Underground Sea Little Calling Bird

"Well I don't know!" she huffed, shuffling back a bit more. "This is the first time I've felt like this." Everything was so uncertain, everyone looked at her in a different way now and she didn't like it. She felt like a smelly piece of meat. No, Alastor wouldn't just force himself on her—he hadn't forced her to do anything her whole life—but unless she made herself clear what was to stop him from thinking she could be persuaded to some extent. He had talked her into this whole "make a pack" thing, which was a pretty big deal, what if somehow he talked her in to... giving birth. @Askan thought she was porky enough already, would she balloon to even greater heights? Uncertainly, her yellow eyes peered back at Al sulking off to the side. Her chest throbbed. He could convince her. She knew it. When she felt like this, her stomach twisting and flopping and her breath shortening—he could convince her to jump off a mountain— She screwed her eyes shut and willed herself to hold it together. Exactly what the "it" was that she was holding, she had no idea.

Alastor's sigh was exasperated, but the girl breathed a sigh of actual relief that he decided to bring up something real and a little less hormonally charged—as if it hadn't been her fault that they had stumbled on that subject. "And you didn't tell me?" she wasn't really mad, but these days everything made her sound that way. How could she be mad when this was a much better topic? Alastor had found his siblings, his last remaining family—both of them—after looking for Ari for so long and.... Draven not at all. But there was so much there, between them all. Her heart shuddered with a painful reminder of Drift, the boy who just faded away, Darrah, and Zera, all the ones who had left. "What....what happened? What was it like? At the same time? Did you?" her questions stopped, not daring to ask if he had apologized. Or if they had.

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

She admitted that she didn’t know and that it was the first time she’d experienced something like what she was going through. Being a male he didn’t really know that she was feeling any different. Well, it was definitely obvious that her scent had changed and that she was feeling snippier but other than that he simply didn’t know. His brows knit in concern for a moment. “You’re not in, like…pain or anything, right?” he asked, worry showing in his lowered voice and crinkled expression. He didn’t know how to help her, which was frustrating to him. He would do anything and everything in his power to make her feel better and it would kill him if she was in pain.

He was worried that she’d be mad at his admittance but she seemed more incredulous and curious than anything, which he was grateful for. Questions seemed to pour from her mouth and a grin crawled onto his lips again, his Hal back in action with her mile a minute motor mouth. “I’m sorry for not saying anything, I meant to but everything just sort of...imploded,” he began, giving her a genuinely apologetic and guilty look. “But no, they were about a week apart. I met Ari on the Fjord. Hal, she’s so…big. I never would have thought that she’d grow to look like that. Hell, I think she could even take me down,” he chuckled, his gaze crinkling at the edges in affection. “We just sort of caught up with everything. I met Draven after, when I went to see my mom’s grave again. He was there and just...spilling his guts to her. I heard everything and...and he left him. He did the last thing I ever expected him to do and he’s so different from what I thought he’d be like. You know what’s funny? Do you remember the allies the Bend had up the mountain? Turns out he’d been there all along. He was so close and I never even knew,” he said, gushing out words in only the way that she could make him do.

At the end of it, there was still the unspoken question that she’d left hanging. His head dipped sheepishly, gaze trailing to the pooling water in front of them. A nod slowly bobbed his head and he peered back up at her, his tail giving a small ‘thump’ on the rocky floor. “Yeah, I did. And I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said. A pause came and he swallowed hard, his heart thumping hard in his chest as he thought about how much he had changed because of her. How much she had made him better. “I don’t think I’ve ever said it but...thank you,” the silver boy said, his topaz eyes intense as his grin widened into a full blown smile. It was clear that Kino Lagina, for the first time in a long time, was finally actually happy.

 

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

cries because i made u wait forever and a day on this<3 PLS LOVE ME

"Oh no no no," she vehemently shook his head, not wanting to worry him that much. "It's not, uhm. Painful. I imagine babies probably would be." There was no way it was comfortable to grow that big, even if she had never been known as the thinnest wolf. Several times, especially close to the birth of Marina and Mako she could see Spieden's stomach gurgling like a stream which had been nearly vomit inducing and definitely seemed painful. Birth was painful. These feelings--were they even feelings? They were more like instincts, she supposed, which were even more dangerous because she felt compelled to attune to them. "I just feel weird. Like not myself. Like uhm, really hot and I can't focus on things. I think about... Uhm" Actually, it was best not to continue. "Anyway..."

Her tail swept the floor faintly behind her as he spoke of his brother and sister. To Sahalie every wolf was a large one, but she couldn't help but imagine that Ari was the size of a moose or something. And after everything it was strange to hear about these wolves that were not a part of her day to day life, that she'd never met, and yet they had such a deep impact on her silver friend. Even stranger was the fact that Draven lived on the mountain, in Fallen Tree Cove. Sahalie had been up past there a dozen times, probably past his scent trail, but never encountered him. Her friend Cernan probably knew him. The Cove wolves hunted in her very forest, yet they all passed like ships in the night. 

The fire he lit and repeatedly extinguished in her chest ignited once again with that passionate look thumping in his eyes like a heartbeat. He looked so genuinely at peace with himself--entirely at odds with the Alastor that always got into fights with her, the boy she'd been trying to start a fight with moments ago--that it was hard to wave his gratitude away like she had done nothing. "There's so many things we couldn't have done without each other," her voice sounded like someone else's. Her face burned: these weren't the words she wanted to say. "I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for you. So... thank you." That was better. A little less dangerously vague.

"And uhm, I suppose I should probably mention that I met Gent awhile back, too." There had been a hundred opportunities to tell him before now, but she was dumb and distracted. "I was just so busy and uhm. Idunno. I'm sorry. He uhm...well, when I found out who I was I kinda ... yelled at him a bunch. Gave him a piece of my mind." To which Gent had responded with a piece of his own. "I think he's...still really bitter about the whole thing but. Just because he didn't get any closure, ya know? He said he didn't think you could change but I told him he was wrong. He's not a bad guy, Al. I had a cold and I spray him in snot probably a dozen times and yelled at him and in the end he still offered me some medicine. He said he'd talk to you if you wanted to."

"I should have mentioned it before."

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

Of course, Hal being Hal, she couldn’t simply take his thank you. She had to turn it back around, being humble as always but damn if it didn’t make his heart race to know that she thought that he’d changed her life too. Even if it was just for what was to come if he was able to help her, make her happy with that little bit then he would throw himself completely head long into it without a second thought.

Then she mentioned that she’d met Gent and his smile faltered, lowering into drawn brows. She wasn’t hurt, that was evident enough and he couldn’t recall a time where she’d ever returned to him injured so obviously the dark man hadn’t done anything bad. But to him it was still too close of a call. She said he wasn’t such a bad guy, doing the thing that happened to infuriate him and make him love her even more by seeing the good in everyone. Even with all the progress the silver boy had made he couldn’t feel it in his heart to want to see the man who had started it all. He couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive as he had done Draven. Kino didn’t harbor the same crazy, panic stricken thoughts as he once had but there was still enough hatred to make him never want to have anything to do with the male. And he didn’t want Hal to have anything to do with him either. However, if there was anything he’d learned about the dark girl it was that she always fought to do the exact things he didn’t want her to.

“I’m not mad, just glad you’re okay,” he began. Kino wanted to move, to curl her against him as they had always done before she’d gone into heat. It had only been a few days of course but the loss of even of a bit of her touch felt like an eternity to him. But he stayed firmly planted, obeying her wishes for space because he understood what his body didn’t want to. “I’ve grown a lot but I don’t think I am or ever will be in a place to forgive him. I suppose it’s a bit like the dislike you have for Naira, though not for the same reasons. He just rubs me the wrong way now and he’s a part of my past that I want to keep in the past, not bring with us to the future,” he replied with a small shrug.

He tilted his head in thought again, trying to think if there was anything else he needed to bring to light. “Ah,while we’re getting everything out I met another girl a while ago. I only met her once, when the sky was doing this...really weird but pretty thing. I’d gone out hunting and was coming back late and met her. She was younger than us. We romped around but that was all,” he said, hoping that his friend wouldn’t get mad at him like she had with Castel since it had been a one time thing.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

Gent hadn't forgiven Alastor, and so she hadn't let herself believe that Alastor would pardon the man either, but all the same she was a little dissapointed to see him grimacing. But there had been enough change in Al that he leave the issue alone and move on. That would have to be enough for now. Going back to talk to him would have been hard considering how far they had come. Gent didn't matter so much where they were going, anyway. They were so far away from the boy's past now. Sahalie didn't not want to escape hers, but that was fine. Her past and her future could stand together side by side, one image.


A future with a lot of girls in it, apparently.

Alastor was tilting his head, and as he opened his mouth to speak she squinted, stealing her suspicions against whatever else he wanted to divulge. Her sigh was so drawn out it lasted well after the phrase "met another girl" had finished. "What am I going to do with you, Al," she said, trying not to think of him wandering all over the region impregnating any girl that he happened to get along with. Thankfully the girl was too young for this, what she felt. A secret part of her was shouting, and this was the part of her that would have jumped off a cliff if he had asked her. This was the instinctive part. The hormonal part. "Please just. Don't do anything stupid over the next few weeks. Please." Especially not to me.

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

A long sigh trailed out of her jaws and his ears folded, head lowering in apology. He still didn’t understand why it was so bad for him to go out and make friends who were girls while she was able to meet any boy that she wanted without consequence. It seemed kind of...hypocritical. But that wasn’t a subject he wanted to brech, not after they were finally having such a good conversation.

He crawled forward on his belly until he was right in front of her, offering a nudge to her chin and a few waps of his tail on the cool stone. “Don’t worry, I couldn’t do that to us,” he said, ocean eyes meeting with sunspots to show he meant it earnestly. Then, his cheeks heated in embarrassment as he realized what it might have sounded like. But...this time he couldn’t find it in himself to retract it. Let her think what she might, it would likely never fall along the lines of what he really intended. He didn’t long for another female like he did Sahalie Tainn, didn’t want to start a new life with anyone but the dark girl. She was it.

A mischievous grin settled on his lips, gaze narrowing as he suddenly raised a giant paw to bat at her face. He rose to his legs and skittered back a few paces, bowing low into a playful pose. His butt wriggled comically, clearly overdoing it. “I think it’s time you had a little fun again, Miss. Take-on-the-whole-world-single-pawed,” he said with a wide grin, amusement shining in his gaze. At the end of the day, even with everything they aspired to do, they were still kids who hadn’t even turned 2. They deserved some downtime, some time to act their age instead of being serious. It was something he definitely thought Hal needed.

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume