Red Fern Forest not in kansas any more

Will edit in later with picture/description. @Larkspur is assumed to be coming along and you can have him pop in at any time, Marina. Pp'ing kyna as following a bit behind.

@Kyna @Spieden @Mako @Marina @Kino

Subterritory Discovery: Vanishing Pines

Every paw step she put between herself and her childhood home was painful. At first, crossing the borders seemed almost too much to bear, the pain overwhelmingly raw and searing. The mists did not want to let her go, and they clung to her fur and obscured her eyes well into the Red Ferns, farther than the girl remembered them reaching. And, when at last they disappeared almost entirely she wanted to let out a sob. She wanted to turn back. Inside she was screaming at herself: her home. How could she leave it? Ruefully, she wondered if Jessie and Drestig had felt this pain, or if the founding members were as dismayed as they turned their backs on Swift River.

At least the mists rose again before the girl could go into shock. Sahalie would be forever thankful that Spieden had chosen this place. The trees were different, but it felt more like home than anywhere else the girl knew. Farther north the lands only got more strange. She hoped that they would not go north, though it might please Larkspur. The only reminder that Sahalie needed to remember, to jar her from her thoughts, however, was nearly rolling her ankle on the uneven ground and running into one of the frighteningly tall pines.

"Spieden?" she called, her voice low but still lingering long enough to be considered a howl. She hoped the woman was not hiding, refusing to come out. It had been a few days and she hoped the distance had healed her if only a little. There were some answers Sahalie wanted from her. "Al?"

(This post was last modified: Dec 28, 2016, 05:38 AM by Sahalie.)

where is this post going? we simply don't know

That night, Spieden had known nothing but all engulfing fear. She couldn't be sure whether she was in the present or the past from one moment to the next. Her nearly fully grown children were her anchor, allowing her to momentarily remember that five long years stood between now and then. Things were different now. The situation was still dire, she was convinced, but she had something now that she didn't have then, her freedom. 

She didn't speak much, instead huddling down among the misted pines and keeping an eye on Mako and Marina. Alastor was a thankfully quiet companion, and while his presence agitated her at first, she grew comfortable with it after seeing he meant her no harm. With time she could breathe again, think again. She was beginning to come to terms with what it all meant. Over two years of her life had been in that forest, with wolves she had come to think of as her family. In mere minutes it had all gone up in flames, she'd played at a game she couldn't hope to win. A burning lump formed in her throat as knots twisted in her stomach. 

Thoughts quickly moved on to what next. Spieden wasn't a woman for sitting, waiting, and ruminating. She liked to act. Her paws itched to move and put as much distance as she could between herself and what had once been home, just as she had three years prior. But she had promised to wait, and if she could not yet move, the least she could do was plan. There was no getting around that this all couldn't have come to a head at a worse time, the dead of winter. Wandering about like a rogue for the season might have worked for herself alone, but she had her family to look after. They were nearly a year old now, sure, but they were still young and inexperienced. It wouldn't take much to spell the end for them. 

Her thoughts turned to Drestig and Jessie... She knew the pair had settled up north, and perhaps they would take pity on her. But somehow Spieden didn't think Jessie would be entirely happy to see her, and the irony surely wouldn't be lost. And then there was the woman she had met up north... Perhaps even a further stretch, especially with kids in tow, but at least Capable didn't seem to hate her guts. 

Waiting for Sahalie was a different kind of torture. What was happening back there? She began to doubt her decision to leave her adoptive daughter behind, wondering if she'd left the girl to fend for herself in the lion's den. But dragging her along against her didn't seem to be a better option.

Spieden rose immediately at hearing Sahalie's voice calling for her. Her ears panned, looking for her and hoping that it was not another dream. 

"Sahalie?" She called back. She walked forward, moving through the mist until Sahalie appeared from it. She looked over her, relieved to see she was whole and unharmed. 

 

Kino hadn’t said anything on their way, following along behind them quietly and vigilantly. He could see, thankfully, that Spieden did seem to be calming down somewhat though. The set of her shoulders had settled and she wasn’t as skittish, which were certainly signs of improvement. Luckily, the boy also knew the dangers of the area well even if he didn’t know exactly the place they were going. Wherever they were going it didn’t matter he supposed, just as long as Spieden and the children were safe and Hal found her way to them. When they seemed to arrive Kino explained to Spieden that he was going to do some rounds around them to make sure everything was safe, and to call if any of them needed anything. With a low nod he ventured off to do as he had said, though he knew there was no real point in it.

Finally on his way back, he was able to hear Hal’s calls to them. Ears pricking forward he picked up his pace to a lope, breaking past the trees and slowing as the group came back into view. He gave her a good look over to make sure she hadn’t been harmed and held back a frown. He spent plenty enough time with the small girl to know what she was feeling, though she was hiding her shakiness the best that she could in her own way. The pale boy worried about what had happened to her when she had left them. They would talk about it later. ”Here,” he said, flicking an ear calmly.

just fading this here isn't it's mostly redundant now.

"We're going," she mumbled as they appeared like ghosts in the fog, the children nowhere to be seen for the moment but definitely holed up somewhere. "I talked with Serach and we're going." She didn't say what about and didn't really want to. For one, she did not want to further rock the boat as she could not be sure what her former caretaker's mental state was, and two, there were some things that were just too painful to say right now. All she could think of was the pale man leaning against that tree, dejected, broken. She wished there was a tree for her to lean on in this indistinct mist but she would not trust one to hold her or to be real. Nothing seemed real.

She lifted her head up and surveyed the area around them. "Personally I don't want to go up the mountain this late in the season." Ice and snow was enough of an obstacle without terrifying slopes, cliffs, and rocks. "And, well, we know there isn't anything south." Wrong: south was home. But there were no wolves farther south than Oak Tree Bend, she knew that much. There was no point in turning around now, passing back through Spectral Woods, on a fools errand. "North it is." She could have no idea that this was Spieden's wish all long: for the north.

"Let's go."

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity