Heartleaf Creek so I pay the price of what I lost

January 14th; Afternoon; Snow; -23.89 ° F, -31.05 ° C.

Winter was starting to drag. Without plants to harvest, Oleander’s assigned duty as the pack’s Healer was slow to start. While Clover was recovering from her injury he reorganized the Infirmary. Anything that was still of use, he kept in the furthest reaches of the den. Everything else, wilted or otherwise, he carried out into the forest and buried. It would return to the earth as easily as it had come from it. In some ways, he believed that if he gave back to the Lore, it would continue to give in kind.

The rest of the morning he spent digging up the floor of the Infirmary. Hard-packed mud and cold slush were no match for mature nails and strong forepaws. What excess he removed was flung out behind him into the open, later packed down into the clearing.

When the Valle was done with his task, he set out for the river to clean the mud from the white of his pelt. Riverbank gravel crunched underfoot and nails clicked on the broken sheets of ice. Oleander didn’t mind blood, but mud… that was something that had to come out. A quick drink and he dipped his forelimbs into the freezing stream.

In the silence of the mid-morning, he watched as the snow really started to come down. All four limbs planted in the creek with his head tilted upwards to the sky, Oleander was but a lone wolf.

His head leveled as a sigh rose from him in a cloud of moisture. He rubbed his forepaws against one another, the rest of the dirt washed away by the current. A shift of his paw and he saw something loosen from between the silt and riverbed rocks. Attention recaptured, he pawed at the brown rock then plunged his head below the surface. The thing landed in the snow with a soft thud. Oleander’s eyes narrowed, his forepaw raised to turn it over again. He shook the water from his cheeks, realization slow to dawn on him.

Brown coloration, weird bumps… were those…legs? And… toes?

A frog!

The Valle’s eyebrows rose. He actually caught another one! Curiosity aside, he jabbed the thing without response. Hibernation was something he had very limited knowledge about thus far. Was it dead? There was no way to be sure; he had no idea if it was sleeping or if it had frozen to death beneath the surface. He nosed it for good measure, the creature remaining in its deep sleep.

Back into the river he went, sifting through the currents and weirs until he found another one. He had to move a couple of waterlogged branches to find it, but he found it. Prized frog-sicle between his teeth, he went to set it with the first one. What he would do with them next, he would decide later…

The Valle man had been checking in on Clover, not that he could help her medically at all but figured she could use a little company. He knew others often visited with her as well, her kids, her “adopted” kid Eros, Vayko, but he liked to make an appearance as well. The whole pack was really behind her, doing what they could to make her feel better. As the day wore on into the afternoon he had taken his leave, ready to do an “attendance” of sorts with the pack, check in that they were all doing well and see if they needed help with anything.

Following Oleander’s half stale trail out of the territory and towards the creek, but when his son came into view he held back for a moment. A small smile played across his muzzle as he watched his son fish frozen frogs out of the creek and paw at them in the snow bank. Then he moved forward, leaning down to sniff the one that Oleander wasn’t actively engaged with. Glancing up at the other man he gave an exaggerated shudder, ”They’ve always given me the creeps when they winter freeze like this.” Sure it made easy pickings for a quick snack, but he just didn’t like it. That they were basically dead but not dead, and once they warmed up in the spring they would be normal again.

It just didn’t seem right.

Oleander was checking over his frog-shaped ice cubes when Viorel's nose joined him. His nose had been pressed against the one he had just set down. Their eyes met and Viorel commented, "They’ve always given me the creeps when they winter freeze like this." Oleander's head canted to one side, lowering it while his tail gave a low wag. It seemed appropriate enough a greeting...

"They're... not... still alive, are they?" one half of his muzzle wrinkled, uncertain. Looking down at the small amphibian, he pawed at it. Beneath his paw pads, he could feel the frigidity of its body. Like a stone, it half-tumbled over the ground, the whole of it rigid and wholly unresponsive. Another sniff and bout of hesitation that was laced with curiosity, "Could... we eat it?" Like a cub, his ears flicked back. He wasn't hungry enough to try it, but it seemed like a good idea for a cache.

         

OLEANDER |

Nobody gets me like you do I'm not the same, not after you

Oleander seemed even less thrilled about the frozen frogs than Viorel did, though he had a lot of questions about them. Grinning a little at the thought he answered, ”If you’re really hungry you could but they don’t taste as good frozen as they do fresh - at least to me.” Were they dead? Hell if he knew, ”I don’t think they’re dead dead. When they get warm they come back to life and start moving again.” Certainly nothing like what a wolf could do. Imagine just going to sleep for the whole winter and waking up once the weather was nice? It didn’t seem like such a bad gig.

Then he laughed as a memory bubbled in his mind, ”Once when I was a pup, my brother and I dug up a bunch of frogs and hid them in the pack den. It was warm enough in there they all came back to life and hopped all over your grandma Katna as she napped. She was less than thrilled with us.” It was nice to remember their life before the relocation - everything had been easy then. But, they had been children and Viorel had come to accept that even if they had stayed everything would not have been the same.

Everybody had to grow up sometime, right?

"If you’re really hungry you could," Viorel lent as Oleander's nose scrunched up. "But they don’t taste as good frozen as they do fresh - at least to me.”

"Eeee," the younger Valle sounded, even though he knew he would have eaten it if his survival depended on it.

His father's laughter was quick to ensnare his attention. Oleander sat as Viorel told him about the prank he and his brother had pulled. His eyes widened then narrowed. His brows rose and settled. A mess of frogs, awoken in the Spring thaw in the pack den... all over Grandma Katna. A chuckle found itself trapped in his throat and Oleander struggled to contain it. He held his breath but it bubbled in his chest, a full-fledged peal of laughter sounding from him with a wag.

"That... sounds gross," he grinned, glancing at his father's face with a crooked smile. "Wish I'd thought of that." Memories of wanting to play with Eros and Archer surfaced in his mind with a twinge of longing. Furthermore, his childhood days with his sisters were now long-forgotten. Now that he was older, he knew he would have loved to get up to that type of mischief if given the chance. As it was, his personality type forbade him. He was Clover's perfect son and he would have had it no other way.

His gaze dropped to his frogs again, considering caching them somewhere close to his den. Just for fun. A smirk mellowed out the cheekiness in his grin before he realized that his father had stumbled upon him. Not the other way around.

"Um, before I ask anything else," the timbre of his voice had grown momentarily solemn. "Did... you need something, Dad? Everything okay?" He had to remind himself from time to time that the Medic side of him came first. Before the son, before the brother... before the personable packmate or playmate...

         

OLEANDER |

Nobody gets me like you do I'm not the same, not after you

The father laughed right along with his son, elated to see Oleander take even a second off from the silent and serious man he normally was. Sometimes he wondered how they were even related. Nobody would ever call Viorel silent or serious, or at least they wouldn’t have before Sephrina has passed. After that had come many months of silence and what was going on a year of intense seriousness, some may even call it stoic.

Grinning at the lightly coloured wolf he offered, ”well, we could tell everyone it was your idea if you want to give it a try.” He doubted very much that Ole would take him up on that deal, but if he wanted to then the father was game. Then, as expected everything turned serious once more. Shaking his head softly the father responded, ”Nah, I was just checking up on everyone, seeing if anybody needed anything.” That was what he filled his days with. Trying to keep busy, feel like he was helping, avoiding the nightmares that came everytime he closed his eyes for too long.

Yellow eyes lifted to survey Oleander’s face, suddenly taking in how much his child had aged. It felt like he had been just a teen last time he had looked at the Valle child this closely, and now sat before him was a man.