The Sentinels I'm afraid to sleep because of what haunts me

"You truly believe me to be such a saint?" Wraen asked him, smiling still and then shook her head lightly. "You do know the saying that good people go to Heaven, whereas hags - that's me, mind you - go, wherever they want?" she teased him some more. Because she could and felt like it. 

"So - I like the prospect of becoming a little, grumpy ghost a bit better. No one will expect me to behave all goody-goody saintly-saintly and I will have a free roam in this world I love so much," she told him, liking the idea better and better. "If I come back as a poltergeist - even better! I could actually pull off pranks and do mischief!"

"Wraaaaen," Bronco groaned, and he rolled his eyes as he laughed almost reluctantly. "You. Are. Not. A. Hag." He beamed at her now, and had reached out to gently prod her in the side with one forepaw to get his point across with each word he spoke. However, he wasn't stupid and he knew it wasn't a good idea to poke someone without expecting they might poke back- so he bounded a couple steps away in case she decided to retaliate. "Unless maybe a hag means something different to you than it does to me," He said, willing to meet her halfway. "See, I hear 'hag' and I think like...Old, mean, snarky, witchy, evil-type. And you're none of those, so." He said, with a shrug. 

She did, apparently, have a cheeky side, and seemed inclined to yearn for a ife of freedom after death- where she could be as silly as she wanted, pulling tricks on wolves. Still, nothing terribly harmful- but mischevious. "Alright, you can be a poltergeist if you want," He said. "But y'also have to be on my side, OK? Like a guardian-poltergeist. Maybe you can pull a trick on me every now an' again so I know you're hanging around, but...Nothng too scary." He said, before he added "And like...Not for another long time." Because while it would have been fun to have a guardian poltergeist Wraen, he'd much rather have her as a friend.

"O-o-o-o-oh, you would think I was none of those things," Wraen grinned devilishly, raised to her feet (in case she had sat down somewhere along the conversation), closed the distance between herself and Bronco, until her muzzle was inches from his. "But - hags are shapeshifters by nature too. So - you would think I am all good and nice and that I can do anything wrong, when - in fact - every full moon I fly to meet the other hags in the mountains, where we dance and be as evil, snarky, bitchy and grumpy as we want," she finished this by clicking her teeth right before his nose. 

"I am sorry to disappoint you, but poltergeists are no guardians. At best they do mischief and pull pranks, at worst - they are your worst nightmare," she clarified. "Besides, why would you need a guardian - if you did not let your mom crush you, I cannot see, why anything else could? She is a force of nature, after all. Did you know that she scared Arcturus with nothing but her feminine charm? And, mind you, he is a tough warrior and guardian raised and nurtured by Hydra," Wraen laughed.

WC: 611

It seemed that Wraen was not willing to give him even an inch, and all he sought was a little reassurance that she might not fixate so heavily upon the mortifying aspects of being dead. She made wild claims of flying to the moon every month- which he knew would have to be just pretend, given the facat that no wolf could fly, but see seemed to be enjoying the aspect of getting to be wicked far too much for Bronco. It made him uncomfortable to see her so fixated on joking about being a witch, as it removed part of the soft, gentle charm she'd shown him as he'd grown up. But he was an adult now- and he couldn't expect her to treat him like a child all the time anymore. 

And then she mentioned his mom, and he wondered for a second if Niamh had told Wraen about how she had nearly crushed him. She'd pinned him down during their last fight, long enough for him to go limp, lose consciousness and relieve himself. There was no way Niamh would have told her about that, though- and he suspected his mom was at least a bit ashamed of the way things had played out. So it pulled a small trigger with him to have his mom mentioned, inferring that since he'd survived her upbringing, he could handle a poltergeist, and wouldn't need a guardian. He blinked owlishly when she clicked her teeth at the end of his nose. She was perhaps getting a bit too wound up in all this hag talk for Bronco's comfort, and he was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. 

Perhaps it was because the wolf who should have been his guardian growing up had passed away so early on in his life. Grwing up without a father had inevitably had its toll on Bronco, and he realized it now at this point in life, that perhaps he'd never reallt felt truly safe being raised primarily by his mother. The only real reason he could find that he hadn't turned out to be a total psychopath, though was because of the others who'd had a hand in raising him- Towhee, Wraen, and Finley to name a few. 

He was surprised to hear that his mother hd had something to do with Arcturus needing to leave, and rolled his eyes when she said that Niamh hadn't pushed him away with her savage teeth, but with her charm. "Awwwh c'mon Wraen, we both know that's not true. I'll believe you when you say you're a hag, or about poltergeists, but there's no way my Ma scared Arcturus away with her 'charm.' She don't have any," He answered ruefully, and he didn't like the tone with which she seemed to scorn Hydra for having been the one to train Arcturus, and yet he'd fallen victim to his mom's charm. This was about as far as Bronco was comfortable going with the entire topic- and at the end of the day, he'd never been comfortable talking about life after death, considering how he had no idea what happened, but still grieved for his father. 

He simply chose not to respond about Hydra. He felt Wraen had dealt his alpha an insult, in criticising Arcturus' lack of ability to deal with the powers of his mother's charm, but he'd let it pass. However, he didn't want to hear any more of it. 

"Well...I gotta get back to the pack, so Meerkat doesn't start to worry about me," He said. "An' I'll see you again soon, Wraen, OK?" He asked, again, a flickering light of worry in his warm gaze.

By mentioning Arcturus's first encounter with Niamh at Firebirds' borders, Wraen had by no means intended to either insult Hydra or demean her friend. She had just wanted to share a story that she found both funny and endearing, educating too. Where the young Ostrega had failed, was that he had led a too sheltered life in the Moonspear and had seen far too less of the world outside. His sister - Vela - had been similar, come to think of it. 

Bronco suddenly became withdrawn and, though Wraen did not know, what exactly had caused it (had she known about the last encounter the boy had had with her mother, she would have been more mindful about mentioning her now), she did retreat to give him some space. "Just to finish that story - since I hate them leave unfinished," since you did not ask anything, "he came out of that encounter alive and with a very valuable lesson - danger can take all shapes and forms and come in the most unexpected way."

"Take care, kid!" she told him and watched him go.