Grouse Thicket geimbreika

for @Ensio! <3

she left the summit behind. heda was not sure where she was headed, and so she did not choose. she let the trail of an elk lead her. the animal was far too large for her to take, but the young wolf trailed it all the same. but as always birds caught her interest. 
the girl followed a flock of sparrows and then the tailfeathers of a pheasant. she watched a hawk swoop down upon a fieldmouse.
the haunting scream of a loon cut through the misty afternoon. heda stopped in her tracks, looking left toward tangled brush, a creek running off left somewhere.
she was incredibly alone, and it suddenly dawned on her.

Ensio too, had left the summit. He had stolen away in the night, well before Heda's own departure. He told no one of his leave. The gradual waning of his scent would do all the talking for him. Whether or not he would even come back was left up in the air. There was no hiding the truth that he had been feeling increasingly detached from the pack.

Ahead of the creek and laying beside the gently churning waters, the nearly grown Duskfire laid, poised on the ground. A trail of scattered feathers and plumage led to his catch, a grouse, which he had pinned firmly beneath his paws. It was still alive, but unmoving. Too stunned from his blow to put up a fight. He stared down at it, into empty black eyes, contemplating his own hunger.

blood on the air. heda pushed into the foliage, looking along the trail of feathers until she found ensio there.
he stared at his kill and she stared at him, how he had grown large and muscular and rangy. but he had always been those things. it was just that the last of the playfulness had gone out of them both. the girl lifted her head and approached, scuffing her paws along a patch of downy feathers caught in the grass.
"good catch." her voice was as empty as his eyes seemed to be.

Was there even a shred of playfulness left in him anymore? If there was, it was buried down deep inside. He looked up from his prey, pale eyes naturally sharp and hard. And there was Heda, whom he hadn't seen in so long. She had grown and transformed so much, just like he had.

"Thanks. I thought I was hungry. Not so sure now." Looking down, without a second thought, he snapped it's neck. At least now the thing was out of it's misery. "You want it?" He stood up, ready to reach down and offer it to her.

they were both missing something, heda decided. but she did not have the energy to find out. "no," she told him. it was a lie; she was hungry. but grouse meat wasn't going to cut it. heda looked over his shoulder. "why are you so far out here?" she finally chose to ask. her golden gaze said she knew it wasn't her business, but whatever. ensio would share or he wouldn't.

He did not look back in the direction of the summit. Just kept focused towards her and the unknown land beyond. She declined his offer of the food, which he was fine with. Slowly and without any trace of passion, he began to pluck the more downy feathers from the bird.

"I could ask the same of you." He said in turn. His tone wasn't accusatory. Only matter of fact. Between mouthfuls of feathers, he leaked his answer. "I felt like getting away." He evaded the whole truth, skipping around the real root of the matter.

ensio presented an opening. heda, desperate for something to do besides think about everyone who had left her, latched to that exposed point. "i was hunting." but the note of defensiveness in her voice said otherwise.
she watched him spit out the feathers. when the breeze blew them toward her, she trapped a few underpaw.
"getting away ... permanently?" came her next question. he'd faded from the edges of the summit.

He let her defensive reply slide past him. Only the brief twitch of his ears acknowledged it. They both knew the real truth and there was no point in debating over it. As if bored with it, he rolled the carcass under his paw. Paying attention to the pop and tiny snaps of the bones against his skin.

He considered her. She was so different than the youngster she was when they first met, romping in the snow. How times had changed them. "Possibly." Was his honest answer. "I am seriously considering it."

"oh."
it was all she could seek to muster for the moment. ensio snapped more bone. she swallowed and looked away. "i haven't decided. i'm — afraid of disappointing lane. or issorartuyok." she felt obligated to the former duskfire wolves. they had treated druid and then taken her in.
it wasn't the same for her or ensio at all.

His gleaming eyes narrowed. Distaste and spite edged into their corners. Not at her, but at those names. Issorartuyok and Lane. Them and their...other halves. 

In recent months he had done them well. Made them proud. Proud enough to deem him worthy of a promotion in the ranks. Now he felt invisible again. Unacknowledged.

He snorted. "So what? Forget them. They are too busy wrapped up in their own affairs to notice."

ensio was angry. heda felt that he had more to lose than her. his father had been the leader of the glacier wolves. the pack was his birthright. or maybe it had never been, and that was why he was angry.
either way, the snapping and chewing and hard energies rising from ensio slowly put her on edge. "i'm gonna go up the coast," she mumbled. "take a few days. a week. get my head together. then i'll go back. talk to them."
she stood.
"maybe we'll run into each other again. but — it was nice, you know. being in a pack with you, ensio." the smile she offered was genuine and sad. she was secretly relieved that her brief crush on him had only been friendship in the end.
heda did not think she could have handled another abandonment.

His boiling temper simmered. He relaxed more again. Absorbing what she said. The coast. That was where she'd go. He was tempted to propose he come with her. But Ensio saw clear enough that she needed a break from Atautsikut. She did not need him as a symbolic reminder tagging along.

"I think that will do you good. You know, to just take a breather and sort yourself out." At least she was doing better than him, by pledging to return to let Lane and Tuuluuwaq know of her decision. "I'm not sure where I'll be...what I'll do."[/b] He smiled sadly to her, trying put some humor in his voice. "It was nice too. Just...don't drop off the face of the earth for me, kay?"

heda's throat tightened.
"yeah, of course. don't be a stranger yourself."
on impulse she reached out to pull ensio into a wolfish hug. "i'm uh, really glad we got to meet," she said as they parted.
the pair turned away, ensio upon his own path, and heda headed for the coast and a transformation she was not aware would soon come.