Underground Sea you make a fine shrine in me

There are several fresh rabbit tracks in the mud. Hunt Opportunity

makin me think of chasing cars like no one's business here

He wasn't expecting the outburst that he triggered. Sven's ears leapt back to hide against his skull as that loudest word bounced all around the once peaceful cavern space. His gaze, however, did not waver. They were lit with something, but just what was indiscernible. Just like that, whether or not she felt it too, they were swimming back to common ground. This he could relate too, could fully understand exactly where she was coming from. It would have been a relief except this also meant he still had no idea what to do about it all.

As he listened, every word helped his heartbeat to slow and bit by bit his throat didn't feel so tight. He wanted to tell her that he knew, that he could see it now and that he felt the same but he wanted her to finish, to hear everything she was willing to tell him. It was only when those final words hit that his chest constricted once more and he could not hold still any longer.

Back onto all four long, marble pillar legs he walked forward, sliding up along her side and coming to rest once he could place his muzzle atop her back, just behind her shoulder blades. Leaning against her, he murmured "you shouldn't," into her fur. This semblance of an embrace was held for a heavy moment before he pulled away, then walking past her to traverse the curve of the pool. Amongst a scattering of rocks he dipped his head to retrieve the gift, and then promptly returned to her side.

Pressed right up against her, this time shoulder to shoulder, he reclined once more before placing the gem at her paws. From the corner of his eyes he watched her face as he began to speak.

"I found this in the ground, and immediately thought of you. My Nonna caught me with it and asked what I was doing, so I told her. I wanna give it to Sahalie. And I asked her... if she thought you'd like it. Her response... I don't know, it was weird. Like she saw so much more than what I was intending with it. Called you a woman and I just... it... made me start thinking a little differently and it honestly, made me feel uncomfortable so I tried not to focus on it but... maybe that's what it was? Liking, loving, whatever it all means when it somehow becomes different."

He fell silent for a moment then, clearly trying to collect his thoughts and put them into words he might not even have. It was difficult to talk about something that you simultaneously knew nothing about and yet felt deeply.

"I don't... I don't think loves ever wrong. I think, a lot of the time, wolves just say it without really meaning it. Or maybe, they just don't know what it really is they're saying. Like... when I really think about it... about my dad... I don't think he has any idea what love really is, and I've... I've honestly been really scared that I'm just him in another body. That I won't know either, that it's always going to be fake but then I... I look at Attica... or I look at you... and I know that I'm different. Because I really, really do care about you, Halie. And I'm not going to stop visiting, I'm never going to be too busy for you, no matter where we live, separate or together or whatever. I swear it."

So what box, exactly, did that fit into? Sven hadn't decided yet, and honestly, didn't feel the pressure to. Even with another male in the picture, even with the weight of what Sahalie wanted to do.

"That's all I know. I want you happy and I want to always be able to spend time with you. Whether you one day call me your mate or not, or you have other close friends or this Al guy or whatever, it doesn't matter to me, as long as I have that. I don't... I don't feel rushed to figure it out any more than that, and I wish you wouldn't either. I don't... I don't expect anything from you, alright? Just... you as you are, is more than enough."

More than he could ever ask for, and certainly more than he deserved.

we can probably either wrap this up ...or ...idunno xD up to you with what direction you take it in your next post I guess

He was leaning on her now and she did not move. She was so lost in the tempest of her own emotional storm to even question why he was not upset with her anymore. She only knew that it felt awkward and that she was completely undeserving. Sahalie wanted to take back her thoughts about wanting the touch of another wolf, not knowing what made her change her mind. And Sven was wrong. Sahalie had thought that he might have understood her, agreed about her ideas of love. The girl only wanted to help others, to make them feel happy and understood in an indifferent universe. But anything she had said tonight went directly against that desire. She had said selfish things that had made no one happy, including herself. Her dark face scowled into the water.

Sven left to go get something and she found herself praying that he was just leaving for the rest of the night.

He wasn't.

Even if Sven was behaving exactly like some prince-charming wolf-of-her-dreams should behave the girl found herself even closer to vomiting than before. A little pebble was placed between her paws. It was exceedingly pretty: an unusual clear blue-green rock with a stripe of vibrant pink. And it was... for her? Her eyes bulged and she looked up at Sven in disbelief before quickly darting back down to the water where they bulged even more and sparkled with fear. Woman? She was just a girl. Just a silly girl. And a stupid one, too. Sven was saying all these gallant things, the picture of a gentleman. He seemed to take her whole speech in stride, just accept it without questioning why. How? Did he like her too? Was that what the rock was for?

Suddenly she regretted everything.

Sure, wolves probably said it without meaning it, or what they were saying. Sahalie hadn't know what she had been saying just now. But a strange, cold feeling—she chose to call it "clarity"—began to seep back into her consciousness and, finding the mess she had made was making quite a racket in her brain: why on earth would she indulge in her silly fantasies out loud, in reality; why would she talk about having feelings for a wolf when she clearly didn't even know what love was; she wasn't even an adult. For heaven's sake!

And who had—had she said something about mates? She couldn't remember. It sort of sounded like he was turning her down, and it sort of sounded like he was making promises too. The stupid girl could make no sense of it. She searched his eyes under knitted eyebrows. "I think...I think there might be so many better things out there than love. Love for ...like another wolf like. The like love. Not the family love. I just... Idunno. I don't know why it's worth it. I.....yeah"

"I like the gem though," she said quietly, moving it slightly with her paw.

"I don't want anything weird to happen between us. I wanna be friends. Idunno. I'm the kind of girl that figures things out as I talk about them... So. Idunno, you can't always trust some of the stuff I say at the beginning. I don't want you to leave your pack for me." In fact, everything would be much easier with him on the other side of a mountain: she wouldn't have to worry about some sort of relationship springing up between them. They could just be friends. It was perfect. "I like how things are now. Sorry. I guess... I just got.. Idunno. Al leaving made an impact. But I'll feel better soon"

He held her gaze, patiently listening to her reply as she submitted it word by uncertain word. That first guess of hers sent his mind on a vivid trip; to the vault of bones and skulls he still added to, or when he was a pup, slowly crushing one of the many small birds Skoll sent his way until he could feel the exact moment it passed, or the feel of blood coating his face, dripping over his gums, running down his legs as he struck at the coyote, over and over... This was quite certainly not what Sahalie meant, but it was a constant battle within the boy. Did he want to live for raw instinct, or docile love? Thus far he had chosen with certainty that love was better. Having been starved of it for most of his life, it was strongly appealing. Still, it was fun to entertain the idea that maybe, one day, just letting go would be the better option.

She mentioned the gem, and this pulled him from his reverie. The rest of it, left him unclear. It felt like something was still majorly out of place, and a bad feeling tried to worm its way up his spine that maybe it would never get put back. Maybe somehow, this weird train-wreck of conversation had done permanent damage. How in the hell did it get so out of paw in the first place? He shouldn't have brought her here.

Just like that, she was out of words and it was more or less over and still he didn't feel warmth from her like he had every time before. Even so close, she just felt cold.

"... I'll try to be a better listener," he offered. "I don't... want you to think this means you can't talk to me about things. I like when you tell me what you're thinking. It helps me figure my own shit out."

It helped him make sure she was okay. It made him feel useful, trusted. Maybe he wasn't either of those things.

Silence, awkward silence threatened to press in on him if he didn't continue and he didn't want to be so close anymore but it felt wrong to just move. He found himself wondering if that Al guy would know better what to do, if there was something more special or smarter about him or if he just knew her better because he was lucky enough to be with her all the time. At first the thought made him feel sick, because if this wasn't really resolved and Sahalie never warmed up again maybe he really would lose her to him, maybe being friends wouldn't be good enough. Then, it just made him feel numb. Whatever it was, it was out of his paws.

Sven was just along for the ride.

"... that language though. I think maybe we should take you to a creek and rinse your mouth out."

this post will probably be a mess cause i'm like so out of touch now whoopps

They were just two children in borrowed clothes, it seemed, trying to make sense of all the things adults did and talked about without really knowing what it meant. Sahalie seemed bothered, Sven was agitated. She felt her heart crave the care-free nature of their usual visits, her own lighthearted optimism, and she had to wonder if this what all the adults had been trying to protect her from: these feelings. The realization seemed to remove her from her own body, and she studied the circumstances laid out before the young boy and the girl with no more than a detached stirring. Sven was offering some sort of olive branch: he seemed to be reaching out for the older times, too, their old relationship. It was unclear if he liked her at all, in the first place, or if he was just trying to be nice to someone he considered a dear friend. She shrugged her shoulders, "I'm not afraid to talk to you..."

She just had to get over this weird funk of a sickness, first. Then she would be alright. If only she knew what to do to make all this confusion and the feelings go away. Distance would probably be best. Sven was busy with Attica all the time, anyways: it would probably be awhile before they saw each other again.

At last his jibe managed to pull the disconnected girl back to other, and her cheeks flushed as she looked at him in shock. She had sworn not only once but twice. Twice. In front of Sven. Her ears twisted back as she began to laugh unbidden, feeling the sunshine seep back into her chest. "This is why you can't take me anywhere. Gosh. I've clearly lost it." Her mind suddenly swung to what the children would think of the wholesome girl, cursing up a storm in the moonlight far away from home like some ruffian, and her eyes turned back towards Sven.

"You'll bring Attica to meet me soon, right? I'd love so much to meet her."

She claimed she wasn't afraid to speak with him, and that was a relief but also felt weirdly insincere, like a lot of what she'd had to say did tonight. That wasn't how it was, though, right? She was speaking aloud her thoughts, this was a genuine tangle inside her heart that she was sharing with him. Trusting him to hear. So why did he feel so brushed off, so... lacking?

It was her and laughter that pulled him back onto solid ground, made him feel like he was supposed to be here with her again. Like everything was right instead of wrong. A smile of his own slowly creeped its way up his cheeks as he watched her, listened to her. His tail even thumped the mountain stone behind him a few times.

"Yeah, of course. Nonna's particular about how far I take her, but as soon as I can, I'll bring her over."

Every time he spoke of @Attica it was with pride, and it made him happier than anything that Halie wanted to meet his sister. He could almost forget the horridly awkward talk they'd just had. Rising to his paws, he nudged her shoulder before trotting forward, toward the tunnel that exited onto her side of the world.

"Let's get out of here. I'll race ya to the Fen."

Sven was so protective over his little sister that it made Sahalie smile. She couldn't forget, though, that Attica would be at the age that Sven and Sahalie themselves had met, roughly. No one had been around to keep them from wandering. Was Sven perhaps over protective? Sven's Nonna hadn't been particular about where he had gone as a cub, so she figured it was just him. But no harm had come to either of the children as they had tunneled through the mountain to each other and frolicked in the ferns or the swamp. She wondered what he was afraid of. "You better."

She was still so naive.

Still, the girl got to her paws at his insistence, giggling. "I may be small and chubby but I'll give you a run for your bunny!" And because she clearly needed the handicap, Sahalie wasted no time in shoving her friend aside and dashing for the exit as fast as she could. Hopefully, this would keep Sven behind her long enough that she could get some sort of lead, though hopping down the rocks would be anyone's game as they were both so poor in comparison to the mountain goats. Already, however, she was starting to feel better.