Redhawk Caldera Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine

The pack's mood had shifted so many times in the past weeks that it gave Wildfire a bit of whiplash. There had been a recent upswing with the news of Finley's pregnancy (a topic which fascinated the young Naturalist). Before anyone had a chance to properly process the good news, bad—horrible, really—tidings followed. Tiger was dead, the cause of death unknown.

Wildfire grappled with her understanding of death, particularly its permanence. She already missed the medic's frequent visits and even the awful-tasting plants Tiger always brought. She caught herself looking forward to seeing Tiger, only to remember that she was gone, forever. There was a near-constant ache in her chest. She posed a lot of questions to her bereaved parents, the most bittersweet of which was probably, Can Tiger be reborn as one of Finley's babies? The answer was no, much to her disappointment.

She tried to keep busy with her ongoing Warrior training. But today she was having trouble focusing. Eventually, Wildfire decided to give herself a break. She still hadn't seen much of @Finley, so she went looking for her aunt around the outskirts of the rendezvous site. Even as she searched, it suddenly occurred to her that Tiger was Aunt Finley's sister. The thought of losing Raven horrified Wildfire, so she could only imagine how Finley must feel. She wanted to give her godmother a big, big hug.

Life was just plain mean.  Only hours before Sebastian had returned with her sister's body, they had been talking with excitement about how Fin was going to be a mom, how Tiger was going to be an aunt.  It was too much for the gods or whatever stupid fuck controlled the universe to handle.  Finley was breaking the rules with her joy, apparently, so the world had to step in and knock her back down.


They'd taken Tiger away.  Her sister.  Fin had never thought she'd ever see a member of her family again, and then suddenly there she'd been just stumbling upon their doorstep.  They were going to grow old together... two little old foul-mouthed ass-kickers, wreaking havoc until they both dropped dead.  But no more...

Finley shut her eyes as the tears swelled in them again.  She didn't want to be sad.  She wanted to be angry.  She'd had enough of sorrow and heartache and crying to last her a lifetime.  She'd never been any good at it, but apparently that meant she needed more practice.  Eager to distract herself from the mounting misery, Fin dragged her tired, aching self up to wander the Caldera in search of anything that could take her mind off of things.

Her wandering eventually lead her to the rendezvous site, though Fin didn't even notice as she stepped through the grass.  The thought occurred to her to visit the little firebirds.  Perhaps their childish antics would bring a smile to her face and relight the excitement she should have been feeling as the days ticked closer to the birth of her own litter. 

She caught her aunt's scent and Wildfire followed it back toward the clearing. There she found Finley skulking through the grass, looking round in the middle and distraught in the front. "Aunt Flea!" the child tried to shout, though her voice hardly carried. With a small grunt, she began to run, slowing only slightly as she neared her beloved godmother. At the last second, Wildfire reared onto her hind legs and tossed her forelegs around the Beta female's neck, her nose snuffling in Finley's ear as she tightened her grip into a wolfish hug.

After a moment, she slipped off her aunt and dropped onto her haunches. Wildfire wanted to say something, yet the seconds ticked by in silence. She didn't know what to say. She had never experienced loss before (at least, that she could remember), though she had comforted her family members when they were sad or hurt before. Drawing on those experiences, the naturally warm and caring pup reached out her muzzle to touch it against the side of Finley's neck, as if to tell her, I am here.

Fin was actually talking herself out of visiting in the seconds before Wildfire's approach.  The alpha's family was already in enough turmoil without her bringing her sullen self about.  She was just turning away when she heard shuffling in the grass that brought her attention back.  Finley paused as she spotted Wildfire racing towards her.  For a second, she panicked, thinking the pup was going to plow right into her middle and harm the precious cargo she carried.  But fortunately, Fin stayed still, allowing the little girl to hop up and wrap her arms around her neck.


She wanted to laugh - to at least smile, but she found herself unable to do anything but sit down and swallow the lump in her throat.  When Wildfire sat back and stared at her, she too felt an urge to fill the silence that stretched between them, but nothing came to her mind either.  When the girl reached for her, Fin lowered her muzzle and wrapped it over her spine, pulling her into her arms with a soft whine.  It was one thing for her to be sad, but to see that sweet little face so melancholy and desperate was simply unconscionable.

After a moment or two, Fin lowered her arm to release the cub from her grasp, peering down at her face as she fixed a soft smile upon her own.  It was a sad one, but it was more of one than she'd managed for anyone else.

Finley seemed receptive to her comforts, which drew a sad little smile from Wildfire. Still she wracked her little brain for something to say. She thought again of how she would feel if Raven disappeared, never to return. The thought alone left her bereft. She was not sure anyone could console her if that happened.

Seeing the forlorn expression on her aunt's face, Wildfire couldn't help herself. She tenderly licked each of the woman's cheeks, then nuzzled her nose against Finley's. "Aunt Flea..." she murmured softly. Then something absurd but heartfelt popped out her mouth. "I'll be your sister, if you want..." She knew she couldn't fill the Tiger-shaped hole in Finley's heart or replace the medic, period, but maybe the promise of that kind of companionship would make her godmother feel a smidgen better...

Fin regarded her goddaughter with a faint smile.  It felt as though a vice clenched around her heart when she offered to replace Tiger as her sister.  It was such a sweet, innocent offer.  "Oh, Wiffle..." she murmured softly in response.  Not for the first time did Finley find herself marveling over the incredible capacity for love such a tiny little heart was capable of.


The beta leaned over to lick the girl's crown, though almost instantly she decided it wasn't enough.  Taking care not to smush the little girl, Fin suddenly dove at her to smother her face with kisses and then tickle her belly with her snuffling nose.  A smile - a real one this time - tugged at the corners of her lips as she began her affectionate attack.

If her reaction was any indication, Finley was rather taken with the offer. Despite the solemn atmosphere between them, Wildfire couldn't help but giggle as her godmother suddenly attacked her with affection. In return, the puppy nibbled at the Beta female's chin. Her black, whip-like tail thumped on the ground, her shining amber eyes taking in her aunt's genuine smile. Had she put that there? Wildfire hoped so.

In the midst of their snuggle-scuffle, Wildfire noticed Finley's slightly bulging middle again. "Mama said you have babies in there," the puppy said innocently, lifting a red paw and pressing it gently against her aunt's baby bump. "How many babies?" she wondered aloud, eyes wide and wondering as she looked to Finley's face. It was just the first of likely many questions about pregnancy, a topic which would intrigue any youngster, but especially a Naturalist.

There was nothing quite as therapeutic as a pup's laughter.  It was like an unintentional reminder that life goes on and that joy remains in different places even when it disappears from one.  Fin relented her cuddle attack after a moment and rolled onto her side, giving Wildfire a clear shot of her wide belly which she of course was quick to notice.


Fin glanced at her belly as Wildfire reached for it.  She nodded with a smile when the girl asked if it was full of babies.  For a second, she was struck with the truly bizarre thought that there was a tiny wolf inside of her belly that would grow into the little wolf outside of it.  "I don't know," Fin admitted, tilting her head lightly to one side, "Sometimes they squirm around in there, y'know.  And if you lay your head on my side, you can feel them and try to count."  So far Fin hadn't had much luck in figuring it out.  She knew it would not be many, but she was happy as hell that there was at least one after what she'd been through.

The words had barely left Finley's mouth before Wildfire readily pressed her cheek against her aunt's rounded middle. She didn't know what she expected, exactly, but nothing happened for several moments. Then she felt the slightest fluttering. Wildfire's already wide eyes flew even wider. She mashed her cheek even harder against Finley's abdomen, though the twitching in there had stopped.

Without removing her face from her aunt's flank—she didn't want to miss it if it happened again—the child asked, "How did they get in there, Aunt Flea?" Before the Beta female could answer that, something even more pressing occurred to her. "How do they get out?" And, for that matter, what in the world were they doing in there in the first place?! She had so many questions.

No sooner had Fin said it than Wildfire was laying her head down against her stomach.  Fin laughed at her zeal, leaning over to nip affectionately at her ear.  How weird all of this must have seemed to the little girl.  She knew so little of the world as it was and now they were throwing such a bizarre concept as pregnancy at her.  Poor little thing's tiny brain was probably going to burst from all this learning.


"Well, Uncle Elwood put them in there," Fin replied, completely unconcerned that she was approaching the dreaded birds-and-the-bees talk, "Once they're ready to come out, I'll have to push them out of my body.  They'll be all wet and sticky and gross, just like you were."  Fin scrunched her nose playfully as she teased her niece, her gaze softening when she continued, "But they'll get really cute really fast, just like you did too."

Wildfire had no idea what to make of the news about Uncle Elwood's involvement. She pictured him stealing through the night, then inserting little puppies the size of jellybeans into Finley's... bellybutton? Where else would they go? She assumed that's where they would exit too. She didn't even ask this out loud, since the knowledge felt right somehow. Perhaps that was the entire reason bellybuttons existed. She nodded, agreeing silently with herself and her foolproof logic.

She smiled and giggled lightly at Finley's flattery. "How long are they gross for?" Wildfire wanted to know. Asking the important questions, she was. For that matter... "When do you push them out? When do I get to meet them?" She assumed those events would be one in the same but she wanted to make sure by asking.

Fin smiled at Wildfire's question.  It was very much like the one she would have asked at that age.  Nevermind the mystery of how two wolves made babies, how they ended up in one wolf's stomach and not the other's, or even how the hell you get them out - she would want to know when they would be cute enough to visit.  Or maybe big enough to wrestle with - yeah, that was probably more her speed.


"Only a little while," Fin assured the little girl, "Once they're born, I'll clean them up real good and make them nice and pretty for you.  Uncle Elwood and I came to visit you and your siblings only a few hours after you'd been born.  As long as you're real good and don't try to play with them, you can come be one of the first to say hi."  Fin's tail wagged as she said it.  The idea of her kids getting to meet Peregrine's and Fox's brood made her heart swell with joy, but simultaneously twinge with pain at the memory of her and Tiger playing with their older siblings when they were little.

Wildfire found Finley's response reassuring. She smiled, her tail stirring. But her face fell slightly when her aunt told her she couldn't play with them. Surely there must be a reason for that; Finley wouldn't just bar her from playing with the new puppies for no good reason. Wildfire thought back to her prior mental image, involving Elwood sneaking the tiny little bundles of joy into Finley's navel. Maybe they would be too small at first? Like her initial (and mistaken) belief that the puppies would pop out of her godmother's bellybutton, this knowledge somehow felt right.

No longer bothered and forgetting that she'd already asked this just moments before, Wildfire queried, "How many are in there? Are they girls or boys? What are their names?"

Wildfire was absolutely full of questions.  Fin wondered for a moment how Fox found the patience for them all.  Not that she didn't have it, but just that Fox had even less than her.  Surprisingly, Fin found all the questions endearing instead of irritating.  Now if it had been Peregrine or Elwood asking her a billion and one questions, she would have thwapped the shit out of them straight away.  Seeing as it was Wildfire, Fin was more than happy to indulge her for as long as she wanted.


"I don't know yet," Fin replied, "We'll just have to wait and find out once they're born.  Hopefully lots of girls since boys are so smelly."  She scrunched up her nose playfully.  She and Elwood hadn't really discussed names yet, though it was certainly on her to-do list.  A thought popped into her head then and she canted her head, giving her goddaughter a quizzical look.  "What would you name them?" she asked, curious to know the answer.

Oh, yeah, Wildfire thought when Finley reminded her that she didn't know yet. She tittered at her aunt's comment about boys versus girls. Truthfully, Wildfire found her siblings equally smelly, though she supposed Nightjar had the most frequent and toxic farts, second only to their father, who was also a boy. After that train of thought passed through her head, she was in total agreement that Finley should have a batch of little girls.

"Um..." she said when her aunt asked what she would name them. She wondered what they would look like. Would they be gray like their parents? Wildfire pondered their names: Finley and Elwood. Maybe she could mash their names together. "El... fin... wood... y? Elfinwoody!"

In truth, Finley had never really had any problem with boys when she was little.  Being a tomboy herself, she was always right in the midst of their shenanigans, getting just as dirty, just as bruised, and laughing right along with them at their various bodily functions.  It wasn't until she was older that she began to distinguish herself as a girl, and she only did so then for the superiority it granted her over them.  From then on, she'd reveled in being a princess - beautiful, smart, witty, and still fierce as hell.  Wildfire was a sweetheart, but Finley was determined that she too would grow into one bad ass bitch, just like her mom and godmother.


Fin laugh aloud at Wildfire's suggestions.  Instead of thinking of the name of something she liked or a nice word, the girl smashed Fin's and Elwood's names together into one supername.  Affectionately, she leaned over to nip lightly at the tip of her nose.  "I like it!  We can call her 'Elf' for short," she said with a grin.  It actually was a rather cute name.  She could easily see it being a nickname at least, much like Caoilfhionn's had been 'Tiger' and Fin's was.. well nevermind, you get it.

Finley liked the impromptu name, even suggesting a shortened version to be used as a nickname. Wildfire offered her aunt a toothy grin. "There's more than one, right?" she double-checked before suggesting another name. "What if you name one... Tiger?" She offered this up a bit hesitantly, as she didn't want to make her godmother sad by bringing up her dead sister again.

Of course, young Wildfire didn't even know that passing on family names could be something of a tradition, nor that her aunt and uncle were already considering another family name (Elwood's own). Truthfully, she was just sort of hoping her parents were wrong and that if Finley named one of her puppies after her sister, it would turn out to be Tiger after all.

The suggestion Wildfire made next was one that Fin had actually been considering, even before her sister's untimely death.  She smiled sadly at her god daughter for a moment before pressing her nose fondly against the girl's cheek.  When she withdrew, she gave her a thoughtful look.


"You know, 'Tiger' was actually her nickname?" Fin explained quietly, "Her birth name was Caoilfhionn, but she was so feisty and sneaky that my family gave her the name 'Tiger'.  Everyone in my family as a nickname like that.  There's Tiger, Colt, Apple, Lake, and me.... Frog."  It had been a looooooooooooooooooooooooong long long long LONG LONG LONG long long ass time since Fin had ever purposefully told someone that her nickname was 'Frog'.  It was not something she had chosen for herself, nor did she like to be called it.  But she thought Wildfire might enjoy it, and it made her feel better to make someone else happy.

Finley revealed a secret: Tiger wasn't actually her sister's name. Her actual name was a jumble of vowels and syllables that Wildfire didn't dare try to repeat. It sounded pretty, though Wildfire had difficulty associating the name with her memory of the wolf herself. She would forever be Tiger in the child's heart and memory, playful but fiercely smart.

"Frog?" she repeated with a blink. "But you're Aunt Flea!" she protested playfully. She had long ago developed the verbal skills to pronounce Finley's name but the nickname had stuck. She just couldn't picture her as a Frog. "You should name one of the babies Frog," Wildfire suggested sagely. That was three good names: an entire litter's worth, in Wildfire's experience.

The pup's belly rumbled suddenly—and loudly. Wildfire's eyes widened. "You have babies in your tummy and I have a mo'ster in mine," she declared sotto voce, then smiled. "Wanna go get some food with me, Aunt Flea?" She paused and pursed her lips. "Can you still fit food in there with the puppies?" she had to ask. She couldn't help but picture all the chewed meat plopping on the unsuspecting and unborn puppies' heads.

Fin had expected Wildfire would have taken to calling her Frog pretty quickly. Instead the girl surprised her by insisting that she was "Aunt Flea". Fin laughed aloud at her insistence, shaking her head fondly. "I'll run it past Uncle Elwood, see what he thinks," she assured her with a grin. She knew that Elwood would jump at the idea Of naming their child Frog if only to get to say it without retribution from his mate. 

"Actually, being pregnant makes me hungrier than ever," she informed the naturalist, "I swear these babies are stealing everything I eat cause I can't get Enough." 

*concludes* ♥

The youngster's eyes widened at Finley's words. She supposed that made sense; if the food was literally falling on their faces, of course they would eat some of it. Suddenly, Wildfire recollected that day when her aunts had slain the coyote and laid bare its innards. Where on earth did the pups fit with all that blood, meat and bone in there? The young Naturalist shuddered, then decided not to think about that any longer. She might lose her appetite.

"Let's get some chow!" Wildfire said, having picked up that word from her Aunt Dove recently. She flashed her godmother a grin, then bounded ahead, leading her beloved Aunt Finley in the direction of a stockpile.