[Pawprint]

(Florence and the Machine lyric!  So, this takes place after the "Death and all of His Friends" thread.  Not the best post.)


After the earthquake, the falling underground, meeting Aylie and escaping with a fungus that healed him, Adolph couldn't sleep.  His mind was full of the past everything.  He expected his final resting place a day ago in the patch of fungi--he was given back life in the form of a girl who didn't give up on him.  The reunion tugged at his heart and there was no way he wanted her to see him so fragile and scared at the end of his life.

Then again, Aylie didn't give him a choice to die.

Young wolves.

Instead of staying with the safety of Byakko and the other wolves, the relic moved to the far side of the group in an open stump warmed by dead grass.  It was comfortable and roomy.  Best of all, it faced where he could see the wolves and the wolves could see him.

Just in case.

The tree stump must have belonged to a mighty tree, Adolph thought.  One that covered so much sky, seen so many things.  It must have had an amazing life.  Did Adolph have an amazing life?  Did the regrets outweigh the successes?  He shook that line of thinking away.  He and his son Buckshot became strong again.  He saw Buckshot find love (with Byakko's daughter no less!) and become a father.  Adolph became a grandpa!  Hakan returned.  Aylie came home.  He heard word Mercury came home too.  

Perhaps this homecoming was for a reason.  It was comforting, very comforting.  The relic stretched his paws and stuck his injured leg out.  The fungi had healed most of it, though it still hurt and he needed to rest between walks. That was okay.  That was fine.

He was alive to accept it.

[Mercury]

The Dark Moon of Nardir                    ☿ "Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. - Emilie Autumn

Seafoam eyes watched as the  elder made his way to lie in the nest of roots by an old tree stump.  He moved much slower than she had remembered, and she felt a familiar ache in her heart.  Adolph's twilight years had not been easy ones, and she had been partially to blame for that.  Had she never lost their territory, Adolph could have spent his final years peacefully among the hills and lakes of their homeland.  Instead he had been forced down a hard road, and she saw the strain in each motion.  Her crown may have fallen from her brow, but the mantle was still heavy upon her back.  Mercury would forever feel guilty for that which she could not change.  What she could do, however, was apologize.

She moved along the outskirts of the group, keeping to the shadows and going unnoticed in the twilight.  She approached the stump quietly, her pace slow and easy.  It was not her goal to frighten him, but to appear casual.  When she stopped walking she was standing alongside where hey lay, and she dropped her head in a courteous bow.


"Elder."

The former queen said, giving him the same difference she had as a child.  Despite her ascension, even before her fall, she had never disregarded those who had come before her.  She had listened to her grandmother, her parents, her uncle.  She learned from Byakko and Adolph, and she never forgot that they would always hold wisdom.  When she fell, she learned to appreciate the lessons she too, would one day be able to share.  Aylie was her first student, and while she had been away, she had sensed the chaos in her.  Would Adolph, too, sense her unease?  He had known when she was upset as a child, but was she better at hiding it now?  Or would those ancient eyes still be able to see right through her?

☿

[Pawprint]

Yes, she startled him a little.  He was harder of hearing and lost in his thoughts.  When he saw who it was, his eyes were wide and he gasped.  A blast from the past.

"Elder."

Overwhelmed.  He was overwhelmed.  Adolph closed his eyes.  Regrets.  Wisdom.  Affection.  Kinship.  Unlike Aylie, Mercury was close to Adolph through their lives and her respect for him had mirrored his for her.  She was the kind of leader he once thought of an alpha: stern, no nonsense, a watcher of her people.  But there was more to leadership than that.  Mercury, like Alana now, cared for her people...and looking back, she was throughout the pack, checking on him, interacting with individuals.  She knew when to be hard, to be soft with her tone of voice.  Mercury was a good leader.

Was... ...?

"I missed you daughter."

Questions.  Many questions.  He opened his eyes.  They focused on the thing around her neck that was made by the two-legged.  He would say nothing.

"Aylie saved me earlier," he began.  "I fell underground after the earthquake and was there a day.  She got me out.  She was...determined."  He smiled.  Again, he had no choice.

"Hakan and his daughter Kyra have come back.  I am a grandfather.  And a kin of Storm's came here with Byakko's mate, Raka.  It's a reunion.  Nature has something planned.  It is more than a coincidence."

Adolph sat up a little.  If she was close, he tried to push his head against her shoulder, affectionately rubbing his cheek to her fur.  He wasn't sure if she would pull back or not, but he wanted to show he cared.  She was as much his daughter now as any other time.

[Mercury]

The Dark Moon of Nardir                    ☿ "Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. - Emilie Autumn

"I missed you daughter."

The Dark Moon knew what he meant when he called her that. Not of his blood, but of his soul.  Mercury's body became liquid for an instant as a tension broke within her. A sudden rush of relief that banked an anxiety she hadn't known she was feeling.  His acceptance of her return without so much as a question about it meant so much.  She realized she had been dreading his questions, there were things she couldn't properly say yet.  She could never lie to the male who had helped shape her code of honor. As she was trying to be for Ayliya, Adolph more than any other had been her mentor.  But to speak of her struggle before she was ready was not something she had wanted to do.

"Aylie saved me earlier, I fell underground after the earthquake and was there a day.  She got me out.  She was...determined."

"She has always been that." Mercury said a bit dryly.  "It is her finesse of execution that needs improvement."

Unlike Byakko, Adolph seemed neither concerned nor upset by Ayliyra's return to Nardir. It would have to be discussed... eventually.  She needed time to work with her wayward apprentice, and she would bet that Adolph was more willing to wait than most who were irked with Aylie's return.

"Hakan and his daughter Kyra have come back.  I am a grandfather.  And a kin of Storm's came here with Byakko's mate, Raka.  It's a reunion.  Nature has something planned.  It is more than a coincidence."

It was a trait of the elderly to discuss their families with pride, but their families were her family too.  Mercury listened with a gentle, patient smile on her lips.  But then he spoke of nature having a plan, and she thought of the night that had finally set her free.  She thought about the nights leading up to it, about the Call of the Wild that had reawoken her and grown from a whisper to a roar that drown out everything else.  She had intended to leave, had been thinking about how she would accomplish it, when suddenly, such an event occurred.  More than a coincidence.

"The Oracle would have known..."

As the elder shifted to snuggle her, she leaned into him, turning her head to rest it upon his and rub an ear with her muzzle.  They had no Oracle now. She would need to find one, and her memories drifted to the Seer.  What had become of Arrow?  She closed her eyes, forcing the memories down.  It would do her no good to entertain what ifs.  She needed a real answer.  In the absence of the Oracle, all they could really do was wait and see.  Little did she know how big that something planned was.

☿

[Pawprint]

(Nudge for myself to finish.)

[Pawprint]

Adolph smiled before he could stop himself at Mercury's reply about Aylie.  Her frankness and flat tone was a combo trait that defined the black and cream woman.  It was done in a way lacking the disrespect that came with most young wolves.  The elder wolf was unaware of the influence she had on Aylie, but it would have brought everything in perspective.  He could have been there for Aylie in Mercury's absence.  He didn't know, so....

Adolph furrowed his brows after she spoke.  Adolph had a wisdom taught to him through generations.  Nature was constant...reading nature however was difficult.  Mercury's family, from his memory, was sure a wolf could interpret things by the moon.  Adolph was sure a pack's environment reflected the pack.  The old forest was weathered, stalwart, even when fire or man damaged it.  The marshes were chaotic.  He almost died when he entered Nardir marshes, there had been enemies and discord.  The mountains were beautiful and vast...then the earthquake happened.  Pack complacency?   Then the reunion.  He didnt know.  He needed to read the land and figure it out.

He could ask.

"Daughter...what made you come home?  Had someone told you, or was it something...else?"  There was no judgement.  He wanted to know.  Was an oracle around?  Instinct?  Old comrade?

[Mercury]

The Dark Moon of Nardir                    ☿ "Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. - Emilie Autumn

""Daughter...what made you come home?  Had someone told you, or was it something...else?""

"I.. Has someone told me what?"

She pulled her head back to look at him, her own brows furrowed together.  She didn't know much about what had occurred.  She'd made it to Nardir just in time for the earthquake, but they had not yet felt the aftershocks that would come.  Like ripples, those aftershocks would send them tumbling once again.  For now, she remained ignorant of much, including on everything that had occurred in her absence. What had happened?  Whatever it was, it certainly hadn't been part of her reason to come home.  She couldn't talk to Alana about it yet, couldn't confide her worries to her sister.  But perhaps Adolph would have some advice?

"Where I have been, it is a very long story..."

She began cautiously, but the words caught in her throat, and she wasn't sure if she really did want to continue.  It was past, but like the scar on her chest, it would never truly leave her.

☿

[Pawprint]

The turmoil that hit Mercury spooked Adolph.  In her words, he realized (1) she misread his question and (2) it never occurred to him the time during her disappearance may have left trauma.  What had she endured?

He looked away for a moment.  He wasn't sure what to say--he wanted this moment to be light, and he wanted to spare Mercury the anguish of recounting her journey.  Again Adolph reached to press his head against her, nuzzling her neck with his cheek to calm her down.  There was silence, unless she spoke, hopefully removing the tension he caused.  She could speak when she was ready.  It didn't matter if it was him, or Alana, or someone else.  Mercury was aloof, but she also felt.  Behind every word she spoke, she had at least twice as much unsaid.  If you knew her even a little you could see it.

Right now Adolph wished he didn't.

The next words he spoke had become a habit:

"I'm sorry."

Adolph took a deep breath and pulled back.  A small, old smile formed as his eyes welled with emotion.

"I just wanted to know how you got home.  But...I'm just so happy to see you again."

[Mercury]

The Dark Moon of Nardir                    ☿ "Being brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyway, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the chance of losing it. - Emilie Autumn

"I'm sorry. I just wanted to know how you got home.  But...I'm just so happy to see you again."

Mercury gave him a look before she settled her head back into his shoulder.  He didn't elaborate on what he meant, and like sand in an oyster, it was irritating. Ye she took the comfort where she could.  Adolph would not be here forever, but her parents were already gone.  She had so few left who made her feel safe. She turned her head and pressed it into his fur, hiding her face like a child.

"I am pleased to see you too, Grandfather." She mumbled into his ruff. "I was not sure I would see any of you again."

She wasn't sure on how she would continue, and paused for a moment to merely listen to his beating heart against her forehead.  Calm, steady, so sure of its pace. Why couldn't she be so sure?  She had been raised as her sister's accessory, a sword and shield for the gentle moonflower princess.  Mercury had been cut from a different cloth, her tale as dark as her coat.  Would they think less of her, knowing what fires had tempered her soul?  One ghost haunted their memories, but Mercury had acquired a few more along the way.

"Who else is here?" she asked, deflecting the focus off herself.

☿