Secret Falls and now i can see every single possibility

For @Cancer only, please! Backdated to 3/28th.

Subterritory Discovery:
Princess' Place
49.43956, 83.8476

Where the dense forest meets the open grass lies a small meadow, chock-full of vibrantly colorful wildflowers that bloom throughout Spring and Summer. The clearing is painted in every color on the spectrum and gives off an air of playfulness, peace, and joy. It emanates with sweet smells, and often attracts honeybees and butterflies of various colors and sizes that only add to the veritable rainbow of colors that spatter the ground.
To the immediate west is a small hedging of golden rye grass, and beyond that, one can see Mount Dire in the distance. To the east lies the deep forest surrounding Shallow's Edge. One can say that it is almost like the meadow itself has a proverbial paw in two worlds.

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Being alone wasn’t fun. Not like this. She hadn’t thought that it would be so difficult. After spending so much time by herself, she’d thought she would be used to this kind of thing. But then, she had always had a home to go back to. Now she was well and truly on her own, on her way back to Shallow’s Edge in the hopes that maybe Askan and Reyes would have enough room to let her in.

She had to stop walking, though. The young wolf needed some rest. But as she slowed, she caught sight of rye grass in the distance, and momentarily wondered if she had accidentally gone up toward Aunt Jessie’s place instead.

Pale paws made their way over slushy ground - thank god for the warmer weather that was starting to filter in as Spring approached - and she pushed her muzzle through the grass to investigate what was on the other side.

It was beautiful. Spring flowers were pushing up through the grass, lit in bright colors by the midday sunshine. And normally, Ris would’ve been overjoyed to find such a wonderful place. But she was so tired, and so hurt from Mako’s dismissal at the border, and so lonely that all she could really do was lay down on her stomach, half-in the rye grass, and watch the flowers through misty eyes.

Maybe she had made a mistake.

Cancer's purpose out this far was checking up on a heard of white tails he'd been tracking, keeping tabs on them for an occassion where @Askan and @Reyes might call a pack hunt. He hadn't expected to pick up Risaela's scent, but he had heard that her pack had moved closer, amd really he wasnt surprised that she was out alone again. What was different, and what caught his attention and even made him a bit uneasy, was that she didnt look the same. The girl wasnt bubbly and smiling; she was still and subdued.

Cancer hesitated, at the fringe of the field. The voice wanted him to go to her and ask what was wrong, to comfort her if need be, but his thin black legs were frozen instead. He knew what we was potentially diving into, a spring of emotions deeper than the Shallows, and that scared the fuck out of him. Cancer spent every day of his life avoiding feelings.

The disembodied third party eventually won out, after enough guilting. His alphas would be angry, he justified, if they found out he'd just left the girl alone to cry or whatever messy thing she was about to do. So he strode toward her, cutting through the snow-ladened yellow to get to Risaela. His posture was low, guarded.

"Hey."

Hey.

The voice brought her out of her exhausted, miserable stupor with a pathetic little jump that Cancer would no doubt think was ridiculous and unnecessary. Wasn’t he supposed to be one of those wolves who she wanted to look tough in front of, so that she didn’t come off as a pitiful loser?

Way to go, Ris. Screwed that one up.

Just like everything else.

”Hi,” she whispered in return, forcing herself to sit up and look him in the eyes. Her tail gave a few hesitant beats against the wet ground, but the light didn’t reach her gaze. ”I-I’m not d-d-disturbing you, a-am I?” she fretted, suddenly worried that she might not be allowed to be there. ”D-did I cross a b-b-border?” Oh, god, she hoped not. They’d never accept her if she had done such a stupid thing. And she was stuttering so badly - she was positive the blue-eyed boy was going to start making fun of her.

The whole situation was made worse for the sole reason that she was on the verge of tears. She absolutely couldn’t let that happen in front of him.

His blue eyes were wary as he watched her respond to his presence. Part of him expected her to break down right there, loud and wet with a flood of tears. Loud and uncontainable, completely out of his scope of capability to handle. Maybe that would've been better, because then he would've been less likely to be blamed for flat out running. Could've gone and fetched Askan or something, had him handle it. He knew her better, after all. Instead she just sat up and pinned him with that rainstorm gaze and his insides squirmed uneasily. Was this what it was to feel bad about something? It'd been a while. A long while.

Comfort her.

But how? He shifted his weight among his paws, eyes drifting until her voice picked up again at a pitch that caused his ears to snap forward. Disturbing him? Yeah, maybe if they were in the common den back at the Shallows, and she was wailing about shit, he would've been bothered. But then he would've gotten the fuck up and found somewhere else to sleep. Because even though he hated emotions, hated getting to know other wolves, didn't want to be involved, he wouldn't tell anyone they weren't allowed to express their sadness.

Because he had been told so and it had broken him.

"Fuck that. You didn't cross shit, and you're not disturbing me. You're down. That's, like, really obvious, and it ain't any of my business. Anyone ever tell you you're disturbing them with your sadness you tell 'em to fuck right off."

Zero to sixty, as per usual for the charcoal teen, but a nerve had been struck. With a huff, he planted himself right next to her, not touching of course, but close enough to show solidarity.

Most of her had been prepared to be made fun of, or yelled at, or god knows what at. But the dark wolf did none of those things. In fact, he did the exact right thing - he spoke to her like she was an actual person instead of a small child, or a burden, or dismissed her. And then he walked over and sat next to her, next to the rye grass, and even the fact that he wasn’t touching her was perfect. Because that gave her room to gingerly bump her nose against his shoulder before pulling away again, her mood actually lightened a bit.

”Nob-body said that t-to me,” she assured with a small smile, blinking some of the moisture from her eyes before looking back up at him. ”But th-thank you. I’ll k-keep that in m-mind.” She no longer felt like crying so much, so instead she just looked over the flowers in front of them. ”A-and I’m no-not sad or anyth-thin’. I mean, I-I am, but it i-isn’t... it m-mostly isn’t b-because of s-somebody else. You c-can ask if y’wanna kn-know.” But if he didn’t, she wouldn’t bother him about it.

One silver paw reached out to brush across the top of the flower in front of her - it was a pretty shade of blue. ”Th-this one matches y-you. Your e-eyes.” A very small smile crossed her lips - none of them would match her own colorless features. ”Th-they’re very p-pretty.”

The flowers and his eyes both.

Not sad or anything? He looked at her, one brow hiked high, but then it knitted with its kin as she went on. She was, but it wasn't someone else's fault, so... did she think that meant it mattered less? Or not at all? Cancer wasn't sure, and certainly wasn't confident that he wanted to ask. Even when she told him it was okay. She'd seemed to perk up a bit just by him being there, and that was good enough, right? Why make things messier?

While he struggled to decide, she moved on. Brought his attention to the flowers that were popping through in spite of the cold that still clung to the land. Like him? Oh, his eyes. Yeah, sure. Then she called it, or them?, pretty and he snorted because he was fairly sure it was a compliment and he didn't need that.

"It's the princess that's s'posed to be told she's 'pretty'," he corrected her, because he didn't want nice things said about him.

"Were you uh. Were you looking for us again?"

He could take her back to the Edge like the last time. Maybe that would make things alright again for her.

She was pretty sure that there would be more flowers there when the weather warmed further, but even now there were many more than she had seen anywhere else this time of year. The young wolf was happy that he didn’t say anything further on the subject of how she was feeling - she honestly wasn’t even sure in the first place, and the whole talking thing was only making it more difficult.

Then, in response to her comment about his eyes, the boy remarked that only princesses were supposed to be called pretty. ”P-Princes can be pretty, t-too,” she assured, picking up one of the bluebell flowers and standing to tuck it behind the other teen’s ear. A pleased smile crossed her lips - she was engrossing herself in the moment, so that all the negative emotions would come later. ”See? You’re a p-pretty Prince.”

Were you looking for us again?

”Um... y-yes. My p-pack got too full, so... so I d-decided to leave. So n-nobody else had to,” she explained, her ears flicking backward and her silver gaze casting to the side to land on a more purpley flower, ”That’s why I-I was so... um... down?” she repeated, brows raising just slightly. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the word itself - it was just a very accurate word that she wouldn’t have personally picked for the situation.

It came back and bit him in the ass again, that sarcastic little name he'd given her. He had to wonder what it would take to get under her skin, but clearly now was not the time to start testing shit out. Cancer was here to make her feel better, because, reasons. That's why he let her do what she wanted, including putting a freaking flower on him. He went rigid, eyes wide and brows knitted as he stared determinedly ahead. Doing his best not to immediately shake the plant off and insist that men weren't pretty. And he was a man, dammit.

"What, do you want to join the Shallows?"

He couldn't fault her for not standing her ground and fighting for a place in the pack. He'd certainly never done so, always more than willing to move on to new scenery, and really he had no idea what her home life had been like. If that other pack was even any good for her. Most of all, though, that was the way of things. The young were meant to leave and start their own lives elsewhere.

"I dunno if you'd like it there as much as you think, sunshine."

The voice told him he could do his part to make the pack a bit more welcoming, but he had to remind it that he wasn't a permanent fixture anyways. When summer's heat came, he would need to move on again.

He was kind enough to actually let her put a flower in his fur, but she wasn’t going to risk another. She had to believe that there was a limit to his tolerance of her, because they were so different and she was probably really on his nerves right then. But he was honestly helping her feel so much better, and she was going to be grateful for that for as long as he was around.

It was a rare occasion that someone would do this for her.

The girl shrugged her shoulders and looked to the side, flicking her ears back and forth anxiously. ”Umm... m-maybe,” she said with a tight smile, glancing back up at him. ”If K-Kana and Rey will let m-me in.” It was close to Driftwood, it was nice and secluded, there was water nearby... it seemed nice enough.

She arched a brow when he mentioned she wouldn’t like it there, and she shrugged her shoulders with a smile. ”It had a l-lot of wolves I ca-care about,” she explained, her tail sweeping over the ground behind her. ”A lot of fr-friends. So I won’t b-be all alone.” That was her main issue - she simply didn’t want to feel alone. For most of her time in the Surge, she had been.

Well, he certainly couldn't see the duo turning Risaela down. They seemed to go out of their way to collect children, perhaps making up for their inability to have a litter together? Or maybe that was just how things turned out and one more would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Cancer didn't know them well enough, but if they were anything like him, with a little puddle of goodness in them deep down, they wouldn't be able to resist the puppy eyes Ris might throw their way.

He'd let her in, anyways.

"More than those two?" he asked, not aware that she'd known others in the pack as well. Guess that'd make sense though, them being allies and all.

"Were, uh. Were you alone before?"