Turtleback Lake hold me under the sun

@Gent
Sunny - 14 ° F, -10 ° C

Nova wasn't entirely sure what brought her back here. Though it was a pleasant day, clear skies as far as the eye could see, she had no illusions of braving the deep blue that stretched out before her.  Her knees trembled slightly as she looked out across the water to the green turtle-backed islands that rested so peacefully above the surface. To be honest, it scared her a little. These waters had turned on her before, and she did not even dare venture to its calmly lapping shore for a drink to quench her parched throat. Though it had been months since then, the memory of a struggle for life and death was fresh. Sometimes she awoke at night gasping for air as if the frigid liquid was still threatening to fill her airways.

So she was really not sure why she was here if this lake terrified her. A plausible pretense if any cared to ask, she was looking for Koda. But truly her heart wasn't in it, and she knew it was just an excuse. She'd learned well enough that men would leave and never return, there was no point in looking for them. But was it really true that she wasn't looking for someone? Somewhere between memories of churning water and panic was something else. A swarthy coat, a voice like warm honey, and eyes like ice.

Nova shook her coat out as if trying to shake the tantalizingly errant thoughts from her mind.

He needed to clear his head. Why this brought him East, he couldn't say, and didn't care to ponder. His legs plowed steadily through the snow without a thought toward where they intended to go. It wasn't until he passed the palisades and smelled the strong and heavy scent of moving water that he realized just how far he had gone. The sky above was bright yet bleak all the same, white and wintry with little to give away. Everything felt dead, and he struggled to remember spring much less the warmth of summer.

Slowly, his thoughts backslid, tunneling through the nonce and past the time spent with the wolves of the Crest, all the way to that winter spent under Naira's banner. That winter had been so much worse than this, and yet starving to death and traveling days at a time he still felt so much more alive than he did now. They were scraping by, but they were surviving all the same. Now, despite his belly being full, he felt as though he were slowly drowning.

Drowning. That thought initiated its own speeding train, combining with the scent of the lake to remind him of Nova, and thus of @Iopah 's pack. He wondered how they were faring, if any pack was dropping one by one as quickly as his or if that mountain isolated them not just from invasion but from fortune as well.

As he drew close enough to hear the slough of the sluggish waves, he could have sworn he could smell her scent as well, though certainly it must have been vivid memory that filled his lungs. His luck couldn't be so good as to catch a glimpse of what he missed... could it?

Cresting the view, he witnessed her, a dark smudge backdropped by steel blue.

"Nova... ?" he uttered, perplexed. Why would she come back here, of all places? His pale eyes searched, but found no daughter, no Camio. Was she truly here alone, his to converse with? His paws were frozen to the ground, for he was certain that if he approached, she would suddenly have some place she needed to be, a reason to leave so that he could not say any of the words he so desperately wanted to.

When did I become so pessimistic? The thought thawed his limbs and ushered him effortlessly forward. That was not what he wanted to be, this burdened beast that lost sight of opportunities through a cloud of past missteps. He did not want to be defeated, was not defeated.

"Nova," he called to her now, a gentle greeting as he met her upon the shore. Comfortable enough to stand at her side, he allowed what was on his mind to be spoken. "Didn't think I'd see you here again ever."

(This post was last modified: Feb 02, 2016, 12:32 AM by Gent.)

Nova's ears perked at the sound of her name, spoken by the very voice she had been thinking about. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she was simply imagining it through sheer willpower. As she turned her back on the undulating waters it became clear that if it was a hallucination, it was an exceedingly detailed one. Nova's yellow eyes settled on the raven black male, a smile stretching across her broad maw. Her tail swished behind her as Gent came to stand by her, his comment mirroring her own thoughts.

"I didn't either," She said with a small nervous sort of laugh, her head shaking side to side. She never thought she'd come back here after what had happened, nor did she think she'd see Gent again.

"At least you won't have to rescue me again," She said with a sheepish turn to her lips, her gaze averting from his crystalline eyes. It was embarrassing now, both that she had needed to be saved from such a stupid mistake in the first place, as well as how shaken and distraught she'd been afterwards. It wasn't her proudest moment, and even though they had been packmates once upon a time, they were virtually strangers now. The man really had no obligation to risk his own life in dragging her back to safety that day.

"Really, I can't thank you enough." She said, looking back up towards him.

There were few expectations itching beneath his skin, but they mostly failed to predict just how glad she would be to see him again. It was a stark contrast to nervous caution that plagued her before, though he supposed that was fair given the trauma she had experienced and her reason for being so far from home in the first place. Had he come back then, that devil that owned all of Gent's blame? Had her life pieced itself back together over the winter as his had fallen apart? Or could possibly, truly just be that she was happy for his company?

That was a marvelous thought. He couldn't recall the last time he'd been greeted like that by anyone save for @Raela, certainly not without the shadow of sadness so pressing behind tired eyes and ingenuine smiles that they might as well have not even tried. Even @Danica, before she had vanished through his own onus, had still been so broken. He supposed that even if it did mean Camio had returned to Iopah's pack, it was still worth it to see such a smile.

"I'd do it again," he informed her with a gentle smile. That she was still here was a testament that he desperately needed, proof that his efforts did make a difference. He hadn't lost all that he had tried to save. Not yet, at least. "But I do prefer you dry and safe, yes."

"How've you been? How is Nalda?"

Nova blinked, tucking her chin down as she felt her cheeks warm beneath the charcoal fur of her face. "You won't have to, I promise." She said. She wouldn't be getting in that lake again if her life depended on it.

His seemingly simple question held her up for a moment. Nova wasn't sure if it was meant as a simple pleasantry, or whether he honestly wanted to know. "I'm... Alright," She admitted, her smile turning to a hesitant quirk of the lips. "I've just, given up... on finding him." She said, a tinge of bitterness and betrayal biting into her voice. She still didn't know what had happened to Camio, and parts of her were afraid to know the truth. She wasn't sure what was the least painful option, believing that he had walked away of his own free will and had betrayed her and their family... or that he had been killed or otherwise involuntarily separated, leaving the guilt that ate at her when she realized she was okay with sleeping alone in what had been their den, and that a day could pass without her missing him.

"But I worry about Nalda. I don't see as much of her anymore, she's become quite solitary since her father, well..." Nova said, a large paw scuffing into the damp silt of the shore, dandelion gaze shifting back towards Gent.

The hesitance within her answer tickled his concern, and he hung upon each pause between her words. There was something wrong then? Or at least, something that wasn't quite right. His thoughts expanded once more toward the pack she owed her allegiance, worried that perhaps things weren't going so well for Iopah's little operation as he might have hoped. If she had stumbled enough to allow him the time, his mind might have digressed into puzzling over why he even cared so much. What was it inside of him that made him so nostalgic, each and every time? From Danica to Iopah to Naira, the most influential existences over him were the ones that remained to be nothing but shadows. Why did he want to reach back through time so badly?

Him. The tone of the utterance was not lost upon the shade king, and it shook him from his mental wanderings. His selfish half came to life as he could not help but be satisfied with this revelation. Camio was still out of the picture, and his absence was corroding the care Nova had held for him, it would seem. Hopefully this would be a truth for Iopah as well. Exactly as it should be, Gent was certain. Even as the luminary had never met the man before, he had already deemed him poisonous. To a beast as willingly vengeful as he, Camio was damned. The less who would be affected by his bloody fall, the better.

But none of this could be revealed to the woman before him, and so a practiced softening overcame his features as he interpreted her pain. When she spoke an answer to his second question, this subtle emotion within his glacial eyes swiftly became authentic. Regrettably, he was reminded of the trio he had thought to be his own what felt like years ago now. Was Nalda turning against Nova as Minka's children had him? Probably not. It was a different situation after all, despite the similarities. There was blood between them. All over again, Gent began to feel foolish.

"What is she like when she is with you?" he asked, voice mellowed with genuine interest. What was it like, standing atop her paws?

@Gent

Someone to talk to, someone to listen. It was clear he was paying attention to her, and it was intoxicating in its own way. How long had it been since she had truly had a conversation with another?

"She's a sweet little thing, when she was smaller she always stuck close, like a little shadow. Quiet like one, too. But I could tell she was paying attention to everything, learning by seeing. We were without a pack at first... I don't think she's ever really warmed up to anyone besides me and her dad."  Nova said, ears folding and eyes turning downcast. They hadn't really had a choice in the matter, they couldn't have had her if they remained at Secret Woodlands, at least not without Nina's wrath. But still, she felt poorly that Nalda had perhaps been deprived of something important in those first few months living alone in Dragonfly Fen.  

"I'm not really sure whether the pack life even suits her, she's seldom within the borders lately. I suppose she's just at the age for it, but..." Nova sighed, her lips pulling in a crooked grimace. Sometimes she worried for Nalda, doing who knew what out in the wilds. But with a tinge of guilt on her behalf it made things just the slightest bit lonelier. Her mate was gone, her baby girl had one foot out the door, and the pack had been shaved down by winter to a skeleton crew. There was a house but no home. Could she really blame Nalda for keeping her distance?

"Here I am blathering on, and I don't know a thing about you." Nova said with a shake of her head. It wasn't fair to dump all of this on the warm body who had the misfortune to be standing in front of her. Nova had hardly known Gent way back when, and now he was but a stranger with a familiar face.

A young deer has been separated from the rest of its herd. Hunt Opportunity