Umbra Copse Oh, your eyes, they show it all [m]

 @Sahalie
mature for the ending posts that get a little sensual

If I ever leave I could learn to miss you

God did he hate this time of the year. Everyone was out getting twitterpated and he just felt aggravated. Hal was driving him crazy. When she’d said she was going to be worse the silver man had thought that she was joking. The truth was she had been right on the money. She was so moody and wanted nothing to do with him half the time, so he was left to his own devices even occasionally in sleeping arrangements. Other times she was so...normal. Not the new normal, but the old Sahalie normal. She was witty and playful. She smiled more and when she was in that mood it almost made up for all the rough treatment he was taking. He wished he could keep her like that forever.

Of course, not only was it her mood that was aggravating him but her stench as well. That perfume, so uniquely her that it drove him absolutely mad. It was intoxicating and it made him want to pull her in close, bury his head in her ruff and allow his imagination of them together run wild. But he didn’t give in, couldn’t because that would mean ruining everything wouldn’t it? She didn’t need that, didn’t need him and that made him all the more bitter.

Still, he tried to keep it bottled up. Took the brunt of her rapidly changing mood on the chin and assured himself that yes, this too shall pass. He carried a hare in his jaws, nose not having to work quite as hard over the scent of the freshly caught prey in order to follow her oh so alluring odor. He wanted to give it to her, a sort of peace offering for the day so that maybe she wouldn’t chew him up quite as much. Her dark rump came into view and his mouth watered. He convinced himself it was the hare. Kino set it down, keeping his distance as he wasn’t quite sure was her current mood was. “Hal?” he called. “I brought you something to eat.”

With sentimental boy as my nom de plume

(This post was last modified: Mar 31, 2018, 12:46 AM by Sahalie.)

"I'm not really hungry," she said rolling over on the ground just as he placed the rabbit down.

Her pupils were dilated in her round, sunflower eyes. The little girl had a nervous, flighty energy about her. Her tongue ran over her lips. "And I can't really sleep either. I've been thinking." About a lot of things, but not very coherently. The last few days had been a blur of sensations and emotions that were very hard to sort out, and they interrupted every useful or relevant thought she had. But there were a few things she did understand.

"I will...." she gulped, hesitantly, "Return your feelings on a few conditions." Alastor had never left her—well, briefly, but never when she was utterly without support. He knew what she needed, and tried to give that to her even if she threw it back in his face pretending it wasn't what she had asked for. It was selfish, now, for her to feel it—love? was it love?—to feel something just because he had surpassed every obstacle she had set out for him, but he had proved her wrong time and time again. He wasn't like her father and Nayeli. He wouldn't let that happen to her.

Probably.

Expectantly, she looked at him.

There is a family of deer nearby. Hunt Opportunity

He watched her roll over onto the ground, sending a puff of her scent toward him and it felt like his entire body was standing on end. Electricity raced across his skin and he could feel goosebumps rising beneath his thinning pelt. Spring was here, proven by the scent that was creating his reaction, and thus the large silver man was a shedding fur ball. One could practically track him by the fur trail he left in his wake. When she mentioned she wasn’t hungry he tried to keep the frown from his maw. She didn’t seem to be angry, but was today a more depressed day brought on by her fluctuating hormones? He wouldn’t force her to eat like he had done when she’d had her really bad days, but he’d be sure to keep an eye on her.

When she next said that she hadn’t been sleeping very well that only served to increase his concern. Of course when he thought back to the past year and her first heat he remembered her struggle to sleep with the heat and the ‘itch’ that coursed through her. He might have asked if she hadn’t immediately followed up with the reason being that she’d been thinking a lot. Which brought him back to his first train of thought and increased concern.

He noticed that she seemed rather nervous, her expression and body language flighty. She licked her lips, a tell-tale sign that she was thinking on something. That or biting her lips. Both of which drove him mad. God, focus Kino. I will she began and his auds perked, bright topaz gaze watching her quietly as he always did when she wanted to voice her feelings. He was a listener, always had been and always would be. He’d spent plenty of time listening to her word vomit moments, moments when her thoughts had just erupted from her mouth giving him a glance inside of her head, and also moment when she’d had calmly considered thoughts. He’d listened to them all, making sure she knew that she was heard. After all, his cool processing had been a reason that she’d initially asked him to be her advisor so many months ago, hadn’t it?

However, when she mentioned that she’d return his feelings he once again felt like his heart was going to stop. He instinctively wanted to play it off like he had before when she’d mentioned it because even with all his desperate wishing that she’d return his feelings, it also scared him just as much as it scared her. They were both a pair of broken beings, scared of getting close at the thought of being abandoned. What they had had never been official and he’d also always thought it to be one-sided. That had been fine, ensured that she would never disappear because it always seemed that those that loved him and he loved back did that. But, now that she was speaking it clearly he took a deep breath.

All at once his heart started beating again, the pace set akin to a thundering roar.

His gaze was more intense now as he looked at her, taking into consideration that she had conditions. None of this was what he’d thought it would be if it had happened. The soft part of him wanted it to be a moment that he swept her off her paws, left her stunned but warm all over with a proverbial declaration of the feelings that had swamped him since he’d been a yearling. This was all wrong...but also so fitting for them. They weren’t a fairytale. They weren’t characters in a story, they were real wolves in that moment. Nothing about them was perfect, but at the same time it was. “Anything,” he said, his voice rough. And he meant it. He would do anything for her as he’d proven time and time again. Anything so that she could be his, so that she could stay in his life for as long as he lived.

(This post was last modified: Mar 26, 2018, 10:21 PM by Sahalie.)

Love's not a grave, it won't decay on you.
Love, love, love, love, love.
Too many days I was afraid of love.
Love, love, love, love, love.
— Love, Love, Love (Love, Love) by As Tall As Lions

Her brain felt... rattled. Every part of her felt rattled, or buzzing, or humming to a frequency she didn't know. One half of her—and this half surfaced on her face—had bitten her lip, and was trying to seem adult, rational. She was trying to justify all this to herself with logic. If she laid out the terms and conditions neatly it would be okay if things didn't work, if he left or she left or something happened, because then she would know what to do and how to live. After Nayeli left her father didn't know what to do or who to be. So he became a ghost and haunted an already ghostly forest. So if Alastor could agree to these things, these demands, it would all be okay it would be okay.. to..

To love him.

Still somehow she doubted herself. Feeling anything more than pain or emptiness or vague discomfort was all she had known for so long. But that itch and that ache had reminded her of the other parts of her former life, the things she had loved without hesitation. And Alastor... he was the whole thing, her whole childhood. Well, not allof it. But he was in it. He supported her and she supported him and together they grew better and...wasn't that what those feelings were? Why did she try to rationalize it so?

Anything, he said and she felt herself suddenly ripped away from her body. Sahalie had been nervous about what his reaction might be. Disbelief? Would he play dumb again? Confusion? Instead he seemed to understand her perfectly—and perhaps this would be the only time in their entire life that this would happen—and he got the meaning right away. Her legs felt pulled as if by a tide, only she'd never seen the ocean. And she'd never been in love before. (Or had she?) Until... now? When the walls came down...

Was this love?

Her emotions were as tangled as her tongue, eyes watery as she stared up at him. Sahalie remembered she was still on the ground. She'd forgotten all about the ground. She rolled to her stomach. She had to remember.

"I'm not going to stop fighting with you. And you can't stop fighting with me. We have to keep trying to be better. And you can't leave. Not—" her voice choked, she was inching towards him on her stomach, tail tip subtly twitching, "not ever. Otherwise we'll just go back to being... f-friends. I don't..."

Closer, closer. "I don't want my life or my story to be over just because I ... because I love you. I have, we have a whole story, a whole lifetime left to live. And we are going to live it. I don't want to settle down and become ghosts like my father, like all the other Tainns stuck in the legacy." And now she was at his paws.

"We can't get in the way of each others lives. Never."

As soon as the words left his lips the world felt like it had zeroed in on them. Like everything stood still in order for them to share this moment that had taken so long to finally come into play. She was crawling toward him and he stood in place, largely because he wasn’t sure he could move in that moment. He was rooted to the spot, anchored in place by the emotions that swept over him in tidal waves. Each movement she made toward him was another massive wave, crashing over him and leaving him breathless. But, the water was warm and oh so pleasant.

He listened to her words, soaked them in, basked in the warmth they brought because that’s what Sahalie Tainn was. Warmth. Sunshine and spring and always the promise of something better, even if sometimes she was all April showers instead of the flowers. She said they couldn’t stop fighting. He gave a nod, gaze transfixed on her. He fought to remember to breath. She said he couldn’t leave. A small, almost amused smirk curled up onto his lips. The kind that actually reached his eyes. He nodded. She didn’t want her life or story to be over. His brows began to draw together. She loved him.

He sat down.

He forced himself to focus on the rest of her words, not because he didn’t care but because he was pretty sure he’d just internally combusted. Whatever situations had played over in his head about that moment...it was so much better. He felt her heat brush across his paws and he looked at her, sunshine meeting the sky. The rescued prince leaned down, hesitating for a moment before pressing a kiss to both of her eyes in order to swipe away the moisture that had collected there. “There’s no end here of you or me. There’s always going to be a Sahalie, there’s always going to be an Alastor. But...now,” he paused, taking in a shaky breath of his own. “Now, there’s an us too,” he said, a bright boyish smile lighting up his face as he said the words. The kind of smile that was weightless, because that was what he felt in that moment.

“I’m not going anywhere that you don’t know about. We’ve both had wolves leave us, I’m determined to break that streak. We’re going to fight, but honestly I’d be more concerned if we didn’t. I love that you expect so much out of me. I love that you push me to do the right thing. I love that you yell at me when I don’t. I love what you have made me, so different from the boy that you found who had lost everything. I love you, everything about you, and I will fight to keep this,” he said, allowing his voice to warble and crack. Allowing himself to show her everything he was feeling instead of being the tiniest bit of closed off that he normally was. That normal, however, had been him trying to keep his feelings in check at the worry of chasing her off. Now that she knew, he had nothing left to hide.

(This post was last modified: Mar 27, 2018, 02:53 AM by Kino.)

She accepted the kiss with her eyes closed, sighing. For the moment, she didn't open her mouth to disagree. Sahalie thought there'd always been an "us." She didn't think—or know, really—that "us" would be different now. Sahalie wasn't any different. There wasn't any... overly romantic things that she wanted to get off her chest, nothing she couldn't do before. Maybe it was different for Alastor, who had been keeping it to himself for so long, hiding a part of himself. A little bit of her was a nervous to see what this aspect of his personality would be like, since she had no idea.... no idea at all if Alastor was actually the romantic type—though she did remember that he liked to kiss strange women in the dead of night. But it would be good, she assured herself: good to let him be his whole self.

He deserved that.

His confession washed over her like warm summer rain, and she closed her eyes again. "I'm...sorry for being stupid for so long." Denying it, excusing it, or actively trying to hide from what was in front of her. Alastor. "I'm still afraid. And I... don't know that that will change any time soon but ... there's just been so much that's happened and. Heck, if it can all happen anyway whats the point in telling myself no?" Perhaps this was too honest, but it felt so satisfying to open up about things when she had been sullen and brooding for so long. Those days were not behind her, but...she hoped that there would be less of them ahead.

The girl's eyes fell back to the ground between his paws. "And..." her heart raced, "I think... just maybe. Maybe... I want to try it all again."

"We could be real parents."

On her own terms.

She apologized once again and his expression softened. Yes it had been hard, hard to hear her confess feelings for someone else in a drunken stupor. Hard to feel so strongly about her but seem fated to never be. Hard to want her so badly for it to seemingly be one sided. But, that was in the past. He had never held her feelings or words against her. He’d respected what she’d wanted and there wasn’t more to it. There was no condition of reciprocation to his love, it just was. And that, perhaps, made it all the more pure.

Hal mentioned that she was afraid and he nodded a little. The dark Tainn was open in many ways. She was passionate about others and wore her heart on her sleeve. However, that was only when it came to platonic methods. When it came to actually giving her heart to another, he knew that was a whole nother ball game. In a sense, he understood that. He’d been the same way at first. When the pair had first met he’d set a trust in her, however it was only small and enough to get them going. It had taken him longer to fully place himself in her paws, then another process to accept his feelings for her. Yet, she’d still gotten him to feel again whether she realized it or not. Perhaps, with time, she could grow more comfortable with them. After all, he would have to adjust a little himself. But oh, what a sweet adjustment it would be.

Her sunshine eyes fell to her paws and he felt like a warmth had been stripped of him. He wanted to be in her gaze. Always. She said she wanted to try it all again and his head tilted in confusion. Try what again?

Then she said it, and his breath hitched.

A part of him had given up the hope for a family. In fact, he’d almost even gone so far as to resign himself to possible watching Hal have a family with someone else. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to have that. Something so precious and real. Not after the life he’d had. But, as she said it he knew he wanted it. Knew he needed it. Hal was already his family at this point, had always been even if she had never confessed her feelings, and to create a real family with her...it was all he could ever want. All he had ever let himself want, even for a moment.

“Hal, I…” he breathed, swept up in so much. “There is nothing I’ve wanted more than to have a family. With you,” he said, emphasizing the end because truly there had never been any others in his eyes. Even in his little flirt sessions with Castel or Iyes, there had never been any true substance. There was no possible future with them that he could see and feel so strongly. There had only been Hal. “There Lore better watch out, with a few little Sahalies running around,” he mused, his voice rumbling happily in his chest.

As he looked at the girl in front of him, the girl he had spent his entire life with and looked to spent the rest of it with, he could only think of one more thing to put on the table. “Does this mean...would you...be my mate?” he asked, hope in his voice. “You don’t have to take my name or anything stupid like that. Not like there’s much to it anyways,” he added a bit nervously.

feel free to get "funky" in your next post and then i'll fade it out with some careless whisper~~~

Alastor's enthusiasm brought a smile to her face. But every smile was slightly tainted in some way, and in a fleeting moment Sahalie thought of Laurel. She wondered how Alastor could be so unguarded with his excitement after their bungled attempts to make a man and a wolf out of Larkspur's son. They tried, but also Sahalie didn't really know what she was doing, and the things she was doing hadn't felt right to do— physically, mentally, or emotionally. And Larkspur was distant and confusing about it all. She was left to assume Alastor thought their failings were more to do with the boy's nature, the things he inherited from Larkspur that Alastor had just never liked. Would things be any different, though, with children of their own? They could end up with the worst parts of her an the worst parts of Alastor.

And what if her body rejected the whole process, again?

There had to be something, a difference to growing the child in her own body to having it handed to her, someone else's squealing baby. Her small, round body had tried to make things work—which she was surprised her body could produce milk at all—but it just felt wrong. It was just the wrong way to do it.

Still, there was no deny that enough of her wanted to try again. Her hormones shouted louder than the consequences.

"I'd like that, though," she responded when his question roused her from her thoughts. It wasn't like there was anyone else in Relic Lore she wanted, loved, or wished to start a family with. He already gave her his word, and the title was like a means of sealing their pact. "I mean... There's really nothing so special about being a Tainn anyway. We're just ghosts... though I guess that's what names are all about." Suddenly things were taking a more grim turn than she had intended, and she shook her head as if driving away obnoxious thought-mosquitoes, "There are so many Tainns already. Not a lot of Leighs. We could all just be Leighs." Leighs, meaning her and whoever else came after them.

A smile curled onto her lips and boy was it a sight for sore eyes. The silver man didn’t think that she smiled enough. He could remember a time when almost all she did was smile. He hoped she could get back to that. Maybe by their bringing a little family into the world, that could happen. He hoped it would, because he was sure it was going to bring a lot more happiness into his.

She revealed, to his surprise, that she would have liked to take his name and his heart gave another heavy thud in his chest. Sahalie Tainn, no Sahalie Leigh, was leaving him breathless one time after another and he couldn’t get enough of it. “Alright, if that’s what you want, Sahalie Leigh,” he said with a grin, the name making him tingle.

He rose to his paws, circling around her back and lowering his head to nibble at her ear. “We’ll go slow. Go at your pace,” he said, gaze searching the side of her face. This wouldn’t be an accident, not like Sachiel had been to his brother. This would be out of love, like he had been born of his mother and father. And, the biggest difference would be that he would be there to see his children born. He would be there to protect them, to show them love and to teach them. And he would do it with the most amazing woman at his side. He waited for her to lead the way.