Sex: Male"Hnnnggg," he groaned, rolling over to his other side away from Taima. His head throbbed, and brought up a fore-paw to brush over his ear and press against the pounding ache behind his eye. In this moment, everything felt very muddled and wondered just what he had done to end up like this. "What the hell did we do last night?" he whined a little too loudly, not considering the fact that Taima might have still been sleeping. Things came back to him slowly as he opened his eyes and he stared out at the woods. He was grateful that the sky was shrouded in clouds, sunlight probably would have worsened his condition.
For once, however, he found himself thinking of someone besides himself. Instead, he was trying to picture the little girl who had once been sprayed by a skunk living out here between the cedars. For a moment he could have sworn he saw her and her big ears and her silly, stuck out tongue peering at him around a tree. He perked his ears, but then she was gone. The wind blew through the trees and it sounded like her laughter. Man, he thought as he pawed at his head again, Now this is a headache.
No longer enjoying the silence or his imagination, Datura swung his head back towards Taima. His questions were innocent. "So is this where you lived? Where's your family?"
Datura's groan fell on deaf ears as Taima Lyall laid soundly asleep beside him. It wasn't until he asked her a seemingly rhetorical question that her pale ear flicked and one of her pale golden eyes opened. In the silence that followed, she opened her other eye, blinking them to finally focus on the world around her. She made to move her hind legs, stretch them once before relaxing them, and found them sore... as though she had been running all night. One of her ears swiveled all the way over to one side as she craned her neck upward.
"So is this where you lived?" he asked, his voice crashing down now upon her head as she turned to look at him. "Where's your family?"
Mirren had once asked her the same questions; her face had lit up then, even just a few weeks ago when he had finally caught on to where she was going at all hours of the night when she left him. Now there was no happiness, not even the slightest hint of a smile. "Yeah," she hummed, trying hard to keep his gaze. "I did. Or, somewhere near here. I haven't been able to find the bear den yet though." There was a sort of undercurrent in her voice that told of the loss she had recently endured. At the very least, she was grateful to have found her long lost prince. "My family's gone," the words could have physically tumbled from her mouth if it had been possible. "Since you're here, you're the only one I love that I have left."
"I mean, I have my brother, but I don't know what'll happen to us. I just... I just left him there," she revealed, her eyes averting towards a some distant point through the cedars. "My mom and dad are gone. Grizzly Hollow is gone." For a while she stared down at her paws, her ears flipped back in uncertainty until she mustered up enough courage to look him in the eyes once more. "If..." she hesitated with the brief wrinkling of her nose as she thought, "If that's really the case, will you help me find it? Make it like it once was?" Perhaps, if she was able to restore it, then it would be enough to bring her whole family back home...
As he watched her stretch and waited for an answer, he felt suddenly very shy and guilty. Fragments of the night before replayed in his head and his stomach began to churn as he realized the ways he had touched her. He turned away abruptly, not quite sure he would be able to look at her without feeling sick. Blood still pounded in his head and he screwed his eyes shut. Not a golden boy anymore... All his innocence was gone. He was a murderer and a sexual deviant to boot. How far I've fallen, he thought as his mind began to spiral towards despair.
Taima's voice began to pull him out of the whirpool though, as he realized she was staring at him and making some attempt to answer his question. His ears stretched forward in surprised at the mention of living in a bear den. This certainly sounded very strange to a boy who had been born on a mountain and thought only of sleeping out in the air on a cold slab of stone. Curious, the golden boy looked around as if he hoped to see this bear's den just beside them. It couldn't be too far could it? He heard the bit about him being the only loved one that remained and he gave her the compulsory smile of someone who had just received a compliment in a less than ideal context.
Without fully realizing why, Datura found himself becoming more frustrated the more he heard. At first, he thought he was annoyed with Taima's family for abandoning her. Hadn't he told her they would look for her, that they were family and they had no choice? Except they hadn't looked for her at all, apparently, because she had been back at Nomad's Pass with his mom for the longest time. How could her father not even look for her? How could he leave her? Then Datura realized this had been exactly what his mother had done when she left the pass for lord knows where, no clues to tell him where to go. They just vanished. And finally, he was frustrated with Taima, and felt once more as if she had lead him on. What was she the Heiress of if there was no Grizzly Hollow and she didn't know where this bear den was? Feeling slightly daring, he met her stare as she asked him to help her look for the Hollow of her childhood and to rebuild it.
He sighed, his eyes falling to his muddy paws as his head throbbed. This was supposed to have been easy. He had been born in Poison Path, he was meant to inherit Poison Path. But then things changed and then he was the heir of the Pass. It could have just been easy like that, just take over when mom couldn't do the job anymore. What Taima was asking for would be much harder. Still, he found himself attracted by this dream, this dream that had once in fact been his dream for a moment a long long time ago when he had been very young and she had smelled like skunk. "My head hurts," he grunted finally, his rump falling heavily to the forest floor.
"And what would we even do? Are we just going to wander this forest looking for a bear den that could be anywhere?" He looked at her again, and perhaps saw her as she was for the first time: just a skinny rabbit-girl who was at the end of her rope. Winter had been hard here. "You don't look like you could last long with just me."
"And what would we even do? Are we just going to wander this forest looking for a bear den that could be anywhere?" he questioned her after declaring that his head hurt. Taima eyed him with the most critical of looks and a flick of her black-tipped plume, "Of course we are! This is my home and I've been away from it far too long. It fell apart because of me but I'm going to build it back up." She tried to stand up, but her knees gave in and she had to sit instead. A snort sounded from her muzzle as she heard him state that it looked like she wouldn't last long with 'just' him. Her ears drew back for a few seconds.
"I'll manage just fine, thank you," she stubbornly remarked. "But I'm thankful for your concern..." She pouted momentarily and sighed, "You're right though." Her stomach sounded out in the most unceremonious grumble. When she spoke up again her voice was a whisper, and it occurred to her that she had squandered what was left of her energy reserve last night. "I'm hungry."
She stood up on four rather wobbly, stick-like limbs and teetered to one side, "Shall we start looking and maybe try an' find something to eat on the way?" Her posture neutralized, bringing her tail into a slow wag and her ears back to their usual positions at the top of her head. "It doesn't hurt to try right? I mean..." she paused to really decide whether or not to take a leap of faith. "If my mom and dad could do it, stake out their own claim and make a life of their own, then why not us?"
She returned his look and then some: where he was demanding she come up with a plan she was condemning him for his lack of faith and understanding. His snort was contemptuous as his gaze flicked away from her. He found it unlikely that this whole pack fell apart just because she had been away. In fact, Datura wasn't sure he liked what she was implying. Did Taima think it was his fault that Grizzly Hollow had disappeared, since had been the one to follow him back home? The difficult boy's eyebrows creased above narrowed eyes, he resented the guilt she was trying to harness to him. Somehow he found it much more likely that he could cause a pack to crumble, and thus he was forced to concede that his mate had a point, he had been the one to take her from her home and thus he was responsible. This was not the time from him to shy from his duty, from what he owed Grizzly Hollow.
The little heiress of the cedars conviction in her health was not enough to sway the boy, who looked back with one eyebrow raised and small smile on his face when he saw the way her knees buckled underneath her. "Right," he drawled. Even after she relinquished her pride, Datura continued. "You're absolutely right. You're the picture of well-being. But, you know, I'm not invincible." —though he was quite sure he was— "If you're not going to look out for yourself, you might as well look out for me before I starve on this quest of yours." His chest puffed out slightly as he thought about how gentlemanly he seemed, letting her look stronger than him for just this once.
His pale chin bobbed agreeably at her plan, seeing as it was all they had. Truth be told, though, he was probably going to be he one paying attention for signs of a meal and she would bet he one looking for the old bear den. "Why not indeed," he said quietly as his head swung about, his nose already trying to draw out the scents of prey from the forest. Getting to his feet, Datura started to wander off in whatever vague direction that seemed to hold the promise of food to him when suddenly he stopped. Magnanimously, he swung back around and smiled at Taima, "Lead the way, my darling."
With pursed lips she smiled smugly at her golden prince. He countered her, move for move. To be quite frank, she still absolutely loved that about him. But what was this? For once, there was a bit of humility there. That was certainly new. She eyed him with a wrinkled nose that made her smile crooked in a way that told him she was amused by his choice of words. It wasn't until he verbally agreed with her about their capabilities in establishing a pack of their own, that she openly grinned at him. Her eyes followed him as he began to advance into the forest, picking a direction at whim.
She thought Datura was going to keep going and walk into the distance without her, leaving her behind, but to her surprise, he stopped and turned to meet her eyes. "Lead the way, my darling," he simpered. Taima's tail came up in an exuberant wag, her hunger and soreness momentarily forgotten just because he had smiled at her. Oh, it had been much too long since she had seen a look of contentment on his face. This Datura was definitely much better than the one she had encountered the evening before. She came up to meet him, standing at his side at first before taking two steps forward. Then she stopped, and she, too, turned to look at him square in the face.
"Wait," she murmured. "I want you to tell me one thing before we go any further." Her golden gaze searched his, as though his eyes were truly the windows of his soul. She desperately hoped that she would not find any essence of the seemingly hollow man she first met; her impression of him, with his hungry eyes and thin face. "I want you to tell me that you'll always tell me the truth," she simply said, not daring to push him into giving her any answer that she was not ready to hear. The more she thought of it, the way he had looked at her as she snapped and yowled at him, the more she craved to get to know him better, to pick up where they had left off in-between the crags of Nomads Pass. "I want there to be an understanding between us that we are each other's keepers. No lies, no secrets. You don't have to tell me anything right now, about where you've been or what you've done, but you have me now and I won't be going anywhere without you." She conjured up a small smile that managed to touch the triangles beneath her eyes, "Okay?"
His eyes followed her eagerly, hopefully as she seemed to pick a direction. His paw hung in mid-air as he prepared to follow her lead, but after a couple of steps she stopped. As is paw dropped back to the ground he huffed, his eyes still preoccupied by the search for food. Left, right, left, oh — Eyebrows raised, he met her gaze evenly when he realized she had turned back to look at him. Her eyes were full of questions and he wondered at their intensity as they pierced his own precious metal stare. It seemed like she expected to find something in his eyes. "Hmnnn?" he prompted.
The preface to whatever she was intending to say seemed to be along the same vein as "I don't want you to be mad at me..." or "We need to talk...", and Datura found himself braced for the worst. What, what could she possibly have to say right now? More of this desperate searching of his face. He swung his face away from her eyes.
But she only seemed to be asking him for his honesty.
Hastily, he cut in, "— Of, of cour— I would..." Passionately, he struggled with the words that could capture his own lust for the truth exactly. He had lied and lied badly before, he was a fallen creature, but he longed to redeem himself and he was always striving to live an honest life. His voice was a whine, "I couldn't ever. I couldn't. Lie to you. I wouldn— "
She was not distracted by his clumsy attempts to appease whatever need this was. Instead she handed down some sort of ultimatum to him, and he blinked at her, unable to see where any of this was coming from. But when she moved to mention his obvious reluctance to tell her just where he had been and what he had done, Datura's ears and affect crumbled. Dismay bloomed on his face as gaped at her, his jaw moved as if he meant to speak, to interrupt her again. A thousand lies and diversions were poised on his tongue, You don't want to know, he wanted to tell her, There's nothing to know. I've done nothing wrong. Oh please, you don't want to know Taima. Turn around and run away from me, please I beg you. His eyes were wet and they jumped frantically about her face.
A smile appeared on her lips and his head jerked back in confusion, droplets spilling over onto his muzzle. She was unshakable, this daughter of Borden, this girl from the Cedarwood. It was frightening, this unquestioning trust she wanted to forge between them. But he needed it. He needed someone who would not fear him, who could see him for what he was and what he had done. Tears streamed readily down cheeks now. The golden boy lifted his eyes to her, his posture supplicant, "Okay," he whimpered. For a moment, he felt as if he might tell her; the words were waiting on his lips. But he was still frightened of what he had done and unsure of his mate. Some other day. Maybe. "Okay," he breathed again, trying to stem the tide of the tears flowing from his eyes, "I can't tell you now though..." Ashamed, his eyes fell back down to her paws.
For several moments that threatened to stretch on into minutes, Datura was very quiet. When he spoke again, he asked after birth pack again. "What was it like, Grizzly Hollow?"
For once, finally, he cried. Datura Aquila, her golden prince, felt something other than self-righteousness and vanity. "It's fine," she attempted to soothe him, "and, I know." With one more smile, she made to move forward again, but was again held captive by his golden eyes. her whiskered brows came up curiously and she canted her head to one side as if to wordlessly pry the question from his throat. "What was it like, Grizzly Hollow?" he asked before the silence between them grew too great.
"I-It," she stuttered, her heart daring to nearly sink into the caverns of her chest. "It was great." Her words were barely above a whisper as she remembered how her upbringing was within these particular woodlands. "I had everything I wanted... needed. I slept with my mother and brothers and sister in the old bear den. I saw my first snowfall there." She simpered, though the memory was bittersweet on her tongue, and her eyelids came down a bit more than she might have liked. It was obvious now that she wholly missed Grizzly Hollow, that she missed everything that it had been, and stood for.
"My father and mother were very fair Leaders. We were well-off. Kade, my father's Guard, looked after us and Sibyl and Follko used to pup-sit us until we were old enough." Taima took a moment to take a quick look around, the scent of something edible teasing at her nose. Hunger was far from snatching her attention span at the present; as far as she was concerned, she was very much into making her beloved see and understand what this particular forest meant for her. "To me, Grizzly Hollow, was to be my kingdom--" the downward-turning corners of her mouth lifted briefly, "--if I recall what I told you so many months before. It was to be my 'never-land.' We'd never have to go to bed if I didn't want to. Stay out after dark and return with the morning sun at our backs. Stomp in all the mud puddles and wear the mud like war paint. I never did what my father told me; and, for that I'm glad..." She peered up into his face, "I probably wouldn't have found you otherwise."
She didn't know.
But Datura was content to listen to her, his tear filled eyes closing. There was some magical quality in her voice that allowed him to picture a runty little Taima curled up on her bundle of brothers, her eyes large and glowing with awe as the flakes came down. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. These warm little trappings of happiness were the kind of memories he wished he had, that he longed to have. But when Taima had been young and watching the snow fall, Datura and the sick girl that had once been his sister were probably being shuffled between several women he couldn't call mother up in the frigid, lonely place by the lake in the mountains to the east. The corners of his mouth fell, and he felt a distance grow between himself and his mate with the childhood he envied. Secretly, the idea that this childhood and this family had been taken from her too, in the end, was satisfying. The smile returned: now they were both estranged, damaged goods.
Datura nodded, he remembered the words she had spoken before, but up until now it seemed he had forgotten their meaning, their magnitude. Once more he was taken aback in awe of these ambitions that had existed since she was very small. His smile was genuine now, and he had to laugh at the childish ideas she had. She was such a feisty little thing, this wife of his. Datura felt sorry for whatever man had been a father. His paws must have been full with this whirling dervish, and no doubt her siblings were trouble too. "Well, I'd be pretty lost with you you," he snorted, "Literally." There was no doubt that he probably wouldn't have found his way home when he had been unceremoniously dumped on the east side of the pass.
"We can rebuild it though," he said, his muzzle bumping her chin up in a rare gesture of encouragement, "We can rebuild it better, stronger" — he grinned mischievously — "Cause now you'll have me to help you." But he meant every word.