Drooping Willows spirits guide us

Finally she had made it home. Though she was a day or two off track from having spent some time staying in the north with her family, Ravenna's trip had relatively went well. Of course the reasoning for her trip was very grim, though she had done well to tell others of what had happened, as well had managed not to get injured, attacked or lost. For her first and only trip and a very long one at that, the pale girl found a pride within herself. She had stayed outside of her pack's territory however for the majority of this day, having mixed messages about the idea of 'home'. Ravenna loved Willow Ridge very much and always would, though with the pain of loosing so much family still very fresh, it was hard not to be tormented by the ill thoughts in this part of the land.

As night came, Ravenna slipped closer to the pack, just outside its borders. She was lucky to avoid anyone for the moment. After all, having very few guardians and scouts in the pack meant taking far longer to cover the grounds borders. It is here Ravenna comes to the Royal's Rest", the very tree which her mother and farther had passed away under. She brushes her body against it, marking it as though it were her own. Just at the edges of the pack's territory, could she not stretch the limits to allow this to belong to the Willow wolves as well? After all, here at the borders in could be claimed as theirs, yet still free to any and all to visit, should any care enough to visit such a place.

"Oh father... You gave such good advise, I miss it so." Ravenna speaks out aloud to the skies, finding herself slumping onto the ground in a lay, atop the still fresh mount where her parents were both buried. Maybe if she concentrated hard enough, she could feel them here at her side. "But why did you leave me? Why did you go off without even telling anyone?" It was his abandonment which seemed to hurt the girl most of all. He nor Niles had not said a word to anyone in the pack about their idea - they just left. She sighs... "Mother saw you, you know... Before she died. Does that mean she is with you now? Does that mean I will see you again too?" Though she was no where near ready to die, Ravenna was happy with the thoughts that one day she might be in the presence of Isolde, Elettra and @Angier once more. Breathing deep, she tumbled over these thoughts within her brain as she finally found rest from her long travels.

(This post was last modified: Feb 24, 2017, 12:08 AM by Ravenna. Edit Reason: html is stupid. )

Sven had expected she would be back any day now, the timing seemed right. As he scented her nearby, a sense of deja vu over fell him, and immediately he began to recount the differences. For one thing, he was uplifted to have her home. There was an energy to his stride as he trotted over the snow to find her. The last time she'd been gone for a stretch of time had been when Isolde was missing, before her body had been found. He remembered the moment clearly, the winter just as bitterly cold around them and Ravenna just as alone as she was now. Vividly he recalled the rage that had laced his muscles as he stalked closer, how badly he had wanted to hurt her, to leave her buried with that frozen cache of dead rodents.

Now? Sven hoped she wasn't worse for wear, that maybe the experience had been some kind of cathartic for her and that she was still holding her head up high. The resentment of his youth had by now faded completely, his age-mate having proven herself to him. She was an Archer, she had never turned her back on her home, she had been there for her mother every step of the way. She was kind to Attica, and took after Elettra in so many ways. He had meant for so long to make the unspoken truce that seemed to exist between them more tangible, to reach out to her but so much had kept him from it. Sven Archer was done with waiting, however.

The closer he drew, the more he recognized where she was. When both Ravenna and that tall tree crested the horizon of his vision, the teen's ears leaned back and his tail curled at his hocks respectfully. Faintly, he heard her voice, but was unable to catch the meaning of the words. Slowing, he stopped at a fair distance. Maybe she had wanted this time alone.

"Welcome back," was all he said, his voice just loud enough to cross the space between them. It was clear that he would leave if she asked it of him.

Ravenna's eyes had fluttered to a shut, content to rest under the very tree that was now the source of her parent's forever resting place. She knew she could not have been laying there alone for long, as her mind danced somewhere between asleep and awake. She heard Sven's voice and opened her eyes. Those pale, silvery orbs which mimicked her mothers, which mimicked Sven's own and his father's before him, would look over the wolf even more pale then she. Would Ravenna's dark, willowy brother ever return to her and his children? Who knew. For now, she was content without Skoll whom had caused so much chaos in his wake. Now she had his two children, which both proved far better. "Thanks..." She says only at first, gathering herself a bit so that although she was still laying, was sitting up more properly to address him. Like him, she would recall the last time she had returned to the lands after a venture. How much different it had been then. Yet still, even though his mind had raged with aggression that night, he had still decided to help her instead, turning the tables for the pair. How much harder would have their lives been, how the pack or Elettra would have been, had these two wolves decided to continue to detest one another? However before she was much younger, her wondering for her sister far less traveled then the trek she had now made to the north. "I know Renier explained it to me, though it was still much farther then I would have imagined. It was like Morganna made a point to be as far away from this land as Relic Lore could offer." The corners of her lips tugged, not really have meant to have spoken that as grim as it had sounded, but it was the truth. It took nearly a week just to travel upward to them in anyone within the family here wished to ever visit, plus another week to travel back down. That is if weather permitted, one did not get a little lost, or ran into any kind of trouble.

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity

He'd half expected that she would, ask him to leave her be with the memory of her parents. Instead, she seemed comfortable with his presence, and so he padded closer. It was still unsettling for him to visit this place, a scar forever carved within his heart by his grandmother's death. Trying not to think about her wasting away under the tilled, frozen earth he focused instead on Ravenna's words. The most she had spoken to him in a long time, maybe ever.

A soft puff of air left his nostrils at the statement. He knew scant few details about his aunt's home, and had never yearned to know more. The teen had no intentions of visiting the woman, quite content to leave the responsibility of keeping in touch in her paws. After all, she was solely responsible in his eyes for the choice to move so damn far away.

"Fine by me," he remarked with a roll of his shoulders.

"Must've been one hell of a trip though."

A pause, before his curiosity got the better of him; "Were there really no trees?"

He came a little closer, her words to him having been a formal invite for his approach. Another different thing about him now. Become he would have powered on up to her whether she liked it or not. If nothing else, the abandonment of so many others had at least mended their void and had given Ravenna the opportunity to get closer to Attica as well. She was the only wolf she had that Ravenna could play as a sister now, where she had no left close to her, whether being far enough north or being deep within the void.

She nodded to his question and then nodded even deeper still to his second. "None." She began, "Well, maybe one or two small, gangly ones in the distance- but that is it. It was nice to run straight and fast in the open breeze, but I'd never live there. Even if you can see danger more easily, they can also see you. Its so barren, so exposed. The monadock is quite a sight to see, but there is no beauty there. No greens, colorful flowers or the sound of rushing water. Just vast, still openness." It was unlike anything she had seen before and although her words may have hint that it was something he might want to see sometime in his life, she also suggested it was no place that she would ever dare call home. Perhaps the Whitestone wolves relished on their hardiness in the barren land, though Ravenna would much rather had the safety and beauty of a home within the forest not only as the best choice for herself, but for pups.

(This post was last modified: Feb 25, 2017, 06:51 AM by Ravenna.)

Settling onto his haunchs, he considered her description. It sounded horrid to him, and thus quite fitting for those who had deserted the Ridge to settle in such a wasteland. Did Morganna ever miss it here, he wondered? Or did she feel like she belonged up there, in the emptiness? Sven wasn't likely to ever ask her, so he didn't dwell on it long. Instead, his eyes wandered about their surroundings, to the willows and their snowy covers.

"I love it here," he mused aloud to her.

"I don't understand what drives everyone to leave, I'm certain I would never feel at home anywhere else."

That was only part of why he could not let the pack die. Perhaps if Skoll had not brought his sister into this world, he would be content to live amongst the willows regardless of whether others were at his side or not. But now, if the pack disbanded? For @Attica's best interests, he would have to find them a new home. As of now, that choice would most likely be with the wolves of Charred Ash Draw, and their proximity would help. Yet still, even the mere thought of it pained his heart.

No; he would make sure the Ridge not only continued to stand, but grew to thrive again. In only two weeks, he would have his chance to ensure that possibility was fully within his control.

She smiles to his words. A small smile, though there none the less. She would watch his closely with those pale silver eyes as his own attention turned towards the snowy landscape, dotted with willow trees. This land was beautiful. The trees were full and offered shade from the sun and cover from the rain, though the forest was no where near so dense as some that they could not run freely throughout it. At the bottom of the territory was a slow flowing river for water and just beyond where fields. To the west of that, a meadow and then the Lagoon which was the largest water source of the Lore, bringing all kinds of life. Ravenna felt as though her mother could not have picked a more perfect set up for her future family. "I can't imagine it..." She agrees with Sven, finding herself slowly lifting from the ground where she had been resting at her parent's grave and then taking a step closer to Sven before sitting down. "Though I can think of why some might leave..." She admits, her attention turning out in the same direction which Sven's had, no longer looking at him for she did not wish to catch any disappointment he might hold over his features as she spoke. "The memories here can be rather painful..." Sometimes she thought her mind was playing tricks on her. She would think she saw her mother's dark figure passing by in the distance, or her father's howl dancing over the trees. She could still smell her mother in the Infirmary among the skins and furs she had been given. "I don't think I can ever forgive Greer and Morganna for leaving my parents and I don't think I can ever look at Niles again for what he did..." She drifted off long enough just to turn her attention back to Sven, searching for his expression now. "But after so much death, I have learned I could never hate them. I've so little family left now..." Although she could not say she liked her brother Nile at all and she still would never trust Morganna and Greer as she had once before, she did not hate them. She would save her hatred elsewhere because for all she knew, the rest of her family could die by next winter....

It was of no surprise that Ravenna was, in this regard, of the same mind of him. Likewise, he was not caught off guard by her sympathy for those who had moved on. Certainly, the woman possessed a deeper capacity for understanding than he might ever. It was the department he'd always fallen short in, unable to pry into others' minds and see things from their point of view, to understand the pain that drove them to make such horrid decisions and walk away from the fall out it caused. Except for a very few, short moments throughout his life, Sven had felt certain that this was because their really was no worth justification, only fabricated excuses.

What she want on to clarify, the difference between blame, mistrust and hate did, however, resonate with him, at least in a sense. He didn't hate Morganna either, as much as he wanted to. Hell, he didn't even hate his father or Niles, even though the anger was still a pool of lava that refused to cool within him. Maybe it was for his own sanitary that he was putting in that divider between the two, maybe it was an imaginary line that didn't actually mean anything. He knew that when it came to those selfish siblings, he would still do all that he could to keep them from harm.

Sven wanted to think it would be the same for Niles. Wanted to, because what good wolf would let a family member die? He pictured him, at the precipice of what he imagined Morganna's monadnock to be, barely clinging to the stone and begging for his life. The pale Archer heir wanted to think that he would pull him back up, for sake of their blood, that thin familial time. God how he wanted to, in that fantasy, snap at his paws instead, watch him plummet with terror contorting his features until the impact when his was body was shredded by sheer force.

He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the dim, orange lights that appeared upon the back of lids to try and force the image, the emotions away. He would save him. He would have to, because he was a good wolf.

"I'm sticking around," he assured her, when his pale eyes opened again after the last of her words had faded from the air. Yes, there was few of them left, here where they belonged most of all, but that was why they needed to stick together all the more.

"Me n' Atty are here for the long haul. I know you will be too. We'll turn this place around, make it into what nonna built, what she'd be proud of."

There was a silence between the pair for some time. Once upon a time ago, she might have felt awkward in these moments, uneasy and tense. She could remember feeling such a way when Sven stood there, looming over her. Now she lay her content in the very spot which her parents had both died and been buried, only looking over Sven's features as he took a moment, closing his eyes in thought. He had grown large, enough so to rival her own size and surely excel his fathers, an elder brother of hers she had not seen in so very long. In fact, most of her brothers she knew little to nothing about, savor Greer and Skoll. She only knew of what her parents had told her and little stories about them while they were growing up. She would like to think that should they ever meet, even if she could not put all her trust in them, or maybe even like them, that she could still love them and treat them with respect as family should. Sven and Ravenna would have to strive to be better then them and act the way family should, even if they could not. They could at least say in life they did the best they could and tried until there was nothing left.

Sven spoke then of making the place something to be proud of, something which would be as grand as what 'Nonna' had made. Ravenna doubted she could match what was Willow Ridge under her mother's ruling, though she would do her best. Of course, it would have to be as the second within the pack, under the guidance of @Enoki. "I'm glad for it... Attica is a sweet girl, she's taken to keeping me company often. And the Ridge needs you here." If Sven was uncertain that anyone thought so, she would speak it. As they had grown, it would seem they had more or less been forced to like one another, if only due to the fact that both of them were so very close to Elettra. She had brought them together during a tough time and now they benefited from that. "I know one day I will rule this pack. I will prove my right one day." After all, Morganna had abandoned that right by abandoning the pack. Ravenna was Elettra's only daughter now to count on to carry on the strong reign of women within the ranks. "But mom made Enoki leader and Enoki deserves her chance. For now I will master my study as a medic and get more combat practice in until my time comes." Enoki had served as a great hunter and a wonderful friend to Elettra for years. She deserved this and Ravenna had no intention of taking that away from her.