The Sentinels mother earth and father time

@Knaven and/or @Lionel - you guys can both join in c: Forward dated a bit, but keeping it super vague. 
I give to you: one heartbroken boy!

Wandering seemed to be the best option for the golden Morningside boy. And honestly, he didn't mind it much. It gave him peace and quiet and let him be alone to mourn his lost love - if she'd ever loved him anyway, he'd never know. It wasn't like he could go back and face her, not after being turned down. Perhaps he should be okay with it, but he had thought that she had meant forever when they'd agreed to be betrothed. 

Of course, it was her right to break it off, but still.

These trees were big and burned. A fire had ripped through this forest at some point, leaving behind nothing but ashes in its wake. Maybe it had been beautiful once, and maybe it would be again. But for now, it was destroyed. 

Sonder could relate.

they had made it to the sentinels.
the mayfair supposed it was similar to how their mother had described — oh, mam! gone off in her head would she be, describing fairy rings and witches walking amid the ancient trunks of the once burnt forest.
but now they had come back.
lionel walked through the ash, pausing when a flash of gold fed its way into his line of sight. another wolf, and pointedly not one of his littermates. therefore, the mayfair decided with a ripple of his fawncream hackles, it was more than likely an adversary, and he stalked pointedly among the barren trees directly for the stranger.

There was almost a kind of beauty in the burned trees. A smile crept across Sonder's muzzle in a brief moment of contentment as he spotted a small bit of greenery growing from beneath one of the fallen logs. The forest would grow back - it would be big and beautiful and healthy again, someday.

If anyone asked, Sonder would deny that a smile had ever crossed his maw. He was sad and broody and nothing in the world could change that, thank you very much.

He was blissfully unaware that he was being stalked.

The saltfang followed several paces behind the stag. Lionel had ventured on ahead to search through the wood. Knaven was still shocked at how much the fire had ravaged the territory, stripping it of the magic that might have dwelled there in a time before they were alive. Still, his teachings in the way of the witchdoctor had taught him well enough of the spirits that lingered in the waste. The sentinels were still very much alive. Time would restore the towering redwood trees; the world would return the wood to glory. The rogue simply did not know how long it would be. 

Growing bored of wandering in the ash, Knaven pointed himself toward the scent of his brother and trotted confidently in that direction. When he saw the golden cloak of Lionel, he noted the tension in his kin's frame. Dropping instinctively into a crouch, he closed the gap between them and brushed his muzzle to the other's haunch as a warning of his presence. The stranger ahead of them was painted golden too, but he was not known to the two sea wolves.

and all suddenly, knaven was with him. his senses steadied with the nudge of his brother; he easily took a hunting trot and pincered the other sunkissed in a swift and honed gambit.
pretty boy with a sour face. had he been someone known, lionel might have made a quip about the other's muzzle and its length. but he was not a friend; he was the first stranger the mayfair had actively encountered.
flanked by knaven, the stag was emboldened, but also suffused with the natural inclination of a sibling to impress. "you're not very present, are you," he remarked of the stranger, stepping directly into the other's path.

Sonder was jerked out of his silent reverie by a body stepping in front of him. Golden as well, but with more of the pale stuff on his belly than Sonder had. Their eyes were in direct opposition of color. But the other boy was not alone - a quick glance over revealed another tall boy, with darker fur and brownish eyes. 

You're not very present, are you.

"Must be pretty present. You're the one who talked to me," he responded, rose gold eyes scanning over the other two. They were regarded with boredom, though in reality they were making the smaller boy a bit nervous. "This your territory or somethin'?" He was pretty sure he'd not crossed any markers. As far as he knew, it was unclaimed.

Immediately, Knaven was put off by the way that the stranger had addressed his kin. This reflected in the russet undertones of his gaze and the disapproving frown that had creased his features. When the golden stranger had gone on to ask if the territory was theirs, the rogue could not help but to snicker at the inquiry and breathe an exasperated sigh into the air. Who would claim such a land in the state that it was in? Once, the sentinels had been a beautiful woodland terrain with the sea close beside it. The fire had done well to clear out most of the strength that it had once had.
 
“Who would be so foolish to claim a land that was lost to fire? This surely would not support a pack,” Knaven remarked in a rugged tone. There was a teasing lilt to the way his words fell from his mouth. The saltfang’s eyes darted toward Lionel to see what his brother might have to say about the state of the wood and the questions that had fallen from their company’s mouth.

the kid snapped back, and lionel arched a brow at his brother. it was a good thing that knaven spoke first; the mayfair was about to snipe in return that this woodland was indeed theirs, by blood right. and yet he did see the foolishness when the wolverine spoke.
"i have better things to do than piss all over ashes," lionel rejoined, flashing his sharp teeth in a feral grin. "what about you?" the kid didn't seem as if he was out roving for territory, but who could know? he did not introduce himself, not yet.

Sonder looked around the charred forest with a soft scoff. The other boys were right, of course - it was unsustainable, right now, but eventually it'd grow back. His ear swiveled back, slightly embarrassed about his question. But, being the stubborn teenager he was, Sonder wasn't going to give into his folly so easily.

"I guess so," he muttered, shrugging his shoulders. "I was just checking to see what was up here. Never seen a burned forest before." Which was true. Sonder has never been around fire, or seen its devastation. This was new for him.

Rose gold eyes would trail over the two and he'd lower his head a bit, almost like he was trying to hunch in on himself. He hadn't had much interaction with anyone in a little over a month now, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was getting a bit lonely. Which was probably what possessed him to introduce himself. "My name's Sonder." It was quiet, gruff - a bit hesitant. He wouldn't speak further, hoping maybe the other two would introduce themselves as well.

It was good that Lionel did not speak on their blood claim to the wasteland forest. It would have looked rather disappointing to have two young wolves hold such pride and honor for a land that had been charred and destroyed. Instead, the golden-cloaked figure seemed to rejoin with a snide comment about pissing on ashes before he flashed a sharp smirk toward Knaven and the earthy rogue settled his deep gaze on the wolf that had just introduced themselves as Sonder. It was an easy sounding name. The saltfang lifted his crown before providing his own moniker in a rough tone, “Knaven.”
 
A wicked curling smirk settled onto his dark lips with ease.

"lionel."
sonder. he hadn't heard a name like that before; a similar smile touched his own handsome face before he moved to keep the boy between them. "how long do you think it's been since it's burned?" the yearling asked casually, though his own murkwater eyes danced with intrigue.
he and knaven knew, of course; hadn't deirdre told them the tale long and often? lionel knew all the names of the witchfamily who had once lived here, but they did not any longer. and yet he wanted to know if wandering golden sonder had heard the same tales.

Knaven. Lionel. 

Sonder looked between the two. They looked quite different, but both were taller than Sonder, who was... not particularly tall at all. He wondered, vaguely, if they were related. The boy felt a stab of homesickness, for a moment, before he chased it away. Being alone was better, anyway.

He hunched in on himself a bit, shoulders bunching up - the wolfish equivalent of shoving his hands in his pockets. They sandwiched him between them, and he wondered if he was safe or if these guys were gonna eat him or something.

Uncomfortable.

"Long enough for some of this shit to grow back," he pointed out, taking a step or two closer to the fallen log that sheltered some fresh green growth. "I dunno. Months, maybe?" 

He cleared his throat and flicked rose-gold eyes between the other two males, ears flicking back. Their smiles were... unnerving. So uncomfortable. "It'll probably grow back all the way eventually. It's, uh... do you guys know anything about it?" Maybe they used to live here or something.

The blonde kid was a real delight with his standoffish behavior and melancholy responses. He almost laughed at the responses that were provided to Lionel’s question, but managed to keep a tight lid on his desires to openly mock the stranger they’d found. It had seemed as though Sonder was going to trail off in his speculations on when the forest had caught fire and when it might return, but he seemed to cut his sentence and inquire as to whether the brothers knew anything about it.
 
Knaven was inclined to lie. He didn’t owe this little golden fellow anything, and it would have been fairly entitled of them to have played the game up until that point and then revealed that their parents had lived beside the sea and in the forest respectively, that their mother had been there when the forest had burned. “Naw, don’t know anything about it. You think there were any packs here when it happened?” the druid asked, knowing the implications of such a question.
 
Surely, it wasn’t just the shrubbery that was decimated in the heat.

just a trio of cool cats. the new goldkid was keeping up appearances. lionel had to respect it, even as knaven began his questioning. the mayfair glanced off toward the horizon, but sonder clutched his curiosity close. "maybe it will be livable again. one day." would they have left the forest behind by then?
he swung his tail, pressed off into the recovering undergrowth with one ear twitched out for sonder's reply. yes they knew about it, and plenty, but lionel saw no reason to run his mouth about their mother's connection to the place she had always praised.