Blacktail Deer Plateau hey mr no name kid

@Feline <3

ever since blixen left things were slow and she hated it. playing doctor was oddly fun and exciting to her. it gave her something to do and made her feel important. but there wasn’t a patient to keep her busy anymore so it was back to the usual ol’ quiet days.

max lounged around through the day so when nighttime rolled around she was having trouble falling asleep. there was no use fighting herself so she went out to hunt. might as well do something productive right?

there were deer around of course, but she set her sights for something smaller. there was a rabbit nearby and she followed the trail like a bloodhound. she found it peacefully grooming itself and immediately went for it, but the hare was able to dodge her and sprint in the other direction, leaving her face down in the dirt. 

A queer nighttime silence was settling over the horizon like a hand over a sun-lit forehead, and Feline was in the middle of it all, as quiet as her namesake. Or she is until she hears a muffled crash. The change in her is instant— one ear perks out like a hand with splayed fingers, and she tenses, her lips tight over a tapered face.

She steps forwards (and even that small movement is vicious, her heel digging into the soil), her eyes blue slits below strained eyebrows. As her nostrils flare, the change in her is instant, again, although this time it is different, more complicated. "Max?" she says, feeling extremely apart from her physical body. Her heartbeat beats a matter-of-fact tempo into her skull. "That you?"

Feline knows that she didn't need to ask. That pale face, the particular pattern of brown and white: she would recognize them from a league away, maybe more. Her teeth hurt, until she figures out that she's been clenching her jaws the whole time, like some military veteran finding a colleague he presumed MIA (missing in action). And maybe that comparison wasn't so inappropriate.

max?

her face immediately grew warm with embarrassment. “um,you didn’t see that,” she blurted as she scrambled to her feet. she assumed one of the girls had followed her but, no. this girl was far from her expectations.

her jaw dropped when she saw her. that firey red fur, those sky blue eyes, that distinct scar, all too familiar. her heart skips a beat. she didn’t need to ask who this was. 

“feline, you’re...” how was she here? atticus sent his soldiers to kill her. her brother held her down and all she could do was helplessly watch her love disappear into the horizon. but she was here, and she was safe. “i thought they- that you-” she paused to take a shaky breath, “i thought you were dead.”

max took a step forward. she didn’t know what to do. this all felt so unreal. it was too good to be true. she wanted to hold her tight and never let go but she stayed glued to her  spot, fearing she’d disappear on contact.

The familiar stutter and blushing and all-around awkwardness— all of these things Feline would've described as brazenly Max-esque. She loved them so much it hurt. She could feel the months that separated them so clearly now: the definite severing, the rambling days that came after the event that she would never name and try not to think about ever, like a drunk man's sprawling footprints in the snow. Feline wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

Gods, she had thought that she was an unfeeling and rageful cynic. It had turned out that she was correct, but only on the rageful bit. She needed to break something.

"Well, you thought wrong," she says heatedly, her bottom lip jutted out to hide the quivering chin, the hackles over her neck and chest raised. "They did something even worse." Feline stares at her, or does the best she can through a film of tears. It was much easier that way. She bows her head when Max moves forwards. She isn't so sure if a hug would comfort her. She is slightly more sure that a touch would really set her off to explode.

they didn’t kill her, no, they did something worse as feline said. her heart dropped when she saw tears threatening to stream down her face. never had she expected to see feline, the take-no-bullshit girl, like this. it made her want to cry too. it made her furious. oh, what had they done to her?

max hated seeing her like this. she wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. a moment of silence fell on the two. say something you idiot, a voice hissed to her, but her mouth was clamped shut. so she acted on impulse and moved forward. her actions were slow and unsure. it felt weird doing this but comforting at the same time. she gently placed her chin on her neck and sighed. “you can talk about it if you want, she whispered, “you can tell me anything.”

Despite her certainty that she would explode (distinegrate, dissolve, turn to dust), when Max drew forwards, the effect was so much the opposite of what she had been clenching her teeth for. She felt grounded. The point of contact was the brief eye of a storm.

A small gasp escapes between her teeth. She works hard to blink the tears away, which rendered the girl in front of her a sea of brown and green. "Doesn't matter anymore." Her voice is muffled, petulant. She sounds almost like a child rubbing away his tears with fists. "We're still alive, aren't we?" Now she sounds indignant. Feline stuffs down her emotions into a little box at the back of her mind.

"What've you been doing?" she says; the waver in her voice not yet killed. "You're not running anymore, right?"

she hoped feline wouldn’t pull away and she didn’t. it felt like eons since she did this. she thought this would never happen again, but there they were together like the old days. it still felt like a dream.

doesn’t matter anymore, she says. max opened her mouth to speak, but kept silent. it did matter, to her at least. she wanted to help, but she wouldn’t pry into the subject now. this moment needed to be enjoyed. “yeah,” she murmured between the soft crimson fur, ”thank god.”

“nope.” max pulled away to look into feline’s eyes. “i’m staying here with a few friends. they’re really nice, you’ll like them. you should stay with us.” the words spout out at a rapid fire pace. she paused and laughed nervously when she realized it. “you could stay with me. i just— i don’t want to loose you again.”

hey dude after this we can just assume that max takes Feline to wherever the gals are? :0

The old days. Associating those words with anything remotely real is unfamiliar, now. It might be that she couldn't think of the old days without a bitter taste in her mouth. Frustration rears its ugly head; for now, she trusts herself not to hurt Max. It is a tentative trust. What would happen to her if she ever harmed the girl in front of her with intention? I wouldn't allow myself to exist. But first, I will find Atticus and his sorry little neck, and I will put my jaws around it.

Goosebumps ripple on her skin where Max's warm breath wafts beneath the fur. She wants to exist in only this moment, but she feels her mind pulling itself apart every which way. She closes her eyes. It is easier this way.

They open only a few moments later as Max pulls away. (Feline feels anger at this turn over in her chest. She is dismayed, and tramples it deep down. Atticus and his soldiers...what had they done?) She would deal with that later. She promises herself. For now, Feline feels the corners of her lips quirk upward as Max rambles in the customary tempo; she feels as if she could listen to it forever. "Yeah," she stutters out. Her tongue feels like it weighs more than it should. "'Course." Then a short pause follows.

"Goddamn it Max, what made you think that I could possibly say no?" she half-shouts, half-laughs. It's almost as if its the old days again.