Whitestone Monadnock Lifeboat

RE: Kino, it's the middle of the night and you're too cold to fall asleep. @Sahalie  bc Kino doesn't know how to wolf with anyone else apparently xD

 

They’d been in the Monadnock for a little over a week and it was still taking some getting used to. He’d mapped out the territory as best as he could, gathering a general knowledge of the landscape but that was as much as he’d managed. The winds there were ferocious, and while the temperature might have not been that bad the wind made it a biting cold that even his thick pelt couldn’t quite shake. He’d managed to find two massive rocks lying against each other in a sort of teepee formation and from there he’d hollow the flooring between them into a decent dip. The two rocks acted as decent walls that buffered the wind and the ground warmed quickly beneath his body, but sometimes it still wasn’t enough. For once, like his friend, he longed for the cover of trees to take away the bite.

The wind came in strong gusts along with the light snow and the cold that seeped in through the cracks mixed with the howling didn’t allow him to sleep much. A sigh fell from his jaws as he scooted further back, attempting to block out the sound and the chill but not succeeding. All he wanted was a little sleep. The clouds blocked the sky and all its stars, something that the monadnock had plenty of, so he couldn’t even enjoy those. With how open the territory was, the sky at night turned into a brilliant light show of the twinkling dots. He laid his head on the ground, covering his chilled nose with a large paw.

Joining Whitestone Monadnock had, unfortunately, done little to improve Sahalie's recent insomnia. Sleeping out under the stars without a strongly scented border around her had been difficult enough: animal sounds were louder, everywhere the forest was awake with a looming presence. But now there was none of that. Once again she was surrounded with the safety of more than a dozen wolves, many she knew and trusted. Yet there were so many new wolves she didn't know, and some that she did and still couldn't trust: namely all of the former Willow Ridge wolves. On top of that she felt as though she were clinging to the oddly-surfaced rock, staring out into the tundra-void. So far from home, so bizarre. More bizarre than sleeping unprotected in the Vale of Secrets—at least, then, Sahalie had known what the secrets were. They were her secrets.

The weird stone formation that Alastor had discovered was their only real protection on the Monadnock, but the girl had to be grateful for it. During the day the stone soaked up the sun and at night it radiated a paltry warmth in their insulated cave, enough to keep her paws from going numb. Usually, Sahalie stayed far away from the opening and allowed her friend's giant body to block most of the wind's bite. He had been surprisingly late in returning tonight, though, and now he was sighing up a storm and fidgeting, so of course she could pretend to be asleep any longer.

And how could she sleep, anyway, when he smelled like that?

The stench of some lone girl wafted off of him in droves, as if it were embedded into his fur. Sahalie frowned. It wasn't as if Alastor was getting familiar with their new packamtes, which would have been okay. And... did it have to be a girl? — Why did she care? Because she thought Alastor had been hers. Because they were friends and friends didn't come back smelling like other wolves without an explanation...Right? Sahalie was unsure of herself.

"Where you been," she mumbled, her tone more easy than her own pounding heart. "It's so cold tonight." Not the best night for strange meetings, to be sure.

His auds swiveled back to catch the shuffling of a small body, Hal’s to be exact, and he winced. He hasn't meant to wake her, it was just hard to get his large body in a comfortable enough position. And...perhaps it wasn't just the cold keeping him from sleep. A faint bit of guilt had been eating away at him for not telling the sunspot about Cas, but at the same time it felt...weird to tell her about it? Like he was committing some sort of adultery with their late night meeting. But he knew he'd done no wrong. Hal had made it perfectly clear that she wasn't looking for anything, which kept him effectively untethered however much he secretly longed to be tied down. He'd done nothing bad, but why did it he feel like he did?

His head lifted and turned back, focus honing in on Hal as she spoke. He nodded in agreement to her statement first. “You're definitely right. This freaking cold wind makes me miss the trees,” he replied. If he'd thought she'd be okay with his touch like Cas seemed to be he'd have scooted over to provide her some warmth, but it just seemed that every time he tried to get near her she just shied away. It was frustrating, to put it point blank, but there was nothing he could do about it so he stayed put. “I went out of the territory to explore a little bit, see if I could find any more prey. This territory isn't exactly plentiful,” he tact on.

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

Even though the half-children always made up after the fights the damage remained. Sahalie had always imagined that no hard feelings existed between them, but in the aftermath of their most recent spat suddenly things felt very different. The girl was nervous, uncertain about where they stood. Alastor exercised an over-abundance of caution with her that made her even more anxious, and she wondered if the boy still harbored any reset or pain. If so, how much? How deep did the scars go? The simple lie he uttered felt like it would tear her whole world apart if she let it. This wound went all the way to her core. "Oh," she muttered glumly, clearly disappointed. But what else was there to say if Alastor wanted to gloss over the rankness that rose like a smoke signal from his pelt. He didn't want her to know about the girl.

But Sahalie wanted so badly for things to just be like old times when she and Al had hugged and laughed and been strong. Where had that all stopped? She hadn't realized things between the two were so uncomfortable—there had been so much to distract her in the past few weeks—and with a tremor in her chest she discovered she had no idea when it all started. Everything was fuzzy. Was it when they fought, was it leaving Oak Tree Bend, was it when he hadn't rejoined, did it go all the way back to Larkspur?

She scooted forward, her paw reaching out for his. Even in the bitter wind his silver paw still radiated heat. Alastor radiated that unfamiliar scent. Sahalie tried to focus on the warmth instead. It was like a fire—but it was more than just his own body heat, it was hers, too. It came from somewhere inexplicable. "Can..." Can we talk? she longed to ask. But they were always talking. It never got them anywhere good. "Can I steal some of your warmth?" She was always stealing from him, but she just wanted to steal this last thing.

“Oh,” she muttered in such a way that strangely made his heart ache. She sounded so...sad. Sahalie wasn't supposed to be sad. His brows creased in the darkness of the den, concern coloring him. Had something happened with Spieden? Did she miss the Bend again? He knew that sometimes the nights were the worst of times because everything seemed to attack you all at once.

Suddenly, she was scooting forward and her paw settled against his. For a moment he waited for it to just end up being an accident, for her to quickly move it away but that didn't happen. It stayed and a warmth spread up his leg and into his body. His cheeks heated slightly and his gaze locked on her with curiosity. “Can I steal some of your warmth,” she asked and he swore his heart stopped. His mouth went dry and he cleared his throat quickly, a small smirk crawling onto his maw. “You can have anything you want, you don't even have to ask,” You can take me, you already have my heart. But he couldn't say that, not outloud.

The large boy moved to curl around her in the familiar way that they used to, with her small body tucked against him and his head laying over her flank. He could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breathing and somehow a mixture of both calm and nerves riddled his body. How could she do this when she hardly was doing anything? He looked at her for a moment longer before murmuring, “Is everything okay?”

How could a paw be warm? A paw was a lot of bones and tendons, not much there to produce heat. But he felt hot. Sahalie felt a little hotter. The force of Alastor's eyes on her was almost enough to make her falter, wondering if her paw was too hot or if he was too hot or if she had done something wrong. But she held on and waited for his response, feeling a sting of guilt at the harmless, unintended reminder that she had been taking whatever she wanted from him for seasons now. Sahalie took his warmth and she took his time; she took her frustrations out on him, she took his future, holding it hostage for her own dream. But Alastor was still smiling, though it was really more of a smirk. Maybe, he didn't mind. Maybe, he really did.

Alastor was a big wolf and she was fully aware of this, yet the months and the the invisible barrier between them cause her to forget just how big. He was a lot bigger when he was right next to her. Why did her breath quicken? She concluded she was just surprised, that was all. Yet they fell into their familiar shapes and the girl could not fully settle, her flank burning where his head rested upon it. Well, at least she was warm now. The dark girl did not want him to go away.

"You told me you didn't talk to other girls" Her hollow voice was barely over a whisper. She pushed her face into his starry fur. It smelled like her. It had been so long ago that Alastor probably didn't even remember saying such a thing, but Sahalie remembered it clearly. He had sounded so serious. But of course he spoke to other girls all the time, he just didn't speak to them. He didn't have to smell like them.

He could feel her breathing making little jumps here and there and he hoped that he wasn't crushing her, hindering her breathing with the bulk of his skull. He had half a mind to ask, to make sure that she was comfortable and warm and everything good but then she spoke and he froze. Didn't talk to other girls? What was she talking about? Then, it hit him.

He hadn't done anything to mask the smell of Cas on his fur.

If she hasn't sounded so...empty he might have allowed himself to hope for a fraction of a second that it was jealousy. But could someone who didn't have feelings for someone else in the way that he did really feel jealousy? No, perhaps she was feeling left out. Perhaps she was feeling abandoned and that was the last thing that Kino ever wanted her to feel. He would give anything to make sure that Sahalie stayed happy, that she would always feel loved and thought of and that she would never have to face anything that would bring her harm, emotionally or physically. He had been stupid to try and keep it from her. When would he ever learn?

“I did. I met her yesterday, actually. Her name is Castel, she's a loner. She's...fun. She sort of reminds me of you, actually,” he said with a gentle chuckle, the laugh rumbling in his chest. “I'm sorry, I should have told you.”

Sahalie wanted to be angry, but she feared now that there was a limit to the number of times she could be angry with Alastor. There would be a point at which he would not come back to her after running away. And, as much as she wanted to be angry she could not manage to pile together a substantial justification. Was she jealous? Absolutely. But she couldn't tell him because it all sounded so stupid in her head: "You're my friend. Not anyone else's?" or "You're not supposed to talk to girls?" Sahalie was his friend, not his mother. She didn't control him or boss him around. She just didn't want him smelling so strongly of weird girls. Was that too much to ask?

Yes.

Then why did she want to?

"Yesterday?" she asked, so close to dismay. This meant that Alastor had seen her yesterday and then saw her tonight. Twice in two days. That seemed crazy, to Sahalie, but she also didn't know what it meant. The girl was both frustrated and relieved that she could not look into his face to figure it all out, but the laugh did not make her feel any better. Sahalie did not want this other girl to be like her. Alastor only needed one Sahalie and it was her. And why did he hesitate on the fun? "How'd you meet her?" But she was in dangerous territory of asking questions she did not want answers to.

His laughter ceased quickly at the look on her face. Or rather, the fact she couldn't seem to be able to look at him at all. Kino knew Hal, knew her better than some and this behavior was not normal. If anything during times like this their roles would be switched and he'd be the one unable to look at her. Everything he mentioned about the girl seemed to offend her or just break her down further and he was so confused. So very, very confused. What did it matter to her? Why did any of it matter? Was he not allowed to meet other girls? Was he not allowed to make new friends even though she went off and did just that all the time? He wasn't mad, he just didn't understand.

“When I went out of the territory I came across an antler ring and she happened to also. We just sat around and talked,” he said. His next thoughts were evil, he knew they were, but he wanted to see her reaction. He had to know...was Sahalie Tainn jealous? “She's kind of touchy feely though. She gave me a kiss I guess? I don't know, it kind of shocked me.” Everything was phrased carefully, but the truth was laid out in front of her.