Blacktail Deer Plateau At least for a week

@Reyes! If you're not available just lmk and I'll open this up. Forward dated to February 1st when she gets home!

Nieve meant to go directly to her mothers when she returned home, but that was before she caught a whiff of a familiar scent on the breeze as she descended from the mountains. Her heart flipped in her chest and she hastened her step, plunging into the trees with a kind of fervent curiosity burning in her blue eyes.

He'd been gone for a long time and he'd left without a word. Nieve felt a similar hesitation to that she'd felt toward Clementine, and yet she disbelievingly sought Reyes out as she hadn't her sister. Reyes had only disappeared once whereas Clementine had gone twice already, so Nieve wasn't quite so afraid of reconnecting with her russet brother. Besides, they were closer. They'd bonded over Scarab's disappearance and Rosalyn's.

Reyes! she called out, stopping in a clearing near the territory's heart. Are you here?!

He'd returned and done what came naturally - he had challenged for a higher place among the pack, one befitting the son of Rosalyn, and he had lost in both cases. That weight filled him with an unbridled frustration. It would have been fine if he was still his old self, this child who only wanted his mother, but he had outgrown that version within Tortuga. Now, knowing there were people out there he could not defeat with a little bit of posturing, made Reyes quite unruly. He was pacing among the trees when he heard his sister call out, and had half a mind to continue wallowing. 

Are you here?! She called a second time - and this urged him to answer, so he dropped the thoughts of his failure out of his mind temporarily and slipped back along the path, veering towards where her voice had come from. The boy did not waste much time as he navigated the snow-hewn plateau once he set his mind to it: and when the golden shape of his sister emerged in his periphery, he called out in lieu of their company colliding: Nieve!

Nieve! called a voice that was deeper and gruffer than she recalled, but still definitely his. She picked her tail up in a jovial wag and trotted the last few feet to him, only to pause when she reached him. Nieve was poised on the tips of her toes to reach out and wrap him in a wolfish embrace, but there was something very different about Reyes that made her stop short.

He looked older. More haggard, more serious. He looked a lot like Rosalyn but his composition was heavier and his fur fell in all the wrong ways. Comparatively, Nieve was a mere willow branch, tall but much lighter. It felt like ages ago they'd stood together and vowed to find Scarab and Rosalyn so Erzulie might be happy again, and the time in between was emphasized by just how much Reyes looked like he'd changed.

When did you get home? she asked, a little breathless not only from her flight through the woods, but the sheer shock of seeing him and the fully grown wolf he'd become.

Despite the chilly welcome he had given their mother, when Nieve came close and tried to show some affection Reyes did not stop her. He didn't close the distance at all either, though. That distant manner might have influenced his sister's behavior because she stopped short and they shared a look - until he turned away, deferential. 

Her question brought his attention back to her; he watched her face, gave a little shrug of his shoulders. A few days ago. I wanted to find you, but mom said you were off doing something else. That made him worry a little bit. What if he'd come back and she had been gone for good? What if something happened and the last memory he'd ever have of Nieve was their adventure on the borders, months ago? He took a breath and ignored those thoughts. Things feel different here, he remarks a moment later, although it isn't clear if he means Rusalka vs Tortuga or, more likely, the strangers that inhabit the forest and absence of their extended family.

He had expected to find Caiaphas after all, and she was gone.

What could've been a touching embrace gave way to an awkward reluctance that Nieve simply had to swallow down. Things were too different between them now for that level of familiarity. She would get to the bottom of what happened to him eventually, but for now the subject was Rusalka and the changes herein.

Ah, yeah. Had to get outta dodge for a bit, Nieve admitted. She had no reason to feel ashamed of herself for it, but she was a little sheepish that instead of confronting a problem, she'd chosen to avoid it. Rosalyn and Erzulie wouldn't run from their problems the way she had. She got the sense Reyes wouldn't, either, but maybe that was just thanks to her own guilt. He pointed out that things felt different and she bobbed her head.

With any other wolf she might've held her tongue, fearful that it would get back to the trio of sisters one way or another, but Nieve trusted Reyes. We had a few new wolves join. They seem okay but one of them, well, she's kind of... she's kind of a bitch. God, it felt wrong to say that about Ying and yet saying it lifted a weight off Nieve's chest just a little bit.

Hearing his sister call someone a bitch wasn't new, but it was amusing enough to make him chuckle softly and smirk. A bitch? Then they should be right at home here, he jested. Last I remember, Rusalka was full of strong personalities.

Recalling the constant aggression of the coastal wolves, Reyes realized his thoughts of Tortuga were influencing his present. He had seen many spars when they had lived in Ankyra Sound - a few more in the woods prior to his departure - but it was the crew he fell in with that spoiled his mind now. Snapping himself out of his thoughts, he adds: I bet if we team up we can teach them a lesson, whoever they are. You want me to beat someone up? His tail frisked behind him, and he looked energized all of a sudden.

Nieve could only fix Reyes with a confused frown when he talked about bitches fitting right in with Rusalka. That wasn't true at all, she thought. Once upon a time, when she was too young to remember much of it, Rusalka was filled with wolves with strong personalities. Caiaphas, Raleska, Rosalyn, Erzulie, Eurycrates, Vercingetorix... they'd all been strong personalities back then. Nowadays, Raleska was quiet and reticent, Rosalyn was calm like a lake at dawn, Erzulie steady but comforting, Eurycrates and Vercingetorix and Caiaphas all dead. The Rusalka that Nieve knew was filled with wolves who cared about one another, reclusive and secretive, but not one of them was disrespectful.

She would soon learn she had the wrong idea about her home, but even then, she didn't think Reyes was right at all. Whatever he was thinking of, it surely wasn't the Rusalka she'd grown up loving. She chose to make no comment on it if only to avoid getting into a debate about the type of wolves who lived on the plateau. Instead, she focused on his offer.

Truly, it was tempting, but she shook her head in the end. That'd only make us as bad as them. Nieve wasn't a pushover, which was precisely why she'd held her own and kept her title in spite of Ying's disrespect, but she wasn't going to stoop to the level of a bully just for payback. She didn't have the coldness in her heart for it, and more importantly, she was better than that. So was Reyes, she thought, though the frenetic energy in his eyes at the mention of beating someone up made her feel uneasy. Where'd you go? she asked, eager to get off the topic of Ying.

She denied him the chance to let his pugilistic side run free, to which he snorted softly, but accepted the result. If she didn't want him to be belligerent then that was fine; he could do it without her blessing too, and planned to show them all just how much he had grown since his vanishing from the pack.

Then she asked him the obvious question - the same thing that everyone seemed intent to know. He had not shared much about Skeleton Quay besides the name, and the generalized explanation that it was part of Tortuga; that meant nothing to Rusalka from what he could tell. But with Nieve, Reyes would be more elaborate.

Badass pirates took me in. There's a big region along the coast called Tortuga, that's where I ended up. Maybe telling her about this would lessen the stress he felt about it? Still, there were aspects he wasn't ready to divulge to anyone. The place is full of wolves. They divide up in to small crews, sort of like a pack - but not. There's no alpha like Rusalka. The crew I ran with was pretty small but they controlled a grotto called Skeleton Quay, as he said this, his eyes became glassy, distant. Buncha hoodlums, really. His voice lacked emotion as he said this, lacking any warmth at all, and he couldn't look at her.

Reyes described the coastal region of Tortuga, its factions and its ways with a growing distance that made Nieve feel uneasy. He seemed ready to divulge at first but his voice grew tenser, his eyes more vacant, the more he spoke. At the end, there was hardly any inflection to his speech at all. She snagged her lower lip between her incisors, thinking.

A band of lawless pirates sounded both romantically badass and terrible at the same time. Nieve valued order too much for that kind of lifestyle, and yet, something about the freedom in that was certainly compelling. How's it work with no Alpha? Who calls the shots? It was similar to her curiosity about Bhediya and her Uaine Gorsedd, but Tortuga sounded even more confusing than that. Did you like it there?

Not to say that Reyes was a hoodlum, too, but he certainly seemed different to her than when he left. Nieve couldn't help wondering if it was because he missed the pirates' way of life.

He answered quickly, dispassionately.

Nobody, everybody. Its hard to say what directs them - but whoever has the biggest will, I guess. It was an apt way to put it, although even then it wasn't entirely true. He had not spent enough time with the miscreants to fully comprehend their structure or culture, if one could call piracy a culture. But he was glad to be home - so when Nieve queried him on that, he couldn't help but scoff.

It was fun for a little bit, but nothin' beats home. That was the truth; there was something beneath the surface of his words though, a flickering shadow to his expression, which he could not stop from drifting over him. Reyes ran his mouth a little to compensate: Go anywhere, do anything, there's a lot of freedom in it. I could'a left at any time and nobody would've cared. But he had stayed for weeks, relishing in that freedom for as long as he could bear it. But with everyone bashin' heads all the time it feels a little pointless.

He shrugs, goes quiet - content with his storytelling even if it is limited - and yet the darkness lingers.

Whoever has the biggest will. If Nieve knew the reality of Rusalka then she would agree with Reyes that they were much the same, but those chaotic days seemed to be behind them. Their effect on her had been minimal. So, basically the bossiest wolf leads? she surmised. She wasn't sure she liked that system—if that was how Rusalka operated, then Ying would surely be in charge of them all, and given the woman's attitude toward her, that would be very bad news for Nieve.

Maybe they all bash heads because they're free to do whatever they want, so they all think they're right, she pointed out, though she was certain Reyes already came to that conclusion. He must've left for a reason. Perceptive as she was, she didn't miss the brief pall that seemed to fall across his features, but she chose not to comment on it. It wasn't her business. Well, it's good to have you home, she said with a warm smile. Clem's back, too. Scarab came home for a bit but left again. She couldn't mask a slight edge when she said it.

He nods in agreement to her first statement, having nothing else to add. It had been fun to live without any percieved constraints for a while, but everything must come to an end one day. At this point Reyes wasn't keen on explaining anything; he wasn't ready to look back on those days of freedom with much fondness yet, as they were contrasted with a lot more of the opposite. Nothing that anyone needed to know about, he reasoned.

When Nieve mentioned their wayward siblings he refocused, his brows raising in surprise - but Reyes heard the barb to her tone as she spoke of Scarab. His interest diminished slightly. Oh, was all he managed at first. It was good that they were still alive at least — good that Clementine had found her way home — but it sounded as if their family would remain splintered for the rest of their days on this earth. How hard was it to keep a pack of wolves in one place? Pirates could do it, and they didn't even have leadership!

He is unsure of what to say that might improve her mood. He tries to think of something—in the end, blurting: I'm glad you're still here, too. Kind of surprised by it actually— his shoulders bunched almost like a shrug. With everything calmed down now, I'd have expected everyone to be home in the Sound again.

He didn't say anything further on the subject of Skeleton Quay and Nieve took the hint to drop it. It didn't really matter, anyway. Reyes was home now, and although there was a little part of her that felt kind of weird about it all—the constant disappearances and reappearances of her siblings, that is—most of her was happy he was back.

Oh, well, maman said she's going to talk to Aningan about moving back to the coast, she shared. They used to live somewhere further down the coast... And she told him what she knew of Ironsea and how their mothers had been happiest there, hoping to hype him up the way she felt about leaving the plateau in the future.

Fade?