When they’d made the decision to leave the area that they’d been staying in to travel over the mountain to see what they could find there, Rivet had readily agreed. It was rather surprising that they hadn’t fought since leaving that area to travel, but it wasn’t something Rivet was going to let herself get stuck on wondering why or whatever because that would surely jinx it or something. One thing was absolutely certain… she would never, ever tire of random kisses from her lover. Nor would she ever tire of giving her lover random kisses in return.

Her paws were sore from traveling over the mountain but she didn’t allow it to slow her down much at all, wanting nothing more than to keep up pace with her striking companion. Eagerly, she bound toward the stream when it came into view, going close enough to submerge her sore front paws into the refreshing liquid. The sloppy wet kiss was readily accepted but before she could return it, she received a playful shove that nearly knocked her off her paws purely because she hadn’t been expecting it. She laughed, utterly happy that they had been getting along so well the last few days.

She was ready to shove off and dart after Turq when her lover turned, staring into her eyes. Turq always managed to somehow take Rivet’s breath away, and this moment was no exception. “What?” she answered, giving a slight tilt of her head. What came next thrilled her beyond words. Taking a couple steps forward to close the distance that had been created when Turq had darted out of reach, she not once removed her gaze from that of her lover. “And I love you, Turquoise,” she gladly returned. “With every beat of my heart, and then some.” And she would until the day she (Rivet) died.

After speaking out loud her feelings for her beautiful lover, Rivet realized just how deep her feelings really went. It was nice that she’d been able to voice it out loud finally, though. It felt good to have finally voiced it out loud. Perhaps this was part of why she had been having such insecure problems lately. Not only did voicing it herself leave her feeling better, but her companion having said it first left her heart singing joyously.

“And I you,” she answered, loving the closeness that they were sharing at that moment. She would follow Turq to the ends of the Earth just to be able to stay with her. Before her lover was able to completely withdraw, Rivet allowed her own tongue to slide out and tenderly caress the side of Turq’s muzzle. She felt happy in that moment, like she was walking on cloud nine or something. She was truly on top of the world. What a wonderful feeling it was!

At the question asked, her stomach rumbled as if on cue. Soft laugh easily escaped from her and she gave a nod of her head. “Apparently I am,” she laughed, readily accepting the new nickname from her lover.

Rivet playfully stuck her tongue out at the teasing from her girlfriend. “Yep, sure do,” she replied with a nod, dipping her head down toward the stream. Using her nose, she splashed water upward toward her lover and then pranced backward, out of the water. Even though she was a little tired and her paws a little sore, she really was in such a fantastic mood.

A thoughtful look danced upon her face as she thought of which she would prefer; fish or deer. She, herself, wasn’t terribly in the mood for hunting and would not ask her lover to take down a deer by herself. “Seafood sounds good,” she finally answered, moving back toward the edge of the stream. “Followed by some Turq for desert…” Oh naughty!

Rivet remained standing on the edge of the stream, ready to help if it was needed, though she had the utmost faith in her girlfriend to not need help. Mismatched eyes shifted back and forth from her lover to the water that she was “hunting” in. Although she could do her share of fishing, it wasn’t something that Rivet was very good at. Turq was far better at it than she was. Rivet was better at chasing down small prey and catching it than she was at fishing.

A sound behind her caught her attention, causing her to look away from both the stream and her lover to scan the area with her attentive gaze. But the sound of splashing quickly yanked her attention back to the stream. Mismatched eyes fell upon her girlfriend struggling in the water but just as she began to move forward to go help Turq, the other female lifted herself. There was no laughter on her face, though. Just pure concern. At the sight of the glare, though, her ears slicked backward and she took a couple steps backward.

“Are you okay?” came out with a soft whine.

Mismatched eyes followed the gaze of her lover down to Turq’s leg. A look of sheer mortification instantly hit Rivet’s face as her gaze landed on the leech on Turq’s leg. In that moment, she was reminded why she wasn’t much of a fan of going into the water. Also in that moment, it hit her that she had been standing in the water just moments prior and immediately began to frantically search her own paws that had been submerged in the stream. She was very, very relieved to not find a single one of the water vampires stuck on her anywhere.

Her ears slicked back against her head when her girlfriend snapped at her, shooting her a bit of a nasty look. It almost felt as though Turq was blaming her for not only having slipped in the water but for ending up with a leech on her as well. That didn’t sit all that well with Rivet in the least. If she’d have known those things were in there, she wouldn’t have chosen fish for their meal because she surely would not have sent Turq into the water to let those nasty things latch onto her.

Giving a snort and a shake of her head, Rivet began to turn away from Turq. “I’m not hungry anymore,” she snapped back and began to storm away, clearly pissed off that she felt like she was being blamed.

Her lip curled upward in a warning snarl the moment her path away from the stream was blocked by the larger of the two females. Everything had been going so well between them the last few days while they’d been traveling. Not even so much as a misunderstanding of words. And now this. The ultimatum being thrown at her brought fury to the surface, enough to cause her body to quiver with rising anger. It wasn’t very often that she, herself, lost her temper but when she did, it wasn’t pretty in the least.

“Since when is it perfectly acceptable for you to walk away from me to have time to cool off and it’s not okay for me to do the same, Turquoise Blackthorn?” she growled, swishing the end of her tail in growing irritation. “How many times have you walked away from me, Turquoise? Because I lost count. I can tell you how many times I have been the one to walk away to cool off. Hell, I can count them on one paw even. So tell me, how is that even remotely fair?” Because she knew full well that it was not fair in the least.

Rivet remained completely silent while her girlfriend said everything she had to say. Though her anger did diminish a little, it didn’t completely go away. It wasn’t very often that Rivet got angry enough to need to walk away for a little while. Her hot-tempered redhead in front of her was almost always the one losing her temper and storming away. It just seemed really hypocritical of Turq to throw the “consider yourself single” thing at her when Rivet had never, ever done such a thing to her and was always the one left wondering if and when Turq would be returning. Those words hurt almost as much as when Turq had shouted at her that she needed her space.

Her frown deepened as she stood there, staring at Turquois. “Is that really what you think?” she asked, still quite angry at the moment. “That I would tell you I love you with all my heart and then leave, not coming back?” She gave a snort and harsh shake of her head. “And yes, you have stormed off without a word as to why.” A disgruntled growl escaped from her as she gave another shake of her head. “I was walking away because it seemed like you were blaming me for your having fallen into the water and for the disgusting blood sucking leech that had attached itself to your leg.”

At the sound of Turq’s single worded answer, Rivet almost did just walk on. How could the other female even think such a thing of her? Rivet hadn’t been the one that had shouted at the other about needing space. Rivet had given Turq her space, had not gone chasing after her like she had so badly wanted to do in the first place. And Rivet had readily accepted her apology and eagerly taken her back, letting Turq be a part of her life. She hadn’t had to do these things, but she did because she was very much in love with Turquoise Blackthorn and, as far as she was concerned, always would be. “That hurts…” she finally managed to force out between grit teeth.

“I hadn’t even been looking your direction when you slipped,” she replied with a sigh. “I had heard something behind us and had turned my head to see what it was. If I would have been laughing at you, you would have heard it along with saw it.” She was so upset, so hurt, by this at the moment. Though a part of her still wanted to go walk it off, she remained standing where she was.

It was of little surprise that this entire argument seemed to turn into a thing revolving around all about Turquoise. That seemed to happen every time they had an argument, yet this was one of very that Rivet had wanted to walk away so that she could cool off and it turned into what was happening now. More than anything, Rivet found herself wanting to let out a defeated sigh and flop to the ground. But she didn’t. Instead, she remained standing where she was trying to fight away the growing frustration within herself.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” she responded with a defeated sigh. “When have I ever called you a bitch? When have I ever said you were a fuck-up? Are you fucking kidding me?” How in the hell did this turn into a case of Rivet having to be the one to reassure Turq?! And yet, Rivet wasn’t entirely surprised, either, because their fights did tend to go that way. But through it all, Rivet stayed with Turq because she loved her more than life itself.

“I’m sorry…” she finally said, lowering her head, dropping her gaze to the ground at her own paws.

Rivet remained silent while Turq continued with what she had to say. It floored the ebony colored female that Turq would say some of the things she was saying, acting as if she were suddenly some amazing mind reader and could read every single though Rivet might or might not be having. One thing was certain, though, and that was that Rivet was not thinking all sorts of shit about her girlfriend. Granted, she did want this fight to be over, to end, but she wasn’t thinking mean things about the woman she loved.

Turq’s words when Rivet apologized (though she shouldn’t have had to be the one to apologize in the first place) caused her to sink her head just a little lower than it already was and her ears slicked back against her head. If Turquoise was the abuser, then that meant Rivet was the abused with Stockholm syndrome because she was very much in love with Turq and didn’t want to ever be without her. Kind of sad, really, but Rivet really didn’t want to be apart from Turq. Ever.

“Okay,” was all she said in response to her lover’s questioning in regards to finding something to eat. Rivet knew full well that she wasn’t going to be allowed to go take a much needed walk like she’d been trying to do, so she was resigned to just go with the flow.

All the fight had gone out of her because, at that point, it was useless. Turquoise would, as usual, win, get her way, leaving Rivet feeling like everything was entirely her fault, as always. In days to come, Rivet would do whatever she could to redeem herself, to make everything all better again, even if it wasn’t her fault. It was now going to be a matter of figuring out how to smooth things over again.

Following behind her lover, she lifted her gaze just enough to be able to scan around them, searching for something easy to prey upon and ease the grumbling in Turq’s stomach since she, herself, had lost her appetite. She would probably eat a little bit of whatever they found, depending on how much there was of it, but would leave the vast majority of it to the larger woman to consume.

The smell of death caught her attention and she veered slightly away from Turq, though not too far as to end up in even more trouble than she was already in. The smell of fresh blood caused her to flare her nostrils. Whatever it was hadn’t been dead for very long. “Over here,” she called out to Turq, glancing over her shoulder in the direction of her lover. She would wait for confirmation from the larger female that she was coming before heading in the direction the carcass was in.

Hidden in a small set of bushes (though not very well hidden, mind you) was what remained of a porcupine. It was freshly enough dead that there was still a little bit of blood trickling from it. From the scent around it, the beast that had killed it had been a cougar. This put Rivet on high alert, searching around for the great cat, but there seemed to be no sign of it. At least for the moment, anyway, the beast was absent from its meal.

Wondering the same thing, she didn’t object to being the one to have to pick up the porcupine carcass and carry it. Doing so, she hurried along behind Turquoise as the larger female led the way away from where Rivet had found the dead and partially eaten beast. It wasn’t the lightest thing in the world, though it wasn’t the heaviest, either. It was, however, very awkward and she did end up with a quill or two jabbing her nose no matter how careful she tried to be with carrying it. This was very uncomfortable, but if her being the one to carry it would appease her lover, then so be it. She was, after all, wanting to do whatever it took to get the other female to stop being pissed off at her.

She very nearly ran into Turquoise when the larger female suddenly stopped and wheeled around to face Rivet, but she managed to stop without them colliding. Before she was able to drop the carcass for her companion, the other female began to speak. So Rivet remained holding onto the carcass for the time being. Rivet was obviously silent while Turquoise began to apologize. It wasn’t really a surprise, but yet it was because she hadn’t expected Turquoise to be apologizing this soon after their fight. But she wasn’t going to complain about it.

Taking a step toward her lover, she lowered her head toward the ground to deposit the carcass at Turquoise’s paws. Lifting her head, she allowed her gaze to meet that of her lover’s. “Of course I forgive you,” she replied, her voice laced with sincerity. Of course she forgave Turquoise. She always forgave her lover. It was because she was very much in love with her companion. “I love you. So very much.”