don't look back in anger

[Fire]

my soul slides away

The world was shifting from it's Summer blush; orange and red beginning to settle on the leaves and air starting to cool a little. For Bion, the change was barely noticeable as he sat atop the Cliffside, bathing in the early afternoon sun. It was bliss. He'd only spent a week or so with the Falling Moons, but he'd forgotten what it felt like to relax. Perhaps that had been the case even before his temporary swap. Breathing deeply, Bion felt some of the tension draining out of his body and into the warm, damp grass beneath him. There was no way he could move if he tried, and eventually he fell into a lazy slumber.

The reason he found himself in this particular place hadn't been a coincidence. He was missing his old home, and the nostalgia had been too great for him to stay away any longer. It wasn't just the pack, though. He'd never made a great deal of friends when he was with the Stars. Taya was his best friend, and she'd come with him. It was partly Es and Akiko, he knew that much. There was no way he could have told his mate where he was going, but it the guilt of leaving her behind still weighed upon him. He felt there would only have been two possible consequences. Firstly, she would leave him in disgust and he would never see her again. Or secondly, the worse of the two, she would come with him. There was no denying that when he returned she could leave him anyway, but she wouldn't be in any danger. He already felt immeasurably bad that he'd put his best friend in such an awful position, and he didn't want Es' safety on his conscience, too.

After drifting in and out of easy sleep as usual, on guard but more relaxed than he normally felt, Bion wasn't full awake again until mid afternoon. He yawned, closed his eyes again, stretched and rolled over onto his back. The sun was halfway across the sky now, and the scorching heat felt wonderful on his tummy, but he decided he should move around for a while, feeling refreshed after his nap.
He rolled over again, this time to his feet, and squinted at the stream a few feet in front of him. It looked so inviting, and he couldn't resist the urge to splash about. So there he was: a fully grown Falling Moon snapping at sticks and hopping ungracefully from rock to rock before finally landing with a splash in the fairly shallow stream. Grinning madly, he rolled over and stood up again and leaped back to the grass. With a rapid shake of his body, the water flew from his pelt and he looked up again at the clear blue skies. For the first time in a very long time, Bion didn't feel the world's weight on his shoulder. He felt happy.

but don't look back in anger
I heard you say[/size][/i]

[Paint]

Esmerelda had not been in the best of moods. She had been given her task by Bandit- she knew what she had to do. Head to No Man's Land, establish a hiding spot, try to get hold of Taya or Bion and find out anything she could about Caden's kidnapping. Maybe even ask them to come back. In the pit of her stomach Es felt queasy. She wanted to find Taya more than Bion, but she knew that she didn't know Taya well enough to convince her. She would have to speak with Bion. But she was angry with him, and her first reaction was to run in the opposite direction and forget this whole sorry mess.

"Isn't that what we're all going to do eventually anyway?" she murmured to herself bitterly, feeling the sun warm her tawny pelt and ignoring it. She thought of Akiko briefly, of her beautifully rich pelt, and felt an odd stab of jealousy. Shaking it off, she frowned as she made her way towards the border, paws shaking as she raised them one by one and forced herself forwards. Why had she said she would do this? She was fast, yes, but only when she wanted to run away from danger and misery. Heading for the Falling Moons territory was heading straight into the eye of the storm. She felt quite ill thinking about it.

So it was in this rather poisonous state of mind that Esmerelda reached the border and picked up a familiar scent. Confused, her brow knitted together and she glanced down the stream. It curved just out of view so she began to follow it, hearing splashing. She sped up, wondering if they'd just missed a pack member the other day at the meeting. They hadn't heard, perhaps! She stopped dead when the black figure appeared in front of her and her disappearing act of a mate seemed to be frolicking on their border. Her jaw dropped.

"Bion, what on earth are you doing?" she couldn't quite help her strained and slightly hysterical tone of voice. She didn't know whether to laugh or snarl at him.

[Fire]

In his blissful unawareness, Bion had let his guard down more than he should. The first sign to declare Esmerelda's presence wasn't her scent or her footsteps like it should have been, but the sound of voice; slightly hysterical and astounded. He whirled around, startled.
As soon as he registered that it was Esmerelda, and not Justyn or Duke about to ambush him, his muscles relaxed a little. He straightened out and his brow crease, a guilty look settling on his features.

"Hey, Es," he said softly, quietly. There was no point answering her question, because he didn't have an answer. What was he doing? All at once he remembered why he was really here, why he'd bothered to come here in the first place, and it started to feel like he was suffocating again. He drew a deep, slightly panicked breath.
"I was looking for you," he said calmly, his posture still not completely relaxed, eyes a little deer-in-headlights-esque. It was not entirely true, but she didn't need to know that. If there was anything that he'd learned from living with the Falling Moons for a little over a week, it was that honesty is not always the best option.

Hesitantly moving toward her, Bion added vaguely: "I suppose I should explain." Glancing quickly at the Moon's lands in the distance, then back at his mate, he waiting for this to elicit some kind of response.

[Paint]

After Esmerelda's initial reaction, she decided to at least attempt a poker face. Hiding her shock as he gathered himself, she took time to stem her emotions and try to figure out how to act. Did he want to come back? Is that why he was here? Or did he just want to make the break up 'official'? Her ears folded back defensively as if she didn't want to hear what he had to say.

"Go on then," she said. She certainly was owed an explanation, and she wanted to take it, hurl as much abuse at him as possible and then storm off away from all of this hurt. But she'd promised Bandit. She had a job to do. If nothing else, she had to get some information out of him.

She realised how little she knew about the wolf standing in front of her. He'd just been kind to her and in some ways they had fit together. But who was he? Who was his family? Why was he so haunted when he was such a naturally happy being? She'd always assumed that he would explain all of these things in time, as if that was how relationships should work. Not like this. Not disappearing into enemy territory and then prancing about like a pup on the edge of his old territory. If nothing else he just seemed to be confused. Es remained stonily silent and waited.

[Fire]

The seconds dragged like minutes before Esmerelda replied. He'd been deathly afraid that she would turn, storm away and never look back before he got the chance to explain himself, explain why.
'Go on, then.' Bion breathed in and out steadily before he started, attempting to organise his thoughts as neatly and eloquently as possible in the short space of time he had. Of course, he'd had a while to think about this. Why hadn't he? Bion had always planned to find his mate as soon as possible and tell her why he'd left, and so quickly. Hadn't he? As he began to think about it, he realised he hadn't just put zero thought into how he would explain, but also zero thought into the fact that he would, at some point, have to explain. His irresponsibility startled him sometimes.

"I didn't plan for it to happen this way," he began, eyes fixed desperately on hers, "and please don't consider me a traitor. I owe you an apology, for leaving without telling you and so abruptly, but I can't say I'm sorry for leaving. I just...I need to know." He looked away to the side, frowning and urgently, fiercely trying to figure out what he could possibly say to redeem himself. "I wanted to know, about my family. I just don't feel content with y- the Stars any more. I didn't mean to, I'm- I'm sorry." He turned back to Esmerelda for the sake of politeness, but he couldn't look her in the eye. Instead, his gaze was fixed just in front of her forepaws. "I don't know whether Rose is my mother, or...Oh. He's dead, you know. My father is- I mean Raiden, he's dead." He paused. He'd almost forgotten. Why did he tell her that? "Anyway," he recovered quickly, "what I am trying to say is that I'm sorry that I abandoned you and Akiko, I didn't think of that and it was irresponsible. I'm just not used to it, and it's not an excuse but it's a reason at least, but it feels weird looking after someone other than myself."

Cautiously, Bion looked up at his mate's face. She was so beautiful, but he felt the weirdest thing when he looked at her: he felt nothing. Well, perhaps not nothing. She was his mate, and that had to count for something, but the thing that had sparked their romance in the first place felt as though it had dissipated; faded. It made him feel guilty. "But look, Es, I understand that you're angry and you have every right to shout at me and turn away and never come back. I just want you to know that-" he loved her? He missed her?

"Well. I just wanted you to know why."

[Paint]

When Es heard the slight stumble in his voice, his difficulty seemed to be in really saying the truth, she felt more hurt than if he had outright insulted her. But she listened, trying to stop her face from being too emotive. Her ears stayed pinned hard against her skull but she still listened, watching him, unable to look away with her black lips set tightly together.

Finally he stumbled to a stop and she realised that she would have to say something. But Es wasn't the sort of wolf to hold back and pick her words carefully. Her brow knitted together in a frustrated kind of sadness.

"I just wish you could've told me that when we were starting a family," she responded. When she looked at him now she didn't see him as she had done previously, and she felt that he felt the same. There was no romance in the air now. She sat down with a gentle thud and looked at him, thinking of all that he'd said.

"I'm sorry to hear about your father, or well, your possible father," she murmured, but there was far more sympathy in her voice now. She sighed. "It's all really messed up. I was counting on one of us to turn out as a good parent. I'm not so good at it and I was hoping you would be," she confessed, thinking of their pups. Perhaps they wouldn't mind having a broken family? Perhaps if there were no hard feelings...

Es vaguely remembered the job she had to do, but felt as if it could wait.

"I lost my brother to the Falling Moons, you know."

She wasn't sure if he knew that yet. The conversations that they may or may not have had seemed ridiculous to her now. They knew nothing about each other. Es hesitated slightly before speaking again, unable to keep the wounded hurt from her voice. She was supposed to be fishing out information, but perhaps she could allow a selfish mission. Just for a few minutes.

"He's the Beta wolf now. Have you met him?"

[Fire]

The change in Es' voice settled him a little. At least she wasn't being completely hostile toward him, and, really, he wouldn't have blamed her if she were, so she didn't hate him completely. There was still a chance they could be friends, even if they weren't together in the same way. He considered the thought for a moment, turned it around gently in his mind. Would he prefer that they were just friends? Probably. But it wasn't just about them, now that they had a family to think about. For Akiko's sake, he didn't want them to be on bad terms anyway.

"I understand," he replied apologetically, "and I'm sorry. It was just different then. It didn't work out how I'd planned." Bion shrugged a little, and let out a small, defeated huff of breath as his shoulders dropped. At her next words, his face fell. He realised how selfish it was of them to bring pups into the world when their relationship was so rash, thoughtless. He didn't love her like he once thought he had, but Bion would be damned if he didn't love his pups.
"Hey," he said softly, frowning a little. "They're tough. I'll bet they through this better than we do." He wasn't entirely sure what he meant by 'this'. Perhaps the entire situation they were in, or perhaps the end of them as one.

Interest sparked at the mention of her brother. She'd never spoke of him before, and the notion that he might have met him already was more than bizarre.
'He's the Beta wolf now.' Bion grimaced a little, interest replaced with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Tall, pitch-black pelt and a bad attitude?" He was fairly certain there were quite a few Falling Moons that would fit that description, but he knew exactly who she was talking about. "Yeah, I met him. Justyn, right?"

He wondered if Justyn knew that he and Es were mates, that they had pups together. "Does he knew he's an uncle?" he asked before he could stop himself. He'd probably be horrified to know Bion was his...step-brother? Heck. Bion was, too.

[Paint]

Es felt herself slightly swallowed up by a frustrated kind of sadness. She looked away from Bion for a moment, listening and taking it in but her mind was elsewhere. It was with her mother, her beautiful mother who had suffered so much with Caerwyn and yet had never stopped loving him. Never given up. Part of Esmerelda had known that her mother would be proud of her for having tried to start a family, but now? Es felt ashamed. As if she'd failed the memory of Midnight.

"Sounds like him," Es replied dully, turning around again to look at Bion. Thankfully she wasn't crying, although she wasn't sure how far off she was from it. At Bion's question, Es felt her ears pull backwards. She didn't know why she'd even mentioned Justyn. She hated talking about him. "No he doesn't know. We haven't spoken for months now. I doubt he'd even care."

She couldn't help the harshness in her tone. She didn't want Justyn to know- she didn't want him to have the privilege of other family members who might at some point forgive him. Because no doubt he'd tell them all about it, but not Es. He'd never explained a damned thing to Es. Her mood became darker and darker as she thought, and she turned her angry green eyes upon Bion. Although she wasn't angry at him, she was terribly bad at hiding emotion.

"Don't say anything to him about me. Don't tell him," she finished with a slight stutter, as if she wanted to say He doesn't deserve to know. But it was all in her tone. She paused a moment, silently vowing to try harder with her own pups, to try and be a better mother. With an absent, fairly traitorous father, they may well end up as bitter and resentful at Justyn. Esmerelda did not want that to happen.

"We need to talk about Caden," Es changed the subject. She hated the confrontational tone in her voice and all she wanted to do was run, run away and keep running until her legs gave out and she fell to exhaustion far away from all of this hostility and heartache. But she had promised Bandit.

[Fire]

Yet again, Bion was reminded why he was such a poor excuse for a Moon wolf. His empathetic ways betrayed him every time. The anger and bitterness on her face weighed down on his already heavy heart, and there was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to bound forward and comfort her. Once, a long time ago, he probably would have. But those days were long gone. He wasn't sure if it was because he'd changed or because their relationship had changed, but he stayed put anyway.

"Of course," he said, and nodded to reinforce his agreement. Bion had no intention of talking to Justyn unless it was completely necessary, and he certainly had no intention of telling him about his relationship with Es. Somehow he didn't think Justyn would react particularly well to the news.

Inevitably, Es brought up Caden, and Bion couldn't help but feel a little relieved that the topic of conversation was no longer focused on how badly he'd messed up. He might even be useful in this respect.
"We do," he agreed, but it took a few moments for him to continue. He wasn't quite sure what to say. He'd known that if he came across any Dancing Stars, the issue of Caden's rescue would be a given topic. But, as always, he wasn't prepared, and he'd had surprisingly little time with Taya to discuss it.

"Do you guys have a plan or...anything?" Not very helpful, but he couldn't be expected to have come up with a plan. Could he? Maybe that's what they expected. Or maybe they thought his joining the Moons had something to do with Caden's capture.

The thought made him feel ill.

[Paint]

Esmerelda tried to let her anger towards her brother subside. Slowly, very slowly, it did. She turned her mind to the matter at hand, trying to remember exactly what it was Bandit had wanted her to find out. For some reason she had expected Bion to avoid the subject, to deny everything or somehow protect the Moons. She found herself confused.

"No, we don't have a plan," she replied, confusion clear in her tone as she frowned at him. If he wasn't part of this plan, why was he staying with the Moons? Frustration ran through her again at her lack of understanding. Had she always been so slow, so stupid? She wasn't made for this.

"What happened?" she finally asked. He must know at least that. She quickly spluttered out a more important question. "He is alive, right?"

[Fire]

Bion watched her patiently, taking in her confusion with a little of his own. Surely they had some sort of plan? He'd only seen Caden once since he was kidnapped, and even then it had been in passing; when Caden was allowed for one of his walks. Obviously they didn't trust Bion one bit so he wasn't allowed to take a turn guarding the alpha. It was probably for the best, too. Bion wasn't sure he would be able to stop himself from attempting an ill-thought-through, spontaneous rescue and trying to bust Caden out himself, which wouldn't work out for any of them. But the point was, Caden looked terrible, and he wasn't sure how much longer he'd last.

He realised that he'd actually made no attempt to help Caden at all, and he suddenly felt like the biggest coward in the entire world.

"I don't really know," he said, to distract himself from his guilt. "It happened pretty quickly. From what I've heard it wasn't planned or anything, Caden had just wandered into No Man's Land and they found him, and they seized the opportunity." He hated that he sounded so detached, so much like a Falling Moon might. Or maybe it was just a defence mechanism. He didn't want to think about how he was partially to blame; that he was part of the problem.

He'd been in the dens when they'd brought Caden in. It was a great big mess of panic and confusion, at least for him. The smell of blood and fear had been overwhelming when he'd made his way out into the tunnels to find out what was happening.

"They move him every few days," he said, deciding to leave out the gory details and skip to what was useful, "because of me and Taya, I guess. I don't really know my way around the dens yet, because I hadn't been there long and if I get caught snooping around Caden I'm a dead wolf. His den shouldn't be too hard for me to find, but if you want to rescue him you'd have to act within a day or two to make sure you get in an out as quickly as possible. You don't want to be wasting time looking for Caden in their labyrinth of dens."

Bion sighed gently, watching Es with a sad, soft gaze. "They don't trust us, Es. If you don't have a plan then I don't know how to help."

[Paint]

Es listened in stony silence, realisation dawning on her as she listened to him. Perhaps some small, hopeful part of her had thought that Bion and Taya had joined the Moons for a good reason. Perhaps they'd wanted to help from the inside. But as he spoke, that hope disappeared into the darkness and she realised that his intentions had always been wholly selfish. He'd done nothing to help Caden now, or ever.

"Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?" she spoke quietly, green eyes boring into him, and if she hadn't been such a messed up mixture of anger and disappointment then she might have cried. Her body shook a little and she cleared her throat. She had to complete this business. Her eyes were cast away and she looked back again as if the previous words had never escaped her muzzle.

"We don't have a plan yet, no. We've been trying to gather information. That's why I was so, well, lucky to stumble across you. Your information on the dens is helpful."

She paused, looking back at the Stars land and sighing. What more could she do? He knew next to nothing. And it didn't sound as if he'd made any effort to try and help their dwindling Alpha.

"We should have some sort of code. If there's any opportunity, like Caden's near the border or there's some kind of distraction, we need some way of knowing."

[Fire]

As soon as the words left her maw, Bion recoiled as if it were a physical blow. His ears flicked back and he had to force himself to hold her gaze. Now wasn't the time to be weak and cowardly, but it was difficult. The worst part was that she was right, and he didn't even have the courage to confirm that no, he didn't think of anyone but himself. It wasn't on purpose, not really. He never went out of his way to hurt those around him. He just seemed to leave a trail of destruction and disappointment behind him. That didn't make it any less his fault, though, because being selfless didn't just happen. That was the kind of thing you had to work at, right? The way he saw it, selfishness was something you had to build away from, rather than being born one or the other.

But what about Taya? It seemed that generosity and selflessness were just in her nature. Did that mean that selfishness and greed were just in his? Possibly. Bion hadn't quite figured that out yet.

He nodded at her Es's words, tilting his head toward the sky as if it would give him the answer. A code would work, but it had to be something that wouldn't catch the Falling Moons' attention. "It needs to be subtle, but instant. Howling isn't the most subtle of signals but I think if you're ready, then we can get him out before they come sniffing." He sounded a lot more certain than he felt. The Falling Moons weren't a pack to be messed with, and Bion wasn't exactly on their good side.

"What do you think?"

[Paint]

The part of Es that didn't like seeing those she hurt loved twitched somewhere inside of her at Bion's reaction to her harsh words, but the feeling faded just as all of her feelings for him were. She supposed it was just another way of running away, repressing she supposed. But she no longer cared. She steeled herself, listened and frowned in thought.

"Howling is the most obvious option. In a way, that's good. Perhaps they'll think it's so obvious that we wouldn't do it," Es thought aloud, her brow furrowing more and more. She felt frustrated. "I really don't know what they'd think though. They probably think we're stupid enough to do something obvious."

The thought of trying to cross the border, even her own pups, dawned on her slowly and unwelcomingly. Her mood soured with despair. She would have to learn to fight, surely, somehow. Her mind wandered to wolves like Bandit and she decided to try and think like her. What would Bandit say to Bion right now if she were here? If she'd had the luck instead of Es? Her frown remained but she looked up at Bion with her mind working thoroughly hard behind her green eyes.

"They're such a strong pack, aren't they? Strong but... what's the word, not... stable. Volatile. We could use that somehow?" Es wasn't really asking but the questions were clear enough in her voice. She looked around her for inspiration, still thinking, still trying to channel Bandit and use this train of thought well. Es was no natural leader, and never really had to think much either. She was an instinctive creature. She almost forgot that Bion was there in her efforts until she finally happened upon an idea.

"Bion, you could help. We can use their weaknesses, maybe, if you could get them all riled up. In some way, I don't know how, if they're your family surely that's something... I mean, ugh this isn't coming out right at all. Do you know what I'm trying to say?" she felt like a pup again.

[Fire]

Bion listened carefully to her words, completely unfazed by her difficulty communicating her thoughts. After all, Bion was the same. He'd never really had a way with words. At least they had that in common. "No, I think I understand. I agree." He nodded, looking thoughtful. "They seem pretty unstable." Then she brought him directly into the equation, and the coward inside him told him to run; told him to tell her it wouldn't work, it was an awful plan. But he couldn't, because she was right, and because if he turned his back on this then he'd never be able to live with himself. Perhaps if he made this work he could redeem himself, and the Dancing Stars would accept him back when this was all over.

"Yeah. I do. I think I've already started..." he said, thinking of his confrontation with Justyn. "I don't think it would be very difficult to make them angry..." He cast his mind desperately back to the few weeks he's spent with them; tried to organise what he'd witnessed. "They love to fight. I mean- they enjoy it, I think. I'm not saying I should start a fight or- well, maybe I could?" The thought of the entire pack versus him was a grim one indeed, but he'd need the majority of the pack to be there.

"This is ridiculous but-" he paused. It was ridiculous. It was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever come up with, and he couldn't believe he was going to say it. "I could- I could challenge Justyn for the position of Beta. I don't know how it works, but the entire pack would be there to watch, right? And nobody would be able to intervene, it'd be a one-on-one fight." This obviously introduced the idea of Bion being killed, but he didn't really want to think about that. Esmerelda probably wouldn't care anyway, not after what he'd done to her and her family. Their family.

"I know challenging your brother might not be what you had in mind, but if you have any other suggestions..." he trailed off. "I think it would work," he said, trying his best at sounding confident. In the back of his mind, he wondered if this was the kind of behaviour she'd meant when she said that the Falling Moons were volatile.

ooc: I don't really know what the rules are on challenging Betas. If you can only do that with Alpha positions, let me know before Bion embarrasses himself c: