Dragoncrest Cliffs ♫ head, shoulders, teeth & tendrils, teeth & tendrils

Tag for visibility. I’m using a hunt dice roll I made last month and never used and currently too lazy to reference.

She’d gone on an early morning patrol with @Eske when they woke for the day. Like most patrols, it is quiet, but this one was a little easier to do. Étoille is home and she can see him whenever she wants now and doesn’t have to wait but she had wanted to give him a few days of rest before pestering him. The trip felt like an eternity in their absence but he’s home for good now. When their patrol comes to an end, Furi does not go right for him as much as she wishes. Instead, she keeps walking alone toward the northern side of the territory, just where the ground slopes down one side of the cliff and a flock of seagulls hang out. Their numbers are smaller as winter lingers around the corner but what she doesn’t expect is one on the ground with its wing disjointed, cawing out for help.

Her eyes follow it while saliva pools in her mouth, surprised to find something so easy. Hunting isn’t a speciality of hers but she still holds the basic skill and if she can’t take down an injured bird that can’t fly, then she needs to revisit her training. Furi stalks it for a while but eventually, when close enough, she makes the launch and comes down on the seagull with ease. It squawks and puts up as much fight as it can but with her paws holding him down, she snaps it’s neck relatively quickly. The girl scoops it up and spins around on her heels, eager to make her way back inland with her prize.

*slides right in*

 maybe she'd been a little surprised furi hadn't said much to her at the borders - as silly as it is, really, they barely know each other. still, watching the dark-furred girl go right to étoille had maybe, just maybe, sparked the tiniest bit of something like jealousy in her. not that she has any reason to be jealous and it's probably just misplaced something or other, like her emotions are all jumbled up right now anyway.

 blix took the morning off from patrol for once, still worn down from the journey and the weight of her loss-anger-sorrow-anger-mostly-anger-some-grief-etc. the newly crowned gona is quick to restlessness though, and after tossing and turning for a bit in the early hours of the morning she rises to her paws and takes a walk. maybe she'll go by the garden - with hux not here, blix feels compelled to at least keep an eye on it, though she's not sure exactly of how to maintain it by herself.

the ginger's plans are interrupted by a series of alarmed squawks nearby - curiously she spins to see who's out and about hunting the birds - and, oh. for a moment blix freezes, unsure if furi's noticed her yet or is about to, a weird fight-or-flight instinct kicking in - but she takes a deep breath (jeez, hasn't she wanted to see the girl, even if she's not really sure how to go about it?) and calls out: "hei."

When she spins around, she doesn’t expect to see Blixen so close. She’d been so focused on the bird she didn’t consider if anyone had been close enough she may disturb. Her cheeks burn with sudden embarrassment as the other girl approaches and she’s thankful for the dark fur on her face. Her coat has undergone some changes in the other’s absence, lightening in her torso, and she doesn’t know how much is going to change.

After a few awkward seconds, Furi drops the bird to her feet and shakes out of coat. “Hey,” she repeats with a wag of her tail. She can’t be sure but Blixen looks a little taller, a little older. Her own ears fall back against her head, still feeling like a child. She’d felt so useless in their absence, whining to Eske about being bored. She licks her lips and glances away, then down to her kill. It had been for her friend but Blixen had been gone just as long, too, and perhaps she deserves it too.

“Hungry?” she asks, lowering her head and nudging the bird forward with a few bumps of her nose.

"you look different," she blurts inelegantly, nearly overlapping furi's spoken offering. they both must: blix feels a little taller, anyway, a little older looking, and furi isn't the same dusky child she met a few short weeks ago either. her face burns a little, recalling their original meeting (even if it'd resolved okay, she had mucked it up pretty bad). 

finally she looks down at the kill, mouth watering a little. she is hungry, she realises, and moves forward a little slowly to take the bird from furi. "chof," the ginger mumbles and tucks in. she eats for a moment and then looks up, licking blood-smeared lips: "do you want any?"

Blixen notices that she looks different and her ears fall back, unable to determine the tone she uses. Is that a bad thing? She looks at the mismatched fur that keeps changing and she sighs. She isn’t an even red and white like the other girl, or solid like Eske and the Heda. Nothing matches and it seems more different each day. Clearly, it’s not normal. She licks her lips nervously and looks back when the other speaks again, reaching forward to take the kill, and as she digs in she burrows her brows together in confusion. “What?” she asks, unable to decipher the sound she made a second before but perhaps it has been muffled by her eating when Blixen asks her if she wants any. Brushing off the confusion, Furi quickly shakes her head so the other can have the whole thing.

 furi declines her offer, and so she finishes quickly (hungrier than she'd first thought she was, it seems) and looks back up. blix doesn't realise furi's confusion is her habitual use of drageda's mother tongue - still embarrassed by her slip, she assumed she's thrown furi off with her blurted comment. she licks her lips. "oh, um, y'know, you've gotten kinda lighter," the gona explains, averting her gaze, "i just didn't notice before... it's, like -- cool," pretty, she nearly says instead, and doesn't. 

 she sits, her tail wagging just slightly, and asks "so... were things okay here?" though her focus had been on first finding mother, and then on staying by mother's side, it wouldn't be true to say blix hadn't worried about home at all while they were gone. she knows eske is capable of protecting the homestead but... it's nice that everything seems to have been untouched in their absence, as far as she knows.

Blixen backs up and explains her previous comment. It isn’t what she’d questioned but it does make her feel better. Cool. Her ears flutter a little but relax upon her head while she sits, looking down to what little is left of the bird. Feathers, mostly, and what bigger bones aren’t worth eating. Her tail thumps against the ground and her chest feels warm. She’s done something for a pack mate—a friend—and she easily associates it with Étoille and Eske. Her next question disrupts the thought and clears her throat. “Eske thinks a bear came and attacked Melchior while he was on the borders,” she says, remembering what her guardian told her. “There was a lot of fur and blood and we couldn’t find him.”

 furi seems to understand and blixen feels her blush fading somewhat, relieved. it doesn't last long.

blix never got to meet melchior, but that hardly matters, does it? he was drageda's, and so by extension, hers. and a bear of all things! maybe they're lucky it was only melchior - for a moment she sees what could have been, returning home to find multiple injuries from a bear attack - she thinks of her childish insistence on staying behind with mother, her willingness to abandon drageda for mother (again, she thinks of ajatar, of her role in all of this, fleetingly). she is haunted by death and disappearance; furi seems to always be the pallbearer, though that's unfair of her to think. "oh," she says quietly and looks at her feet. "no one else was hurt, right?"

Blixen doesn’t seem too bothered by the idea and she feels a little relief that she doesn’t have to deliver such bad news this time. It is not great news but her interest falls on others and Furi quickly shakes her head. “No, no one else was involved,” she assures her with an awkward smile. Even if she’d never met the wolf either, a part of her wants to know what happened, or where the body turned out, or if he’s even alive. By the sounds of it, she doesn’t think much would make it out after that. Furi licks her lips a little. “I’m uh, I’m glad you found your mom,” she says, remembering the words from when they’d come home but she had not stay long for details beyond the fact they hadn’t brought her home.

 at least no one else was involved. (someone else should have been involved - to protect him, she thinks). furi changes the subject to her mother - twists the knife a little deeper - she nods, her expression turning serious. "me too," blix says, "but we had to leave her there. she.. hadn't woken up yet." for all the girl knows, she still hasn't woken up. for the rest of her life blixen thinks maybe the scene of her mother's convergence on the caldera's borders will remain embedded within her memories, a flashbulb memory to be replayed whenever she closes her eyes. her mother had said her name, had said blixen. 

what if that's the last thing her mother ever says?

she licks her lips nervously. "hux and eljay stayed behind too," blix says, knowing full well furi probably doesn't know either of them. "and the caldera's her family - my family too, i guess - so. but. she didn't wake up," and she's talking more to herself than furi at this point, again (funny how their meetings always seem to go this way).

She sees the stab of pain cross Blixen’s face and she frowns. Perhaps she should not have brought it up but she thought she’d be a little happier. Leaving her behind hadn’t been ideal, she can tell, but they found her. They don’t have to live in the unknown. Slowly, Furi looks to the ground and stares at a point where her feet come together. She feels awkward, languishing in her new embarrassment and her own pain she can’t talk about. Lips part to speak, to apologize again, but she quickly snaps her teeth together and bites her tongue. She hates how awkward she tends to make their conversation but she hopes it’s merely coincidence. A lot has happened in Drageda, from her gathering, in the last few months and she can figure anyone would be on edge. Instead of speaking again, she lets the other girl work through the sudden influx of emotion and allows her to lead the conversation how she pleases.

 of course, it doesnt even occur to blix that from furi's perspective, finding her mother at all is a victory. (sorry, furi, for the cruel edge of youth). she does notice the girl's silence and looks back up, ears pinned back. ah, she's gone and made it awkward again. "um, anyway.." blix says, casting about for something desperately, "whatcha been up to?"

Blixen doesn’t say anything else about her mom and she frowns at first but lifts her head and offers a meek smile to maybe try and help. It doesn’t likely do much but at least she moves on, reversing the conversation to her again. ”Not a lot. Lotta patrollin’,” she says though she’d spent time with Eske on the borders, a lot of it was just as much by herself. ”I’d like to be a warrior and all but the borders are kinda boring,” she adds with a soft chuckle though she isn’t sure her friend will agree.

thankfully furi takes the switch - and blix smiles at the mention of her favorite hobby, an expression that quickly turns incredulous. "what!" she says, though her face is bright, "patrolling's my favorite. but i'm more a guardian type than a warrior type i guess," the gona admits, crinkling her nose slightly. her training to become a better fighter has little to do with displays of strength - she needs to be able to protect herself and her family, and so her focus is on the defensive. curiously she pats at the dirt, smiling at her companion. "d'you wanna spar sometime, maybe?"

A little fire breathes back to life as she seems to get a spark out of her. A smile spreads across one side of her face and she thumps her tail, laughing as the girl defends what she lives doing best. “Yeah, I’d like that,” she tells her. It’ll give her a chance to practice on her skills with someone other than Eske. She’s sparred a few times with her and she keeps on her toes as much as she can but getting to try on new moves and tactics on. Getting to show Blixen what she knows just happens to be a plus. “Maybe you can patrol with me, too? So it’s less boring?”

wanna wrap soon & start a new one? :pp

 blixen thinks she likes it a lot better when furi smiles at her than when it's all stiff and awkward. maybe she's not as much of a screwup socially as she's been feeling, lately. "foshou," she chirps, her tail wagging behind her. she hesitates for a moment, her tail slowing, and adds, "by the way, i'm.. sorry if i made you feel bad, last time," hoping it won't ruin the cheer of the conversation. "i've been kind of... not good, lately, with everything happening." the ginger says not good to mean not-good-person, not just feeling bad, but she remembers tirtagao's gentle encouragement that people will understand.. and she hopes the shouna is right.

She says something else that sounds a little like for sure and there’s enough context to gather what she means. Furi smiles again, masking the confusion—she’ll have to ask about the words another time—but it fades when the other girl speaks up again. This time she apologizes about their last meeting which had started off awkward, just as this one had, but hadn’t ended too terribly. They played a game she later got the feel for and now they have plans to spar. ”It’s okay,” she says and licks her lips, picking her rump off the ground. ”I’ll warn ya, I’ve been practicing,” she says with a playful grin.

 blix releases a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, relief clear on her face. "cool," she says, and laughs. "oh, yeah? me too," she says, "and with nomi -- heda," who is still, to her, the single most powerful entity in drageda, even if dio'd beaten her that one time (she'd been sick!).

Furi wrinkles her nose when Blixen counters with something similar. Instead of training with Eske, she is training with Heda. Part of that intimidates her and she almost misses the word Blixen uses. It tucks away in the depths of her mind for a moment but she offers a shrug and awkward chuckle. “I guess we’ll see!” she chirps, before leaning in forward now that she’s standing. In one fell swoop, she baps her nose against Blixen’s shoulder, should “you’re it!” and quickly darts away.

 she's about to scoff and say yeah we will when the girl darts forward and taps her, taking her completely by surprise. "wh," she says, and then, "hey! and takes off running after furi, laughing all the while.