Dragoncrest Cliffs you speak in sonatas going to smithereens

@Blixen

Once upon a time, Furi loved her sleep. Second only to eating, it was her favorite thing to do. When she’d been separated from her family, her sleeping became habit and out of necessity to pass the time. Being alone never much appealed to her and often left her bored and starved for attention but where she once may have sought out the need, now hesitates her next step. Eske hasn’t been much help and Étoille overs a quiet comfort no one else does. Whenever she’s within the borders of Drageda, she tries to keep close to someone if she can and if she can’t, she at least tries to stay out of the way.

It is late in the night when she wakes up, shaken by a nightmare she can’t put to words. Glancing over to one side, @Eske is still sleeping and has not noticed the disruption. Furi tries to go back to sleep but her mind wanders off and she can’t get comfortable enough and her mind has already began racing with one thought after the other. Slowly, she steps to all four feet and departs from the small clearing. She heads north to one of the highest points on the cliffs and settles in the open space with the edge a few yards away. The sound of the ocean is calming but not enough to slow down the rapid fire of her mind. 

Eventually, she rolls over on to her right shoulder, angling herself in a way she can lay down and easily look through the clear sky.

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blixen's a light sleeper herself, late to bed, early to rise. she hadn't always been that way but whether it was just the onset of adulthood changing her sleeping patterns or the lingering anxiety about her mother still being in the caldera remain to be seen - a mix of both, probably. tonight she's lingered out a bit longer than usual, taking an aimless little walk by the graveyard. she isn't sure she's really done anything to keep on top of it besides check on the dirt, and with the snow she thinks there's nothing else she can do anyway. she can ask hux about it when - when they all get back.

the gona wanders north slowly, letting her thoughts run in circles in the quiet of the night, until she catches a familiar scent nearby and her mind snaps to attention. it's easy enough to track down the silver-black girl - the redhead chuffs gently, hesitant to break the stillness of the night. she follows furi's gaze upward and takes a seat beside her, then rolls onto her side to mimic her friend's pose. "what do you see?"

The first sound of snow crunching beneath Blixen’s feet causes her to flinch a little but she doesn’t move from her upturned spot. Her eyes turn slightly, trying to see the approach but her position does little. Her hear thumps heavy in her chest as the wind of anxiety quickly takes hold. Finally when the chuff is made, her head swivels on the ground a little to watch the girl. Blixen doesn’t expect any more of a greeting as she plops down and rolls over. Furi’s lips bare her teeth in a questionable grin as the gravity pulls them awkwardly downward. She licks at her muzzle a beat later and then returns her focus back to the sky.
 
“It’s a clear night,” she says softly with a thump of her tail. “The stars are pretty.” Furi falls silent for a moment, looking up at the great expanse. There is a lot she does not understand about the sky above her—no one has taught her such things—and she speculates about as much as she can but the grasp is often beyond her reach.
 
Furi flops back over, sitting sternal and readjusting for something more comfortable. Her front legs cross one over the other—something she’d noticed Witchbaby do—and lifts her head to stare above. “I saw the stars fall from the sky once,” she explain, recollecting chasing meteors through the sky and playing among the fireflies—stars—and she is hit with the sad thought of her brother. She slowly closes her eyes, fighting back the sting that settles in. “They flew from one side of the sky to the other and w-I found them floating in a field until they burned out,” she tells her, opening her pale green eyes and turning back to look at Blixen, her cheeks burning from slipping over her words.

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 she feels a flush of something warm at furi's uneasy grin, returning it with a slightly-shy smile. maybe furi didn't want to be disturbed? but they'd talked about stargazing before, and she seems willing to talk, so it must be okay. without thinking about it her gaze has settled on her friend, tracing the contours of her silvery-lightening fur in the starlight, though she looks up, embarrassed, when furi begins to move. "it is pretty," the ginger agrees.

 furi's description confuses her, though she smiles anyway - "stars don't fall, do they?" she asks, looking back up with a touch of nervousness. maybe it's a metaphor or something - blixen has never had the mind for that sort of fancy wordplay (and since she's never encountered a firefly herself, she doesn't think to make a connection). "that's sorta weird, but cool," she says. the slip-up goes seemingly unnoticed, or at least unheeded, until she asks innocently, "were you alone then?"

Blixen questions her like she doesn’t believe her and Furi looks away from the sky in her direction. She’s still on her back and look at the sky as if contemplating what she said. Furi looks upward, wishing for one to fly across the sky now so she can prove her point but it hasn’t happened since that night with Ceallach. It is one of the few memories she has where she doesn’t feel sadness and sorrow. Roarke had gone missing by that point—she can see her father’s saddened face still—and watching the stars shoot across the sky brought up an entire world of possibilities. There is so much above her that she does not know but has wanted to. No one had taught her much but it hadn’t been long that she’d explored too far and gotten lost, losing the tie to her home for good, possibly.

“Yes,” she says, this time with confidence. She’d seen it with her own two eyes! She opens her mouth to further explain about seeing them up close and personal, and how they’d died out, but she quickly snaps her teeth together. If Blixen struggles with one part of her information, will she understand the rest? Her ears fall back against her head and she squints harder at the sky as if it will open up more for her, make things a little clear, or even see something she hadn’t tried to before. If given the right tools, she can probably paint the sky from sheer memory at this point. A sigh slips by her lips when nothing happens and she lowers her gaze, glancing across to see if the girl believes her anymore now. “I haven’t seen it since,” she explains, a slight tug to the corners of her lips.

For a moment, she considers not answering the question at all. It hurts enough to think about her family and even worse when she realizes she can’t really talk about it. While not entirely sure why, she just… knows. With every possibility already thought about well more than once, Furi nods her head as the only answer. If she does not talk about what happened before Eske found her, she doesn’t have to worry about messing up. Speaking about something she experienced once has become a gray area and without the back up of someone else seeing it, she isn’t going to be believed. She licks nervously at her lips but is quiet for a moment, looking away from Blixen and the sky. The less she talks about herself, the better, she decides, and she glances over her and offers what she does best: “why are you awake so late?”

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 it isn't that she doesn't believe furi but it does seem weird and a little beyond her comprehension. still, furi asserts it, and so the redhead shrugs her shoulders inelegantly, squirming on the ground to get comfy. "if you say so," she concedes with a grin, looking at her friend upside down. maybe they'll see another one some day. probably not, blixen thinks, but if it makes her friend happy to believe in falling stars, then hey, sure.

 furi seems to be really good at dodging her questions. it bothers her a little bit in the sense that she's been an open book since the day they met, but - blix is generally speaking not a private person. it does make things feel a little unbalanced but she's not about to interrogate her friend. instead she huffs a sigh and rolls over, propping herself up on her elbows. "couldn't get to sleep," she admits, "i know things are basically back to normal - well, sort of - but it's like, all the bad feelings i had are still just - there. i guess i just gotta wait 'til they go away." for the second time she shrugs, though this one accompanies a sideways glance. "what about you?" the girl tries instead, a little more insistent.

She thinks she sees the grin on the upside down girl but the pull of her lips leave her uncertain. Blixen doesn’t believe her, she can tell, but she smiles anyway in hopes that maybe one day she can prove she’s telling the truth. She silently curses the sky for not having her back this time but she knows it won’t do any good, anyway. The sky has only been a constant comfort to her, something pretty to look when she’s feeling lousy. It is the only reason she is out here this late, alone. She hadn’t planned on company.
 
Furi licks her lips and glances back down when Blixen flips back over, seemingly unhappy about something. She does not realize it is directed at her as she leads into explaining her answer. Apart of Furi can understand what Blixen is going through. She feels the same absence of her mother—she has already come to the conclusion she’s lost her father, too—and she nods a little, wishing she has something to say that may bring her comfort. “I had weird dreams,” she explains instead, offering a little sympathy. “Then I couldn’t go back to sleep,” she adds with a shrug, lowering her head slowly to her paws.

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blix lays her head on her paws, mirroring furi with eyes warm. "that sucks," she says, tilting her head just slightly, "what were you dreaming about?" it's rare to get furi to talk about herself, she's learning, so she wants to push a little while she has the chance - even if she's not always the best at, y'know, listening to other people talk about feelings.

wrap up? :o

It does not surprise her when Blixen asks about her dreams but she feels some level of guilt when she doesn’t have an answer. She hadn’t been able to remember them when she woke up earlier but she they’d made her feel weird. Therefore: weird dreams. Furi shrugs one shoulder and glances away to avoid the eye contact but it doesn’t last long and she swings back. Blixen’s warm eyes melt into her own and she shakes her head a little awkwardly on her paws. “I don’t remember… I guess. I was startled awake and I felt weird and I could kinda… remember but I couldn’t really put words to it,” she explains. They’d happened before, but not often, and despite feeling a little weird now with her friend, she feels much calmer. “I don’t feel too weird now, though,” she adds to cover up any leftover doubt that she may still feel the effects. Having a companion and someone to talk to has been easy to shake off those negative feelings and she gives the girl an equally warming smile.

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she doesn't mind that furi doesn't remember. dreams are like that sometimes. she smiles when furi says she's feeling less weird, matching the one her friend gives her, and scoots just slightly closer. "well, good," blix says, then looks up at the stars again. she squints, wondering what it is about them that seems to captivate others - that used to captivate her, before she grew up. "hey, tell me more about the stars," she says, not really asking but leaving room for furi to refuse if she's too tired, and then shifts so she can glance up every so often while she listens to her friend.