Little darling, I feel like ice is slowly melting . . .

The silver wolfess listened carefully, both of her ears perked, attentive to any word the stranger could give for her to place in the back of her memory. Maybe he could answer the hundred and one questions that floated on her mind, forming a dense cloud above her focused eyes she could not simply disregard. The concept of pack was so remote and alien to her, she could feel her mind still struggle in the decision of fearing it, or wanting to know every aspect of it. But she had decided to ignore her irrational fears, at least for that night, and the succulent temptation of her restless curiosity was striking, and striking hard. For a second, she tried to wonder how would it be to live inside of a pack. But did they have rules? A leader perhaps? Unfortunately, all she knew about packs is what her father once told her: first, they’re dangerous for loners; second, one does not need them. Ever since she was a puppy, she had obeyed and followed her father’s instructions as if there was no other law in the vastness of nature, but now that she was older –and alone-, she could understand that, maybe, there were other opinions on the matter, and perhaps his father was not as right as she had always thought.

A solemn introduction escaped from the young wolf’s mouth, and the little loner soon found that he was incrementing her curiosity, more than satisfying it. Tainns? Her skull cocked in a slight movement, her wonders augmented. “Am I supposed to know them?” she interrogated on the spur of the moment, and then paused, asking herself if she had sounded too rude to the male’s ears. At least now she knew the name of her neighbor pack –and, more importantly, she discovered that packs had their own names-. Swift River. Peculiar name, she secretly opined.

Suvah put away her endless questions as she nodded to his new acquaintance. “Nice to meet you” she politely smiled “Sorry about me being… well…” the wolfess paused, not wanting to admit she had been scared. “I don’t know much about packs, and this is my first encounter with a member of any… I was unsure of how to act.” She smiled shyly, hoping the brute would understand her position.

Unsure. What a specimen she was.

Here comes the sun, and I say . . .

It's  a l r i g h t.

Little darling, I feel like ice is slowly melting . . .

All the tenseness that could inhabit the chilly air of that peaceful night seemed to disappear with every word the blackened male pronounced. Suvah’s ears flicked to spread once again, eyes attentive, her intention being that to keep all of the information he could give. Words were shelved into the hunger of her mind, and she soon found herself accepting the fact that this had been the only time she had been so close to the earth of Relic Lore. For months, she had wandered, hiding from others and ignoring all history the territory could possess. All her encounters with other relatives were restricted to tenseness and trivial chatting, and this was actually the first time someone had taken time to give a piece of their knowledge and understanding to her, which was something she was almost too grateful for, she had discovered.

Shyly, she nodded at him, dedicating a slight smile and a slow wag of her tail as soon as she realized how he had understood and fulfilled her curiosity so perfectly. “I see” she managed to bark, unable to think about thanking him in any other way at the precise moment.

Slowly, the Avani approached, more shy than hesitant now, and took a seat on her hindquarters over the stirred patch of snow Triell was standing on, not so close that they could touch, but enough to express the fact that she was not so nervous anymore. Eyes scrutinized the wide sky that brightly shone upon them, moving from one star to another, and then, dulled at the question of the male. He had asked for her parents. Her family. And she was now balancing her thoughts to find out if she was prepared to answer or not. Over the months of tough winter, she had had almost too much time to think about this question, but the truth was, this had been the first time someone had asked her something like that. Alone, she liked to think about her lost relatives as something far, something long lost that she had to forget, and she was making the best of works at it, but now that someone had asked, they seemed to be as real as they had been once in her lifetime.

The silver wolf shook the fur of her thoughtful head, and tilted a tad to witness the smile on the brute’s lips. What was the difference? Whether she was alone or not, they were part of her past. She was all by herself now, and she knew maybe too well she could make it. She was almost an adult now, and needed to be as strong as her lost parents had taught her to be. To hell with her gloom, they wouldn’t have wanted that, nor did she want. And he owed Triell an answer, too; after all, he had answered her questions without hesitation.

She sighed in an effort to get rid of the lump of her throat, and smiled, her snout facing once again the dark sky. “I’m alone, I guess” she stated as calmly as she could get her voice to be “I’ve been for a while now. My family and I were crossing the mountains, and then… I got lost. I tried to find them, but have you seen those mountains?” her digits played with the snow under her body, trying to remember the iciness of the mountain floor, and avoiding any sadness to flood her words “I guess should feel lucky for having crossed them all by myself.” Her muzzle finished moving, and she tried to hide any emotion under false proudness. In any other case, half of such a feat would have served as a legit excuse to be her arrogant self, but at the moment, it didn’t appear to be neither as fun nor as worthy. All she could do was pretend it was.

Here comes the sun, and I say . . .

It's  a l r i g h t.

Little darling, I feel like ice is slowly melting . . .

OOC: No need to apologize :) I know that feeling far too well.

Dark slippery lips reflected the slightest of smiles as she heard his voice trembling once again against the half folded cartilages her ears formed. She heard carefully, and the tenseness of her mouth dropped just to tense once again in a whole different manner. It would have been unperceivable for the sight of Triell, her mind was almost sure of that –after all, even the greatest of tics would be mistaken for the mere fiddling of a playful shadow under the squalid light the starts offered-, but to her own perception, her slight movement had been a perfect cringe, a full grown of disapproval. The one and only thing that made her hide her sentiments now was the fact that they weren’t drawn to his oblivious companion. They were drawn to her and her only. Why had she done that? Why tell a stranger her most unwanted memories, the ones she had been trying to bury, to forget for so long? Now they had not only came back to her present, but made her deal with perhaps the worst of her enemies: pity. Oh, how she loathed compassion.

Fiery orbs were drawn back to her improvised confidant, and her inscrutable countenance turned into a grimace of playfulness and acceptation with a click of her slippy tongue. She wasn’t angry at him. Nor did she feel like regretting what was now inevitable. She had told him for a reason she did not fully acknowledge at the precise instant. Perhaps she needed to go through all of that to finally forget and break her undesired chains, or maybe it had just been the heat of the moment. Either of which, she couldn’t still decide. Her mind felt dense, and her thoughts had turned into a heavy tangle of chaos she couldn’t encircle. What was she to do now? Would she accept his condolences and turn her initially victorious night into another endless eternity of mourning and resignation? No. If there was something to be sure of it was her determination on this matter. She wasn’t going to throw these hours. Too much time had been wasted in her life at that point.

“No need to be sorry. I’m fine.” She barked after her seconds of hesitant thought, her initial fire now put out. It was going to be how it had ultimately been: she would ignore and forget, and then, maybe, she would keep up with her improvised new life. “I guess one day I’ll have my own pups and family, and then have my chance to get lost myself.” her vile satire flowed out of her mouth promptly, and she summoned all of her strength to actually grin at the black joke. Then, her attention was drawn to her words, and she found a sudden glee at the realization that her shyness had been left behind, unwanted. Perhaps talking about this hadn’t hurt her that much. At least she had put one of her claws in her future –even if it was just as a joke-, something she hadn’t even thought of embracing for a long time. It was a progress, in her opinion, and it didn’t feel as bad anymore.

Her mind ran again, rushing with pictures and her everlasting questions. Her rushed vision of the future had made her mind click one more time, and her curiosity itched deep inside, spreading and burning like wild fire inside of her entrails as she gazed at the ebony male. Despite all the information he had kindly donated to her, her mind couldn’t still comprehend all of the small questions her mind was formulating about the subjects of packs. He had mentioned something about his brother wanting to start a new one, and the only reminder of it was enough to make her desire run in circles inside of her mind, wanting to know his opinion on the matter.

“What about you anyway?” she started, pausing once again to hold her new lack of inhibition. “Are you going to stay with your pack?” She wasn’t quite sure of why was her mind so eager to know his response. One part of her wanted to know the opinion of someone who had apparently lived all of their life inside of a community, of a large family, while another part still questioned all of the learning she had gained from his pigheaded father. Perhaps living alone wasn’t as right as she had initially thought, and the right thing to do was to search for a pack to live with, or perhaps living with a pack was, indeed, as horrible as she had been told, and while loners lingered for company, grouped wolves sought for solitude.

Her tail gave a few slight flicks, and her skull looked down for a few moments, a smile showing over her faded muzzle as a reaction to her own ignorance. She had still so much to learn…

Here comes the sun, and I say . . .

It's  a l r i g h t.

Little darling, I feel like ice is slowly melting . . .

Bright optics shifted inside of their sockets to draw a concealed gaze at the brute’s face, searching out of the corner of her eyes for any sign of emotion or gesture. She was almost convinced that he had discovered her coward shield, and yet, she felt the thin breath of relief cover the nape of her skull when he decided not to mention anything about it. He worded his answer, quiet and emotionless, but with a hint of praise upon it. The onyx male left escape letters of eulogy amongst his sentence, and Suvah could not dodge a physical response to what he had said. She shouldered back a few inches almost as a reflex action, letting out a slight breath of proudness, more to her own self than to the male to hear. The young female could not quite recall when had it been the last time she had had a compliment directed to her –as forced as it may had been-, and to be fair, these words pronounced by Triell had triggered perhaps a trifling part of her buried ego, an ego submerged under the passing months of solitude and uncertain. Perhaps being around other did help her, and she was not as fine as she thought she was.

The sound of his voice was defeated by the echo of the quiet winter night again, and the wolfess continued with her scrutinizing hidden gaze, an observation of his features taking place even with the vast lack of light. It was then when the juvenile wolf expressed his answer to the given questions, and the female stood quietly, one of her ears drawn to his side in an effort of hearing him better. Judging by the time he had taken to think of his response, the girl stood in her wondering stand for another while. She seemed to have touched a risky spot of sorts, and yet her hungry curiosity wasn’t able to let her feel the slightest hint of guilt, so she continued with the task of the quiet listener; perhaps she could take more information from his kind words, after all. And indeed she did. The boy mentioned another pack of the area, one belonging to other one of his siblings, and Suvah widened her twin ears even more in deep concentration. “So you really come from a caste of leaders” she mushed in a deep bark, joking slightly at the information given. It didn’t make much sense to her after she had spoken, a sudden reminder striking into her brains as she finished her commentary: there was no wolf that didn’t come from the union of two leaders. She, herself, had known her parents as loners, but even so, she had heard at least once of his father’s stories as the alpha of his own pack.

Nevertheless, she shooed away her thoughts to keep on with her listening, her black lips smiling softly when the black brute made his confession, and later proceeded to interrogate her one more time, shooting at her a question she was, in her insides, expecting to receive sooner or later.

It was the brutal truth. Despite her apparent strength and determination about the matter, the absolute reality was that she had not the slightest of ideas of what to do with her life. And by reason of her lack of experience with any pack and overall shyness, it wasn’t like she had many options on her paws. She looked again, her young orange lenses pointing at him for the briefest of seconds before aiming to the sky again, breathing heavily, her face covered with hesitation. “I don’t know…” she finally barked “I can’t say I don’t like them… I just don’t know enough. Being out alone is harsh, and judging by what you’re saying, staying with a pack would be the right thing to do right now.” She gazed away, her eyes scrutinizing the bright layer of snow that covered the place. Winter was harsh, and judging by her lack of ability to hunt and the hunger she was passing through almost every day, it didn’t seem like she would be able to survive as healthy as she stood now for too long. “But still don’t know if I’d do well… as you’ve seen, I don’t do well with strangers” She laughed in hidden anxiety. Her confession had sounded harder to her ears than she had initially thought, and she took a brief while to swallow her words and forget about them. It was true, she was afraid… afraid of strangers. She couldn’t deal with the overwhelming feeling of being around them. And if she even reached to rely on others, to love others… then, what if she lost them once more?

Here comes the sun, and I say . . .

It's  a l r i g h t.