The Wildwood sweet salvation on a dining room table

Sakari was transfixed as the boar’s life slipped away, blood spilling in pulses into the dirty snow. The huntress felt her own energy wane as the hapless victim took its last breath, for the first time noticing how tired she was. She shivered as a sudden chill crept up her spine; she was soaked to the bone, her entire front painted in blood from chin to chest, and the rest of her dripping with melted, muddy snow from the deadly wrestling match.

The tawny man’s question drew her attention back to her companion, and her growing awareness of her own bedraggled appearance caused her face to grow hot. “I didn’t,” she answered simply, without looking at him. Her throat felt raspy when she spoke, likely from all that barking and growling. “I was born to a fishing family.” Her own honesty shocked her; normally she would have created some elaborate backstory for herself to take the place of her own sad, boring history.

“That was the best damn thing I’ve ever had in my mouth.” She met the man’s gaze that time with a crooked smile. “I’m fine,” she said, starting toward the meal with an excited gleam in her eye. She hissed as pain laced up her back leg when she took the step. “Or, I will be..” she conceded. She was going to be sore for a while, but she could worry over the bruises later. Now, it was time to feast. She chuckled at his compliment after swallowing her first bite. Persistence was not a quality she typically attributed to herself. “So who do I have to thank for making the most delicious meal of my life possible?”

Fishers? How strange. He had never really fished before, most of the cold scaled creatures he got with Mae were trapped in puddles. Like at Dried Stone Wash how there were three fishes at their mercy. "So I'm assuming your family and you must have lived pretty close to water then." He used to live by a creek, still kinda did live by a creek, but he never really bothered fishing. Truthfully he was unsure who in his birth pack had bothered with fishing.

Her enthusiasm was rather appropriate for this situation. "A good sized hog at this time of year is a rather tasty treat." The smile on his face didn't fade away. He looked at her with care as she addressed she would be fine. It was obvious with time she would be but right now she wasn't. "Eat up and you can come rest with me for a bit if you want. I've found shelter in an old den not too far from here." He paused to approach the boar and take a bite from the stomach. The tawny male waited until he had swallowed his chunk before speaking again.

"My name is Kerberos. And who is the lovely lady I get to share such a meal with?" His pale golden eyes looked over to her face as he waited for a name.

have you checked out my player preferences?

“So I’m assuming your family and you must have lived pretty close to water then,” the stranger deduced. Sakari lifted an amused eyebrow as she chewed; it was only her full mouth that saved the man from a sarcastic comment. No shit, Sherlock. After she swallowed she confirmed, “Yeah, hardly a tree in sight.” Herds of caribou and the occasional moose passed through, but her birth pack had been too terrified to attempt a hunt. There was always some or the other reason that that the spirits were angry with them and they were sure to have bad luck. Sakari suspected that her family had been fishing so long they had forgotten how to hunt. Forgotten how to be wolves.

She wrinkled her nose in annoyance that she was ruining this delicious meal by thinking about the Noataks. Happy for the subject change, she nodded along with her hunting partner’s comment; though in truth she’d had no idea that this was a fortunate meal for the time of year. This was the first winter in living memory for her-- this time last year she’d been barely a newborn.  Play it cool, she told herself. Perhaps she was passing as an adult.

Golden eyes blinked in surprise at the man’s offer. “Really?” she asked through a mouth full of food, tilting her head in confusion. Why was he being so nice? What sort of emolument did he expect from her?

After swallowing she said, “If it’s warm, I accept.” The offer had piqued her curiosity, and now she had to see what his angle was. In any case, she would be able to find out a little more about him. From the way he had spoken about finding shelter, it seemed that he might also be new to these parts. “Sakari,” she answered, too distracted by the complement in his question to come up with a lie.

“Will your girlfriend be okay with it?” she asked, a sly smile on her lips. She had finally placed his scent; she had smelled it on that woman she’d met fishing a few days back. And now that she was thinking about it, she could smell the woman’s scent on Kerberos’s coat as well. Now she had to go home with Kerberos, if only to connect the dots between the two individuals she’d met on separate occasions.

"My girlfriend?"

He didn't have a girlfriend, did he? Had she been talking about @Maera? They weren't dating. Just traveling buddies, right? But how did this girl, Sakari, know about her? His eyes narrowed and his tail flicked for a moment. "How do you know her?" His tone bordered somewhere between worried and aggressive. Kerberos wanted nothing more than to run back to the den and find Maera. To touch her shoulder and be reassured that everything was alright. Perhaps to be reassured that they didn't have some creepy stalker (not that he knew Sakari also had a run in with Maera). "We're just traveling partners." He paused. "I think." His eyes glanced to the side before they returned to the girl before him.

Kerberos had to admit, his feelings were always so jumbled when it came to Maera but they had just been traveling partners this whole time. Even if they were some type of couple they would still be traveling partners. He hoped. Oh, how his head hurt from all this thinking. The Rigel man now desperately needed to know how Maera felt about him. How did the girl get the idea that himself and Mae were even dating? Had Mae said that to her? He needed answers.

have you checked out my player preferences?

Kerberos echoed her words with a tone of incredulity, and Sakari tilted her head, one brow lifted knowingly. Her scent was all over him; he had to know who she was talking about. Unless he was such a Casanova that he wasn’t sure which woman she was referring to. Sakari could see it either way… he was a handsome man, after all.

She had only meant to tease the man a little, but she seemed to have struck some sort of nerve. His questioning had been fairly easygoing up to this point, and this was the first time he sounded as if he were demanding an answer.   “Easy there, Romeo,” she murmured, taking a step back from him and the meal. Her tail swung back and forth beneath her hind legs, a sign of submission. “I ran into her a few days back. Nice lady. She smelled like you is all. And you, her.” After he calmed down, he would realize that it wasn’t so preposterous that she had run into the both of them. Especially if they had been in the area for any amount of time. “Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

She only blinked when the man added, “I think.” There was a whole lot she could have said about that, but since they were already on shaky ground she elected to just keep quiet. Any more teasing and she was likely to get her invitation revoked. So she filed away that piece of information for a later date, to use when the time was right. “Hey, wouldn’t she like some of this?” Sakari said with a nod toward the carcass, hoping to change the subject. She assumed that Kerberos was planning on taking it back to the den, seeing as he was eating so little now. “Why don’t we bring it to her?”

Thinking we could fade out with your next post? @Sakari

His brain was too frazzled to focus on her string of apologies. But her questions did not go unanswered. "Uh, yeah, sure." His voice was much more whispery and not so composed this time around. "Take some for yourself and I'll drag back what I can for me and Maera." If she had met her then she likely knew her name. Granted it didn't really matter if she didn't. If Kerberos was going to be dragging some girl home to Mae he better have a reason and Sakari better know names.

When his body was set in action he went for the boar, he paused before attempting to pick some of the prey up. "Thanks, by the way. And I'm sorry if I seemed a little aggressive. She's all I have right now. I can't risk anything, you know?" He realized had begun to ramble. With a sorry look on his face, he bent down and managed to rip and gnaw the leg off the boar. Muscular and a little fatty up top. With the leg hanging from his mouth the tawny man turned around. His head gestured in the direction of the den. It wouldn't be a very long walk at all. Perhaps once their company was gone he could work out this whole issue of relationships with Mae.

have you checked out my player preferences?

And just like that, Kerberos went from poised and charming to completely flustered. She only had to stand back and watch the drama unfold. He threw himself into detaching a flank from the carcass after tossing out the suggestion that she grab what she wanted for herself. Well that didn’t make sense, did it? She had already eaten her fill and Kerberos had barely had a bite. Did he expect to carry enough meat to satisfy both himself and Maera? Clearly his mind was still somewhere else. “No.. I.. I’m full. I’ll help you.” She started working on another flank, eyes still trained on her companion. People in love could be unpredictable.

“Uh-huh,” she agreed, gnawing through one last tendon. “I understand.” She gave a shrug and a wag of her tail. She did not understand, not in the slightest. She had never met anyone that she couldn’t stand to leave. Perhaps Kerberos considered Maera to be “all he had,” but as far as Sakari was concerned all she had ever had was herself. And all she ever did was take risks.

With both of their mouths full, the short trip back to Kerberos’s den was a quiet one. The tawny man seemed to be deep in thought, which was fine by Sakari. You could learn a lot about someone by watching them think, especially if they became distracted enough to let their guard down. There was most definitely more to Kerberos than met the eye, and Sakari was going to find out all she could.