A miserable recluse. Was this what loners felt like? What @Kjell felt like in his travels? Pip had never felt more lonely in her life. To be surrounded by others and feel wholly unfulfilled by their presence was a new sensation for the mute. Even back in Bella Coola, her siblings comfort alone had provided her with all she needed. But ever since coming to Grizzly Hollow, she realized she had learned to rely so heavily on each of them for her entire mental state. Her happiness, fulfillment, every emotion depended on those around her.

How had everything changed so fast? It felt as if one day, she and Kjell had been cuddling and reaffirming bonds, and the next day...poof. All gone. She hadn't been able to find her mate since @Veho proclaimed his punishment on the lot of them. Much of the other information revealed at the meeting had been news to her and, with great discomfort, Pip wished the man had kept to himself. It didn't seem her business to know of such personal betrayals to the male. Her heart hurt for him, but she knew she was just as guilty as being a source of his anguish. That alone was enough to undo the tawny female.

Feeling more than lost, orange eyes looked tearfully out from the bluffs as the sun sloped downwards in the sky. She had always avoided these cliffs before. They seemed so high and terrifying - what if she should slip? - but she felt a morbid curiosity towards them today. So what if she should slip? Would only serve her right. And better, it would make these aching feelings in her heart go away. It would all go away.

But that wasn't fair to the life growing within her, was it?

She was afraid. Oula had almost died in giving birth, hadn't she? What if her pups didn't have a mother? And even if they did, what kind of mother could she even be? She couldn't talk to the little ones. Couldn't teach them pack laws as she had been so horrendously oblivious to. Couldn't tell them the stories she'd heard as a youth. Couldn't call out a warning to them if ever they were headed towards danger.

And what about Kjell? Veho said something about running the offending males off, but had he hurt him? The poor man had just lost an eye and even more than that just recently. And now, he was to be kept away from her? She was to keep from him? It was the assumption she had to make - if her Alpha denied his presence, she was in no position to disobey. Certainly not now. She'd never seen him more furious.

Anxiety in just about every aspect of her life felt overwhelming. Her belly had been so riddled with ill feelings that she couldn't even find it in herself to eat the past few days. Any attempts to actually eat left food tasting like dirt and she quickly abandoned the action. At least it made it look like her hunting duties were being completed with more gusto than before since she returned to the others with her uneaten kills.

A paw delicately knocked a stone loose from the cliff face and she watched it roll over the sheer drop with an ugly sort of fascination.

Pip's red toned ears swiveled back to catch the sound of @Oula's approach and her gentle call. The omega looked back with a swimming gaze and gave a half-hearted wag of her tail before slumping down and swiping at her face with her paws and licking at the pads to distract herself.

Normally, the mute's greetings were over the top and exaggerated in their appropriateness. She'd always taken such care to not be mistaken in her attempts to communicate, but her reaction now was completely understated. If the warrior was not paying attention, she would miss the subtle lift in her shoulders in reply to the gentle question. Whether she was welcome or not was not something for Pip to decide. The bluffs were unspoken for territory and she'd not fight over it. So if the woman wished to sit there, then she could for as long as she wished.

Heavy a soft sigh, Pip settled her head on her paws and stared out at the yawning expanse of forest beneath the cliffs while her mind drifted. Mother had spoken to Niq'x of these things. These things that had been the harbingers of so much tension within the pack. Of love and mates and leadership. The tawny mute had been unfit for such conversations. Wasted time, her mother had told her once. No sense investing the teachings in a wolf who could never benefit from them.

The memory of it hurt just as much now as it had back then. That her mother would deny her anything - information, education, love... - was beyond the female. Despite her earlier cleaning of her face, more tears filled her eyes.

There was the barest hint of a flinch as the gray woman lay beside her. How many days had it been since she let herself be near enough to another packmate to have any sort of physical contact? Too many, she realized. While it had certainly felt necessary, she knew just how detrimental it was now to her health.

She had learned to thrive on gentle touches since first arriving in Relic Lore. Maybe she was far more effective at punishing herself than Veho could ever be after all. Laying as she was, the mute made no protest as her ears were softly nibbled and groomed. In any normal circumstance, she would be on her back and twisting about in the snow with elation. Instead, Pip hunched her shoulders against the kind attention and kept her gaze focused ahead.

Strength in her will had always been somewhat lacking in the tawny female. It was proven so here as Pip leaned her head towards Oula's tongue and even lifted it enough to rest her chin on the woman's larger paws as well.

How was it, she wondered, that @Oula always seemed to know just what to say, what to do, how to act, who to be? She had been a remarkable Alpha in the time that she'd held the position. But Pip had to admit, it was nicer that she was not still Alpha. It made her more approachable. It made this situation less stressful. It made her more than grateful that the woman had traveled all this way to seek her out in the first place.

Pip's tongue darted out to lick along Oula's muzzle twice before she fell into a more companionable silence. The tension that had been held so stiffly in her shoulders was started to ebb at least a little bit. Was the warrior facing similar anxieties as herself? Hoping to seek as much as offer comfort, the little mute leaned against her packmate and breathed in the scent of pack and warmth and love. Oula was right. They were pack, after all. They should stick together.

It was...painful to only be able to offer physical comfort. In times like these, Pip mourned her handicap the most. What if she had a voice in these moments? What if she could ease a bit of her friend's suffering simply by saying, 'I understand'? Because she did. More sensitive than most - hence her own saddened demeanor - Pip was far from blind to the changes @Oula had been suffering through. From beloved Alpha to scarcely more than a side distraction to shamed in front of all. It only cemented the mute's belief that the warrior woman was the strongest wolf in existence. How many others could go through such hardships and still come out the other side? Not herself... Were their situations switched, Pip knew she would have crumbled. Her own situation was only part of Oula's own and she felt like crumbling now!

The little sea wolf closed her eyes as her forehead was nuzzled and exhaled softly as her companion did. Pip pulled back, however, at Oula's words and met her gaze tearfully. Heavensent, this woman was. Warrior, angel, maybe even goddess. That she would offer...that she would know to offer... It touched Pip more than words could ever explain anyway.

Her questions felt endless. But Oula's compliment lightened her heart in a way that made all of those questions not seem so overwhelming.

Pip nodded, for how else could she say that she wanted to know? She wanted answers. Any that Oula could provide would be appreciated. About her pregnancy, about puppies, about how to care for them and how to teach them. About mates and what that meant when it came to pack. Were mates more important than pack? Was the pack more important? Or were mates always part of pack? Was that why everyone was so upset with her? Was Kjell alright? Would he be welcome ever? Would she have to leave? Were there even answers to be had for these questions? A million more of them tumbled around her head, but she would happily settle for anything Oula could tell her.

It couldn't be a simple yes or no answer, could it? Pip lowered her head with a heavy sigh. Conversations were never easy for her, but especially ones of this nature. They required so much explaining; something Pip was obviously incapable of doing. She felt the need to defend @Kjell. To explain that while she had not known what they did would end in pregnancy, she had wanted him. And now that she was pregnant, she wanted the result as well. She wanted to bear his children and raise them within the pack and beside him as well. These wants seemed impossible now with him run off and Veho so angry about everything.

So which question should she answer? Did she want the pups? Of course. Did she choose to have them in the first place? Well, no. But she wouldn't give them up for anything. Looking back, would she do it again? The answer to that question was even more complicated. She loved him. More than any she'd ever known in her life. Pip honestly hadn't believed herself capable of such a love. She'd been raised to belief she was hardly worth the effort in the first place. She was only an omega and no one fell in love with an omega. Sure, she was loved. The entire pack proved that time and time again with how much compassion that showed. But no one had made her feel the way Kjell did and could and - she hoped - still would.

Answering the question as it was asked would lead perhaps Oula to blame Kjell. Because surely he would have known. Would have known the result and would have known the consequences for her. Pip couldn't let that blame rest on him though and refused to allow anyone else to do so either. But she could hardly defend him in such a way now.

Miserably, she was forced to answer with complete honesty even if it put her mate in more harm's way than before. The mute shook her head. No. No, she hadn't chosen to have pups. She had chosen to lay with the one she loved. The one she felt loved her as well. And that was the entire truth of it. She hadn't been forced though! It wasn't a decision that had been forced upon her. At the root of it, the little sea wolf had simply been uneducated.