Wapun Meadow wolf mother

@Echelon

Tired.

Her muscles ached as they had not since war. But it had not been the enemy she had taken down. It had been her brother, sister. Only a few. Two. Tonravik moved with her face set in a deep frown. The small number had been enough to change her outlook on anything. Even the foundations of family could be shaken. It was a painful reminder. Tonravik knew it had not been their fault, but the fault of a bite, a parasitical thing. She paused in her stride, inhaling a deep drought of air. Her mothers cold reminder rang through her head. Only the strong survive.

Tonravik knew her mother would not feel. Briefly she might mourn, but she would not have held onto the pain.

And so when she broke through the threshold of the Valley, Tonravik released it from her. The weight on her shoulders was all but lifted in its entirety from her shoulders. Life was short for some.

The woman paused, a large black dot in an open land of white. Her eyes surveyed her surroundings and when nothing could be found... She lifted her head and howled.

I'm being vague on any injures here because I don't know how her thread with Ciervo is going to go. :X

Her deliberations were coming to a close at last. Just when Echelon had decided that perhaps the best thing she could do was to simply let go of everything, the world was once more turned on its head. In the crisp, damp weather that blanketed the wilderness, she heard the call rise up from the depths of a forest she was lingering in. The creek had caught her interest briefly, but only because she had scented the male she had hunted with some time ago. Had he found a home that easily? His ragged and weathered appearance had proven that he was as weary as she found herself, though she considered herself far from haggard. She had always been rough in appearance.

But these thoughts were chased from her mind; that call was bone chilling but not forlorn. It was familiar and demanding; her breath hitched in a startled display deep in her throat. She let it go shakily, drawing in and out at length for what seemed like far too long to compose herself. And she answered it, the higher tinges of her voice meant to carry through the eaves and outward. Once the call had left her, she ventured out towards the edge of the timberline, trying to spy out the darkened figure against the blinding brightness of the snow. It wasn't difficult, but Echelon did not readily approach her. It had been a long time, and the very sight of Tonravik against the pale backdrop stirred emotion that she was uncertain how to handle.

Tonravik waited for what felt like hours. But it did not take so long. In the distance bloomed a face so familiar it caused Tonravik to whine lowly. There was no wolf that would come to know her as Echelon had. The woman was undeniably favored by the next in line daughter of Siku, for many, many reasons. Tonravik did not hold back as Echelon had; she was aware of her error. She had taken too long. Her return was meant to be swift... but that was not to be. Tonravik did not feel she was at fault for that; but perhaps Echelon would understand when she noted the aroma of death that hung to her. Tonravik had guarded the bodies of her soldiers until snow could be moved to be pressed upon them. They would not be scavenged.

Tonravik would not leave again. Never again. She would let her own come to her, now; she would create her legacy here and remain. Her strides were long as she approached her aokkatti, who was relatively far off... but Tonravik would not be deterred anymore. Another howl in the distance gave Tonravik pause... and she stopped, hearing @Njal in the distance. Her ears pricked and again, she threw her head into the air, letting him know where she was. He had come, after all.

She moved quicker, now. It took some time before her arrival before Echelon, and Tonravik was able to tell Echelon so that she would understand her permanence here, to her, her promise rang gruffly: Never again.

But her assessing eyes caught wind of something more than disheveled upon the woman she had taken as a blood-sister. It mattered not that she was sure Echelon was the victorious, it mattered not that it could only be a little scratch; that there was anything at all caused Tonravik's pent up stress to come out in a long snarl that foreshadowed death: Who. She would release her demons upon them, and she would be freed.

As Tonravik drew close to her, Echelon did indeed smell the scent of death as it clung to her. It was stronger than she had ever encountered before, sickly and sweet and enough to choke her if she had let it. The smaller of the dark figures turned away from her in response, as though it were something she could simply catch from scenting it. But in doing so, she had already revealed the scuffle that she had been in days ago. The wounds, though fresh to a degree, had begun to scab over. She had been lucky her opponent had not been ill or carrying something in his mouth that carried disease itself; the wounds were not infected.

Still, she could not help but offer a defiant coil of her lips at Tonravik's snarl; the wounds had come from her own foolishness and she offered no detail. Their reuniting should have been a happier one, but Echelon did not feel the happiness she expected to be bubbling up. She believed in the promise uttered in those two simple words she heard from her aokkatti, but the matter of her being left behind stung her pride deeply. "Who calls for you," she wondered aloud, wanting to draw her attention to the second voice she had heard rise up from the world around them. Had Tonravik returned with the followers?

Tonravik watched Echelon shift, but was a persistent woman who was determined. Given the events that had occurred, she was glad Echelon had not come lest she, too, be bitten by a parasite. Tonravik was tense in the anger that she felt toward Echelon's offender. It mattered not the premise. None would lay fang to hers. Tonravik had returned. And they would learn.

The question asked by Echelon asked was one Tonravik did not hesitate in answer. One, she retorts. Two passed. Tonravik sounded perhaps cold in the delivery of this news, but she burned for it. Although the woman was forged of ice and stone, she was different than her mother in that—even for an instant—she felt their loss. But the doer of that she could not make pay. What rabid beast had touched them? How could she know?

And, truly, she did not feel she was settling when she felt ire toward the wolf that had thought it wise to set after her.

So she was quiet, waiting for that answer, staring. To leave any behind was out of her character, but here she stood near the one wolf she never would leave behind. Tonravik did not know the hurt she had caused Echelon, and was not empathetic enough to understand it; but she angered at herself for it, and it showed in the deepening frown upon her facade.

From their sordid pile of followers, Echelon did not have the same sense of loss that her aokkatti had. She had not quite forged the bond with them as Tonravik had to. She was a much more solitary creature, but beneath that there may have been a note of arrogance. She didn't consider herself better than the wayward followers they had obtained, but their cohesion was non-existent. Before, she had been their scout, their little flighty dark-haired dove. Now? She had no idea what she was, even though the indescriable feelings she for being left behind were wearing away swiftly.

Knowing that Tonravik ached inwardly from having left her behind settled much of those feelings, anyway. She thrived on it. "I thought you went home," she said, "but you weren't there. I was chased away instead, for losing you. Did the others desert you?" She changed between the two topics flawlessly, even though it was hardly the proper way to carry a conversation. But she was direct to the point, not avoiding that there were things she wanted to tell her, but things she wanted to know. Her blue eyes scanned the area around them for a moment, wondering if she'd see the figures of the elder wolf and his portly ward. They were not there. Nor was the snow white female she had met at the coast during a late fall rain.

"Should we go to him?" she queried suddenly, child-like. The caller, he had followed.

Tonravik listened to Echelon, and her eyes darkened at her first set of words. Ah, well, this was amended. Echelon had found her in the end. Echelon's query was met with but a word: No. Sickness took them. It could not be fixed. Fixed. Cured. Eloquence failed her again, but it was difficult to think of proper words when thick of tongue for feeling defeated at this loss.

Tonravik nodded. Yes. Let us meet him. I have things to tell you... She turned, throwing her head up, calling to @Njal again. Where. And then she moved with Echelon to find him, filling her aokkatti on the events to unfold in the time that would come.

Sickness had taken them? It was surprising, though her stoicism betrayed any sign of it. Maybe she should not have been surprised by such a thing. Sickness came and went, sometimes more fatal than other times. She did not need to inquire the extend of it to know how it ended of course, because that much had already been established. But it made up for the lingering traces of that sickly sweetness to Tonravik's pelt. Whatever had happened, it hadn't been long ago, but long enough that she felt if her aokkatti were to be ill, she would have shown it.

As they lied in wait for a response from Njal, Echelon wondered briefly who had come back with her companion. It was there that she wanted to impart what she had learned, what she had failed to mention before they had been inevitably separated. "There are suitable mountains for our claim here," she intoned, their previous subjects left to dissolve to nothing. "Some east, some west of here. The ones in the east seem more promising." And she thought of the glacier, though it was outside their realm of claiming. Taking it by force was an option, but Echelon knew they did not have the numbers or the strength to do it. Not now, anyway.

The silence was always a blessing to Tonravik. She did not mind Echelon, but the subject was a sore one. But the wolves were of her aokkatti's family as much as her own, and so Tonravik would answer all of the questions she had on this matter. There was a brief lapse of silence, and Tonravik relished in it... but as Echelon spoke again, Tonravik turned and looked fully at Echelon. There was appreciation in her gaze; Echelon had continued to do her duty, even when it was not expected in her absence.

There is a place that is already ours, she grins, her expression to dark to be impish; but she was eager to tell Echelon more. As she waited for Njal's call, her tongue ran over her nose to moisten it. The wolf who calls will show us the way. A sable ear flicked as she listened, and in seconds, there it was. His howl reached the wolves miles away, and she looked to Echelon before turning and beginning their walk. She would tell her lither counterpart all, naturally; but would wait to see if Echelon was at all interested.

For a split second, there was a sense of being rebuked cresting in her. Yet it went away as Tonravik readily explained things. Her interest was piqued now, more than it had been before. Out of all of those followers, this particular one had seemed to do more than she could have completed. It should have left her feeling sour, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. It seemed almost foolish now to hold onto those petty feelings anyway, but it was the youth in her still left to fade. In spite of her maturity, Echelon was very much a child in many aspects, foremost emotionally. Thankfully, she was keen to conceal those feelings.

As the howl rose up in response at last, Echelon hung back for a moment as Tonravik started off. She tried to discern something from it, something that would have suggested who the caller was otherwise, but did not ring familiar. But not willing to be left behind again, the dark-haired Phase set off after Tonravik, catching up and keeping pace with the older wolf with relative ease. Long forgotten now was the hunger that had been gnawing in her belly, or the feelings that had been hanging around. She let them go, casting them aside on the premise that the future had suddenly became a lot more purposeful.

Tartok had begun to strength again.

There was truth to Tonravik's words to her sister. Never again. Tartok did not flee, did not turn from. Tonravik had neglected to recall that like herself, Echelon was not clairvoyant. Tonravik was young, too; but that was the last mistake she would make with her aokkatti. That oath, she would keep. Tonravik did not move too swiftly until Echelon was at her side. Although she knew Echelon would not question her word, Tonravik would not even give her the ability to.

An ease she had not felt in a long time settled into her being. All would be well, and all would be right. Tonravik was ready to take on the future, as she was ready to take everything. It was her way. Tartok would come in the future days... this, she knew.