Dead Empress Backwater always waiting

RE:  Hazelnut, a rabbit falls from the sky and strikes you; an eagle has lost its meal while flying overhead.

Hazelnut looked up at the sky, boring, and grey, and unimpressive as it was. She had hoped for a little cloud watching but as the day drew on it became clear to her that that was just going to be how things went today. Cloud watching was no fun when the whole sky was a cloud. The cub stood with a sigh, giving up her plan in favor of finding something a little less.. dull.

The Backwater held a plethora of wolves, the youngest of which she might be able to goad into an adventure, so it was with this new goal in mind that she made her way toward the heart of the territory in search of someone her age.

Margo was feeling a little bit more confident today than she was normally used to. Perhaps it's because the encounter she had with her half-brother just a day previously had gone a little better than she would have expected. Not perfect, but a little better. Just because she was confident, however, did not mean that the girl thought herself capable to make any sort of meaningful relationship with any of the wolves in her pack that she'd yet to spend much time around, but perhaps she'd be able to hold a conversation without saying or doing something too embarrassing. She hoped.

The Valle child had been at the heart of the pack territory. She'd been there for some time, desperately hoping that another wolf would approach her so that she wouldn't have to do it herself. To Margo, approaching someone would be the hardest part, and also the part where she was most likely to make a fool out of herself. The wolf was confident, not stupid. She kind of wanted to just give up and go take a nap, but the girl knew that this was something she absolutely needed to see through to the end. For herself. If nobody showed up, whatever, that wasn't an error on her end. Not unless the other wolves were purposely avoiding her, turning tail the second they saw her in the clearing. Then she supposed it was a her problem. But that wasn't the case, was it?

Those last second intrusive thoughts made Margo's eyes widen as she caught sight of the approaching pup... Pinecone, was it? The poor girl hadn't seen that miserable ole' Margo had been lingering nearby, and now Margo's presence was going to ruin Pinecone's whole day. She felt guilty, maybe she should just leave and take a nap after all before the pup felt the obligation to talk to her.

Eros too intersected with his perceived-siblings as he searched for something to preoccupy him. Archer wasn't around, and that usually resulted in a very bored state for the peach-eyed pup. As he waddled along, he caught the scents of Margo and Hazel and picked up his pace, excited to find company.

There didn't seem to be a lot going on yet when he caught sight of them both.

"Haze, Marg!" he yipped out happily as he approached, clearly enthusiastic.

"Watcha doin'?"

Her eyes brightened as they landed on the silvery pup and Hazel picked up the pace, waddling on stubby legs toward Marguerite. "Marg!" She squealed, excited to finally have someone to play with, but then Eros' voice touched her ears, and just as she turned to look at him the cub felt something crash against her back, and her tiny limbs gave out as her stomach collided with the soil below.

A terrified squeak erupted from Hazel's throat as she rolled away and scrambled to her paws, looking desperately for whatever just attacked her. Where she expected to see something as scary as a bear, or a mountain lion, or.. like a really big, scary bird, or even a monster squirrel with super big teeth, she found.. nothing?  Wait.. there was something.. something small, and brown, and very much not alive at all. What the heck?

Margo's eyes widened even further as not only Pinecone, but Eros as well had approached her in greeting. Her ears flattened to her skull ever so slightly. This was no good. She wasn't even sure how she was going to entertain one of the fellow kids from the pack, let alone two. At least Eros liked her though, and if he didn't then the Valle girl would have to congratulate the boy on his impeccable acting skills, because Marguerite was pretty sure that Eros liked everybody. That being the case, maybe she wouldn't have to worry about entertaining Pinecone at all, maybe Eros would be lively enough for the both of them.

Before Margo could utter a single word to the pair of them, a small, lifeless animal fell from the sky, crashing into Pinecone, seemingly spooking the girl. "Oh!! Papa said that happens sometimes, right Eros? Sometimes it just rains fish and other dead things. I thought it only happened outside of the pack grounds though." She frowned, wondering if this was something she should mention to her parents. If it was an event that only usually took place outside of pack boarders then it probably didn't mean anything good that the carcass rain had found a way to trespass.

Eros' eyes widened and his stout jaw dropped with shock as something dropped squarely onto his pseudo-sister. He'd seen it before, but corpses falling from the sky would take more than once for him to get used to. Margo piped up however with such aloofness that Eros felt like maybe he was overreacting again. What did the adults call it? Dramatic?

"Um, yeah," Dad had said that.

"He said it uh," Eros jogged closer to Hazelnut as he spoke, trying to recall the conversations had that exciting day. There'd been so much they had seen, the falling fish had just been the first weird thing.

"It comes from uh eee-gulls and they go like, rreeee!"

He sniffed his kin over, making sure she was okay.

"Y'know. Birds."

Hazelnut listened in stunned silence to Margo's explanation and Eros' after that. Nobody ever told her that sometimes the skies would just open up and eee-gulls would bring dead things instead of rain, so this was all news to her, and more than that, that they would seemingly target an innocent bystander. If this was an issue shouldn't her brother have let her in on the secret too? Or was this knowledge just like.. a dad thing?

It took Eros' approach for her to find her voice, "'M okay." she said, dismissing the pain in her hip with a playful paw to his face. There was too much going on at the moment for her to worry about being hurt. "But why?" Perhaps one of them knew the answer. "Do they do it on purpose?" Because it sure felt like they did.

Did they do it on purpose? Margo couldn't remember if her dad had gave a reason for why the eee-gulls brought the death rain. In fact, Margo didn't really know much about eee-gulls at all, aside from the fact that it was a bird. But what made it different from all the other birds, and why had it been given charge of making the weather so grotesque? Did that make the bird more important, or the most hated bird in the whole world? Maybe eee-gulls were just jerks and thought it was a funny prank? Man, next time she'd have to remember to ask for more context.

Marguerite put her paw on Eros's face as well for good measure, not sure if that's actually what she was supposed to be doing or not but Walnut had done it, so. "I think it's 'cuz they gotta make sure that everyone is eatin' okay. Like they gotta make sure that nobody's hungry or somethin'." She wasn't exactly sure if that was the truth, but it sure sounded like it could be probable, probably. After a moment longer in contemplation, the Valle girl realized that unlike Walnut, who only papped at the boy's face, her paw was still lingering there. "Oh. Sorry."

It made him feel better for her to confirm that she was okay, and it certainly was enough to cease his concern regarding any possible injury. It didn't occur to him that she'd have any reason to lie, so that was that.

Her question after was one he hadn't thought to ask. His brows knit as he tried to think; had Da shared that information anyways, maybe? He continued to sift through the memories of that day as Margo settled a paw against his cheek and gave her own take. What she had to say sounded pretty reasonable to him.

"Yeah so you needta make sure yer full all the time 'cause else they'll know," he added on, musing aloud without thinking to clarify that it was just that; the ramblings of a monthling, not something he'd actually been taught.

"You shoulda been on the walk."

Then she'd know all this too. The older he got, the less it made sense to him the weird ways they were all divided up. Hazelnut needed to learn just as much as he did, didn't she?

"Hey you guys wanna play tag?"

(This post was last modified: Dec 13, 2021, 06:53 AM by Eros.)

Hazelnut listened to the other cubs' back and forth, soaking up the information that they had to offer like a sponge. They had moms and dads.. or well, they had moms and at least one dad, so surely their information was twice as right. Right? "All the time?" How could she make sure she was full all the time? Sometimes her tummy started rumbling before she even knew she was hungry. "How do they know?"

His next statement made her head tilt. "Walk?" What walk? Had it been a special walk.. or like.. a long walk? Would there be another one?

But all thoughts about that were thrown to the wayside when tag was mentioned. "Yes!! Not it!" She giggled and took a step back, ready to run.