Spectral Woods yo chick she's so thirsy

for @Larkspur but if anyone wants to join just PM me first lol?

No wolf made her doubt every word in her heart like Alastor's absence did. Sure, it was temporary, sure he had a good reason—but Sahalie missed him. She regretted their last real conversation being a fight, even if had been more or less resolved. And as the moment had passed since the children parted ways the girl planted, watered, and nurtured a seed of doubt and worry in her heart that his leaving was all to do with this argument. The regret in her chest was painful: how could she have gotten so mad at him for caring about her? For being concerned? Now he was gone and, for the first time in such a long time, she felt alone. Alastor had been the roots tethering her to the soil, the clouds holding the sky together, the hills pulling the mountains to earth. He had been the voice of reason whenever she was upset about the smallest and largest of things. If she wanted to complain she looked to Alastor, but she couldn't complain to Alastor about Alastor leaving, now. It made no sense.

Somehow her paws carried her to the only wolf she wanted to talk to. Why it was this wolf she had given her trust to, she could never say. Larkspur felt like an honest wolf, at least, deep down. Maybe the girl was afraid the rest of the family would trash-talk the boy, would grow protective of the girl and deny Alastor re-entrance when the time came as some form of punishment. But Larkspur had no power, and he was guaranteed to trash-talk Alastor. Sahalie needed something dependable, and Larkspur's sour mood was as dependable as the sunrise.

Maybe that was it: she didn't want to be the most miserable girl at the dance.

"Hey," she said, shoving her paw at the large form curled beside the tree he had claimed for himself, "Hey let's talk. Let's talk about something." Her words were hasty with a false cheer, attempting to cover her dismay by pushing the air out of her lungs quickly.

(This post was last modified: Sep 25, 2016, 10:41 PM by Sahalie.)

Larkspur was easy to find, if only because most of the time he slept. He didn't classify himself as lazy, and the wolf had worked hard when he'd returned (or found his way home was their story, wasn't it?) to the Bend. He did his best to cause as little disturbance as he could, often dropping off a fat, fresh caught rabbit to one of the mothers or pup sitters. He kept his distance from the communal den, he was respectful to his leaders. He was a good pack member, but he felt tired most of the time. Something about curling up under his tree with sun filtering through the leaves was comforting.

Getting a paw jabbed into his side was not. The silvery man yelped in pain and surprise, flinching away from the source of discomfort. It was almost like poking the bear with a stick, and the bear was already a growling, snarling mess. Hey let's talk, she said, and he gave her a suspicious look. Was that a request, or a demand?

"No," he didn't look too closely into the weird tone she was using, and had not the energy nor time to decipher it. He was napping, and comfortably so. His side still ached, but he could try to fall back into a dreamless sleep if he got comfortable quick enough. The man scooted away from her, and closer to his tree, and closed his eyes.

Great, now he couldn't sleep. Larkin shuffled around, but then decided to just get up. "Don't you have someone else to bother," his voice sounded as tired as he looked. He attempted to shake the sleep from himself and then contemplated going for a walk and purposely not inviting his intruder. Not that she wouldn't follow because of that, because somehow he felt Sahalie either was too stupid to read him or chose to ignore his want to be alone. Maybe a little bit of both.

"I'm sure your boyfriend would love to talk to you," he smiled to himself, but didn't hide it. He knew Alastor was gone.

(This post was last modified: Sep 25, 2016, 09:36 PM by Larkspur.)

A simple no would not drive her away. The girl had already lived a year of "no"s and wolves acting as though they would rather be alone. She stepped closer, plunking her dark rump beside him and considered poking him again. In the end she decided one poke was enough and more than that risked losing a toe. "No," was her own response when Lark tried to shake her desire to speak to him as if she were just some burr in his matted, brittle yellow coat. (Vaguely, the girl wondered at the fact that his health hadn't improved as drastically as a normal loner's would have by this time. Even with her expert medicinal skills.) 

"Hah," she barked dryly, shifting so that she could be comfortable beside him. The man did at least provide some warmth, and this was probably the only comfort that she would be "afforded" because she took it without asking. "That's the problem."

"Maybe if he was my boyfriend he wouldn't have left me, you know?" She tossed her head, a rueful smile peeling up at the corners of her mouth. "I figured you were always making some dumb joke about the boyfriend girlfriend thing to get a rise out of me or Al, but now... Mmm, I don't know, maybe I wish he was. Whatever that meant." What did it mean to be committed to another wolf? Was it like being a mate? The only "mates" she had ever witnessed had been her father and that woman. It was unclear to Sahalie if her father and the woman even felt the way she felt about Alastor, or if he had even felt that way about Nayeli. He must have, to have left her.

"I'm trying really hard not to be mad at him for leaving. I guess I understand why we don't welcome the leavers back home with open arms... but I don't wanna be like that. I don't want to be sour. I'm sad because I miss him. Cause I want him here. So.... I don't want that to get in the way of him coming back... When he comes back." If he comes back. Slowly the girl slid forward on her paws until her chest hit the dirt. Her bulbous nose sniffed at a tuft of fur on Larkspur's shoulder, and she considered grooming him or something since he seemed barely capable himself. "I guess just like...."

"Can I tell you a secret?" Her voice was quieter.

It didn't take him long to consign himself to being Sahalie's listening ear. She'd just follow him, and it wasn't like he was going to attempt to leave again. He couldn't say he loved Oak Tree Bend, but it was his home. And this was his tree, and inside was his sticks. He knew the faces well enough, he knew where he should step lightly and knew who he could snap at. He wished he could feel content and whole with just that, but somehow he didn't.

He groaned in annoyance as he prepared himself for whatever the girl was about to go on about. He only half listened, and wondered why it was him that she wanted to talk to. He could almost be certain that she had other wolves to chat to, she had pups she could talk to, and her mom-but-not-mom, and her dad he was certain was there too. Why me? he pitifully thought as Sahalie went on about wishing her boyfriend was her boyfriend.

It made him want to throw up. "Stop making it all about you," he had thought that Sahalie was better than that. Not that this would be the first time that he'd been wrong about someone. The girl made herself comfortable beside him as he tried to think of a way to not encourage this type of behavior. "Cry cry, I wish my boyfriend hadn't left me, cry cry, why does no one love me. No one cares, and he's probably not even thinking about you," maybe if he tried giving her information she didn't want to hear, she wouldn't bother him again. He wasn't sure what the depths of Alastor and Sahalie's relationship was, he had never cared.

Oh god now she wanted to share secrets with him. He closed his eyes and hoped that wishing Sahalie away would work. He peeked an eye at her, "Would you trust me with a secret?" stupid little pup probably would.

Stupid him would keep her dumb little secret too.

Larkspur was clearly frustrated with her, as she expected him to be. But somehow Sahalie had always grossly underestimated the man: somehow she thought she was stronger, that he wasn't that mean, that he couldn't hurt her unless she let him. Every time she was wrong. Lark could cut her deep and she was foolish to think anything otherwise. His first word was "stop" and she thought he was just going to command her to be quiet (something she cold easily handle and or ignore) but instead she felt the immediate sensation of being stabbed with a thorn. Making this about herself? The girl stiffened and stared at the cold man's cold back. Was this true?

Looking inside her heart, her sensitive, do-gooder heart she found it was true. She hadn't phrased any of this about how worried she was about Alastor, about her concern for his sister that he was looking for, or even the consequence being down a hunter would have on their ability to feed the children as the herds moved south for the coming winter. Lark was right, it was just that she was sad because she was left. Her lip quivered. How could she be so selfish? How had she convinced herself that this was the sort of drivel to bother Lark with? It sounded so foolish, now, to have said all those things. Sahalie had always known she was just a girl, but somehow, somewhere in the last few months she had lost her selfless drive and stopped thinking about how her actions impacted others, how others felt. 

"Hey," she grumbled warningly, "I didn't say that." By that she meant the whole "no one loves me" thing, though more or less... that was the end result of moping so much about the loss of one particular wolf when she had a dozen others in the pack who cared for her and would do anything. She felt another stab. How could she have taken them all for granted. "I just.... I..." she stammered, frustrated, sad, "Can't a girl be sad?" But that really wasn't where she wanted to take things.

"You're right," she mumbled soberly, "I was making it about myself." Did she even want to tell him her secret now? She assumed he would just use it as a tool to hurt her. Part of her felt like that was what she needed right now. "I don't know if trust matters," she said, shrugging, "If you told other wolves I don't think I'd be upset. I trust you to be yourself and do whatever it is you do."

Sure, she'd tell him. "Yeah, it's selfish, but I wanted Al to lead with me. I wanted to either.... take over this pack when I got old enough or find somewhere else to go... I want to lead. And he was supposed to help me. He agreed to help me. And, yeah, so, I'm kinda mad about that. And I'm sorry I'm bothering you about it." She should just shut up now.

Dejectedly, her head fell between her paws with a thud and a huff. "I mean what would you do? What do you think I should be doing?"

"I hear what I hear," how simple the world would be, to hear things in the blunt, no-nonsense way that Lark did. But she was here to cry to him. Hopefully not actually cry, which he doubted he could handle. "Don't be sad," it wasn't in a consoling, oh, don't be sad, it's okay, sort of way, either. He was just... literally telling her not to be sad. When he said the words again in his head, he sighed and struggled with his next words. "It's... it's okay to be sad. It's not okay to expect me to sympathize with you. I'm..." sad enough without your crap.[/b] He bit the words back. "I'm not a good shoulder to cry on," it was a good save. Plus, didn't she {i}get that?

Sahalie agreed with him, and he wanted to shout at her. She wasn't supposed to agree with him, she was supposed to get more upset, or more angry, and find someone else to cry to. Regardless, he was stuck. She went on.

Then she said something that he didn't think he'd heard in a long time. I trust you to be yourself. He feigned aloofness, but now was actually interested. Was she just really that stupid? Was he trustworthy? Had he done anything to prove he was trustworthy, or that he was the sort of wolf that it was good to tell secrets to? Perhaps it was a self-destructive thing, and instead of doing the wise thing, Sahalie chose a skewed path.

"Don't say you're sorry," he snapped at her. If she was actually sorry, she wouldn't be bothering him.

Silence feel between them as he let Sahalie's words sink in. She continued to perplex him, asking him for advice. What made her think that he could give sound advice? She knew so little about him, besides the fact that he sometimes didn't follow the rules and that he used to be an alpha. Sure, he'd returned, but hadn't said why. He was bitter and cold and miserable. He closed his eyes and tried to think of who he was when he was young, when the world was filled with big, meaningless problems. Larkin smiled for a moment, and then it was gone.

"Thicken your skin, harden your heart," just like he'd been told when he was young and hurt and sad. "He might not come back, and be ready for that. But also be prepared for him to come back, because he may not stay. Wolves will leave you and hurt you and crush you," it was his turn to be stabbed by a thorn. He felt as if he should say more, but instead fell silent.

"Well I'm sad!" she retorted petulantly, her lower lip thrust out as she stared at the man without any thought of refusing his demands. "And I don't expect you to sympathize with me, dummy. That's why I'm talking to you." Maybe she had known all along she was being self-centered and childish, and that was why she had avoided the other adults or even Kyna who would have taken her side and comforted her with a little more kindness (though for any of her packmates it might have been mighty awkward). As a child she had gotten nearly any sort of comfort she had asked for: constantly demanding cuddles from wolves like Drestig or Jessie, even when these wolves probably would have rather been left alone just like Lark. "You must think an awful lot about yourself if you thought I wanted to cry on this shoulder," though her lilting giggle made it clear that this was really meant in jest. There were probably plenty of circumstances under which she'd try to cry on him that had yet to come.

Of course Lark parotted the same advice many others seemed to give her, and she had been foolish to think he would have said anything else. Adamantly, her head waved back and forth, "Nope. Not gunna do that. Give me real advice. I don't want you to tell me how I should be feeling. I want to know what to do. How does a wolf become a leader? How'd you become a leader? Were you good at talking or just good at fighting?" Sahalie had always assumed from his battle scars that the former was true, though of course he was still alive so, there was that. Larkspur, though bitter, seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. He was bright. Was she wrong?

"Maybe I should try to be more sympathetic, then," which made him briefly wonder if it was his lack of sympathy that put him in annoying situations like these. He could be sympathetic, but Sahalie's problems didn't seem like it was worth the energy. Perhaps he was too predictable already, and the girl had known that she wasn't going to get a there there, little girl, it'll be okay, and a kiss on the forehead to make the boo-boo better from him. It wasn't in his nature to be nurturing, he was more like... a breath of some really harsh reality, maybe.

Her next comment had her giggling, and he couldn't help but to smile. "Good, don't need you messing up my coat," it could have been a joke, or maybe Larkspur was just blissfully unaware of how stringy and coarse his fur was.

She asked ten questions at once, Lark took it one at a time. "Different packs have different rules. Usually you're born into it or you make a new pack, sometimes when you're not happy with your leader, you fight for it. Some leaders give the position to someone they trust, when they're not able to lead anymore," he wasn't sure what Oak Tree Bend's rules were. "I was..." suddenly he felt his heart squeeze and felt a little guarded. "I was good at both," past-tense, he didn't think he was fit to lead anything anymore.

"Less good at fighting when I was younger, but my brother taught me," he'd always been the weaker one. Or... were you weaker, if you weren't the one that was dead? He thought on it for a moment before deciding no, in the end he'd been stronger. Maybe it wasn't true, but Larkin found a little bit of comfort in it. "I wasn't supposed to become the leader, but me and my brother weren't happy, our pack wasn't happy. So we challenged them, and won," somehow he doubted this wouldn't be useful to Sahalie, who seemed mostly happy in the Bend.

"You don't even know how to fight, do you?" Larkspur got up and shook himself off. He didn't want for an answer, because even if she did know how to fight, he doubted she could do it well. "Get up. Fight me."

She was not sure if Lark was making a joke just to be a contrarian or if this was a real possibility he was considering. In reality, it seemed more likely he was hoping his sympathy would drive Sahalie away towards some other wolf. She snorted, noting with a little surprise how the air expelled from her nostrils fogged up in front of her like smoke. Slowly the two of them settled into harmless jibes and Sahalie began to relax again, issuing another snort at his fur comment. Maybe Larkspur was forgetting that he wanted her to go away, maybe he was entertained, but either way it was a more comfortable atmosphere for the girl than the quickly fading pain of his barbed attitude.

Eagerly she wiggled beside him, settling down into the dirt that had once been encrusted with vomit. If she had been a school girl she would have dutifully taken notes. No one had spoken to her about what it was to lead, she just saw them do it, whatever that was. With some difficulty, the girl tried to apply his words in her own world: Darrah certainly thought that he was born into it, Drestig had not been happy with the idea of her father leading again, and Serach had simply had the job thrust upon him. But what about Spieden? Spieden had been a leader as long as she had ever known but the woman did not seem so taken with it as any of the men. As far as Oak Tree Bend was concerned, it was just a bunch of wolves who happened upon the highest rank by pure accident and either learned to love it or accept it. Was that right? Would that make taking over easier when the time came?

Even more interesting, however, was hearing what a younger Larkspur was like. Larkspur was just as mysterious as Alastor had been up until recently. Larkspur had a brother. Larkspur hadn't been happy and he tried to do something about it. This sounded like a very different man than the one she knew. Her mouth opened to ask more questions—about his brother, his pack, or Larkspur as a leader—before the conversation took a sudden turn and the white man was standing on his feet and barking at her.


She didn't know how to fight.


Sahalie hadn't hurt a single wolf in her life. Killing an animal was something entirely different. Hesitantly, she got to her paws: it would be wrong to deny him when fighting seemed like such a necessary part. Violence in itself, sure, was wrong, but this was about survival, about knowing she could protect her family and any wolves now and forever. Setting her jaw into a frown of concentration, she threw herself forward, not looking to delay the fight. She wanted Larkspur to see what she had. Her jaws were wide open and aimed for his shoulder, his chest, whatever was at her tiny snapping height.

Got permission to PP! Also giving Sarah permission to PP for me as well

He would have sighed in relief if he'd been in a different position. He sort of had expected a little bit of resistance from the small dark girl, but instead she sprung into action. By some good grace of -- dare he say it? -- the gods, or maybe it was one god, of the Mother, as that strange woman had said months ago, he'd avoided a barrage of questions. He should know better than to let Sahalie know something, anything about him, or who he was, or what he'd done.

Still, the poor girl seemed so lost. Could he really deny her a little guidance? He'd been the same way, too, seeking help when he needed it. He remembered wanting to be the best that he could be and doing anything and everything to achieve greatness. He had encouraged, then welcomed change. He'd adapted, grown. Larkpur missed the younger version of him, the one that wasn't so bitter and alone, the one that faced things head on instead of running away.

What had he done wrong, than do everything he thought had been right? What did you do when you couldn't fix things that were broken? He'd had no choice but to run and hind, then eventually find himself under a strange, crooked tree that he'd claimed as his, edging a lost girl to a fight instead of talking about himself.

It was weird, suddenly seeing Sahalie in a light that he hadn't quite seen yet. He'd never thought the girl as a fighter and her quick acceptance of his challenge didn't allow him to put any faith in her. She was young and inexperienced, and he... well he'd killed a man.

Unbeknownst to Larkspur, his skill wasn't entirely up to him, and more based on luck. Almost like some strange numbers would be the fate of the outcome of this fight...

The small girl had a surprising amount of kick to her as he felt her teeth latch onto his chest. There was a sharp pain there, not the sort of pain that you got from a friendly fight. Was that blood? Was the girl actually trying to hurt him? He about reminded her, but then something stopped him. Maybe getting a little angry would be good for her. He pushed forward, jaws going for the girl's scruff as he pushed the girl onto the ground.