Sierra Hills cartwheels overhead

RE: Kyna, you happen to see two bald eagles engaging in a mating ritual.
For Miss @Sahalie ~

   

Despite living relatively close for quite some time, Kyna had not actually ventured out to the Sierra Hills before.  There was no particular reason behind it, not really.  First there was winter, and the dense snows.  Then there was Aponi and her pregnancy, and finally Aponi and her daughter, Lila.  It was not that any of these things actually prevented her from journeying outside the scented marks of Oak Tree Bend, but simply filled her mind, put curiosity to rest.

It was a welcome change, she thought, to actually feel the urge to do and to see.  Perhaps she simply needed the summer sunshine.  Perhaps it was that the pups were getting a wee bit older, a wee bit easier to care for.  Whatever the reason, the fallen princess was not interested in questioning it; instead, she took inspiration where it came, and set off further west in the early afternoon. 

It didn’t take too long to find red sands, almost alien in their shape and size.  It was nothing like the forest that made up her home.  But it was warm, hot even – Kyna was not sure she liked the heat well, but curiosity pressed forward.  A sharp overhead shriek caught her attention then and she drew to a halt.  The cloudless sky framed a pair of eagles tangled up as they swirled through the air.  She sucked in a breath and stood, watching, enraptured by the very sight of it.

Guilt gnawed at the dark girl's lips as she traced the scent of her sunset friend out into the sunset hills. Sahalie could sense that in the past few weeks her friend had been pulling away from the pack. She was often out hunting or doing... who knows what. At first Sahalie had been too nervous to press the issue with her often guarded friend, and then suddenly her life was so busy with three different litters of puppies and visiting @Sven and her dad being injured and Quentin's lessons. To even go through the list was exhausting enough to draw a sigh from her as she pushed into the red foothills. But it was wrong to let her responsibilities pile up like excuses in between herself and her friend. Friends, the girl reminded herself, were so much more than any of her goals. She would get nowhere without her friends, and for their own sake she could not see them suffer.

And so finally she packed up all her excuses and loped after her friend when she wandered out of the territory. Any of the leggier wolves in the pack would have caught up with the girl quickly, but Sahalie could barely keep a good pace and only gained a little ground at a time. She had to push herself.

At last the ginger girl's form was spied, tucked away in the folds of the red hills so neatly that the young Tainn nearly missed her. "Kyna!" she started to slow, seeing no need to run anymore. Closing in, she noticed that her friend was looking up. Her own head tipped upwards and her eyes nearly exploded she was so surprised.

"What are they doing!" she screeched in almost the same octave as the entangled birds landed on a branch, one bird sitting atop the other. This felt weird. It felt awkward. She nudged her friend's elbow.

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

   

She needed to stop letting this happen to her.  One day, it would not be a friend, it would not be Greer or @Sahalie who crept up while she wasn’t paying attention, but someone hostile – or worse, something.  The golden girl jumped (despite the fact that her smaller counterpart hadn’t been sneaky in the slightest) and whipped around, her expression rib-tickling as she stared forward owlishly.  Thankfully, the other yearling’s attention was soon distracted, and she found herself looking up again, where the eagles had landed upon a branch.

To be quite frank, the girl was amazed they’d landed, tangled as they were.  She half expected them to go crashing into the hills below.

“I have no idea,” Kyna replied, glanced over at her companion once.  She glanced back upwards, unable to look away.  It was so strange – she almost felt as if she were invading something, but the eagles had been shrieking.  How could they not expect to draw attention with such ear-shattering sounds?  “They might be stuck, I think.  They were grabbing each other as they flew.  Or fell?  I’m--  I don’t know.” She paused, nose wrinkling.  “I don’t think they’re fighting though, they uh—“ Were they preening?  “Maybe they’re friends.  Or mates.”  Mates groomed each other like that, didn’t they?

(This post was last modified: Jun 23, 2016, 03:24 PM by Kyna.)

A wild dissertation appears!

@____@ wat am i doing

She wore her cute little frown as she nodded along to Kyna's musings, feeling a little comforted that she was not staring at this weird scene alone. It wasn't weird if she and Kyna both watched, right? Sahalie had not given birds much thought before, but considered if the two of them ought to be helping the birds if they were stuck. They certainly were making enough noise. Except Sahalie was no good tree-climber and Kyna was even bigger and the branch itself was quite high. Even if the girl stood on her friend's head she was not sure if they could get all the way there. Perhaps the eagles would have to figure it out for themselves. 

Heat suddenly bloomed over the girl's cheeks when her friend mentioned that word that was all but taboo back home. Instantly the girl turned and looked away. "So they're doing.... that? Is that what mates do? Is that what wolves do?" Her speech was littered with awkward gulps. Somehow she was not convinced wolves made noise of this caliber or decibel. Or in trees. "Uhm uhm," she added quickly, aware all at once of the dangerous ground they were now walking on. "I don't.... they seem like...they're taking their..time... Maybe we should go somewhere else?"

Anywhere else?

"There was some things I wanted to talk to you about," she added, more uncomfortable if that was even possible. Laughing at her own hot face and pounding heart, she poked a dark paw at her friend's leg, "I mean, unless you're into this, weirdo." More laughter, a little more genuine, followed this.

   

Kyna was of the same mind as her friend, wondering idly if the birds were indeed hurt.  If that were the case, surely they should be doing what they could to help (while minding sharp beaks and sharper talons), but the how still escaped the youth entirely.  So focused on the mechanics of getting a wolf into a tree, she’d almost forgotten her final explanation until her companion spluttered.

“Doing what?” she asked, brows furrowed as she glanced back over at the darker wolf.  “What do mates do?  They groom, right, maybe they’re grooming, or –”  The realization hit the young woman like a stone right between the eyes.  Her head whipped around quickly to squint up at the birds, ears flipped back against her head.  Mates made babies.  Is that what they were doing, making tiny eagles?  And if that were the case, and Sahalie was right about wolves, than that meant @Aponi had –

Fighting the urge to gag, the redhead gave an entire body shudder, though even that could not purge the mental image branded into her mind.  Damn birds.  She’d come out here to stop worrying about everything going on in Oak Tree Bend, and yet here she was, reminded at every corner by the harsh realities of life. “Gross,” she hissed, shaking her head as she bumped into the other yearling’s shoulder.  No, no, she had no intention of staying and watching this – whatever the problem, the pair of raptors were on their own now.

Turning about, she urged @Sahalie to come along, along anywhere, anywhere in this sandy place, and inclined her head. “Hmm?  Oh, of course.  What did you what to talk about?”

A wild dissertation appears!

omg this is short I suck idunno

It took the sunset girl a little longer to catch on, but after a moment she seemed just as horrified and disgusted as Sahalie was. It would have been comical—that rapid changes of Kyna's expression as her mind worked through the problem—maybe, a few years from now, but right now Sahalie had a paw over her mouth to keep her stomach down as she and her friend fled the scene and tried in vain to forget the idea of her dad doing that to any woman, let alone that one particular one. Yet no matter how far they traveled it appeared that it would be difficult to hide from the echoed cries of the eagles. Bummer. They would just have to talk extra loud.

Sahalie wanted to slow down or stop entirely, but it felt better to keep moving since otherwise she felt vaguely ill. The air was good for her. "I just ...." Despite her best efforts her dark paws were already beginning to drag. Golden eyes wandered over Kyna's form, "Do you feel like... like we've been growing apart?"

"I do...and it bothers me." She gulped. "Maybe it's because we were never...super close to begin with. Cause I've been thinking about it and we've really never... spoken about anything...super personal. And. And I want to... I dunno. Uhm" Wow this was just about as awkward as the eagles. "Sorry. Honesty hour, I guess." She studied her muddy toes and blunt nails as if they were vastly more interesting than anything she was saying.

Thankfully, @Sahalie did not suggest another course of action.  Perhaps they couldn’t get totally out of earshot, but at least they did not have to see the tangled birds any longer.  The sand under her feet was comforting as was the way movement stretched more than just her muscles.  It was not so much that she sensed her companion stop that the voice sounded a little too far away, and the strawberry blond drew to a halt, glancing over her shoulder.

All at once, her brows shot upwards, flame orange eyes widening in a small degree of horror.

“I--  I--  I’m sorry,” Kyna stuttered after a moment, wide eyes followed by a rapid blinking.  Something burned.  She glanced down at her own toes once, trying to swallow down the hard lump attempting to form in her throat before glancing back upwards.  “I – that is my fault, I think.  I--  After Phineas, my father, after he died—”

The girl gave a helpless shrug as she closed her eyes, willing the ugly memory back into the dark corner where she often left it.  What was she supposed to say?  They’d never spoken about anything all that personal because she’d never offered it up to begin with.  At first she simply hadn’t wanted to relive the terrible memory – but following that, she simply hadn’t been willing to share. “I--  Okay.  What do you want to talk about?  That’s, ah…personal?”

A wild dissertation appears!

"N-nn-" Sahalie started, her heart sinking at the look of fear spreading across Kyna's face. None of this was about feeling sorry or laying blame, and the girl began to adamantly shake her head, not wanting to interrupt Kyna but also really wanting to stop her. No one's fault, just time and business and so many factors that were beyond them. Sahalie could have tried harder, she could have broached the topic before now. But of course Sahalie was as socially clumbsy as ever and chose to just bungle the whole thing by dumping the whole problem on top of the quiet Kyna. Really, if Sahalie had thought about this she would have just started breaking the ice instead of talking about the unbroken ice underneath them. But it had seemed so right, in theory, to talk about feelings and the why of it. 

Her sorry little mouth hung open as Kyna continued and quickly reached "personal" territory all on her own, leaving Sahalie confused and paralyzed. Sahalie had never given it any thought when the sunset girl and had arrived at the borders with only one parent. Somehow it seemed normal to have only one parent and the Tainn hadn't bothered to think about her father dying. Had Kyna seen it? When had that happened? Helpless and dismayed, her golden eyes clung to her friend. "I'm ...I'm"

And now the girl was left with nothing to say and she couldn't remember ever feeling worse in her life. "That...let's talk about...that.. I mean, not if you don't want to. I mean. It's not anyone's fault... I" She tried to steady herself with a deep breath. "Okay uhm how about we take turns? I'll...go first?" Why had she wanted to do this again?

"IhateNaira" she coughed out.

Naira.

Any topic was better than her father’s untimely demise, even if this one was little better.  The yearling tipped her head to one side, mouth slanted.  “My mother does not like Naira either.  Not at all.  I’m not to talk to her.”

Somehow, she reckoned the matter was completely different for the two women – Naira was not Sahalie’s mother, but she was with Sahalie’s father.  She could only figure it was…odd.  The fact that she had a new sibling was already very weird, but at least some other wolf hadn’t tried to move in with Aponi.  It hadn’t even occurred to her, in fact, that such a thing could happen, and she reached over to nudge the smaller girl’s jaw gently.

Her expression softened now, tail swinging in a strange rhythm behind her.  What if Aponi and Triell had hooked up?  What if Sahalie and Kyna could have actually been sisters?  She found she liked that idea much better – but no, it wouldn’t help to bring that up.  That would probably only rub dirt in the wound.

“I--  Don’t understand why my mother wants to be a family now.  She left for a long time when I was small, and when she came back, my father died, and the pack disbanded, and then we came here.  But now that she has Lila, she wants to be a family.  If we will be a family now, what were we before?”

What am I to her?

A wild dissertation appears!