Grizzly Hollow caffeinated scribbles

For @Tomen only.
Backdated to 3/18, early morning.

As she led the way through the thawing forest, the girl was uncharacteristically quiet. Pensive was the best word for it, and honestly a large part of her wanted more time to think through all that she needed to tell her friend. She knew that she could not keep putting things off, however; it was time to swallow fears and reservations and correct the mistakes she had made. Occasionally, she would sway her steps to brush her shoulder against Tomen's.

As of late, she was finding more and more comfort in his touch and company, evident in how she chose to sleep curled up against his side each night and often sought his presence. She felt closer to him, and given all who had left the pack since her joining, he was the only one she knew as a genuine friend. The rest were either strangers, or had given her reason to allow the relationship to stagnate. Not Tomen. The more she learned about him, the more she liked, but that just made her decision all the more difficult. If it wasn't for him, the choice to go home would have been easy; she'd probably already be back in the thicket, romping with her siblings.

When they were at a satisfactory distance from any high-traffic areas of the pack lands, she slowed to a gradual stop. A sigh left her maw before she curled around to face him.

"Okay. I got... a lot to tell you," she informed him. "About why I'm really here, and... what I did."

(This post was last modified: Apr 07, 2016, 12:38 AM by Nineva.)

She'd tried to be casual, but he'd seen through it; there was something important on her mind. It had taken a long time to get this familiar with her nuances, her expressions and the tone of her voice and all that was conveyed in the way she looked at him, but then, Nineva had been in Grizzly Hollow quite a long time. It was weirdly difficult to imagine life before her. How had he not been incredibly bored all the time? Who would he have spent far too much time daydreaming about?

Always happy to grant her silliest of requests, when he recognised that this one was potentially serious there was absolutely no question of his following along with whatever she wanted. As they trotted along, his attempts at idle chatter fell to the side as a silence took over Nineva, and not wanting to pressure her into talking if she had other things on her mind, Tomen was content to fall into silence with her. It wasn't awkward. Yes, a part of him was totally freaking out about whatever she wasn't sharing, but it did no good to indulge that part, because it wouldn't do either of them any good. He was there whenever she was ready to talk, or do whatever she had planned. Like he always was.

That said, the instant she stopped and turned around he halted too, his eyes finding hers, alert, dying of curiosity but fighting off all his impatience.

Her opening statement didn't exactly inspire confidence, but mostly, it was just confusing. That sounded like the start to some awful confession or something. "Um, okay," he said, hesitant concern on his face, stepping forward to touch his nose to her cheek for just a moment, to try and affirm with her that they were both okay. They were, weren't they? "You know you can tell me anything."

Sorry Nineva is word vomiting :c figured it'd be easier for her to just spill it all. Let me know if you'd prefer @Tomen be able to jump in at any certain point. Didn't realize Nin's story had so many working parts until writing this, jeez. |:

She was making him worry, and that made her feel bad too, but just a few breaths more and it would start to make sense. She hoped. There was that fear still within her that no matter what, she would not be accepted back home, guilty of deserting her family. They might not even give her a chance to talk, like they had @Namid. After all, if they'd been that mad over a subordinate, wouldn't it be ten times worse when it was your own blood that let you down? Dearly she hoped that her nightmares would not come true, but the fear could not be chased away and it extended to Tomen on the same level. What if she told him and he thought she was horrible for such stupid mistakes?

Then reached out to her, and spoke, and her own worry fell away with a soft laugh and goofy grin.

"You're so sweet, you know that?" she remarked with a wag of her tail, before her smile diminished with a deep breath. He would be the first person to know the whole of it since Kenelm, and the only one left with her truth.

"My last name's Hervok, and my parents are @Narimé and @Ash. They owned the Caverns, to the south of here. I was born there, and I loved it there. I was so proud of my home, even though it was mostly only us and my siblings. There was @Deacon for a while, too, but..." her voice trailed off, a thought she would not finish. Deserters. Her guilt picked up again as she pressed on.

"Our packs were allies, actually. I don't know if you heard about us or anything, I only knew about you guys 'cause @Veho caught me sneaking too far out one time. That's why I had to lie, when I first came here. I didn't want to say the part about my family dying, that felt really... wrong. But Kenelm insisted it was the safest thing to say, to make sure you guys bought it and we were let in. Because I didn't want to go back."

Wait, she wasn't make sense, it was all out of order. Nineva shook her head and closed her eyes, and when they opened again there was an apology written clearly within them. Keep going.

"My parents couldn't support us anymore, after everyone left. So they took us to the Woodlands, to aunt Nina, and I was... heartbroken. I felt like everything had been taken from me, and my brother Yuka, he said... 'home is where the heart is.' I was so stupid not to listen to him. Remember I told you my mom left? She and Yuka both did, a week after we moved, and it was just the final straw I guess. I was upset, and hurt, and I just wanted to go home, so I ran."

Her gaze would momentarily seek his, yearning for clues as to what he was feeling about this exactly, but the confidence he had instilled in her was already seeping away regardless of what she saw. It all sounded so terrible within the air without Kenelm goading her on.

"I almost fell in the sinkhole, the one with all the birds to the north of the forest. I mean, I did, actually; I was hanging off the edge and he pulled me out. Kenelm did. I was so scared and tired and sad and I just told him everything, and he listened to all of it and stayed with me the whole night and he promised me that he would help me get the Caverns back. We couldn't just live there on our own, though, and I didn't want to go back to the Woodlands, so we came here. We told them I was Filae and that Kenelm was my uncle and that there was nowhere for us to return to, so that they wouldn't ask questions. 'Course, Veho recognized me and I had to come clean to him and your dad, so that's how my real name got out and all..."

She half wished @Rook would have just told Tomen all this himself, but she supposed she deserved having to confess it. Her eyes were firmly upon the ground now as she paused; was that really it? All there was to the reason she abandoned her family? Slowly, her cheeks began to burn beneath her fur with shame.

"That's it, I guess. I left my family without a word because I was too selfish to stay and deal with things. I lied, which is horrible, and even after I realized I was wrong, I still stayed hiding here because... because how can you forgive that?" her gaze shifted again, this time settling within his for good.

"What I did to them was so awful. My mom told me..." her voice thickened as tears began to crowd her vision. "'never trust a wolf who leaves without telling you anything,'" but, wasn't that the example she had set? "and that's exactly what I did and I don't know if I can ever make up for it." With that final confession, Nineva gritted her fangs and hung her head, finally emptied of words.

(This post was last modified: Apr 07, 2016, 02:21 AM by Nineva.)

A lynx has left behind the remains of a deer. +5 Health

Even though Tomen considered he and Nineva to be close, very close, he rapidly learnt just how little he knew about the pretty grey girl in front of him. How had he not even bothered to seriously wonder about her last name? Well, no, that was easily answered, the exact same way that every other how-had-he-never was answered; it was her business and not his. In the early days, she and her uncle had been newcomers to be welcomed and treated gently, because losing family was hard - or so he had done his best to understand it, having experienced very little worth grieving over at that point in his life. Not wanting to press Nineva on a delicate topic when it wasn't his place, the precedent had been set. Even as they spent more and more time together, he never really stopped to ask those questions which had popped up and been quelled right at the beginning.

If she wanted to tell him, she would. And oh man, that time had actually come, and with a vengeance.

The first hint that the reality he'd constructed around Nineva wasn't entirely true came in the form of a present-tense verb, a small thing, but weren't dead people normally referred to with 'were' and not 'are'? Still, he said nothing, and would continue to not say a single word until she was finished, partly though good manners and partly because he had no idea how to respond anyway.

He'd heard of Whisper Caverns, sure, but had never had reason to make that connection between herself and that pack. Then she spoke about lying, and an ear twitched back, but he felt lost, struck by the distaste of a confessed falsehood and yet he wasn't entirely sure what she'd lied about? Something about her family dying - oh. Oh, right. And Kenelm had been in on it. That made sense.

Feeling largely numb, Tomen just watched her as she paused, though he didn't know why. He supposed that he'd expected some kind of secret or confession by the way she'd brought him out here but... this was something else. This was questioning the entire foundations of everything, but - but was it? As he waited for her to speak again, to gather her thoughts enough to carry on if she was going to (did she want him to respond? He had no idea what to say) he tried to process whether or not this really, honestly, truly changed anything.

He'd never asked her about it. She'd rarely spoken about her family, about much of anything before her time here in the cedarwoods. Even if she'd joined the pack under some false pretence and maintained that pretence... did that matter? She was still the same Nineva, with the same way of scrunching up her face when she concentrated, as proven by that very moment right there. She was the same, right? If she'd never lied about anything really important then, then... He dearly, dearly hoped she had not, his heart picking up in pace as he waited for her to speak again, afraid for the unknown that was yet to come spilling out of her mouth.

The only thing which mattered was not hearing anything resembling you were never really my friend. He could surely forgive anything else. Surely nothing else really mattered.

It was a good thing he had that so singled out in his mind, because he found it hard to follow her story, her threads weaving together as they occurred to her and felt compelled to share them, everything he had never asked her coming out in one big truth bomb. But he didn't hear that terrible sentiment, so he just carried on listening, a ready vessel to be filled with all the secrets she had been hoarding. He didn't know why it was coming out now, why today rather than yesterday or tomorrow or next week, but as ever he would not question it; she thought it was important to say now, so it was. The thought that she had felt at all guilty for keeping this from him... In a way, he was hurt that it had been so long, that she hadn't trusted him enough or liked him enough or thought him important enough or whatever her reason was for this timing - or maybe it was more to do with her, with her own shame and guilt and regret.

It was too much to try and come up with some clean answer for right that moment. It was enough just trying to understand the flow of the story she was telling. Dad and Veho knew, it turned out, and he didn't know how he felt about that. The longer he listened, the more his ability to process his own reaction was shutting down, overloaded, and he could only sit and listen.

That didn't stop a small, presumptuous and over-hopeful part of him from pre-emptively filling in the words 'because of you' when she said 'I still stayed hiding here because...', and of course the real reason was something completely different. He had to glance away for a moment, embarrassed. He soon locked eyes with her again, though, if only because she deserved to have this, this whatever-it-was given full attention, his own arrogant thoughts aside. Soon after, she stopped talking again, hanging her head, and it was several moments before he realised she was finished.

"Uh," was the first sound he was able to make, and honestly the only one - he felt strangely empty, despite being filled to the brim with new information, his capacity to really comprehend it all well exceeded. Was he hurt, angry or sad that she hadn't told him any of this before? He felt something, something uncomfortable and tight in his chest, but that wasn't any emotion he could decipher. Acutely aware that he needed to say something, anything, his jaws opened and closed a few times before he finally just did what he would normally do if Nineva looked sad and vulnerable.

Shifting forwards, he rubbed his cheek against hers, moving smoothly to tuck his neck over her and press his chin into that soft spot between her shoulder blades, feeling her warmth and filling his head with her scent. She was the same Nineva, exactly the same, and he couldn't bear to just stand by while she hurt. He didn't have the words to come close to matching her own... so this was the best he could do. It didn't feel good enough.

Her self-imposed shame was far too heavy to allow her to lift her gaze and watch him as the silence begged him to come up with a reply. All she knew of his reaction was that single, awkward syllable that gave her no indications at all. At least it didn't seem to prelude anger or disgust, but there were so many more reactive emotions he could have that would help catalyse the end of their friendship, and she feared all of them to be possible. Likely, even, given how she had mounted her own crimes to such a horrific height within her mind. Touch certainly wasn't expected, and ever so subtly she flinched when his fur first brushed against hers.

In the next breath, however, Tomen's embrace was completely and despite how much the demons in her mind whispered to her that she didn't deserve such kindness, Nineva could not stop herself from leaning into him and soaking up all the comfort that he gave her. The tears that had built up within her mismatched eyes were flowing now, despite how hard she pinched them shut. It took a few moments to get them all out, her breath hitching every so often, soft and soundless when muffled against the thick scruff of her friend's throat.

When finally the crying calmed, Nineva found that she actually felt better. Not by leaps and bounds, her guilt was still very much real, but enough to make a noticeable difference, as though she had been bled of some poison. With a sniffle or two she hung onto that hug for a few precious moments longer before finally forcing herself to pull away. Her dual eyes opened and locked onto his faintly masked face. Quizzically, her brows drew together as she questioned him, "don't you... think I'm awful?"

A query that seemed to already be answered but still filled her with dread now that it was asked aloud.

Had her first flinch been any stronger, Tomen would have pulled back, of course, but in the next instant it was clear that all she needed was some comfort, some solidarity, some reassurance that she wasn't some terrible person. It was so jarring how she had spoken of herself, painting this picture of a cold and heartless and cowardly Nineva, not the vibrant, cheerful, quirky girl he knew. Or thought he knew. No, definitely that he knew; just as she had once helped Tomen to realise that how he saw himself did not entirely mesh with reality, so he would endeavour to return the favour. It wasn't something he could ever fully repay, for she had practically saved him from the depths of his numbness single-handedly. The debt he owed was immense.

Silently he sat, pressed against her, letting her cry. Not once did he move to interrupt it. Only once Nineva herself pulled back did Tomen do the same, but only enough to meet her gaze. Those eyes. They would haunt him forever.

Her question knit his brows together, his expression akin to if she had asked him don't you think I'm a bluebird? "I could never think that."

i am so sorry i've dragged this on for so long ;~;

It was so easy for him to say no. Not just no; he dared to reach into the future by promising never and while the more logic-focused half of her mind begged to find fault in that probability, her heart was warmed and gratitude flooded her, taking the lead instead. A smile stretched her tear-stained cheeks, shy but present all the same. She had been so determined to see herself as villainous for what she'd done to her family, that she had merely fooled Tomen into thinking she was this wonderful person. Yet, despite all the secrets, wasn't Tomen the wolf who knew her better than anyone at this point? He wasn't stupid, wasn't even naive; he was grounded, open. If he did not recoil at her confession, there was something very important and honest about that.

That she could have the past she did and still be a good person was critical, and her friend's support in this hope was groundbreaking. More than ever, she felt her resolve harden. She had to complete what had been done in order to move forward, and a little bit of the fear she had felt in facing her family once more had been chipped away by Tomen's acceptance. It now felt doable, at the least. Her nerves made her legs feel weak, but they would not give out.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For everything, Tomen, for just... being. Thank you."

Nineva doubted she'd ever really find the words to explain what his companionship and comfort meant to her, and so she hoped those simple words would suffice. With a deep breath in and out she leaned into him once more, cheek resting against the crook of his shoulder as she took another moment for her emotions to settle. When her voice lifted again, it was evident that she was being careful with her words, indicating that this plan of hers was not set in stone. There were too many variables, she knew only the skeleton of it for certain.

"I'm going to go to Secret Woodlands and speak to my father. I'm going to tell him everything, and ask for his forgiveness, and... his guidance. I... don't know what the right thing to do is. If I should return to my family, make up for what I did by staying with them, or..." she swallowed, before once more leaning back, mismatched eyes searching his face as though the answers would be written there amongst his dark fur. "Honestly, I want to stay here with you. I can't imagine not having my best friend always within reach. I need to do what's right, though. If that means returning to Secret Woodlands, for good, would you... understand?"

While he thought it was unnecessary, her gratitude filled him with a pleasant heat. His support needed no justification or vindication, but that's what it felt like, as though he was able to point at her open, vulnerable manner and tell himself you were right. How could she ever ask him that? How could he ever think her awful or bad, as though she were some villain? The only thing she was right then was a victim of her own guilt, sat there in shame, and he was utterly, utterly incapable of adding to that woe, and so it should be.

Unable to put words to anything he was feeling, the boy just leant forwards and smiled helplessly as she pressed herself into him again, drinking in the warmth and knowing he was not wrong to feel like this, to so easily forgive and forget for her. For always.

He would have been content to just sit with her, knowing that she had done the same for him not so very long ago and how restorative that had been for his soul. But Nineva was cut of a different cloth, a more proactive, driven fabric, and it was not long at all before she spoke again, her tone of voice stronger but still uncertain. He did not move, and let her speak uninterrupted, despite the fact that the thing she was suggesting struck him like an icy spear in the chest. He tried to distance himself from it. If this was what she needed...

"Of course," he whispered back, because how could he say anything else? And while he hated the idea of her going for good, the words honestly, I want to stay here with you danced about in his head and made him feel fuzzy and dulled his childish, selfish impulse to tell her no. He smiled again, convincingly enough to decieve himself too, and reached forward to touch his nose to hers. "The Woodlands isn't that far, right? It's not like you'd be leaving leaving. You've gotta do what - you just gotta do what you need to, okay? I'm always here, on your side. Best friends, always."

so lying underneath these stormy skies

Once more he was able to reach deep and pull out the most perfect words. Exactly what she needed to hear, to be reassured of. Her tail lifted to thump the dirt at her hocks, a dull but rhythmic beat. That he not only seemed to understand her drive, but was ready and willing to support it made her heart melt even more than he'd already managed and by now there was nothing left of it but a warm, vivid puddle.

"Exactly. If that's what has to happen, I'll visit all the time, and whatever happens, you can come get me, okay? In the middle of the night, even just to talk."

And as much as her imagination wanted to run wild with thoughts that this would, despite their best efforts, be the beginning of the end, she fought the negativity back. Just as he said, no matter where their separate lives took them, she was confident that she would always have him and of course, he would always have her. To explore with, to laugh with, to break down with. Even when Secret Woodlands was behind her and the Caverns were resurrected. Even when they both had two different packs to lead and children to raise and...

That was much too far ahead.

"Hey, let's um, let's go for a run. Whaddya say?"

It was only her soft tone of voice that kept the question from being completely abrupt, the girl slowly rising to her feet but unwilling to take a step back away from him just yet. She'd gotten all she wanted; sitting here longer would just let her mind wander to places it had no business being.

she said "I know the sun must set to rise."