Dragoncrest Cliffs in terms of tacos, she was doing fine

Furi spends the next several days trying to process what happened to Artaax. Half of the time she thinks about the dead body, about Arlo, and her related feelings, while the other half thinks about how it could have been her and Blixen. If the wolf had crossed the borders further north, he wouldn’t have run into Artaax. She’s been sparring and practicing with Eske most of the time, but does that mean she’s ready? The back and forth of different anxieties have done little for her and she spends most of her time fretting and not enough time working or sleeping or anything else.

In those few days, she spends most of her time alone. She talks to Eske about it a little but she doesn’t know where to go from there. The child in her shouts in the back of her mind to always stay in the territory, away from danger. Stay with mom and dad. The acid rises in her throat and she licks back the frustration. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, knowing that is no longer the change. She is a warrior. She can’t go back.

She satisfies the hunger from a nearby cache, turning her head to look off in the distance through the redwood trunks to the north. After a moment, her rumps hits the ground and she slings her back leg into her thick mane. She roughly scratches at the side of her neck until she feels the burn of her claws digging into tender flesh

 she's not as mad at artaax as she initially was. it was foolhardy but he'd done his job as a member of drageda, and she knows he's as capable as she is - and honestly, she would have done the same. but maybe that's exactly the problem: part of her is almost jealous. she should have done exactly the same because it should have been her, not him. combine that with her lingering anxiety that another of her family has had a close brush with death, on top of melchior's disappearance on top of mother on top of arlo... 

she should probably find tirgatao again. instead she finds furi - scratching, like she's been doing a lot lately. in fact, seeing the action makes her involuntarily mimic it, taking a seat beside her friend. "ugh, you too?" blix asks, oblivious to furi being the typhoid mary in this situation. abruptly, she adds, "that was a lot, huh," (mostly) oblivious to furi's own feelings about the skirmish on the border (one day she'll get better at that sort of thing, probably). the gona doesn't bother to contextualize the statement - it's pretty obvious, she figures, what she means exactly.

She catches Blixen from the corner of her eye but she doesn’t stop scratching right away. Her face twists in a weird mix of relief and pleasure and she has to force herself to stop when Blixen plops down beside her. Her foot slowly lowers to the ground. She twitches with the urge to scratch again but she tightens her jaws and roughly sighs her frustration. “Whadya think it is?” she says, resisting the strongest urge to go back to her neck. She can feel the burn of broken skin and it stings of relief. “Allergic to cold,” she says with a snort, amused (albeit a little worried) at the thought.

Blixen vaguely mentions the other day and she offers a hint of a smile. She isn’t so sure she wants to talk about it anymore but it has remained a constant presence on her mind. “Yeah,” she says, but before she can say anything else her foot instantly starts scratching. After a few strokes, she forces herself to stop and stand, shaking out her fur, and trying to think of anything else.

 furi is either closed off about the event or too caught up in scratching - either way, blix reluctantly drops it, giving in to her own urge to scratch. all the itching really is making it hard to process these complex emotions. "i have no idea," she finally says in answer to furi's question, "jeez, i hope not. portia might know.." but blixen doesn't feel up to searching for her in the wake of her outburst at her brother. 

instead, she hums. "we need a distraction. wanna finish patrol from - the other day?" the ginger asks, bumping her snout against furi's lightening shoulder while scratching her side absently.

She hasn’t really thought about going to Portia. Her little circle in Drageda has only just expanded from Blixen to Artaax—bound by some level of death—and the medic had been there to help them but she hadn’t… been there. She and Blixen are only on the fringes of what Artaax had been through. Going to Portia can force her to face what really happen and address it and she doesn’t want to take the risk. The scratching isn’t that bad. 

She throws her foot against the back of her head and scratches space between her ears. Furi groans in frustration. Okay, maybe she needed to see Portia.

Furi clears her throat and licks her lips, standing back up and straightening out her limbs. “Yeah, I guess so,” she says, beginning to fall in line beside Blixen and every so often using a tree to scratch at her shoulder and flank.

the more she watches furi scratch, the more she must scratch with increasing furiosity. "okay, c'mon," blix finally yelps, nudging her friend forward into a quicker pace - or at least trying to. a brisk walk will surely help, she thinks desperately, as she pushes them slowly out of the range of those blessed back scratchers the trees and towards the southern end of the border. the gona is quiet aside from the sound of her scratching, though she can't help but mumble, "still can't believe him," as her eyes are drawn to the spot in the distance she knows artaax's kill had lain a day before.

She’s gotten used to the borders by now that she doesn’t necessarily need Blixen to lead but she doesn’t mind it. She follows eagerly after her and though she takes them further away from the trees—she’ll sorely miss her scratching posts—she doesn’t complain about it anymore than a soft sigh. It doesn’t take long for her to realize they are going south and they will, ultimately, come to the spot where they’d found Artaax with the body. This time (she assumes) Artaax won’t be there but the corpse will and she shoots Blixen a look to try and convey they turn around. It does not work and she squirms, her stomach churning with the inevitable. She can’t avoid this spot forever, anyway, but that doesn’t mean she has to talk about it.

“Why are you mad at him?” she asks. Furi knows, in a way, but she doesn’t understand. Blixen had complained about him to Heda—Nomi?—right away and fumed about it later. There seems to be a lot unknown between all of them.

 is it a good thing or a bad thing that the body itself does not bother her? who can say. she misses furi's plaintive glances, her brow set in a hard line as the dark shape comes into view. finally the girl looks at her friend and lets out a frustrated huff, pausing in her march. "i.. dont know," she admits, glancing back to the border. "he did what he was supposed to do, and i mean, i'm proud of him for that, but..."

blixen frowns, giving in to the urge to itch her side. "i guess it's just.. mother disappeared, and then arlo died, and then - we found mother but she didn't wake up and for all i know she's dead anyway, and melchior.." she looks at her friend, stomach twisting anxiously as she continues: "i just feel like - i feel like everyone close to me is in danger, or - i don't know. i just don't want anyone else to..."

again her voice trails off, though she's not sure how to finish the thought, and instead peers at furi anxiously. "does that make sense?" she asks, watching closely for her reaction, for once.

Furi finds herself relating to Blixen much more than she intends to. She still has some of her family, they know their mother is alive (or the last time they’d seen her) and the rest are scattered in Drageda that she hasn’t yet figured out. There’s so much to learn and she often feels behind, unable to keep up with the fast pace of change and drama that happens all around.

”I guess,” she says though her words aren’t necessarily convincing. She thinks of Roarke and how his loss has been the destruction of their family, but so much more than she’s aware. ”He protected Drageda. That wolf...” she pauses thickly as they approach the distant outline of death. Furi licks her lips, and then squirms in her desire to itch. ”That wolf can’t hurt anyone now,” she explains, finally unable to resist the urge to sit and scratch again at her neck.

their conversation, following their trail, leads them ever-closer to the object in question, the deranged trespasser's body. it lays at the end of furi's sentence - a visual punctation mark, the literal period to her words. blixen does not take her eyes off it. she swallows. "i know," she says softly. "part of me thinks i should have been..." the one to kill him goes unsaid.

she forces herself to look at furi. "when i was a kid i wanted to be a star-gazer," the gona admits, embarrassed.  "after mom disappeared i decided - i had to get strong, so i could protect everyone who was left. i... i didn't say this before, but my mom.. she was beaten. it wasn't an accident. someone did that to her," she explains, her voice taking on a slightly desperate edge. surely furi doesn't want to keep hearing about this, but she's all blixen has right now to explain, and she's got to explain, because she has to tell the body, too. has to make the universe understand this cacophonous emotional battle. "so maybe it's - it's not really artaax at all, it's just that i - keep failing at it."

Blix’s confession doesn’t sit well with Furi and by result, she doesn’t know what to say. If Artaax hadn’t been there, there’s no telling where the wolf would have gone. A small part of her is glad it had been Artaax only because the outcome had been successful. The boy may have been shaken, and she had for a day or so, but it’s over. The wolf is dead and cannot harm anyone anymore. He’d crossed the borders and her friend tried to stop him, but he paid for the crime committed.

Thankfully, she gets more information and doesn’t have to awkwardly respond and try to make her feel better. When Wildfire disappeared is when the need kicked in to protect her family and she looks down at her feet briefly, thinking of her brother. They hadn’t found him and as far as she knows, they still haven’t and he’s…

“You can be a stargazer,” she says, shrugging her shoulders a little. Her feet stagger to continue when the features of the dead wolf begin to materialize. Slowly, she eases to the right to avoid walking directly away from it, turning her head to see if her friend follows or not. “You can defend Drageda and still do other things, you know,” she offers with a smile, wondering if she should branch out and learn a few more than boring border patrol.

blixen looks up with furi speaks as if the girl has suddenly sprouted two heads. "i know," she says, then sighs. "i mean, i don't wanna be a star-gazer anymore. but .. yeah, i know." the gona lingers for a moment, tracing the bloodied form of artaax's kill, but follows furi, letting her friend steer them away. "ah, i mean, thank you," she says hastily, amber eyes flicking to furi. "you're right. actually, um, i've been kind of thinking about gardening more..."

those few meditative moments spent with hux in the garden had done better for her mental state than anything else thus far - maybe it is worth it to follow that thread fully. but hux is away... and there goes that line of thought. she frowns to herself, looking back at her feet instead.

Blix announces she doesn’t want to be a star-gazer anymore and Furi can’t help the frown that appears on her features. She enjoys the act, thinking fondly of the meteor shower she’d seen with Ceallach. She still has so many questions, and how they fell to earth and stayed, but perhaps she’ll never get her answer. A memory she needs to tuck away and bury. She hates how often they pop up and in a way she hates that Blix gets to continue making memories with her family. 

“Gardening?” she questions with a tilt of her head. Furi has never shown interest in plants or anything of that sort and she can’t remember Blix ever mentioning it. Her brows knit together inquisitively.

for once she catches the expression furi makes, and one of her eyebrows quirk up, curious. "do you like stargazing?" she asks - unaware, of course, of the pain that her friend is going through. 

"yeah," blix says, her expression lightening somewhat, "i ran into hux a little while ago and helped him with the garden by the graveyard. it was really soothing," she admits. "i wanted to keep it nice for him while he's at the caldera, but i don't... actually know how," the gona adds with a frustrated little laugh. maybe portia would know... maybe she can ask when they finally go to get help for this godforsaken itching.

The question surprises her and Furi’s eyes widen, shying from the spotlight all of a sudden. Blixen talks a lot about herself and what’s going on with her but she’s never minded. She likes the sound of her voice, even when it is sad, and she awkwardly laughs as if she’s embarrassed. “Um, y-yeah,” she says with a wrinkle of her nose, “it’s pretty.”

For some reason, it shocks her that they have a graveyard. Her home never had one but she remembers they had to move before she was born, though the reason is lost. Perhaps Drageda has been here longer but a time before her is still a hard concept to grasp. “That’s nice of you,” she comments though she groans, lowering her head, and chews on one of her front legs. “I didn’t know there was a graveyard here,” she adds a little nervously, licking her lips from her fur.

furi seems thrown off by the question, though blix has no idea why. maybe she just doesn't like talking about herself? she answers, though, in the affirmative, and the ginger tilts her head, smiling. she doesn't respond yet, distracted by a sudden sharp itch in her side that must be attended to. 

"yeah," she says, paw working furiously, "i used to really dislike it, but it's.. respectful, i guess." even if lately there has been a lack of bodies to lay to rest, but not a lack of deaths. the gona hums, lowering her hind leg. "we could stargaze together sometime if you wanted," she offers, voice a touch more shy than usual - though really, why should it be any different than her offers to drag furi on patrols?

For a moment, she wonders why they don’t bury the trespasser in their graveyard. Heda had instructed them to take it back to the borders. He hadn’t been one of their wolves and he doesn’t fit in their land, but perhaps he had his own land he’s apart of? Her face wrinkles at the thought, turning away from Blixen. While she never thought about where she’d be buried if she were to die, the back of her mind had it laid out for her. Teaghlaigh. A small part of her clings to it, knows that is where she is meant to be, but walking the outskirts of Drageda takes it away from her. If she were to die today, it is not there she will be, but here—and Blixen would take care of her.
 
“I would like that,” she says, snapping back to reality without missing a beat. Furi swings her head back, smiles, and swishes her tail a few times against her hocks.

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wrap? :3

she feels strangely light when furi agrees, though doesn't dwell on it. the gona's just barely learning to manage her anger and angst, she doesn't need any more confusing emotions added to the mix - better to let it be for now.

"cool," blix says, smiling, and bumps her shoulder against furi's. that settled, she picks back up and starts moving forward, attention back on the task at hand. "c'mon, let's finish this up." 

Cool.

And that’s it. 

Furi’s nose wrinkles but this time she smiles, glancing away as if she has to hide the burn in her cheeks. Lost in her own thoughts for a few seconds, she doesn’t notice the shoulder bumping into her. She tries to not-so-dramatically keep her balance when she’s caught off guard and she laughs, brushing it off, then quickly tagging along after a beat to finish up their patrol.

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