Oak Tree Bend second chance

Surprise thread for @Serach

June 21st 2016, Sunny 76F/24C

Aponi had been incredibly grateful to the new leader after the birth of @Lila, how he had delivered her not only food but the protection the vulnerable pair needed. That had been a month ago and the new mother had been so busy caring for her infant daughter that she hadn't had the chance to properly thank him. The dark pup was hold enough that her mother was now able leave her unattended for a few hours if the girl was napping or was trusted enough to behave. Thankfully Lila seemed to obey whatever her mother told her to do, at least for the time being. So Aponi had told her to stay put within the den or in the small clearing in front of it and that she would be back in a while.

With a hare clutched in her jaws the mother followed Serach's scent trail as it zigzagged through the territory before finding the markers and following it. Picking up her speed it didn't take long for the silver woman to see the pale wolf ahead as he carried out his border patrol. In a few more moments she was beside him, though careful to give the man a respectable distance between them. Once sure she had his intention she slowed and stopped before placing the fare towards him, "To thank you, for what you've done for Lila and I." The man hadn't been leader long but from what the Aquila had seen he was doing just fine and perhaps for the first time she didn't look on a male alpha as a form of power but as just a wolf.

Sorry for the delay <3

Nose to the ground, Serach was striding along the pack's borders with more purpose than he had done in the past. They had always been his borders, but now they were really his to defend and protect. Lifting his leg, he urinated proudly on the base of a tree trunk, sending a clear message to any creature that came by this way or near any of the others recently marked trees left in his wake - Stay out. There were too many young mouths for them to feed right now, both puppy and adult, and the last thing Serach wanted to deal with was some curious stranger trespassing and causing any more stress to the pack's shoulders.

Lowering his leg, Serach continued on his path, but stopped soon after as he heard the rustling of movement. Turning his head, he watched as the silver and black form of Aponi came into view. His lips pulled up in a smile and he wagged his tail in greeting as she approached him. She was caring a hare, and the smell made his mouth water. She greeted him and he dipped his head in return, ears perking as she thanked him and offered the hare. Startled, he looked at her with raised eyebrows for a moment before slowly shaking his head. "You're welcome, of course," he told her, but made no move to touch the gift. "But you and Lila need this more than I do right now." He nosed it, resisting the urge to eat and pushed it a few inches back towards her. "How's she doing? How are you doing?" They had never gotten a chance to talk, but she had sought him out and now seemed like the appropriate time for the protector to learn more about who he was protecting.

Serach's smile was responded with a warm one of her own once she had placed the prey upon the ground, tail swaying lazily behind her. Something about the beginning of summer made everything seem slower and calmer, as if the whole world had slowed its pace. The harshness of winter was behind them and nature had blessed them with new life. He seemed surprised at her offering but her smile broadened and she nudged it closer towards him, "Please I insist. Lila and I have plenty of food, mostly thanks to your frequent visiting." Her voice had a genuine ring that felt odd in her mouth though not unpleasant.

His questions brought an odd feeling into the mother. For once she didn't feel like someone was prying to leverage themselves or to dig out information other than wanting to know. Furrowing her brow slightly the blue eyes looked over him intently before a small smile pulled at the corner of her lips. Dropping her gaze away she murmured, "We're both very well thank you, and @Kyna seems to be coming around to the idea of having a little sister." Suddenly remembering the manners she typically buried deep within her mind and ignored her smile grew, "Congratulations on your alpha position, I don't think I've had a chance to say that yet." His rise to the throne had been built on loyalty while her own had been paved with the blood of others. Still, she had gotten there her own way.

I'm the worse. Promise I won't make this a habit. <3 Also, Serach is going to eat/talk at the same time just to avoid him awkwardly woofing down the whole thing at once.

@Aponi was gracious, he would give her that. She smiled at him, nudging at the hare closer to him instead. It was like a reverse game of tug-of-war, where politeness was waging war against primal instinct. The ambrosial smell wafting up from the hare was difficult to resist, and as he lowered to his head to the kill once again, he decided it would be rude to refuse her a second time. "I'm happy to provide, of course. I will say that one of the benefits of having so many pups to take care of this year is my small game hunting skills have improved dramatically," he grinned at her, his tail wagging playfully behind him as he lowered his head to the rabbit once more.

Tugging at one of the poor beast's hind legs, the leader's powerful jaws made quick work snapping it off from the body before doing the same to the other. "We can at least share it," he told her, as he offered the pieces to Aponi. "Perhaps Lila would like the bone? Or Kyna maybe? I'm glad she's coming around to it - I'm sure it's been a difficult adjustment." Truth was, Serach knew very little about Aponi's oldest daughter - only that she was one of Sahalie's friends. He would need to change that, not that he was the pack's leader.

He was picking at the breast of the rabbit when she spoke again, this time offering congratulations. It was still so very new to him, and instinctively his ears flattened against his skull bashfully. But as he pulled himself up to look at her, he corrected his posture, although he dipped his head in silent thanks before speaking. "Thank you, truly," he told her, his voice quiet. "You're one of the few to say so...Triell has been the leader of the Bend for so long, I imagine it's still hard for some of the others to come to terms with it."

There is a moose carcass that has been scavenged by coyotes nearby. +15 Health

Now it's my turn to apologize <3 my days keep getting away from me

Thankfully this time the alpha lowered his head and accepted her gift instead of insisting that she kept it herself. Not that she wouldn't have enjoyed the hare but that wasn't the point. Aponi grinned at his comment before musing herself, "Small prey certainly is more plentiful here than on the mountain, I might have to spend my free time polishing up my skills." Up there any and all hunts were more of a procedure, often times taking the majority of the pack far from the territory to where the herds were located. While her heart had always been set on the mountain the mother was beginning to wonder if maybe the Bend was not better suited for her after all.

Serach was kind to say the least to offer her a portion of the prey, a hare could feed one wolf typically but Aponi thought better than to refuse. Instead she smiled her thanks back and settled down in a casual sprawl to begin working on the leg. His comment made her chuckle and the mother nodded, "I'm sure Lila would love it, she's pretty easily enthralled with anything she can find. As for Kyna I understand why she would be hesitant. When I was her age I thought my mother's pregnancy was practically the end of the world." The words were said lightly and with a smile but truthfully Naira's pregnancy had been the end of the world back then, at least the world that Aponi had known.

His reaction surprised the Aquila woman and she cast her gaze away as if she had not seen his ears fold and his gaze dip. If it were someone else she probably would have sneered at them and called every detail of it to attention but Serach had earned her respect. Something that wasn't easily given for the silver wolf. Her own voice was quiet, taking on the same hushed tones as the males when she responded, "Not everyone responds well to changes in leadership," But then she smiled towards him, tail wagging behind her encouragingly, "But you seem to be doing quite well none the less."

Oblivious Serach is oblivious.

Licking his maw, the man attempted to clean some of the blood that had become matted in his fur. He probably looked a fool - he always did after eating because of his pale fur. It did not hide the red color as well as the dark fur of the rest of his family. @Aponi was kind enough to humor him and take the gift he had offered, and together the pair gnawed away at their respective pieces. "I've only been up to the mountain a few times," he admitted. "But yeah, I don't imagine there would be very much that lives up there. I was kind of surprised, actually, when the Magnolia Glen wolves moved there for that reason. Better for us though - I still remember one hunt in my youth where we nearly got into a fight with the Glen over a moose kill. We might not have the views of the mountain, but I'm grateful that we generally at least have the food sources to avoid that kind of situation." He shook his head as though to rid himself of the memory. It had been a dark time indeed, not the least because it had happened so soon after his mother's death.

He listened intently as she talked about her two daughters, curious about how the small family was adjusting, both to each other and to life with the Bend as a whole. He smiled as she mentioned @Lila's enthrallment with everything; he had been similar when he was a pup. Anything that moved was a whole new world of surprise and adventure for him to explore, much to the exasperation of his older siblings and babysitters. "I'm sure as Lila gets older, Kyna will begin to understand even more - maybe even appreciate having siblings. I can't say I fully understand the dread though. My brother and I were my mother's last. Now I'm wondering if my older siblings were secretly resentful of me the whole time," he told her with a chuckle and a wag of his tail. Maybe @Kisla and Fenru had felt that way at some time, but for all the love they had shown him when he was younger, he doubted it had impacted their relationship very much.

"I am trying," he conceded, grateful that she had not attempted to mock him for his confession regarding his recent rank upgrade. "Any tips? Or something I could do better? My mother always told me that a good leader listen's to his subjects." He smiled again, clearly joking in his referring to the Bend wolves as his subjects, but not joking about the overall point. He was there to serve his pack, just like he always had before he became a leader, and if there was something he could do to help Aponi, or anybody else for that matter, he wanted to know about it.

Once the leg had been mostly finished aside from a few scraps dangling here and there Aponi set to work cleaning her own maw. Unfortunately she shared a similar problem to the alpha as red did not blend very subtly into silver or grey. She paused when he mentioned the Glen and a single brow raised at him, unsure of how much he knew about her past or @Kyna's heritage. The hunt he spoke of must have been before her time as she knew not of it, or that it had been the beginning of the end of Magnolia Glen and Borilla and Phineas' relationship. Going back to cleaning her fur she offered almost as an afterthought, "I think the move was more about running away from the Glen rather than running to the Plateau."

It was something that they seemed to be good at, something that had come easily to Aponi. Running from her  birth pack, running from Mercy's betrayal to Phineas, running from Aesire's death on a wild goose chase. Finally though it seems that her running had come to an end. How easy would it have been to stay on the west when she had stumbled upon member's of "Samuel's" pack and demanded that he care for her and their daughter? But she hadn't, she'd returned to the Bend as she said she would.

Not that she even consciously acknowledged that this truly had become the only home she had ever wanted and easily returned to. Instead it was just an act that had been done. Snorting out a chuckle she grinned, "Consider yourself lucky then, now my own mother has children Lila's age." Immediately she froze for a second, unsure of why the information had just slipped from her lips so easily after denying her matriarch for so long. Naira may have carried and birthed her but she had not been any kind of mother and that wasn't about to change. So why was she so close to telling Serach the truth about her relations?

Luckily before she could dwell too much on her feelings (something she generally avoided doing) the man changed the subject. Shaking her head she had only this to say, "I'm the last wolf to ask on advice for leadership. My own reign was short lived and full of errors." Again with the over information. Falling silent Aponi's gaze was quizzical as she looked up towards the pale alpha before her. Why the hell couldn't she stop talking?

Although he doubted @Aponi meant it that way, her offhanded comment about the reasons behind the Plateau almost felt like a rebuke, if only because it made Serach pause and consider his position. The truth was he did know nor, if he was being honest with himself, care why the Glen had decided to relocate themselves, but it was interesting to consider that they had been leaving something behind. What that was, he could not even begin to imagine - his few run ins with their members had not been pleasant enough for him to feel like he could inquire.

It was good to hear her laugh, and as she snorted in response to his musings on his older siblings, Serach's tail waved behind him. Her response gave him pause, though, and although his mouth proceeded to change the subject, his brain did not let go of what she had said, "Consider yourself lucky then, now my own mother has children Lila's age." It was not a lightbulb moment for him - he had no sudden realization about the underlying tensions between Naira and Aponi and why that tension existed - but as he pondered over how it was Aponi could possibly know about the state of her mother, the neurons in his brain were beginning to find some kind of connection. It was too weak an idea for him to articulate though, and as she dropped yet another bomb on him, the thought was gone.

"I uh.." he stammered into her quizzical face. Shaking his head, he took a deep breath to pull himself together before continuing. "Sorry, I just didn't realize you had been a leader before." He didn't think it had come up before, but he felt silly for not knowing. "Of the Plateau? Or somewhere else? And I doubt it was as full of errors as you think....and if it was, it is good to know that when I inevitably make my own, I will be in good company." He smiled at her, not wanting to make light of the situation but rather to indicate that he wasn't judging her for any previous mistakes that may have been made - he was certainly no expert on how this "leadership" thing should be accomplished.

Serach's lighter mood was infectious and the silver tail swept across the dirt behind her in response. When was the last time she had laughed at something an adult had said rather than a sarcastic comment from @Sahalie about @Naira? For a moment his expression seemed to be churning as he processed what she had said but then again went blank as her second bomb dropped. Cursing herself again for running her mouth in a way that was atypical for her she smiled as he graciously smoothed over everything that she had said.

Nodding Aponi answered honestly, "Of the Plateau, I led beside Kyna's father for a few months before I took leave to search for answers about my own father. I came back with no answers to my questions and the Plateau fell apart after Phineas died." There was nothing that the mother could have done to prevent his death she knew but perhaps if she had never left she could have held the pack together.

Raising a single eyebrow at his last comment a wry smile crept across her face, "Good company huh? Well, at least you know no matter what you do I'll never be in the place to judge you." Though the words may have been serious in a different context they were accompanied with a laugh and again her tail fluttered behind her. Something about revealing even the smallest pieces of her past made her feel lighter somehow. Smiling once more she stood, "I shouldn't keep you any longer, you looked busy before. Thank you again Serach, for everything." Nodding her head in respect the mother took her leave back towards her den, Lila would be getting hungry soon.