to the North side of the mountains," She confessed, turning her ears back. In other words, she'd failed to get to any of the other packs, and had not been able to scout out any other potential hunting grounds.

Fin acknowledged Wraen's arrival with a glance and a smile, but nothing more. Niamh clearly had a tale to tell, so she held her tongue in anticipation of what the golden wolf had to say. She wasn't disappointed either as the woman went on to explain about doofuses and landslides. She cringed a bit at the thought of it, knowing quite well how it hurt to do things like fall down mountains or get punched in the face with rocks. But, as Niamh had said, she was alright. At least, she'd pretty much said that.

"Sounds like a good time," Fin said with a small grin. She didn't really know what the point of Niamh's expedition would've been even if she had been successful, so she had little to say on her failure. Even when Fin had been a ranger, it had served no real purpose other than a fancy title for her to wear while she gallivanted around the Wilds, seeking fun and adventure. She'd never seen what good it did for the pack.

"Doesn't look like you got any cool scars, though," Fin quipped with a frown, "That's the real bummer. Did they teach you any cool swear words at least?"

"Do not be too hard on yourself. We are happier to have you here in one piece and safe," Wraen told Niamh. She sympathized with the proud she-wolf and could easily imagine, how disappointed she felt for not having accomplished the mission that she had had in mind. The Sovereign, the same way as Finley did, looked past that. For a small pack like theirs well-being of every single member mattered greatly.

She smiled at Finley's attempt to cheer Niamh up. "You will be happy to hear that we along with some others kept the borders in check during your absence. No one trespassed," she shared. "I can go and see, if we have something for you to eat and you can have a rest for the rest of the day, if you so desire and feel that you need," she said.

It put Niamh at ease t have Finley there, not making too much of a fuss over her condition, and teasing her gently. It almost made her feel like things were normal...If some sort of normal-ness could ever be acheived again. It seemed so far away, so intangible, but getting this olive branch from her sister-in-law gave Niamh the little bit of hope that she needed. She felt somewhat isolated from the Blackthorn family...And even though Bronco was Blackthorn by blood, she couldn't help but feel that because Colt was gone, she wasn't really a Blackthorn much herself anymore. 

"Kinda hard to tell. Pretty much everything they said sounded angry and harsh...And every sentence was kind of a big run-on mashup of angry words, so whatever the hell language it was...It's outa my grasp," She admitted. Then again, Niamh cut most corners off her own language, so for her to be the judge of any other tongue was laughabe to say the least. To Wraen, who offered to give her time to rest, she nodded, and sat up a bit. "I'll prolly just go back to my den and relax a bit...See if I can con a meal outa Bronco. He been doing OK at the borders?" She asked, hoping at least that her son hadn't dropped the ball on his duties.

Fin smiled appreciatively at Wraen as the sovereign took the more sovereign-ly approach to responding to Niamh's situation. Someone definitely needed to do the serious things, like being encouraging and reassuring and nurting and shit. The Blackthorn had never been great at that, though she did sort of do those things in her own way. Her own jesting, foul-mouthed, nonchalant sort of way.

Yeah, it was good Wraen was there.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully at the comments about the strangers' language. "Musta been a bunch of russians," she replied, mostly to the amusement of her player who has a russian friend that would also be amused by the assessment. As for Bronco's well-being, Fin didn't really have much to say on it. She hadn't spent much time with her nephew lately, but she had at least caught his scent while she did her own border walks so she was able to give a reassuring nod.

"I've been busy myself... but I think he is doing alright," Wraen cast an inquiring glance in Finley's direction, because - come to think of it - she did not quite recall, when she had last met Bronco face to face. The boy was in the difficult teenage rebellious stage and Sovereign, who had so much on her plate already had no will or energy left to try and be patient and understanding with him. That was one of the freedoms that came with being the "fun aunt" and "the third party" and not a mother to the boy directly. At the end of the day you could leave them with their parents. 

"I will leave you two and find that food I promised," she told Niamh, then looked at Finley, quietly inquiring, if there was anything she could do for the elder. With the answer in her metaphorical pcoket, the Sovereign left. 

Last one from me here - you can carry on. I do not know, if Bronco followed Maia or not, therefore I left it ambigious of, whether Wraen knows, where he is at this point. Nudge me, if anything needs to be changed in my post.

Niamh shrugged absent-mindedly at Finley's comment. Niamh had no idea what a Russian accent would sound like, nor would she have been able to pinpoint the language itself. Being somewhat uneducated, Niamh's natural response upon hearing a foreign language was that it would be impossible to learn, and therefore was interpreted as complete jibberish regardless of how much flow the language had. The wolves she'd met could have had a soft and gentle French accent for all that Niamh knew- but with having absolutely no experience with other languages, she still would have thought it was angry-sounding. 

Any language, of course, could sound angry when the speaker was angry- which the wolves had been. One of them had caused the accident, and it was his frustrated mate who had insisted that they help fix her up, rather than simply leaving her there, as the male had suggested. They bickered constantly amongst themselves- leading to Niamh's interpretation that whatever the language it was that they spoke, it simply sounded angry. Truth be told- they were a few wolves who had been short on luck, who were late travelling where they were heading, and were both tired and hungry by the time they traipsed into an unfamiliar mountain range and started a small landslide. The whole ordeal had been just as frustrating for them as it had been for Niamh. 

Regardless- it seemed that at least in her absence that Bronco hadn't been too much of a pain in the ass, so she nodded appreciatively when Wraen offered to leave them and go find food. "Thanks Wraen," She said softly, still ashamed that she'd failed her mission. She sighed, and gestured to Finley. "C'mon. Help me gimp my ass back to the den so I can make my son take care of my lame ass," She half invited, half assumed would be done, and left with her sister-in-law to find her son, and have a bit of rest.