Grizzly Hollow matthew 6:14-15

@Hocus! Set sometime not long after she arrived, I guess? Idk, I'm happy to assume they've hung out a little awkwardly but not really ~spoken~ yet, which is what this thread could be for?

What a shell of itself this place was. How had she let the notion of it haunt her at all, as though it were something to feel regret and longing after? Trisden had long let go of any dreams regarding Grizzly Hollow and yet that was easier said than done, especially with the reverence that some of her family still felt towards it. Let it go! she'd wanted to scream, but out of respect for she had not; knowing what it was to love a place, truly and wholly, it would have been dismissive of their sentiment. She wasn't cold, or cruel. She just wished they could leave the past in the past.

She'd worked so very, very hard to do that very thing, to move on and build anew, so found it hard to empathise with those who didn't. The name Hollow was appropriate indeed.

Stretching her paws out in front and yawning wide, running through the familiar and comforting ritual of easing out any sleep-induced aches and stiffness in her limbs before the sun rose, Trisden stepped out of her temporary, private den and into the cool morning. It was so quiet, so still - no pre-dawn report from her scout, no checkup on the southern border which had been greatly tested by scavengers over the winter, no dark, comforting Wicket to bury her nose in before striding out, ready for a new day. It had been a long time since she had been surplus to requirements. The idleness would have been intolerable if she hadn't known it would be short-lived.

<3

Nearly a month had passed since the prodigal sister had returned. Hocus was not particularly aware of what she did with her time—she had granted him an audience once or twice and they had taken some silent walks together—but he supposed she spent it with their mother, with Borden in the ground, or with the other Lyalls or something. What he was aware of, that he had missed the first time around, was her quickly ripening stomach that told him what was really important: she was pregnant. His heart stirred in his chest. He had no idea if this was her first litter or even her third. Certainly it could have been her third. This year was supposed to have been his fourth, but God had intervened and Hocus had to try hard to quell the bitter taste at the back of his throat. This time in Relic Lore had all been for naught.


Up with the sun as any godly wolf was, Hocus strode with determination to the makeshift hole his sister had chosen to sleep in. The fact that she did not want to use the communal den spoke volumes to him: she did not feel at home here. Well, he didn't either. Passively, he watched her form appear from the darkness and stretch, noting how the morning light glittered through her pale fur. "I'm going to accompany you home," he said, abruptly. Never sure how to handle Trisden, he figured it would be best to just get to the point. "It's unsafe for a woman in your condition to go alone." Whether or not she was still the bullheaded girl of his memories remained to be seen. "And, on top of it," he added more quietly, "There's really no point in my being here anymore."

Sooo this is gonna be her leaving thread apparently c: ~lets trisden do whatever the f she wants~

The sound of his voice snapped Trisden from any kind of gentle morning warmup, her body tensing for a split second as her head turned in his direction. Once she saw it was Hocus - and, more importantly, heard what he was saying - she relaxed considerably, even enough to finish up the stretch she had just been easing into. Letting out a high-pitched yawn, she loosely shook the thick fur around her neck and chest and then turned to him properly, quite ready to get down to business.

He was right, on all counts, though hearing that she needed protection might have once made the woman scoff; now, older, wiser, less hot-headed and arrogant, she could concede that point. "Good," she said curtly, stepping towards him, still seeing that hesitation in his manner towards her, that subtle sign that he hadn't yet decided how to see her. She had contemplated asking him to join her, for it had quickly become  clear that he was as at-home in these trees as she was - which was to say, they were both strangers to it. "Then let's go. This morning. I'm tired of hanging around, pretending I'm enjoying the nostalgia, waiting for some revelation to tell me why I even came."

He had his own family, somewhere out there, she knew; maybe once they were back at the Reach, her children were delivered and he agreed to it, she would escort him home. The question of what he had done since leaving all those years ago had always lingered in the back of her mind, and it would please her to see it for herself.

She moved quickly with more acceptance than he had anticipated. His ears quivered. The bitterness in her tone sounded so familiar even if it was alarming to hear another speak so frankly with him. The wolves here they were so indirect—even he was starting to lose the boldness to address those who were his underlings. It was a poisonous land, this strange hell. "Yes," he agreed, already turning his body from her to test the air and feeling himself orient slowly towards the Reach he had left behind years ago. The rising sun was against his back.

His own home was only just beyond it.

"I didn't come for a revelation," he muttered solemnly, "I came for my daughter. Piety. She lost her soul out here and vanished before I could figure out what happened." Finally it was time to admit to someone else that he had failed. To confess himself. Who better than his sister? She would understand him in the ways the other wolves would not. She at least knew of his brand of God. Veho himself had something, but Hocus did not trust it. "I was determined to stay in order to bring God's wrath upon her tormentors but without her the trail went cold. And it's only hurting me to stay here longer."

His assent was met with a curt nod, for Trisden fell all too easily back into the reality where her word was law and hearing agreement just felt natural. He turned to taste the air, and though she wondered idly what he was searching for most of her conscious mind was ticking over with the logistics of what to do now. A not-insignificant part of her wanted to just howl her goodbye and peace out there and then, but perhaps that would be rude? It wasn't as though she hadn't made a secret of her intentions to only stay a short while, and then it would get a pregnant woman out of their hair. Her heart yearned for their mother, though, and Trisden wished she could convince @Jaysyek to abandon this lost place and come home. Maybe in time. There was still time.

The sound of @Hocus soft voice pulled his sister from her planning, and it took her a moment to recognise the somber tone, that he was saying something important. The moment the word daughter slipped from his lips, he had her full attention, the wolf rounding on her brother with raised ears and attentive eyes. How had she not heard any of this? She could understand it from Hocus, but surely he had made no secret of his purpose to be here, and yet none of them -

Hurt and indignation blared in her chest on his behalf. Lyalls were supposed to be family-first, and here was Hocus Lyall with a lost daughter and a dead trail and nobody had said anything. As if she needed anymore proof that this forest was a lost cause. "I didn't know." There was no excuse in her voice. Trisden was a woman of action, not whining and apologies for inadequacy. "Let me help you. The Reach has many accomplished scouts - if she's anywhere near my lands, we'll find her. I promise."

There is a deer that was killed by a lynx nearby. +10 Health

He was trying to remain on stable emotional ground but to finally feel someone reach out to him allowed a shadow to pass over his even features. His eyebrows came together and then parted again. Trisden did not know. The newcomers did not know. But Veho and Rook did, for all their posturing about letting him see her in the first place. "They didn't even want to let me see her," he continued in a strained voice, "Rook and Veho. They told me her name was not Piety and thought I would do her harm. Me. To my own daughter.. By the time I was in the pack lands she was virtually gone."


"I'm half of the mind she went back home anyway. But scared that she did not mention it to me or anyone else." He did not make any audible response to her offer of scouts but this was more or less a means of saving face. It was hard to be taking help from someone else—even family—when he was supposed to be the Shepard over his own little flock. But God had leveled him truly. Who was the proud man to refuse help? "I just don't understand any of it."

"But it's not worth wasting time here any more."

It was worse than she realised. Initially, she had just thought he meant that they had failed to help find her - not that they had withheld her from her father in the first place. The idea made her blood run hot, her ears folding back in open disgust. That was not the Rook she knew, nor the Veho who had spoken with her so civilly, but perhaps she had misjudged the both of them. Or maybe it was this place.

"That's appalling," she hissed, still caught up in horror at her brother had been treated, but her eyes snapped back onto his face with needlesharp focus. "It's this forest. It's cursed and sinful and I should never have let them come back to this awful place." And look what had happened - their father had died here, not gotten better as Rook had hoped. Her intuitions had been correct, but I told you so's were so inadequate, so ill-suited, so childish in these circumstances. All she could do was regret. The people she loved only died among these cedars, and she was sick of it.

She softened a little, for none of her ire was directed at Hocus, who, in that moment, she felt only solidarity with. It was an unhappy situation to bring them together, but she felt as though it were a sign that they were meant to be close, that they were stronger together, and she prayed that Hocus saw it the same. "Come to the Reach with me. You don't have to stay, I know you have a family to get back to, but - just don't go alone. Let's reconnect what is ours, what is Lyall, outside of this forsaken place. We can only be stronger for it." She didn't know how far his pack was beyond the Reach, but hopefully it was within reasonable distance for regular relations. Hell, if necessary, she would relocate the whole damn Reach to be closer to her brother - perhaps the godless stink had infested that, too. Trisden and Hocus were the eldest children of Borden, and Borden had chosen to die in the past - they would forge the future.

He cut in with a grunt: it was appalling. "They wanted to protect her. And in the end they protected her from the only one that could help her." Had Hocus only got there a day before, had he just pushed Rook to the ground and asserted himself to the strange medic he could have reached Piety in time. Veho could be forgiven a little, he had no idea who Hocus was. But Rook, his own brother was so wrapped up around the silver male's finger that he could not even see the blood between them. Hocus grunted yet again as his sister replayed the soundtrack of his own thoughts to him—all the things he had always been thinking. 

"I don't think it's a place for a Lyall anymore," he added after her admission of guilt. "The forest belongs to them." Them stood for the rest of the world, the godless sinners and the wolves that had begun to take over the Hollow. Veho was the one siring the litters, and there was a batch of far-flung wolves who had now taken root. "I don't know if mother will leave it, though." His mother seemed tied to the resting place of her beloved, to her grandson and foolish, youngest child. Perhaps she felt like she had to keep trying to save him.

Hocus did not.

"Only if you keep Kiche in some den." He was not inclined to get into any more metaphysical debates with the old wolf. But despite all his religious reservations he felt himself drawn to Trisden's ideal to salvage what was left of their family name and their own bond. Clearly it still existed. It could be reforged. 

(This post was last modified: Jun 02, 2016, 06:10 PM by Hocus.)

The excuse for their behaviour was met with a snort. Just who kept a child from their father unless he was some sort of terrible threat? @Hocus was a blight for the godless, sure, but to his own? That wasn't the man Trisden knew. When he carried on to say that thus wasn't a place for Lyalls anymore, she raised her brows and nodded in an agreeing 'no shit' kind of way. "Right now there are five Lyalls in this forest and not one ruling it. With what you've told me, I'm withholding judgement on this Macieo... But perhaps his family will find it suits them better. Good luck to them and good riddance to it."


She didn't respond to his comment about their mother, for it was a sore point that she was reluctant to acknowledge. Perhaps once her children were born, she could convince her mother to come and be a grandmother to her youngest grandchildren. Rook's boy didn't need it anymore, he seemed to be... decently adjusted, considering. Not much of a Lyall, though. Lacked confidence.

The mention of Kiche was what brought a wry grin to her face, for while she had no doubt it was seriously-meant, it had the manner of a joke all the same. And for Hocus to even nearly be joking told Trisden that he was warming to the idea. "Done and done," she said, with a light laugh, "though he's not quite as you remember him, not anymore."

With her brother in agreement, there was nothing left for her here. She had already seen her mother not long ago, had made it clear that she was planning on leaving soon, and didn't want to risk drawing this out in some emotional moment. Trisden was rather enjoying absorbing Hocus' stoic, quietly furious aura. It felt constructive, fuelling. Turning herself in the direction of the forsaken Grizzly Hollow, the woman tilted her head back and sang her curt farewells to those in the forest who would care. They had been hospitable, for which she was grateful, but she would be even more grateful if she never had to see this Pangur-damned hellhole ever again. It was also a signal to a man who had been lurking, waiting for the word, a ridiculous wolf who nevertheless belonged at the Reach. Besides, she was appreciative of the company on the way back, feeling uneasy about the unusual state of vulnerability her advancing pregnancy put  her in.

"You're right," she said, goodbyes announced, stepping forward to stand side-by-side with her kin. "There's nothing left for us here anymore. A friend will be joining us on the way. Valiant's an ass, and you won't like him, but he's harmless.



"C'mon - let's go."