Herbalists' Cache fever to the form

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set for valentine's day, aww ♥

The sylph’s days had become somewhat repetitious, despite her best efforts to remain en route — moving towards somewhere; destination, unknown. She would know it when she came across it, Olive assumed, and she would suddenly come to full empyrean comprehension upon glimpsing it, probably! It’s what kept her scurrying across the wilds, from her oceanside home, southward across the plains towards Aries, and then on a north-easterly route around the land’s mountainous backbone — and who knows wherever else she might go! Olive knew it equally as likely that she might never recognize whatever it was she sought, and if that were the case, the ash-and-bone shewolf supposed she might continue traveling around forever; not necessarily looking for anything, but also not ignoring any of it. What was stopping her from doing so, now?

Perhaps she was being too idealistic about her future as a gypsy nomad, because she found herself concerned with things she never had to as a wolf of Teaghlaigh or Moonspear and it was annoying. Every morning the tiny woman awoke in a new, unknown location and made busy finding sustenance for the day. At this late in the winter, all vegetal life had been smothered by the snows and perished, leaving Olive to make a meal of whatever warm-blooded creatures she came across. She spent the rest of the morning lazily preening herself and brushing through her furs with a fastidious tongue; then she made her daily devotional to the gods and traveled on until the sun buried itself behind the silhouette of the western lands. It was then the temperature would plummet, so it was time to find that night’s dwelling. Again she would bathe, then curl into herself and find repose, only to wake up the next day and continue the cycle. It was repetitive in the most chaotic way possible and though Olive loved this lifestyle to pieces, there were many times she missed the ennui of home.

That day, however, the sylph had awoken in more ways than one.

At first, she blamed it on the moon. She felt flushed and feverish, as if all her blood was rushing just under the surface of her skin. A rich energy emanated from the pit of her stomach and she was suddenly so much more aware of each part of her body; each toe on all four of her limbs, and her tail with its silken, creamy plumage, the fluttering in her belly and the rising sensation in her chest — it was all so familiar in a most puzzling way — and Olive spent many hours in a daze, taking a break from her customary daily travels, before a moment of clarity allowed her to understand what was really going on.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think her heat would never come along again, but it was hard to Olive to believe it had already been a year since her last season — surely, it had only been a few months, at most! Though the more she reckoned with it, the more undeniable it became and the lamb decided to just lean into it. So many times, the picture of a woman’s heat was painted as a nightmare — something to be scorned and hidden! Olive hadn’t agreed with that viewpoint then and she especially didn’t agree with it now, not when she felt antsy from an itch she couldn’t scratch and overflowed with feminine energy. Perhaps it should be a safety concern, but safety was the last thing on the spiced femme’s mind at that moment — no, she welcomed danger, and the mere want of it threatened to wring all the breath from her and kill her!

Last year she had Dakarai, but this time she had no one, no plans — and there was no way she could plan anything now, not even plans to hide herself, not in her distracted and agitated state! Restlessly the nymph moved from tree to tree, brushing up against the arboreal firmness as if she were a serpent, or a feline, or something else that was not a wolf but a creature that lived inside her body all the same. Her mouth was dry but she was not thirsty; her mind has so many words to speak but she did not have an audience. Making small murmuring noises, the woman dropped her body close to the earth and luxuriated in the coldness on her belly — and when that one spot of earth became warm from her feverish heat, she pulled herself along to the next patch of cold earth, over and over again until she was simply raking herself against the ground in a manner that did not appear dignified. 


        

It was early morning, when Birk felt that he could leave Easthollow's borders safely in the hands of others. The night patrol had been uneventful - as it always was - but he had kept the word he had given to Valette. Being in her good books was still high in his priority list. Apart from climbing to the leader tier himself, which was another goal of the same importance. 

He had been about to retire for the day, when a particular smell caught his attention. It was faint, brought from far away, but one very hard to ignore. In the back of his mind he recalled having caught it last year and the inexplainable fear and confusion it had caused for him, but now it was different. He felt his heart rate quicken, his blood boiling and the draw to the source was irresistable.

Birk obeyed the call, he forgot that he had been tired and hungry moments earlier, and as he loped through the snow covered fields closer and closer to that yet invisible culprit of his desire, it seemed as if just finding this one thing, would make everything else right. Once in the forest, the scent grew thicker and stronger and he finally caught sight of, what he had been looking for. 

The she-wolf without a name, which he had met just days earlier. Then she had been another pretty girl among many others, now in his eyes she suddenly was the most beautiful creature he had seen in the whole world. Birk slowed the pace and approached her in a friendly and relaxed manner, chuffing out a greeting, once he was within the hearing distance.

The spiced woman had been thoroughly distracted with her goings-on, relishing at how the movement stoked that fire in her belly and soothed the breathlessness she felt in her chest. Her body, against their frozen milieu, ran hot in a feverish way. Olive knew of plants, but not of healing, so this was the best remedy that her mind could possibly conceive through the thick miasma. How long was her season to happen, and was this be how she spent the entirety of that period?  Olive would not deign to cower within a den [not when the earth felt this good against her belly and the air tasted so sweet in her lungs; a little taste of summertime, in the dead of winter], but she could not continue wandering in such unrequited fire!

She needed the love of a man, and she needed it more than she needed her next breath. Olive had never been known to pray for love, but here the druid briefly beseeched the gods, for this salacity was clearly their doing and she only wished to please them! And, as they always were, the gods were quick to give her what she wanted — when they were not so quickly taking away — but, in this moment, they provided!  A chuff, a choir of angels! Olive leant her small frame to the side, looking over her shoulder to glimpse the nameless man from before. Oh, she had thought of him after their meeting. Oh, his smile had been stuck in her mind for days! Oh, how delightful was this?

“oh,” the shewolf uttered in a hushed tone, suddenly unable to find her voice. She did not know what else to say. For once, words could not do her wants justice! Instead, the shrouded sylph looked up at the man, starry-eyed, and drank in his masculine energy as if it were a most welcome drug. An appealing, entreating whine leaked from her sculpted maw — a betrayal of her own tongue, but it was something that could not be helped.  

Birk was not immune to her charms from afar, but, when she looked at him and welcomed his presence, he felt as if he had made a lucky draw at the lottery. The particular scent was thick and all around him that at one point his nose stopped differentiating it from the rest, it now became the air itself that he needed to inhale and to live and therefore bound with it's source. Who knew, what would happen, if he left now?

He closed the distance between them so that he was now standing right next to and above her, sniffing the area between the she-wolf's ears, down the nape and stopping at the lower back. Here and there his muzzle lightly touched her fur, but after the initial exam, he gave her space again, choosing to to sit down and look at her.

He came right to her, wordless and obedient; greedily drinking in her cloying piquancy as quickly as she offered it. The man stood over her and tasted her scent with his cool, onyx-tipped nose, but touch her? He did not! It was no matter; he did not need to touch her, for she was one of those plasma lightning balls and he was the hand that hovered menacingly nearby —  just his presence was enough to stir her soul and whip her energy up in colorful currents of electricity. How she wished to linger there, with his sweet mouth mere inches away from her flesh of her lower back; but, eventually, the man broke apart and settled to look upon her from afar.

The disappointment Olive felt was all consuming! A whisper of a groan graced her lips and her rosebud tongue darted out to trace the fine lines of her maw, cleaning away any semblance of unhappiness. She would not dare risk this divine gift by appearing ungrateful — no, she was very, very, very, very, very grateful. The druid lacked the ability to see through the fog to know what the future may hold, but she knew this felt good right then and she wanted the stranger to know. 

Olive returned the strength of his heavy-handed gaze for only a moment before breaking and letting her attentions, very obviously, wander his body. His form was hardened from hard work, his pelt paler than hers; he was handsome, she deduced. Olive had known this information before, of course, since this was their meeting thrice, but at the moment she was able to appreciate it in a way that was simply… impossible, otherwise. She felt his handsomeness to her very core. He was her nameless muse, and she wanted to sing to the heavens, or paint the stars, for all the wonders it did her! A tremor visibly snaked down Olive’s spine; in her unsteady state, the ground felt very nurturing and supportive, so she relished in her place upon the wintered earth.
 
Then, without much thought, the feverish shewolf rolled to her back and tucked her forelimbs up into her breast. She pressed the top of her head against the cool dirt and stared up at him, as if this were an entirely normal thing to do. “You’re too far…” she mourned from this new supine position, punctuating her comment with a very low, very sincere whine. 

Birk was completely unaware of the she-wolf's inner turmoil, therefore he did not move from his place, just let his gaze wander accross her attractive facial features and then down along her spine and lower-body. A small part of his rational brain had awokened and asked a question, what was it that made a mere stranger he had met few days earlier suddenly so special and unique? It was no easy equation to calculate with his mind foggy the more time he spent in her company and inhaled that toxic perfume that made all the formerly improtant matters so small and so insignificant.

She rolled on her back and from this awkward position told Birk that he was too far. He furrowed his brow in confusion - what had she meant by that and what did she want now? For the lack of a better idea, he simply lied down next to her, his body merely touching hers, his eyes searching hers, looking for answers.

It had worked! The kitten purred with delight as the stranger drifted closer and made his bed beside her, allowing their forms to touch and pale pelts intermingle. Oh! Her clear mind all but thrown out the window, the heated fae could not pull herself from her stupor to ponder the reasons why she did these things — after all, these things [such as laying supine, whining instead of speaking, or entertaining the affections of a strange man] came almost as naturally as did eating, or sleeping. She was almost unaware of the telltale perfume she wore, or the effect it would have on any male nearby, so drunk upon herself was she! Only a moment longer was spent writhing upon the ground, her body itching with perpetual restlessness, before Olive righted herself beside him, flipping to her stomach and clawing at the ground in a sphinx-like position.

Without asking for permission, the feisty shewolf began to preen the man’s pretty, pretty fur; for nothing else made more sense at the moment! Nibbling through the tendrils with the tips on her teeth and smoothing it with her velveteen tongue, her tail curiously traced the outline of his back, tail and haunches — the intent was to tickle, to launch her attack on more than one front, and as she squirmed about Olive broke into a fit of bubbling laughter, stemming purely from the anticipation of his own. Unable to stay still, she clamored atop her unsteady limbs. “Oh, do tell!” she cried as she did so. “Tell me, please! Tell me...” Olive beseeched him, honestly and eagerly. There could be no underestimating how strongly she felt towards this particular male, at this particular moment. If asked, Olive might claim that she loved this stranger more than she had ever loved Dakarai. It was nonsense, but she’d stake her life on it.

“Pray tell...”She couldn't really find the right words to express what she wanted to say, so she sashayed in front of him without a drop of hesitation and tickled his inkdark nose with the silken feathering of her plume. “…Do you like my tail?” the sylph asked, voice dangerously low, looking over her narrow shoulder to bat her eyelashes at the man coquettishly. Please, she dreamed feverishly, head spinning. I love you.

Birk froze, when the woman suddenly "attacked" him and gave her a curious and a little confused glance, when she began to groom his fur. He was not used that his private space was breached in such a way and had the situation been any different, he would have growled and snapped at her. But things were, what they were now, he watched her patiently, found her touches quite pleasant and closed his eyes, enjoying the unusual sensation.

She sprang to her feet suddenly and danced away - Birk watched her curiously, trying to follow through, what was on she-wolf's mind now, and was taken aback by her weird question. Even if he had been in his rational mind, he would have not known, what to tell her, therefore - first - without changing his position he craned his neck to sniff the air, then - when an idea or a realization came to his mind, Birk got to his feet and approached her from behind and rested his head atop her lower back carefully.

The way he did not speak drove the woman wild — in their prior meetings [one that she remembered, and one that she did not] the man had been a chatty fellow, but something about him was different now. There was a gravity to him, a sudden seriousness that Olive wished to shatter with use of her feminine wiles. No; actually, she didn’t want him to shatter as much as she wanted him to melt, and completely lose his composure in the most fluid of ways. She wanted to see him with no walls; like putty in her hands. Oh, and how she wanted to be the reason for it!

He followed in her footsteps and place his chin upon her.  Oh, yes, please! The simpering smile painted her maw was apparent and radiating. He must love her, too! The sylph swayed her hips from side to side, rocking his head upon the curve of her lower back — truthfully, she was really only moving an inch or two, but in the throes of her unabated fire, even the smallest of movements felt overwhelming. From here, her tail continued to be active and twisted around his velveteen forelimbs as if she were a creeping vine, and he were her sturdy tree branch. 

Her mind, it felt so clouded — but in a way that felt most exceptional. All the memories and guilt of the past had surrendered to the heady miasma, threatening to pull her under and swallow her whole, and maybe never let her free! In this, the lamb would prove to be no imposition. She surrendered to it. Olive bit her lip and grit her teeth from the sheer want of him, and her breath started to come in uneven, anticipatory hitches. “— it is what the gods want,” she managed to gasp, her chest growing tight from the potency of his nearness. He must feel this too, he must! It was in her experience that things that felt this good were signs from the gods — in fact, it was the clearest of signs.Of what? Who knows! But they had a task — nay, right! — to fulfill their holy duty. How lucky were they, those two heated, pale beasts, that the gods should choose them for such a divine task?     

Though Birk was no mind-reader and therefore her raging thoughts and emotions remained concealed from him, yet he could sense the heat radiating from her body, the blood rushing in the vessels, the pulse of the life in the other being. It did not drive him mad, quite the contrary, it calmed him, he closed his eyes briefly, listening, inhaling and feeling the other's very soul so close to him. There was something beautiful and exhilarating about, that he let out a disappointed growl, when the moment was shattered by her movement and words.

He bare his teeth at her, then moved so to exert his dominance and grabbed her scruff, just to tell the girl to mind her place and stop moving. Things would have unfolded their natural way at that point, but a long and mournful howl in the distance made Birk alert and let go of her. He stood with ears cupped forward and muzzled lifted in the air to catch any foreign scent. His gaze shifted between the caller without a name and the she-wolf next to him, carefully weighing out his actions for the future.

The idea of someone else coming here and finding them was something he did not enjoy at all, because at this moment he felt fiercely protective of this stranger, for whatever mysterious reason. Therefore he made a playful nip at the girl's side and then danced away several steps, inviting her to follow him in a game and disappear in the depths of the forest. Far away from prying eyes.

The shedevil purred as the man made to grab the nape of her neck betwixt his jaws, teasing at the holy embrace which she yearned so fervently before. There was a flash of his ire — unabated — but from where she was, Olive couldn’t help but be delighted at the fire growing within him, within them, flames leaping higher than can be controlled; and though Olive did not know what magic she had done to conjure up such a reaction, she vowed to try again and again and again, and perhaps annoy this man for the rest of his life if only for that sweet flash of his fangs and the feeling of his breath, hot and sticky against her neck.

An interlude in their cavorting came in the form of a song — singing high over the southwestern peaks. It seemed to bother him more than it did she, for Olive took it to be angels singing, or something else so perfect that it could have only been crafted by the hand of gods; a record to play against the backdrop of their consumption. Instead, the brute fell silent and appeared to be deep in thought — a process that the sylph deigned to interrupt by strumming the length of her jawline against his own — so invested in this act was she, that when the strange man nipped at her side she let out a breathless Oh! and scampered after him, her movements a swaggering prowl. I will follow you— her mind twirled and sung, but her mouth hung agape and wordless. Oh, please, yes! Until the ends of the earth!        

She complied willingly - in response Birk offered her a mischievous grin of his own. He guided her then in the darkness of the forest, until the sounds of the world outside dimmed to mere whispers and they were surrounded by the solitude of the area. The man did not yet know, how things would turn out, having never been so close and so compelled by a girl, but at the same time he was sure that there was nothing to fear and that he should simply go with the flow and let things happen.

He would spend the next few days in the gray fae's company, consumed by her magic, granting her wishes and returning her affections. It was a spell that would wear off eventually, but he would take all it had to give and enjoy it as long as it lasted.

Fading out - vaguely implying, what happens. However, feel free to add all and anything. In my later posts I write that their paths part few days later with little regrets or heartbreak on his side.

Olive made true to her word and followed the nameless man deep into the depths of the forest, her nose ever pressed against him shoulder, her side ever attached to his, and allowed herself to be guided fluidly by the man’s movements. How perfect her life was, at this moment! Nothing more could have felt as right as it did then! The pale druid smiled drunkenly up at the brute, letting her further succumb to the emotions at play. Here there were no need for walls, no need to play it safe. The woman was free to be open and generous and lovely with this man, to tempt and indulge with not a single worry to weigh her down. 

If she could stay in that forest forever, she would — but eventually, when the sun rose and set on their third day, the two separated amicably… and that, was that.