Paladin 'Knight' Ancora

He padded quietly along the path to the lake, eyes cast down to the soil ahead of his paws. His plant seemed to be working. The orange mint from the other day had perked up after enough time in the ground with water soaked into the soil he’d packed about the base. He’d taken pains to border the hole with flat stones before filling it in, knowing how heartily mints could grow if they liked their home. Today, he was on the hunt for Meadow-sweet, and he’d brought the gathering hides with him, draped across his back. The plants grew well on water edges, but he thought that he might be able to pull off adding them to his beginnings of a medicine garden. He would be lying to himself if he’d said the icy anger hadn’t left him yet. Every time he checked on the wounds of the wolves that had defended the territory from Talis, it hissed through his veins. Even thinking about it now hardened the jeweled colors of his eyes to glittering ice before he turned his thoughts away to the other worries, and faint spark of hope. Kavdaya had eaten more today than usual. And, perhaps it was a desperate hope only and he was just imagining it, but there seemed to be a faint, dim light of awareness in those amethyst flecked sapphire eyes. But part of him feared her return to clarity. What would learning about her mate do to her? What if she retreated back into the cold, distant place she’d escaped to in her mind, and they lost her for good? He spotted the signs of the Meadow-sweet and veered from the path, pressing gently through the lakeside undergrowth to the herbs he sought and sliding a hide from his back and spreading it upon the ground before facing the herbs again. This would be a useful addition to his garden.

Padding along the edge of the lake, Sterling made note of the differences in the territory since her last visit. With the change in seasons, this place had really come to bloom, and she was sure she'd be able to find the plant her acquaintance had shown her back then. Only now it would be flowering, and she would try to remember the scent of the roots so she could identify it when she found it. She'd never really considered an interest in herbs before, but since the time she'd met Paladin, she had grown a curiosity for the skill of healing, although she still wasn't certain she'd pursue it seriously. She'd always imagined herself as a hunter like her mother, or perhaps even a fighter, someone who would defend the wolves of her pack. But ever since the raid, her thoughts had been restless, and she'd been bombarded with questions from her own mind that she wasn't sure she could answer. Not only was she plagued by uncertainties, she had also become aware of the lack of healers in Talis. She'd received care for her wounds immediately after the raid, but hadn't had any follow-up since then and she hadn't seen the supposed healers around. Her wounds hadn't healed yet, and she could feel the sting of infection trying to set in.

Before the raid, she'd been so sure it was exactly what Talis needed to do in order to thrive through the harsh drought and fires they'd experienced at home; but after seeing the reality of it - the fear of jumping into a battle she hadn't truly been prepared for, and seeing her pack mates injured - she wasn't as certain as she'd been. Her own father had tried to keep her and Jade safe, and his injuries made her cringe, a pang of guilt in her belly every time she saw him. She'd played a role in ensuring Talis went through with the raid, and she'd voiced her opinions loudly at meetings. Not only that, but she'd spied on another pack to try to find out if they had the resources that Talis needed. She doubted whether they'd really needed to fight another pack, and she wondered if it would have just been easier to ask for help. After all, Dragon had family in Celestial, didn't he? That was something that now struck Sterling as odd, that their leader had had no qualms with attacking a pack that housed his own relatives, when they could have chosen any other pack to raid.

Deciding she'd needed a break from her thoughts and the day-to-day life in Talis, Sterling had left to explore on her own, and she'd remembered that she was to seek out these plants in the spring.
At least, her acquaintance had suggested it to her, and she saw it as a good excuse to get away for a while. Of course, she was nervous about coming here - after all, if she was caught by any of the wolves in the pack neighbouring this lake, she knew she might well be in trouble. Yet something else in her pushed her to come, and she almost hoped she would meet Paladin here again. Why? He would be angry. A pang of guilt hit struck her belly, ears folding back when she thought of the generous sharing of information he'd offered her when she'd met him. Had she repaid his kindness and trust by attacking his pack mates? This was where she wrestled with her thoughts. After all,
this was the danger of making friends across pack borders.

And yet, here she was, hoping for reasons beyond her comprehension, that she might come across the boy that had so kindly shown her how interesting the skill of healing could be. And there he was.
She paused in mid-step as she saw him amongst the taller growing brush by the lakeside, as he pulled one of his carrying hides off of his back and leaned toward something of interest. He seemed pre-occupied, and she was sure he hadn't noticed her yet. Her tail drooped, hanging listlessly between her hocks. He was probably collecting herbs so that he could heal the wounds of his pack mates, some of which she may have caused. Sighing to herself, she nearly turned around and left, but home was a long ways off, and she'd come all this way for a purpose. So, slowly, she padded toward him until she was about 20 ft. away from him. Her head low and a wave of anxiety flooding through her, she dared to call out to him, unsure of what would happen next. "Paladin,"
her voice rang out weakly, her emerald eyes resting upon him as she waited for him to notice her,
nervously anticipating a response from him that she wasn't sure she wanted to see. But, if he was angry, she was sure she deserved it.

Paladin 'Knight' Ancora

He sank his claws into the soft soil, gently turning it back and digging around the roots and deeper, then began to bend before a voice pulled him from his work and he stepped away, frame growing still as his head turned at the call of his name. Thoughtful eyes chilled as they locked with the green gaze of a wolf he didn’t fully wish to see near his pack and family ever again. He regarded her with absolutely no warmth in his eyes, taking in the cuts and marks remaining from the raid. He could smell the beginnings of infection, see the inflammation. Coolly, he turned away, gesturing sharply with his nose toward a stand of Iris, their frilly blue flowers a sweet-scented flare of color among the rich greens of the foliage. “The Irises are that way. Blue flowers. If you even cared in the first place.” His soft, deep, brogue-laden voice was flat, his body stiff and unyielding as he bent toward the Meadow-Sweet and opened his jaws in preparation to grasp the root ball in his jaws and rest it free of the soil. Inside his mind, thoughts seethed, his Healer’s nature warring with anger. It shouldn’t bloody well matter to him if she died of infection, said the anger. She’d brought them upon herself. Why hadn’t they been treated properly? Asked the healer he was.

Sterling saw him pause in his work and step away from the herb,
craning his neck toward the sound of his name. Then his eyes met hers, whirling pools of sapphire and amethyst freezing over, and she could feel the chill from his gaze as though his cold glare had cast a wintry gust upon her. She felt his anger like a stab inside her chest, knowing that she'd betrayed any form of trust and sullied any inkling of a friendship that may have formed between them the last time. Something inside of her fought against the feeling of guilt - this wasn't fair! She'd only done what any wolf would've done for their pack! Why did she have to feel badly for it? Wouldn't anyone fight proudly for their pack when their leader declared a raid? Yet still, deeper within was that sinking, knowing feeling that somehow she had wronged her acquaintance, and she couldn't undo that. Her head hung a little lower, her gaze dropping to the ground as she could no longer meet his gaze.

His voice came forth, and for a moment she hoped he would say something that wouldn't match his icy stare, and her ears flicked forward as she glanced at him for a split second. However, his words lacked the rich, warm tones she remembered from their first meeting, and it was clear that he wanted nothing to do with her. She was surprised that he'd even bothered to direct her toward the Irises, but perhaps that was his way of getting rid of her. Ears folding back again, she looked in the direction he'd indicated. "Yes, I.... th-thank you," she said, stumbling over her words. She had wanted to tell him that she was interested in the plants, that she cared enough to come back and see the flowers for herself. But what would it matter to say the words out loud? It was obvious that he didn't believe she'd ever cared about the lesson he'd offered, although it was quite the opposite;
the time he'd spent teaching her had opened her mind to learning new things, not to mention she could name at least a couple plants now.

Turning away from Paladin entirely and dragging her paws toward the stand of Iris, she spotted their blue flowers amongst the greenery, their stalks growing tall from the edge of the water. Competing with the lake reeds, the Irises appeared proud with their vibrant colouring and stretched out petals. Trying to focus on the plant, rather than the sunken feeling in the pit of her stomach, she approached the flowers and pressed her nose close to them, inhaling their scent as she then ran her muzzle down their stalks and toward their roots, where a familiar fragrance rose from just beneath the water's surface. She carefully placed her forepaws into the water until she felt the roots, burying her nails into the mud as Paladin had showed her previously. She pulled away the loose soil until she'd largely freed the roots, and then grasped the stalk as low as she could without sticking her face under water.
As she busied herself doing so, she recalled all of the uses of Iris that Paladin had described, and the warning he'd given about it as well. Perhaps she could use it on her own wounds, and she wondered if it would help with the gnawing ache she felt in her belly.

After pulling up a few of the plants and leaving the rest, she carried the flowers to where Paladin was and placed them on dry ground. Hesitantly, she looked to him, not quite ready to leave just yet, but feeling she may have no choice if he was done with her being there. The territory may not have been claimed, but she wasn't about to push her luck if he wanted her gone. "I can see why they're called Blue Flag," she said quietly, tail flicking, "But... uhm... I-I wouldn't know how to apply them." The statement was left open-ended, a soft appeal to the young but skilled healer, the girl wondering if the boy would have but an ounce of patience left for her.

Paladin 'Knight' Ancora

His jaws fastened around the root ball, gently closing as the taste of dirt filled it mouth and coated his tongue. He could see her through the stalks of brush, collecting some of the irises. He turned his eyes away, then stilled and lifted his head as she came close. The cold look he gave her as he looked her over spoke volume of the irony in this situation. “You’d need help to apply them.” His cold tones were heavy with irony as a black brow point lifted sardonically. Then he turned to face her, posture poised and elegant, and very chilly. “Let me tell you what I’ve been going through, and what Talis’ raid on Celestial means to us.” The lilting grace of his words still remained in the clipped tones of his next words, words that spilled out in a wave and gave the girl no choice but to listen to it all, or leave. “One: I encounter a girl who apparently is willing to learn a little about my craft, and whom I could, tentatively, see calling a friend. "Two: I return home from gathering Iris plants to patrol the borders while our alpha was out searching for missing members of my family, and this pack, and watch a wolf trip over the border stones, and investigate them closely enough that she couldn’t miss for a second that they were covered in pack territory markers, and at her age, there is no bloody way she could feign lack of knowledge about them and their meaning. I watched her trespass, and intercepted her. I warned her to leave. Politely, but firmly. "Just because someone is blind and a healer, does not make them bloody helpless. The Nomads have plenty of the blind who can fight their own battles. No doubt she was one of your scouts—the timing is just too close. “Three. My sister returns with my half dead brother, to tell me that our father, your leader’s cousin has been murdered, in cold blood, defending my brother from the same bitch that killed him. Not only that, but I learn later that another of our pack was attacked and raped by a male in the same area of the north. "And not long after my sister returns from telling our cousin in Talis, that Creed Ancora has been murdered, then Talis is at our border, trying to steal and harm my family, and you are among the bastards that come a-calling, when it would have been simpler, and more intelligent to strengthen the familial bonds between the packs by asking for help, which Celestial would have given readily. "We don’t go against our family, or our friends, Sterling, we help them. Or at least the Adravendi side of my family does. And yet my own blood from the Ancora side has tried to steal from Celestial.” His jaws snapped together furiously on the word ‘Blood’ with a sharp clack, but the look in his eyes was still one of frigid calm. “The woman who was raped birthed five children. Children who aren’t old yet enough to understand why they should be afraid of the snarls and sounds of battle they heard that night. We have one new mother who is pregnant, and the stress from knowing her mate was in that fight and could be hurt badly could have reaped harm upon those fragile, unborn lives. She could lose that pregnancy. Celestial doesn’t start trouble, but that never means we are weak or lax, and we will reap hell upon those who start trouble with us.” Those sapphire and amethyst eyes bore into Sterling’s emerald gaze, as he uttered a low growl of a question. “How the hell can someone I felt in my gut has good in her follow a bastard who would gladly steal from his own family, whether it hurts his own pack or not? Blind loyalty? Or was my gut severely misjudging you?” Despite his fury, his fur remained flat in its fluffy luxury, and there was a distinct sense that he would hear her out. He wanted to hear that she hadn’t gone into the raid willingly. Why, he wasn’t sure-- she had no tight ties here as far as he knew, and they certainly hadn't become bosom buddies in the couple of hours spent gathering iris. He wanted to know, perhaps, that he hadn’t been wrong about his final conclusion about her when they’d parted ways at the lake last time. He doubted he would hear it that way, though. However optimistic he usually was, the various recent events had compounded to very nearly convert him to a cynic.

The girl could see the fury in his eyes, and again cast her eyes downward, her head dipped low and ears flattened. Her tail tucked between her hocks, nails stirring up the ground anxiously. She could hardly look at him, even as he turned to fully face her. His voice was cold and brimming with the irony that was this situation. She knew it was all wrong... why didn't she just turn around and leave? But she was frozen in place, her ears perking a bit when he began to tell her what he was going through, what Talis' raid meant to the wolves of his pack. It began with him mentioning that they might have been friends. Her first possible friend, and she'd betrayed any possibility of that ever happening. What came next was a flurry of words that she could not respond to. She felt like scorned pup. She had no response, and there was not a single moment where she might interject anyhow. His words were sharp, unapproachable, but she knew she needed to hear him out, keeping her jaws clamped shut as she stared at the ground.

Her brows pulled together when he mentioned the appearance of his sister and their near-dead sibling, followed by news that his father had been murdered. Her chest tightened as he described each tragic occurrence that had happened to both him personally, his family, and to his pack as a whole. The true gravity of her involvement in this raid hit her, and as he continued on, she shrank under his furious glare, wishing she could just disappear. How had she not been aware of the potentially far-reaching consequences of her actions? Had she really lived such a self-absorbed life? She'd never lost anything important to her. She'd hardly lived a difficult life. Looking at her life, one might assume she was merely a spoiled brat looking for attention. She'd never realized that her involvement in this violent act would affect so many in such a negative way. Standing hunched in front of Paladin, she felt none of the pride she'd worn on the night of the raid. Not a scrape of it.

What could she do to make this better? She wasn't sure there was anything. Nobody had died that night, but the harm caused might not be reversible. The blood spilled, the trust shattered... was there any way to take it all back? When he finally finished his verbal rampage, asking her how she could follow her leader, she took a nervous step backward, shaking her head. Was it blind loyalty,
or was she just a bad person? She wasn't sure anymore. "I-I was born in Talis," she said quietly, "W-wouldn't anyone f-follow their leader? I... didn't know it would be like this." She had imagined a lot more pride and glory. She thought she'd care less what she'd done to another pack - after all, wasn't her main concern supposed to be Talis? But why did it feel like this? Knowing how much more deeply it had effected Celestial, she felt crushed by guilt.

"I'm... sorry, Paladin," she said, her voice cracking as she tried to maintain some sort of composure, "I didn't know..." She wasn't sure what else to say. What could she say? She could apologize a million times over, but it wouldn't undo what had been done, and all of the pain that Paladin and his pack mates had gone through, and would continue to go through. She glanced up at him, seeing the continued look of cold fury upon his face. She had to look away again, her eyes moving to the blue flowers of the plants Paladin had taught her about and helped her find.

Paladin 'Knight' Ancora

His eyes remained locked on her face, reading the emotions in her eyes and body. They were true emotion, certainly. Remorse, shame, regret. It eased some of the chill in his stare, but he shook his head in response to her words. “There is such a thing as alternatives. Auster will be out of the dry season, now, yes, and would have been by the time Talis came here on that raid? Prey, herbs, and other resources will have already begun replenishing themselves. "The prey may be thin, the plants wilted, but they are still resources closer to home, with less chance of harm or bringing hostile relations with another pack to one’s doorstep. You just have to range further, and be better prepared.” He finally released her from the weight of his chilled stare, asking with a growing weariness, “Did no one speak out against this raid? No one of the Ancora family, or are they all as loyal as a coyote? And… no. You couldn’t have known. But you recognized my surname when we met. I noticed that. Can you imagine one of your own family stealing from you, Sterling?” He turned away and picked up the meadowsweet root ball, setting it on the hide and turning back to face her. Of all the things he had thrown at her, he hadn’t added his worry for his mother, or the fact that Celestial was going to need to make room, or expand, or starve because they were too large for the lands they claimed.