She felt her heartbeat in her ears. She felt the air in a rush all around her. She felt a snap, the soft kind, the feeling of bone under muscle under flesh under skin and there was
blood, so much blood —
Reverie blinked as the squirrel's dying cries faltered and faded away. There wasn't so much blood, not really. Still, she dropped the limp thing and looked up at the trees, the sky beyond. A flash of gold streaked across her vision. Reflexively she turned her head to follow it, catching a glimpse of gilded feathers before it was gone. Everything seemed to brighten around her, and that wasn't so abnormal, but then — then it just kept getting brighter.
She went very still, but her heart was in her throat.
It had been weeks since she had seen a single familiar face. The landscape remained unrecognizable. Try as she might, the she-wolf could not discern where her path had diverged, where she was now, or how she had gotten there. The sea had been a calming influence when she'd inadvertently found her way to it—though now as she trailed through a forest built of immense old trees, she felt her insignificance.
A cry shattered the stillness of the oldwood, to which Selma turned her full attention. It was unlike any sound she had ever heard! Sharp and screeching and high, and somehow small, but it filled every contour of the forest. Soon enough she began to move after it, nimble and determined, until she saw a gilded figure staring in another direction.
Anxiety flooded her system but so did a sense of elation, as she recognized their silhouette at the very least as wolf —!
Movement at her back; Reverie's ears flicked but she made no move at first, caught in the brightness all around her. She blinked hard. Still her vision failed to clear, and so she whirled around to face the approaching wolf. A woman in silver, beautiful, but all the same Reverie's hackles rose.
There was something very wrong about her.
Perhaps it was the strange object wrapped round her pale throat, or the foreign scent shrouding her like a warning. Reverie did not know, but she was uncertain. She regarded the woman in silence for a moment, ears folded back, posture neutral but deliberately quite still; even the rise and fall of her chest was subtle as her breath turned shallow in anticipation of —
Anticipation of what?
Reverie's look turned expectant on the stranger, but even she wasn't sure what she meant by it.
It was a woman. Golden, as bright and brilliant as the sun over the cusp of mountains, and Selma thought fondly of home for that moment as she hesitated; and then she bowed her head, her shoulders hunching together and tail straight-out behind her, lowering, then wriggling at the tip, hoping for a friendly exchange. At the very least, to not be chased away.
She tasted the air with a few cursory sniffs, and feigned interest in the grass beneath her chin a moment, before her shy, darting eyes returned to the woman where they would linger. She willed herself to be forthright, rather than frightened.
That was the way she'd had to be since the world had so shifted. There were many strange faces in the previous weeks, and words spoken, and understandings gleaned, although Selma's interpretation of common tongue would forever be a stressor; she could at least say, Hallo.
Reverie softened to see the woman's hunched shoulders and hesitant demeanor, reminded suddenly of herself and her first days in these strange lands. She smiled at the greeting, though it didn't quite reach her eyes, and gathered up the squirrel before she stepped forward to meet the silvered wolf. The woman truly was beautiful...
But it was so very bright, the gilded girl could hardly focus. She dropped the squirrel as she neared, swinging it slightly so it would land closer to the stranger; an offering of friendship, but it was for Reverie's own sake, too. She didn't think she could stand to be near it any longer, much less eat it. Even now, Reverie remained thin, often unable to eat and unwilling even when those rare times came.
She blinked, and her gaze wandered back toward the sky. The sea was singing to her, but she was too focused to really hear it. There was something blooming in the distance, something vast and incomprehensible, but so far away for now that it was little more than a thin stain crawling across the horizon. Reverie shivered.