Oak Tree Bend I guess now I know better

@Kyna and @Lila slight pp of Lila, let me know if that isn't okay!

June 28th, Sunny 75F/24C, 7pm

The past month seemed to have flown by since the birth of her younger daughter and with each day Lila grew bigger and stronger. By now she was already not the defenceless pudge she had been as a newborn though she still relied heavily on her mother to survive. Thankfully Aponi was now able to leave the den for a few hours at a time and one of the yearlings always seemed willing enough to pup sit. @Sahalie had watched the Aquila child more than a few times and even Kyna seemed to make an attempt to be there if she was needed.

The sun had just began its long descent from the sky, casting the world in a soft orange as Aponi lay at the entrance to the birthing den watching Lila play in the dirt. There were still a couple hours of daylight left before she would need to usher the pup into bed for the night and for now she was content to lay where she was. Offering her muzzle and paws as wrestling partners as needed the mother couldn't deny the happiness she felt in these simple moments. While she still felt flares of anger at the thought of Drestig's rejection the Aquila woman was mostly content with her life.

Perhaps it was the new addition to her children or maybe it was the Bend itself but it seemed the woman had finally found a place she didn't need to run from.

  

@Kyna

Cold dirt shifted between her toes, and a grin broke across her tiny mouth. For a few days she had been digging away at the earth, making her own hole. While the child couldn't decide if she would simply lay in when it was hot, or hide something away in it for now she was enjoying making it. She had seen the others do this, and she was quite proud she could.

Now and again she would pause, turning her head to catch sight of her silver dam. But, this wasn't out of fear. Nothing of the sort. Aponi often told her if she was leaving. If Aponi wasn't there she had Hal or Kyna.

No, Lila liked to see those blue eyes watching over her, and quite often she was rewarded with a smile too. The dark lass,she lived for that. She also liked to notice what was around her. Her eyes could see so much now, and at this time of day, she couldn't help but stop and stare at the rather bright orange sky. She wasn't sure why it changed, but she liked the vivid color and would often look to the west in wonder. She was still trying to figure the whole words thing out, and couldn't form all her questions or she would have blurted a lot of them. In a way mom often answered most of them, just by the look Lila gave. A tilt of her head, wide eyes she gawked to the sky above. The orange appearance meant sleep soon, but she didn't mind. These hours seemed to stretch further for her. There was nothing that pleased Lila more than her mother near by while she played.

With a twitch of her tail she continued to paw the ground, until her little claw collided with a rock. What was that?! Brows brushed across her dark blue eyes, and she bent her nose closer to investigate. No, not food. It was not dirt either. A little yip she picked it up with her teeth, and carried it over to Mom. Setting it at her toes. Quizzically she looked up to her silver face, then down at the strange thing. "Wut tisit?"

(This post was last modified: Jun 30, 2016, 08:21 PM by Lila.)

Slowly, evening came upon her.  In the shade of the oak trees, the fire flies had begun to flicker and glow, seeking out partners and mates in a slow dance, signaling other members of the forest that it was time to consider retiring until the sun came up once more.

Stretching out her lanky limbs, Kyna shook the dust from her pelt before she took up a slow job, bobbing across the territory to the den her mother had claimed for herself and her new cub.  The yearling rarely stayed the night unless explicitly invited, but often she would visit, and offer Aponi a break if she needed to stretch her legs or fill her belly.  Lila, she’d come to realize, was not the walking horror she’d been expecting.

Approaching the mouth of the den, she chuffed softly to the two females lounging at the entrance.  “Good evening,” she greeted the pair of them, settling her own haunches down even as Lila brought her mouther a new treasure, demanding an answer from the silvery wolf.  Kyna could not help the small curl of a smile as she watched the black tuft of fur present the pebble so proudly, reaching down to press her wet nose to the cub’s ear.  “You find that yourself?”

A wild dissertation appears!

Lila was happy enough digging in the dirt and staring around her in wonder, so many unspoken questions obviously brewing in her small head. Aponi answered them when she believed it was needed but most times she let her daughter try to figure things out for herself. There was no need to coddle her with an easy presentation to every question she might imagine. Still when the pup toddled towards her with a stone in her jaws laying it in front of her paws proudly the mother couldn't help but smile.

Before she could answer her the sound of pawsteps and a polite greeting was offered the pair and the icy blue eyes looked upwards towards her other daughter. The smile stayed planted on her face as she nodded her own silent greeting before looking back to the pup to see how she would react to her sister's presence. Sniffing at the pebble as if it required a deep investigation she pulled back and winked at Kyna, "Why Lil you've found a rock! When they're small like this they're called pebbles and when they're bigger it's called a boulder. When they get really really big they're called mountains." Suddenly she looked towards the ginger girl, a strange expression on her face.

Furrowing her brow for a moment it suddenly cleared when she looked towards the youngest daughter and moved to pull her closer as she often did to signal it was time for a story. Settling her head upon the dirt next to the small pup she began, "Your sister was born on a mountain, and so was I. I had a sister and my mom, Naira was leader of the pack up there. Things were good for a while but my mom could be... mean. She liked my sister better but the pack more than both of us and so she let us run wild and free most of the time." The story was made to seem like it was for Lila but blue eyes trained on the older daughter as she mentioned who her own mother was. That part was just for Kyna.

  

Okay I have always thought of @Kyna as kee-n-uh

Kyna's greeting brought her blue eyes to the golden wolf for the tiniest second. While she was usually excited to see her sister, her mind was already occupied to offer any more. Expectantly, she waited for her answer, watching with full focus as Momma inspected it. There had to be a reason for her using her nose like that. Why Lil had she wasn't sure how it worked unless there was food to be food.

The press of both nose and words from her sister suddenly captured her attention. A wide smile grew upon her tiny mouth. It was with a over dramatic bob of her head she answered most proudly, "By self Kee." Cause she really had, and the idea she noticed was important.

The voice of her dam carried its own excitement, and eyes lit up, a rock. The information tucked itself away, along with the other descriptions. Though she was eager to see one of these mountains she would hold the suggestion. It became evident Momma was gonna tell a story, and Lila loved stories! With ease she settled beside the two of them, where she did not mind in the least to be. In rapture she looked from one tall one to the other. These mountains sounded even better knowing this was where they came from. Lil could not comprehend what it all meant, though she had a grasp. Mean was not good, and her forehead crinkled at the thought. Everything else didn't sound so bad, running wild and free. Skylark was one of the funnest things to do. "I see mound momma?"

Mountains.

Kyna smiled despite herself, mind immediately spiriting back to her first home upon the Riddle Heights.  She glanced over at her younger sister, watching the child process the information.  Would they ever take her to the mountain?  Would Lila even want to see a mountain?

“It is a very nice rock,” she found herself commenting in the brief moment of silence while Aponi rearranged herself.  “You did a good job.”

She might have gone on, but their mother was ready to continue her tale.  The yearling wriggled a little closer – not close enough to touch either of the other females, but her own interest was evident.  Whatever she thought the story was going to be, however, was not anything that came out of Aponi’s mouth.  It was about her mother’s mountain, her mother’s mother, and all at once, the name clicked and spent the gears spinning.  Naira.  The woman with Triell, now.  The woman Aponi did not want her daughters near.  The woman Sahalie hated, for having her siblings.

Wait.  Wait.

Sahalie’s step-mother (were they related, were Triell and Naira mates now?) was her grandmother?  The thought was enough to make her gag as she shook her head violently, trying to make the thoughts leave physically.  So she turned, and made herself think of something else.  The mountain.

“Where is your mountain, anyways?” she asked, desperate for any other thoughts to fill her head.

A wild dissertation appears!

@Lila

At first Lila seemed to only offer Kyna the briefest of glances before staring back towards her rock with a deep intensity. That is until the older girl asked if the pup had managed to find the stone by herself and it was like a switch flipped on the child's expression. Attention wavered and was replaced with a proud glow as a smile stretched across her maw. It was mirrored onto Aponi's face as she watched the innocent interaction between the two of them. The story seemed to do the trick as the pup snuggled in close and the yearling even wriggled closer, fiery gaze watching intently. Laughing gently she nodded, "Someday when you're bigger Lila I'll take you up to the mountain, I promise."

In the background was a gagging sound and blue eyes lifted to watch Kyna shaking her cranium to and fro. Aponi couldn't help but snort a laugh, "Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it too." However the blonde was quick to change the subject, something the mother had noticed she was often doing when things got uncomfortable. Still her words caused her brow to furrow as she looked on, "Have I really never taken you there? I guess, yeah I guess I haven't. It's only a day or two north of the Plateau on the same range. I'll bring you there in the fall if you'd like." It stuck some kind of a thorn in her side that the mother just couldn't shake. She had been so focused on her own life yet she had somehow left her oldest daughter out of it.

Clearing her throat Aponi pressed on with her story, glad to have an excuse to shove her emotions to the back of her head. "Anyways, so when I was just little I decided to run away from home. I made it about a week away before I met a boy my age named Karpos who didn't have a family, but then Naira found me and brought me back to the pack. Karpos came a few months later and joined us, but not long after we all had to leave our home or we would be trapped by the snow." The memory would probably always be burned into her head, the image of snow walls that were so high they seemed to have no tops and the adults doing their best to dig through them. At the time she had been annoyed at leaving the Pass but she saw now how dangerous it all had really been. "That winter was the worst anyone had ever seen, there was no food and everyone was hungry, packs were starving. So when prey was found we weren't the only group to take notice, I've never seen so many wolves in one place like I did that day. I can't even say how many, 30 or 40 maybe even 50. Fighting broke out over which pack would get the kill and in the end a sudden snow storm separated myself and another boy from my pack named Mercy from the others and we became hopelessly lost." Saying his name out loud still brought a twinge in her heart but the mother ignored it, that heartbreak was a long time ago now.

  

The smile Kyna had started only grew by her praise. The little lady nodded in agreement. If her sister had said something so wise. It was no small accomplishment in the child's eyes.

She did not have to wait long for her answers. The dark lass loved when momma made her promises. Maybe, because they had never been broken, and so she knew one day she would see this mountain for herself. It seemed like a long time, and she wished she could go now. Even she knew how short her legs were. How tired they grew when trekking about the Bend.

Pleased, her tail beat ferociously behind her. No other place she rather have be. Why, she too heard Kyna's odd sound, she only offered her her a wide,blue stare. They were talking about the mountain still. How Kyna had not been either. "Kee, you come wif," she stated, leaving her little choice to argue. She liked the three of them together like this.

The story continued, and she was all ears, trying to imagine the picture the words painted. There was another word. Snow. "Momma wut sssno?" She couldn't seem to remember if this particular question had been answered. Like most young child stories only elicited more questions.

The rest of of the tale spun was quite sad. Strange even. No food? This winter sounded cruel. But a tiny squeak left her. "Tat more tin da Bend momma?" Cause she wasn't sure how many even 30 was. She would like to know. There seemed like so many faces in the misted, blue woods to imagine more. Momma spoke of a boy, and how they were lost. "Wut eww do?" Aponi had explained if she wondered too far alone she would get lost. It didn't sound like a nice concept, but the very idea her mother had been stranded with some boy she wondered what she had done. In Lila's mind there was nothing her mom could not do.

(This post was last modified: Dec 07, 2016, 04:28 AM by Lila.)

A day or two north of the Plateau.  Her Plateau.  Kyna’s fire bright eyes lit up at the invitation, and the older girl bobbed her head eagerly.  Of course they’d have to wait for Lila to be old enough to walk that far, and up a mountainside, no less.  Offering the dark pup a small smile, she nodded her head again at the command.  “Of course.  I’d like to see, too.”

The yearling was largely content to sit and listen to Aponi’s story, even as sad as it was.  Perhaps the older girl was considerably less surprised by the cruelty sometimes offered by nature itself – she’d watched her own father suffer and die only feet away, after all.  She said little, more focused on Lila’s question than the actual hurt of losing friends and family and pack.  She knew that hurt.  She knew it so well; why hadn’t her mother brought it up before?

“Snow,” she murmured, clearing her throat, “is very excellent to play in.  It is white, and fluffy, and falls from the sky when it gets cold out, instead of rain.  It is very good to play games, and to slide in,” she told her sister, thinking back to meeting Nalda, or the time Sahalie went skating across frozen water.  That she’d been trapped underneath the snow once did little to quench her enthusiasm for it.  “When winter comes, I’ll teach you the games, okay?”

(This post was last modified: Nov 20, 2016, 04:53 PM by Kyna.)

A wild dissertation appears!

@Lila

Aponi couldn't help but smile despite the sadness of her story at seeing the way that Kyna and Lila interacted. The youngest asking questions and the older quick to answer and to offer to teach her the games that she had learned. It made her proud of the blonde teen who had somehow learned compassion in life, despite everything that had been thrown at her. Thinking about where she had left off she launched back into the tale, "Eventually we were able to find our way home before we starved but it was touch and go, we were very sick for a long time afterwards. While we had been lost together Mercy and I grew very close and bonded in a way that wasn't healthy for children our age, we couldn't be apart from each other without becoming anxious and angry. Karpos was jealous of Mercy and me being so close and accused me of being horrible and said that nobody in the pack had missed us and wished we had stayed gone. So once again I ran away but this time Mercy came with me."

Up until now the story hadn't really involved either of her daughters or anything that they would recognize other than Naira's name.  Blue eyes lifted to look directly at Kyna as Aponi was well aware that the next part of her past wasn't going to be easy for the yearling to hear. "It was childish but we declared ourselves mates and said we would always be together. We crossed the mountains on our own and joined a back called Magnolia Glen when we were yearlings, it was led by Phineas, Kyna's father." The words fell silent as Aponi looked onto the oldest daughter, an unreadable expression in her eyes as she waited for some kind of a reaction.

Looking back towards Lila to give Kyna some kind of privacy to process everything that was being told the leathery nose nudged the pup closer. "We worked hard but kept mostly to ourselves until one day Mercy left without saying anything to anyone. I waited for him to come home for a long time but he never did and I never saw him again. Months later I took a trip back to Nomad's Pass to visit where I had been born to clear my head and I ran into my sister Nova. I convinced her to leave my mother's pack and meet me back at the Glen after she told Naira that she was leaving. But it took her months to show up and when she did she was with a man I had never met who she declared her mate. It was then that she told me that Naira had disappeared with her pups and abandoned my father who was murdered after she left. I was so angry at everything that had happened that I lashed out at Nova and drove her away." Of everything that Aponi had told in this story and would tell this was maybe one of the things she regretted the most. Nova had come to be with her and despite how long she had taken she was making an effort to put together the pieces of whatever family they had had.