Oak Tree Bend Let's play pretend

for @Mabel, @Corsair is also welcome to pop in if he wants

act like it comes naturally

Things had changed. It had been subtle at first and then... not. The firey girl chewed her cheek as she considered the implications, all the tension that lay thickly in the air, the looks that her parents threw at each other enough to steal the oxygen from the air. She didn't like it. Not at all. It was like the earth was shifting beneath her feet, threatening to fall away and she couldn't help but think that maybe it was her fault. Maybe, if she'd just done more, been better - brighter, louder like Mabel? Maybe if she was better at hunting or stronger like Corsair?

Maybe if she tried harder now things wouldn't be broken anymore.

What if it was too late?

The tight feeling in Ayla's stomach was clawing its way up her throat and she knew she had to move. Pushing herself hastily up she headed for the border, counting the steps from the grand oak as she went, 5, 6, 7, 8... She had to remind herself to breathe.

Ayla Donata

Sorry this took so long! Also a reminder tag for @Corsair if you wanted to hop in.

Mabel didn’t like how things were at home but she mostly did her best to ignore them. To do this she just avoided the problem which was a skill she had gotten very good at during her near constant groundings. The girl spent most of her days out of the territory now that they were allowed, she practiced hunting with Corsair and she hung out occasionally with Cham and she was even spending more time with Ayla. But, perhaps by her own will she had also been ignoring how the tension had been affecting everybody else.

Lounging just outside the territory and enjoying a break from the rain Mabel had taken up shop on a fallen tree - not that far from the matching tree infested with mice inside the markers. Seeing the mechanical movements of her russet sister pulled her relaxed expression downwards into a grimace. The Donata loved to pick on her sibling but there would be hell to pay if anyone but her or Corsair ever upset her, that was a right reserved for them only. Jumping down from her position the cream coloured wolf padded forward, ”Ayla? Ayla what happened?” Whose ass was she going to kick?

I saw you in the village playing mandolin

Ayla didn't hear her name called at first, her lips pulling at the edges in a worried line, brows pinched ever so slightly as she continued to worry about just how she was meant to fix whatever was wrong when she didn't even know what the problem was... It was the movement of her sister that finally got her attention, the russet girl flinching ever so slightly as she realised Mabel had been talking to her and she'd harldy caught more than the last two words. "Happened? Nothing's happened... I don't think? Or maybe it has... I don't know." She knew her sister would be annoyed by her vagueness, but the truth was, she didn't have an answer, just a feeling that something wasn't quite right."Does it feel like the forest is sad to you? or maybe angry..."

Ayla Donata

"Trees don't have feelings, silly," Corsair called out, his tone haughty as he sauntered up to his two sisters. But his smile was kind and the flick of his tail was playful, not aggressive. He'd seen Ayla get up and leave and decided to follow, not realizing that there was something clearly wrong that was upsetting his younger sister until he drew level with her and Mabel. Glance flicked between the two Donata girls before he settled on Ayla. Reaching out with his muzzle to nudge her ears, he tried to reassure her that everything would be alright, even though he wasn't entirely sure that it would. He wouldn't have called it sad, but he did know what she meant - there was something off, maybe even forced that hadn't been there before.

"We'll get through it, ya know, together," he asserted, looking to Mabel to back him up on that.

Ayla didn’t even seem to realize that she was talking and the grimace deepend on her own expression. Maybe this wouldn’t be such an easy fix after all, especially when she started rambling about whether something had happened or not. Opening her mouth to tell her sister to cut it out and just tell her what the hell she was talking about she never got the chance. Could trees feel sad? She didn’t think so, they didn’t ever talk or move except with the wind but they also went to sleep all winter so she wasn’t sure.

Corsair on the other paw seemed to be more resolved in his opinion on the matter. Mabel turned her attention to him in relief, he was always better at helping Ayla when she was upset than the other girl was. He was more sensitive to her feelings when the Donata was more likely to just tell her to suck it up and try to distract her. His tone was conceited but it was clearly playful, still the brown eyes shot him a look of exasperation, even she knew now wasn’t the time to make fun of her.

Mabel circled around to press her flank against Ayla’s side while Corsair nudged her ears, silently pressing her forward back into a walking motion. The farther they got from the borders the easier things would be, she knew that from experience. The air wasn’t as heavy out here, Ayla would be able to breath. Her own expression was guarded as Mabel stared straight ahead, ”It’s just those things inside Mom, they’re the reason they fight all the time.” The idea had been forming in her subconscious but now that it was said out loud it made so much sense, ”Think about it, they were weird in the winter yeah, but they only started fighting when Mom got pregnant. They’re the reason everything has gone to shit.” Finally she glanced sideways at her littermates, ”I hate them already.” They would have her back surely, it would always be the three of them against everyone else, no matter what.

(This post was last modified: May 31, 2018, 03:39 PM by Mabel.)

Trees don't have feelings. A very un-Ayla like scowl passed her face (or maybe it was very Ayla-like where her siblings were concerned). How would he know anyway? She was sure they did, otherwise why would their leaves wilt, and why would the air be so heavy with... otherness sometimes? Maybe he was right, and she was just a bit touched. She wasn't even sure he believed what he had said himself, with that smile on his face. Her own expression softened in response.

With her siblings surrounding her like this, well, maybe everything really would be okay, but it was the maybe that had her so concerned.

When Mabel went on to blame their younger siblings, an even more dreadful feeling took hold of her gut, twisting it into knots as she sped up to follow after her sister. "But, I mean... do you think @Lila felt like this... with us?" To think that she had been the cause of any of this anxiety, well, it just made her feel all sorts of awful. Maybe she owed their older sister an apology? A gift? Oh god how was she going to fix any of this?!

"I mean... it's not like its their fault..." Nobody really asked to be born, did they?

For a moment, Ayla's scowl made him think that maybe had gone too far. Mabel also looked displeased, although that was less unexpected. But then they were moving and it seemed his sisters had forgiven him for making light of Ayla's feelings. Which were serious, even if he didn't think it had anything to do with the trees.

Mabel had her own theory on the matter, which gave him pause. He hadn't really linked the timing of his parents' fighting to his mother's pregnancy, but now that he thought about it, the timing did seem to match up. Stomach sinking, Corsair couldn't help but feel guilty as Ayla brought up Lila - had their older sister felt the same about them? They had another sister too - Kyna - who was even older than Lila. Had she felt the same about Lila? Was this just the way of things? He had no idea and it made him anxious to think about it too much. "Maybe. We could always ask Lila if they've done this before...maybe its normal, when this happens," he suggested in response to both of them, his tone clearly uncertain.

"But even if it isn't normal and there's something different this time, Lila has always been nice to us. Shouldn't we do the same to them? At least until we know for certain that they're shitheads?"

@Ayla @Corsair one more post from each of you?

Mabel shook her head firmly to her sister’s words and her mouth hardened into a line when her brother added his two cents. She had expected Ayla to be soft, but thought that Corsair would have backed up her theory and agreed to hate them. Shaking her head again one more time she sighed, ”No. Lila told me once she was happy when we were coming because before us she was alone.” Which, she wasn’t sure exactly how all of that worked because there was also Kyna who they had met that one time, where had she been?

Glancing pointedly sideways at her siblings she tried to further drive her point home, ”And do either of you feel particularly happy?” Clearly this wasn’t the same as last year, and they definitely weren’t all alone. It had been just a theory forming in her subconscious before but now it was cemented in the foreground of her thoughts. She hated her siblings to be - they were to blame for everything that was happening.

Speeding up her paws she broke away from her siblings, turning to head a different direction. Corsair could take care of Ayla, her ego was bruised they hadn’t immediately accepted what she had to say and also she needed time to think. She needed to be alone.

Mabel exit

@Corsair I am the worst, if you'd like to wrap this up.

you're pushin', you're pushin', I'm pullin' away

At least Corsair seemed to be in agreement with her, to a point. She would love her siblings no matter what, but all this discord was churning up her insides until she was sure they felt like the way a bloated carcass left in the sun for the crows looked.

That Lila had felt happy was a relief, but she couldn't say with any certainty that she was. "Honestly, I feel like I wanna be sick. It's like everything is closing in and I can't... breathe right." But it'd all pass wouldn't it? It had to... and it wasn't like her answer mattered, Mabel was already taking her leave.

A worried sigh left her face looking tired and drawn. She was far too young to look, or feel so old. She turned to her brother with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "I'm gonna go... hunt or something if you wanna come with... but I don't need a babysitter." After all, she wasn't the baby anymore.

I give and I give and I give and you take

Mabel did have a point, Corsair didn't feel particularly happy that they were getting new siblings. But he wasn't unhappy about it, just uncertain about what it meant and how it would affect them. He didn't feel sick like Ayla nor was he angry like Mabel. But his older sister didn't stay around long enough for him to put the words together. She was already taking off on her own, leaving him and Ayla to their thoughts.

"She'll be fine," he said, trying to force a bit of cheer into his voice. But his uncertain face turned into a smile when Ayla said she was going to go hunt, and he was quick to accept her begrudging invitation. "Yeah, let's do it," he leaned into Ayla's shoulder. "Let's go see what we can find."

Fade out