Moonspear even angels have their wicked schemes

Charles didn't really understand what was so cool about a big rock. He liked Easthollow better. Maybe the only reason @Leta was here wasn't the big rock, but it was @Osiris. The feelings that gave Charles were pretty mixed. He didn't really get why she had to leave their home just to go and find this guy somewhere else.

He thought he would feel good about being away from his mother. He thought that he would feel good not being in constant uncertainty whether he would be snapped at or held by her. But the truth of the matter was that he missed her in some sort of weird way. It was super weird and he didn't understand it at all. Miss his mother? The biggest reason, besides wanting to be with his friend, to leave Easthollow to begin with? Maybe he just needed to get used to being away from it all. Maybe he just needed time.

Leta was gone and he wasn't sure where she was off to right now. Charles meanwhile decided to explore the boring rock. Maybe it'd surprise him with some cool details after all. He'd found a cave near the base of the mountain. Just more rock, he said to himself, only to get back a faint ock - ock echo from the cave. His large coyote-like ears flung forward and he stared into the cave, surprised.

They had one other Easthollow wolf, though this was to be a visitor. Leta's stay, Osiris had expressed to her, would be far more long term... and Leta seemed to agree to that, too. The matriarch was interested in the wolf that had escorted the girl, though. She supposed she could not allow him to return alone once it was time for him to do so, either, given all that she knew now. But that would be fine; perhaps she would go with him, some of the way. She had wolves to see, and meet as well. 

She came across the scent of Charles and followed it the rest of the way. She heard the remnants of the echo, and as she saw him her eyes lingered upon his ears. Grotesquely large. They reminded her of a coyote, in a way—she licked her chops, wondering if he had any of that species within him now that she had a better look at him. Untrustworthy things. 

It could not be helped that she had no love for the boy from that thought alone. 

But, she would be a gracious host. For she did have love for Valette, and supposed the she wolf had her own reasons for liking him enough to allow him in her ranks. Valette had more years than she, and so imagined that here and now she might found out those very reasons. What have you found? she asked as she approached, her deep blue eyes shifting briefly to the cave his attention was upon.

Charles didn't really know that Leta intended to stay here. He thought they'd go here and then kinda just... Go back? Go somewhere else, maybe with Leta's other friend? He wasn't one to think about the long term anyway, so honestly, he'd not given it much thought at all.

When someone found him, he turned around to look at them. She looked so powerful and strong, and Charles (who'd presumably met her at least once when he and Leta arrived) tail tucked between his hind legs in submission without him notifying it himself. He licked his lips and said, Something's wrong with this rock. It shouts back. He glanced back at the cave, a wary glint in his eyes.

His submissive stature appeased her, and as he spoke her gaze shifted to the rock he spoke of. Shouted back...? Hydra drew behind him, barking into the cavern a threatening demand to come out. Her own voice answered her back, though it was an echo and far from fearsome to the matriarch. Her ears twitched, but hearing nothing else she took a step closer and sniffed. 

Empty, she drawled, only my own voice answers... The scents were stale, and old; a wolverine once bedded in this place, but there was no trace of it now as far as she could tell. Realizing now in full what he had said, and likely want he meant, Hydra turned to him and informed: that is an echo. A normal thing, as it appeared he had not heard one before.

The pack's leader moved towards the rock to shout into it too, and the rock returned her voice, too. Charles shrunk for a moment, his tail twitching involuntarily as he wondered what caused the rock to do this. She said it was empty -- well, yes, it was the rock that shouted back -- and said it was her own voice that answered. Huh, he hadn't really thought of it in that way yet. But why did the rock return their own voices? It was apparently a totally normal thing, but to Charles, who'd never seen a cave in his life, it was quite the foreign thing.

Huh, funny, he remarked and he blinked as he looked at the rock. So he guessed there were some cool rocks, too; not all of them were lame. Though overall, he still didn't really get the pull towards rocks. Was it because of the stone circle that Leta liked rocks so much that she wanted to live on one? Pretty strange. He wondered then, Did you always live here? The concept of changing packs was new to Charles, and he wondered if there were many wolves who just up and left their packs to live somewhere else.

Funny, he said. 

Ever a literal woman, Hydra did not see how. It was not all that amusing to Hydra, though... she was used to such things by now, she supposed. Some wolves had strange senses of humor too, to boot. Charles must be one of them. A better sense than her own, she figured, given she found hardly anything at all funny. Not in the context she perceived he meant it anyhow. 

All of my life, she answered, gaze turning from the shadows of the abandoned cavern to the boy with ears that were far too large. He was most displeasing to look upon, but Hydra had enough tact to not reveal such thoughts. And you? Were you born and raised within Easthollow, like Leta? she inquired, interest in the subject true.

Wow, she lived all her life here? Sucked to be her, Charles thought, but he kept the thought to himself. She didn't look like the kind of person that he should mess with if he wanted to stay here, so he decided to be polite (or, well, as polite as his poor upbringing made him manage).

She asked him a question in return, asking if he was born in Easthollow. Yeah, he said with a nod. I didn't leave it much before. This is the most far I've been. Charles paused for a short moment before he added, Leta's my only friend. After he said it Charles regretted it right away; he felt that he should've said it a bit cooler, instead of sounding like a friendless dweeb. That wasn't the only reason he'd come with. But it was a big part of the reason. Just, not everyone had to know about that, maybe. He wasn't sure what it was about this woman that made him talk.

The furthest he had been, hm? I have traveled much, in the past mainly I admit. But I have found there is no place like home, she hummed. It did not sound the same with him; he had left with Leta, the girl who had mistaken her for Alya. She seems kind, was all Hydra said to that. She did, after all; she was softspoken and sweet, and Hydra imagined she must have a good heart in her. I hope you will find more friends here, if that is your wish for yourself, she drawled. 

Thinking, Hydra inquired, ...what is it that you do wish for yourself? For perhaps Hydra could help him achieve it, were she capable of it.

She said that she had traveled much in the past, but that there was no place like home. That meant little to Charles, as home meant little to him. It was a strange thing to say to him. Why would anyone want to be home? So far, he liked it a lot more out here than when he was still living at home with his mother. He forgot about it when Hydra said that Leta seemed kind, though, and he nodded. She was the only person that he had ever been friends with, so she had to be very kind. She's really kind, Charles reiterated with a nod. If Leta was standing here he might say something a little mean about her instead, but between the two of them he dared to admit that Leta was good. Maybe too good for someone like him to be around.

Hydra said that she hoped he would find more friends if that was what he wished. Wishing was something that Charles had not heard a lot about. That was wanting something, wasn't it? He didn't answer when she spoke of her hope, though he looked contemplative and introspective as she said it and he tried to figure out whether he wanted that.

Just as Charles got to the core of the problem — that it didn't matter what he wished, because he was so ugly that he would probably never find more friends anyway — she asked what he wished for himself. He blinked. Anything? he asked, blinking some more. He looked rather blank slated and then answered: To be less ugly. God, that was pathetic — anything he could wish, and he wanted to be 'less' ugly? Charles shook his head and he felt his cheeks flush in a rare moment of being taken aback as he quickly corrected: To be ah — It took a moment for the word to get to him, but he had heard girls say it about other guys, — handsome and wanted and loved. That still sounded a little pathetic, but Charles stuck to his answer for now as more fumbling over words would not make the situation any better. He looked to the ground, feeling kind of dumb as he wasn't used to exposing his innermost feelings to anyone like this. He wasn't even sure why this random lady made him say it so easily.