Sanguine Cove if you go then so will i

Random Event: You find a fallen bird's nest with strange, glittering strands woven throughout it. A trail of this same tinsel leads out of sight...
For @Nash.

Magg bounced along through the snow, not exactly taking the patrol with her father as seriously as she maybe should have. Things were going good, weren't they? Matos would show up any day just like @Galen had, and then everything would settle back down again... oh, and Feyre and Star too. Maybe that old guy her Uncle seemed so worried about. Whatever, the point was, today she felt good and she wanted to have some kind of fun instead of always having to be so somber-serious.

"Hey Dad?" she asked, catching up to his side with puffs of foggy breath preceding her.

"Can I be a Guardian?"

Nash had been reluctant to allow his daughter to join him at first, but knowing Magg she would take off on her own if he didn't bring her, and he'd rather know where she was. The last thing he needed was for her to go off in search of her brother and never come back.

Her question caught him off guard and he stopped to look at her. "A guardian? Why?" he asked. He hadn't known she'd had those thoughts, those ambitions. Had they been obvious? Had he missed them in his pursuit of other things?

Why? Magg was almost caught off guard by the question, the child in her having mostly expected a simple yes. She paused as well, blinking back at him with her mother's brown eyes. Uh...

"Because... I want to? You were one, and now there's no one. Why not me?"

He'd always made it look so cool, and she knew Matos felt the same about that. Especially after her conversation with @Adora, it just felt like a natural course to take. And everyone needed to stop disappearing so that they could go back to being happy and living life normally.

His child's straight forward response made it sound so easy, like he could just go about granting ranks to anybody. He wished he could give her what she wanted without fuss, but she was still so young. He smiled gently. "Yeah? You want to be a guardian just because I am?" he was a leader now, but he hadn't ever really felt that he'd stopped being a guardian just because he had a new title.

He nodded for her to join him and continued walking; they could patrol and talk at the same time. Besides, if any of the missing pups were around and heard them, they might be able to get their attention. He just wanted them found.

More and more, Magg got the sense she wasn't going to be getting exactly what she wanted out of this conversation. Were it a wolf she had less emotional investment in, she might have walked away from the conversation there, driven by disappointment. Of course, she would never treat her father in such a way. Instead, she strove to convince him that maybe if not today, she could totally be a Guardian whenever he did decide she was fit for the title.

Nash kept moving and so did she.

"Well, I wanna help too. I am the one who survived a fight with a cat. Not even Gae's dad could do that."

The words were spoken flippantly, with all the confidence of a child who couldn't know all that she still had to learn about life.

(This post was last modified: Jan 19, 2023, 08:27 PM by Magg.)

Nash had been about to offer to train his daughter, to show her the moves his brother had shown him - maybe even ask Chan to teach her himself - when she spoke flippantly. His expression turned from warm to stony in an instant. "Don't say that. Don't you ever say that!" he snapped. How dare she? How dare she dismiss Al so callously? How-

He stopped again and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opened them he looked down upon his middle child, expression schooled more into stern than angry now. "How do you think Galen would feel if he heard you say that?" Even if his children didn't understand how devastating his predecessor's loss was, the Vuesain children were feeling it. He wouldn't tolerate his litter being so cruel. Besides that, it seemed Magg might need a lesson in humility. "There is a vast difference between fighting a cougar by yourself and facing a bobcat with three of your packmates at your back. Have you ever seen a cougar?" he asked, waiting a moment for her response before continuing. "They're as big as me and your mom put together, and faster and stronger. Their claws are as big as my teeth. Uncle Chan's tail is as short as it is because a cougar bit it off - while I was sitting on it and Flair was attacking it. I wouldn't face a cougar on my own if I could avoid it. Al was very brave, and he was protecting you. You and your siblings and Galen and his. I expect you to show a little more respect."

Feeling he'd suitably lectured his daughter - for now - Nash returned to a happier topic and his voice warmed to reflect it. "As far as being a guardian goes, I think you would be good at it, with some training."

Magg would have never anticipated the amount of anger her comment would illicit. She jumped, muscles locking in surprise and even a measure of fright as Nash rounded on her, his voice filled to the brim with emotion. After some time to think, perhaps Magg would be able to reflect and better understand what she'd done wrong. Now, in the moment, all she knew was that she hated how awful and shamed she was being made to feel.

Her tail dropped and so did her head, eyes narrowing to glare at the ground away from her father as he went on. Tempering his tone, trying to explain. Magg just wanted to yell back that Galen probably felt the same way, that he'd called Aleister and the way he'd gotten killed stupid, but knew such an outburst would do no good. She was in trouble now, and that was that.

He finished by still encouraging her about the guardian matter, but Magg was not so ready to shrug off the friction that had just occurred. She remained quiet, not sure she trusted herself to speak at all. She wanted to just leave, but that likely wouldn't be allowed. So instead, when she finally got her joints thawed enough to do so, the young girl bounded ahead a few yards and then continued at their usual pace, silently patrolling.