Celestial Falls Stars in the Water

@Aponi 3/9, night time. :))))))

The temperatures were not nearly low enough to freeze the falls all the way, not like the Three Sisters that Sahalie missed so much. But it would have to do. Her head tipped all the way back, and she strained to look at the jagged shelf of ice that covered the start of the waterfall. It was like a thousand, massive icicles glittering in the starlight. She closed her eyes and took a breath. It all tasted like strarlight. This was the farthest north she had come so far, uncertain about wandering any closer to Oak Tree Bend lest she lose all her strength. It would drag her back if she let it, she knew. Her dream was strong but perhaps, she worried, that her homesickness was stronger. Her sunflower eyes blinked away visions of Serach's defeated form, slumped against a tree. How had winter treated them? Were they still okay? Were they still there? But if she smelled the borders she might not turn back.

And then where would she be?

So she tried to forget where she was, eyes trained on the twinkling water and the mists of stray water drops diffusing at the base where the cliff met flat land again. The pool itself was frozen over, but as the girl stepped closer to the edge of the pool, wondering if maybe the ice was skate-able she noticed how dark the ice was. The small pond was imperceptibly deep, and the small girl backed up. The deep waters would probably keep the pool warmer than the the other water sourced in the area—mere puddles compared to this—in this time of the year, and the ice would not be as frozen. Not safe. She pouted, but it would be enough to just take in the cloudless night and the scenery.

 

Much to Aponi and Serach's delight it had become clear to them that they had successfully conceived. Her heat scent had slowly faded away and in its place was the sweet smell of pregnancy and her mood swings had vanished as if overnight. The mother was practically giddy, for the first time this was planned, it was justified, there were no questions other than what would the names be, would they make a new den or use Lila's? Perhaps it was a little over the top how she was acting around her mate now, initiating play fighting, almost constantly touching him in some way, giggling like a school girl.

However at this very moment Aponi had been driven from his side. Instead of laying beside him she had tossed and turned, shifted into every possible position she could think of without sleeping her mate before huffing in frustration. Pulling herself out of the warmth of the communal den and into the crisp spring air the mother to be had started walking without real destination or purpose in mind. If she had woken her mate she was sure that he would have walked with her, wherever she wanted to go and offered her the protection against whatever threat there may be.

But she didn't wake Serach.

Instead she embraced the cool night, the way the moon shone through the fog of the spectral woods, until the trees grew thicker and higher as she entered the copse. Soon her days and nights would be full of pup rearing and these next couple of months would be her last moments of total freedom, the next few weeks the short time before her sides ballooned. Content to just follow wherever her whims took her Aponi stopped in her tracks as she stumbled across an unmistakable scent; Sahalie.

Picking up her pace she came upon the clearing, the waterfalls and the chubby yearling pouting at the edge of the pond. Aponi couldn't help the chuckle that slipped through her lips, "Well well, has the world finally gotten Sahalie Tainn to stop smiling?"

 

@Aponi

And because Sahalie thought of home it appeared. It took the form of Aponi, silver and regal now that she wore Spieden's old title and had grown into it over the last few months. The half-frozen mists from the falls made it difficult to gauge her scent. Last year the woman had used a fake name and enticed Sven's father into giving her a child, and so surely, surely she and Serach intended—and already tried—to conceive. The girl looked up uncertainly, not exactly threatened in her posture but she was wary after all that had happened and all that she had learned (and about Aponi especially). The dark girl and Aponi had always gotten along alright, bonding a little over their shared distaste for Naira, but after everything... Somehow her laughter seemed a little like her mother's. The girl could not ignore that she was being decidedly friendly, though.

"Well, I was thinking about ice slipping 'til I realized this pool isn't frozen solid enough," was the immediate reason for her pout, but not the deeper one that stretched back into her yearnings for home. What a child she was, thinking about playing on the ice and waxing nostalgic about Spectral Woods and its bittersweet winter. "You uhm.."

"It's good to see you again," Even though there were mixed feelings—a lot of feelings—the overall sentiment was a lot less murky than any thought concerning her father. "Things are...going well?" There were, maybe, a lot less wolves in Oak Tree Bend this year to end up pregnant, and that was probably for the best. Aponi looked well fed, so clearly things could not be terrible.

 

Sahalie made no move to stand and Aponi didn't much care, her posture remained neutral other than the slow sway of her tail behind her. They weren't on or near pack lands so there was no need to assert her dominance here and even if there was the queen had loosened her reigns recently. The females were still being met with stricter postures than usual but the mother was much too happy with her conception to be as snarly as she had been before. The males, well they were treated like any other time of the year, reprimanded if they stepped out of line but otherwise met with large smiles and possibly even hummed greetings. Aponi truly had never had a happier spring season.

While the expectant mother was glowing with joy and well, pregnancy, the yearling still lay pouting by the water. Now though her pout was mixed with something else; hesitance maybe? Aponi came to lounge near her, far enough away they could fit another wolf or two between them but close enough they could speak without everyone in the damn forest hearing. The snow covered earth was cool against her belly but the thick silver pelt kept her from feeling the moisture. Nodding her head the Donata smiled again, "Things have been very good. Serach and I are expecting this spring and my niece and her friends joined the pack a while back, Ice and Lila get along quite well." It was a quick overview of it all, and maybe the first time she had announced out loud about her pregnancy other than to her mate.

Looking over the girl's dark plump form the silver brows lifted when the scent of her heat hit her then. Alastor had allowed her to wander this far without him with her smelling this way? "And you? How have you been? I'm a little surprised to see you here again but I'm glad." Maybe her and Alastor were no more, maybe she had come back to try to rejoin the Bend. Aponi had no problem with this other than maybe a little hesitation but Serach may be a different story.

 

screams at self for being horrible @Aponi

The good mood didn't falter from Aponi's face, and gradually Sahalie's wariness softened. When the well-rounded lady took a seat the girl did not flinch or make a face. For a moment she simply forgot that they carried two different scents, about all the things she had learned of Aponi in her time away, and above all she forgot the fact that the only reason they were having this talk was because of near-cataclysmic events, and all she could feel was the simple, casual friendliness of a packmate behind the grey woman's smile. All that was left to remind Sahalie was the content of the words—things she wouldn't have to be told, were she still in Oak Tree Bend. She would know that Serach was definitely the father, that Ice was healing the hole that Rissa left, that the Bend was growing strong again. No one would have had to tell her.

"That's so good to hear," she breathed with a genuine but slow smile, "I've worried and wondered about the Bend every day since I left." She was not afraid to admit that she missed it, but knew that it was better left unsaid. Sahalie did not want to be invited back. Sahalie did not want to succumb to the weakness, the easiness of giving up her dream for the comfort of her childhood home. "But I've always hoped that you guys would, ya know Thrive Regardless and stuff."

"If I'm being honest,"—which was always, since she was a poor liar—"Things have been a mixed cache but I'm finally getting somewhere. Me and Al are looking for a place to start a pack, somewhere south of here." Her was tossed back over her shoulder and she chuckled, "You can take the girl out of the Vale, but you can't take the Vale out of the girl." Or could you really take Sahalie out of the Vale, since she was back here already? Either way, the dark girl was tied to the land by invisible roots. Her leaving could only be temporary. This valley was her home.

oh god I really am the worst

Sahalie seemed accepting enough of her presence, not that Aponi would have cared much should she have been bothered by it. The younger girl was a lot closer to the queen's home than the silver wolf was to the other's. Besides, the Donata was probably a much better fighter than the Tainn, not that they had ever tested it of course. The exchange of information was pleasant enough, and the mother to be listened closely to be sure that her pregnancy brain fog would not cloud her from taking the correct words back to inform Serach. 

Nodding her head to Sahalie's plan the queen let the silence stretch on for perhaps a couple moments too long. Sahalie had a tendency to try and overfill the quiet and Aponi had always found it mildly amusing, even if it might frustrate the younger woman. Then she launched in with her own observation, "I'll always consider the mountain my true home, but I doubt Serach would ever leave these woods alive." It was like the kind of placates exchanged between acquaintances or that you might find on greeting cards in cheap dollar stores, a cliche. Then turning to look at Sahalie more critically she got to the point, "I hold nothing against you for following Sahalie, but I'm not sure I can say the same for Serach. He sees it as more of a personal betrayal than I do. I suggest you speak with him before settling your pack so close to ours."

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