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+--- Thread: The Sunspire You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along (/showthread.php?tid=18945)
You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 14, 2016
A soft wind blew down the face of the Sunspire, carrying fat rain drops past Saena as her figure cut upward through it, toward the deepening gloom of the sky above. The temperature was warmer than usual for this time of year, but clouds gathering on the horizon suggested it would dip below freezing come nightfall. The rain would turn to sleet, and sleet to snow, and her vale would no doubt be covered in a layer of airy white when morning rose. But currently, on the cusp of dusk, it was passably warm and the wind was pleasant.
The ascent was also pleasant, a soft rolling slope that ended in a sharp haft of stone spearing up into the belly of the sky. The Sunspire, they called it, and it was so aptly named. Saena had been in these parts once or twice, but back then, a pack had claimed the slopes. Now there was no trace remaining of them, and the gentle inclines were pristine. Saena dipped her nose to sniff gingerly at a clump of tough grass as she strolled past it.
The base of the Sunspire rolled neatly into the vale with hardly any hint of segregation. It was an excellent descent from the higher mountains into her home, and a path well used by cliff-faring ungulates, she was pleased to know. Saena could smell them as she climbed higher: shaggy goats and sleek sheep of the stone. If she squinted, she could still make them out, dotting the sheer cliffs high above, through the thin rain and darkening air. They climbed significantly better than any wolf ever could. Even Saena's rolling prowl could not carry her so efficiently, she noted, as one jumped up a seemingly straight mountain wall. She pricked her ears and grinned a wolfish grin as she beat a path nearer to the Sunspire's division, where she might observe them more closely.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 15, 2016
Tambourine had never expressed an interest in exploring beyond the Keep, mostly because he simply wasn't. But boredom was one hell of a drug and before the juvenile really knew what he was doing or where he was going, he was miles away from the safety of the willows. He found himself at the feet of mountains on either side, the monoliths casting frigid shadows over him. He paused to sniff the air and inspect his surroundings, then kept walking until yet another peak cut off his path.
He glanced off to his left, noting a small bypass that led elsewhere. Intrigued, he shifted in that direction but didn't yet take a step. Instead, he cocked his head as if listening to some invisible presence whispering into his ear. He then pulled an abrupt about face and began climbing the crag to the west. Although his feet were big and his long legs occasionally unwieldy, he had enough experience crawling all over the foothills back home to ascend without tumbling ass over teakettle back down the mountainside.
Eventually, the youth found himself on an overhang, panting. He took a moment to catch his breath, then peered around himself. The sky was growing overcast, bits of cold rain splattering his face and back, but this didn't deter Tambourine in the least. He caught a whiff of something that smelled incredibly tantalizing and as soon as he felt ready again, he continued his upward march, with visions of mountain sheep dancing in his head.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 16, 2016
The rain was so inconsistent and sparse that Saena forgot about it entirely until another plump drop landed directly on her nose. She went cross-eyed momentarily, then shook her head and blinked toward the sky. Shadows growing closer to the mountain promised that it would pick up soon, but she still had time. Streaks of orange, purple, and pink illuminated the clouds in spots, bringing a smile to the wolf's face. The time between evening and twilight was the most tranquil, in Saena's opinion, rain or no rain.
Her attention drifted back to the mountain wall, which loomed closer now. Her steps slowed as she craned her neck to look up the slopes. Here, the scent of mountain goats and dung was overpowering, simultaneously nauseating and teasing. They were fare she had no hope of catching until they meandered down into the valley. The very notion of catching one taunted her, but Saena was no fool. She was a seasoned hunter, and knew that on their turf, the odds were stacked so heavily against her that she was more likely to be caught and killed by them.
A sound behind her made her ears swivel, and then her head, as Tambourine drew near enough to be heard. The sun was setting rapidly and it was already gloomy enough that he blended right in to his surroundings, but she spotted him eventually. Saena held no claim over the mountain—indeed, her entire philosophy regarding claims had changed recently—but she did lay claim over her present space. She was without the protection of Warbone, Tryphon, and Zephyr here. Tambourine was a perfect stranger to her, and so she grumbled a warning growl, non-threatening but hopefully not too off-putting, with the intention of keeping him at bay rather than scaring him off entirely. Had it been the vale she would have been less nervous, but here, with a mountain wall at her front, Tambourine at her back and no sign of her companions, Saena was on guard.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 16, 2016
He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, though even Tambourine knew he didn't have a chance of actually catching any game out here, large or small. He had yet to experience his first proper pack hunt as more than an observer and had displayed no particular knack, thus far, for capturing prey on his own. He would likely grow to be an average, everyday group hunter and nothing more.
Still, a boy could dream, couldn't he? On that note, a noise startled him out of his reveries of raw mutton. He paused in his step, blinking around at his gloomy surroundings. It didn't take him long to notice the sleek, pale figure standing out against the darker backdrop of the mountainside. He peered at her for a beat, noting the pretty markings on her face, then his face and tail broke into a grin and a wag, respectively.
"Oh, hey," he greeted, pivoting on over-sized feet to face her. He just now noticed her tail and blurted a question she had surely heard a thousand times before (not that he thought about that): "What happened to your tail?!"
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 17, 2016
The younger wolf either didn't hear her growl or didn't react to it, which left Saena feeling oddly ignored for a moment. But only a moment, for soon Tambourine spoke up, confirming that he wasn't just ignoring her presence. She felt oddly grumbly about that, too. But lately, everything made her feel a little bit grumbly. It was most likely the changing of the seasons, combined with her change in philosophy and lifestyle, and the barely suppressed feelings of failure that crept up on her whenever she was alone. She knew with certainty that it wasn't truly anything Tambourine had done, and talking herself down made her relax a little.
Enough that when he asked about her tail, she swooped around, the corners of her lips curling into a sneaky grin. "Why," she said mischievously, "the winter was so very barren that I had to eat it to stay alive." She didn't know why she said it. Saena was hardly the joking type, and tormenting younger wolves had never been something she did. Maybe it was just the spooky ambience of the place. Dusk had its claws firmly in the mountainside by now, and there was nowhere else to go. The atmosphere, paired with the opportunity to make some waves, she simply couldn't resist.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 17, 2016
"Oh snap!" came Tambourine's immediate reaction to her story, though it was quickly after followed by a narrowing of his eyes. "Wait a minute..." Was she pulling his tail (how poetic)? "Really?" he asked, intrigued but clearly dubious. He turned to look at his own tail, as if to study its plausibility as a food item, before facing her again and squinting skeptically.
Even if she was trying to joke on him, though, he wasn't the sort to get sour about it. "You're still very pretty," he informed her, unaware that this could come across as a backhanded compliment. "I've never seen markings like yours," he continued unabashedly, openly admiring her with a cant of his head. His ear flopped over his eye but he ignored it. "What's your name?"
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 19, 2016
Her lips curved further at the corners when the boy exclaimed in shock, but the amusement quickly wore off when Tambourine's brain kicked in and he regarded her suspiciously. With her face falling back to neutrality, Saena lifted her chin a margin as if to say, do you doubt me? but she knew he did. And he was right to. You couldn't believe everything everyone told you, and Saena fancied that she'd taught him a valuable lesson in lying to him, but all she'd really done was prove to herself that she could lie, and it left a sour taste in her mouth moments later.
Liars had never been wolves she was fond of. Her sister had lied to her once and been killed for it, and her distaste for lying had only grown over the years as wolves did it continually to her. "Sorry," she said at length, after realizing she'd just done something she herself didn't agree with. "just wanted to see how you'd react. I didn't eat it. A bear did." She didn't want to relive that moment, though, and sought in her mind for something else to change the topic to, but Tambourine beat her to the punch.
His sincerity caught her off guard and momentarily, she felt winded. She hadn't received a compliment on her looks in a while. Usually other wolves found them striking, but often there was no comment, or if there was, it wasn't so up front. "Thanks," she mumbled, though she felt rather unsure of herself. She hadn't picked her markings, after all, and it always struck her strangely when other wolves not only noticed, but commented on them. She wasn't self conscious, per se, but she was aware that she looked different than other wolves. She'd never felt one way or another about it, and yet... Tambourine's open compliments(?) disarmed her.
The flop of his ear over his face sparked a memory of Stark, oddly enough. He'd mentioned that Tavi's son had a floppy ear. Then again, so did many wolves, she was sure. She wondered if it really was Tavi's kid she was looking at, and if so, how she should feel about that. "Saena," she answered him simply, and returned, "what's yours?"
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 19, 2016
He shrugged boyishly at her apology, unbothered. Since she seemed open to carrying on conversation, he decided it was probably safe to move a little closer. Tambourine shot her a quick, questioning glance and then picked his way in her direction, stopping several yards away. Now that he was up close, he saw that he was taller than her, all sharp corners and long legs to Saena's petite curves. He openly admired her beauty, unaware that his lingering gaze might be making her self-conscious, especially when it more or less fastened on her rear end for a few beats.
Tambourine was mostly fascinated by that little stub of a tail. It was kind of cute. But he finally dragged his pale eyes away from her butt to her face. He grinned winsomely, ear still partially obscuring his eye."I'm Tambourine," he declared with a sweep of his gray tail. "You can call me Tambo or Tam, though." He paused, blinking owlishly when a cold raindrop splattered right between his eyes, then shook his head and asked her, "Do you live in these mountains?"
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 20, 2016
At about the same moment Saena began to get a crick in her neck, she noticed where Tambourine's gaze lingered. She couldn't blush, being a wolf, but she nevertheless turned as swiftly as possible to take his eyes off her rear. Not because she was offended that he was looking—such a thing meant nothing to her—but because him eyeing it meant there was a possibility he was considering mounting it. Being a dominant creature, she could let no such thing happen, but he was only a kid and hadn't done anything (yet) so she let him off easy. Her expression was more amused than anything as she swung about to face him properly, and there was no warning growl to accompany her change in position.
When he introduced himself, it became doubly important that she prevent him from doing anything so weird as mounting her. It wouldn't do at all for Reek's bastard kid to mount Reek's ex-mate. "I thought so," she revealed with a twist of one corner of her lip into a smirk. "I know your dad." Wait, how many dads did he have, anyway? Stark made it seem like Reek was Tambourine's father, but then, Stark had also claimed to be raising Tambourine himself. "Uh, your real one. The big bag of dicks. Well, the other one too. Ah," she exclaimed, letting her words fade sheepishly away, before she added, "I'm Saena."
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 21, 2016
Her response, coupled with her smirk, caused Tambourine to suddenly look around shiftily. She seemed to know him or at least know of him. Fortunately, the she-wolf didn't leave him wondering long. She explained that she knew his dad. His confusion morphed into a grin at the mention of Stark. Only it turned out she wasn't talking about the Keep's Alpha. She was talking about his biological father, whose name escaped him at the moment. She didn't say it either, though she offered her own name.
Tambourine knew he should ask how she knew either of his dads but, truth be told, the overgrown child couldn't get past "bag of dicks." He took absolutely no offense, since he barely knew the man, and the phrase itself tickled his funny bone in the worst way. In fact, he threw back his head and laughed loudly, the sound bouncing off the nearby rockery. He went weak in the knees and sank to a sit, then flopped onto his side and rolled, moisture leaking from the corners of his eyes.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 22, 2016
To say she was perplexed by Tambourine's full-bodied laugh was an understatement. Saena cocked her head, letting one of her own ears flop to the side, as she searched his contorted face for any sign of what was so funny, even as he threw himself to the ground. She'd meant it quite literally, after all. Reek seemed to only think with his small head, or at least that was what little she thought of him nowadays, so "bag of dicks" was an incredibly accurate description of the man who had sired her children, as well as quite a few others. For now, the humour was lost on her, and even when Tambourine's laughter began to wind down, she couldn't pinpoint exactly what she'd said that amused him so.
"What's so funny?" she asked at last, lips twitching with mirth even though she didn't really get it. Tambourine's laughter was infectious enough that there was a twinkle in her eye and she had difficulty not sniggering herself. Had she thought about it for a little while, or used the part of her brain that was raised by a man who thought shit jokes were hilarious, she would've clued in. Sadly, Saena had abandoned that part of herself more or less, and no longer identified with those kinds of jokes.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 26, 2016
He couldn't stop laughing for several minutes. By the time the fit finally passed, his eyes were watering and he was gasping for breath. Tambourine shakily pushed himself back into a seated position and glanced over at Saena. She looked amused but quizzical. That almost sent him into another tailspin, though Tambourine bit his lip to stop it. It was only partially successful, as little puffs of air escaped the corners of his mouth.
"You called my dad a bag of dicks," he answered belatedly, feeling his chest clenching as the urge to laugh built again. Goodness, would it ever stop? "You know him? I don't," he admitted freely, rolling a shoulder. "It doesn't matter, though. Stark is great. He takes good care of me." He certainly wasn't a bag of dicks.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 26, 2016
She blinked, then cracked a smile as the point of her unwitting joke hit home. "I meant literally," she clarified, but she couldn't hide a snicker at the kid's amusement over the whole thing. "I'm pretty sure he's screwed half the bitches in the taiga." It was hardly an appropriate thing to discuss with an adolescent, especially one sired by the very man she was talking about, but Saena had never hid her distaste for Reek. In fact, she frequently told anyone who listened how horrible he was. She knew nothing about the level of his promiscuity, but having sired at least three litters in the span of a year, she thought "bag of dicks" to be the most appropriate title for him.
"It's for the best you don't," she shared, capitalizing on Tambourine's unfamiliarity with his natural father. "The guy's a massive jerk by anyone's standards. You're better off with Stark for a father." She swung around so she formed a loose T with the boy, side turned to him so he could inspect her if he wanted to, and then she pressed her ears back politely. "He cares about you a lot. I got that impression, anyway, when I met him."
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 26, 2016
He goggled at her a bit when she said something about screwing bitches. He didn't know what that meant but it sounded pretty bad. There was definitely disdain both in her expression and her tone. Saena looked a little bit like there was something smelly being held right up to her nose. (Tambourine would've gotten a kick out of it if he'd known his father's name had once been Reek.) Fortunately, it did little to affect her prettiness; he still enjoyed looking at her.
She made one last remark about the guy, then spoke quite a bit more highly of Stark. Tambourine beamed when she mentioned how much Stark cared for him. This he knew well. He cared very much for the black Alpha in turn. The youth was old enough to know his life wasn't idyllic or even conventional—his real dad was a deadbeat (and a bag of dicks, snerk) and his mother was dead—but he had never been less than almost perfectly happy with his life in the Keep.
"So where do you live?" he wondered, almost as if Saena had been privy to his inner musings.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 27, 2016
Saena's brain got some serious whiplash when Tambourine not only made no comment on his adopted dad, but completely changed the subject. She didn't entirely follow, mostly because she didn't know where Stark or Tambourine lived in the first place, but she quashed down her confusion and pointed with her snout down the slope. The Sunspire was gentle and wooded up to the wall they stood at now, framing a clear view of the watery valley down below.
"Right down there," she told Tambourine. "it's called Duskvale. I lead a pack there with my partner, Warbone." There were no secrets when it came to the Duskvale pack. If only she knew the connection between Warbone, Stark, and Tambourine, maybe she would've kept a little quieter about the whole thing, but she didn't. Instead, she gaze down into the vale with a proud smile on her lips, then glanced at Tambourine as if to say, wanna see it?
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 28, 2016
She motioned toward a picturesque valley below. The view was quite pretty—though it had nothing on Saena—and he turned to tell her so when she dropped a name that caused the boy's open mouth to clap shut. His eyes immediately narrowed as he recollected his encounter with a wolf with that very name. Tambourine had found him fascinating at first but his opinion of Warbone had plummeted the moment he'd disrespected Stark.
"Warbone is a bag of dicks," he muttered under his breath, no mirth in his voice. But then he realized something: if Warbone lived down there in Duskvale, did that mean he was no longer a threat to the Keep? Surely it was something Stark would be interested in knowing. Tambourine made a mental note to tell him once he got around to going home.
Raising his voice to be audible, Tambourine asked, "Did you know that Warbone and Stark don't get along?" He arched an eyebrow as he glanced sideways at Saena, suddenly a little disappointed that their respective relatives were at odds. "Does this mean we're enemies?" he wondered a bit stupidly, already deciding it was a shame if that was the case.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - November 30, 2016
Saena couldn't hear Tambourine's hushed words, though she peered at him quizzically when he did mumble something. Maybe that was Reek's influence, she thought. Maybe his shitty genes made the kid a little cracked in the head or something. She'd never felt an inclination to talk to herself about anything, proving Saena had never once had a thought that required voicing with discretion, or a thought so complex that she needed to talk herself through it.
Anyway, she forgot about it when Tambourine addressed her again, shifting neck and shoulders in a half-hearted effort to hide her baffled interest in his behaviour. It wasn't really her business why he talked to himself, or what he said when he did.
"Why would it mean that?" asked Saena, genuinely confused, when Tambourine asked if they were enemies. Warbone and Stark didn't need to get along to mean their packs weren't enemies. One could argue that that was exactly the principle Saena used to declare her enemies—she would attack Reek on sight not because he was a threat to her, exactly, but because she hated him—but like usual, she didn't think about that. "We don't care about your pack, truthfully. Unless Stark chooses to make enemies of us for some reason," she added, and then, more firmly, "but that would be very stupid, and I know he isn't an idiot."
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - November 30, 2016
It took him a moment to parse Saena's response and even after he did that, he wasn't sure how to feel about it. On one hand, he was glad they weren't enemies by default. She also commended Stark's intelligence. But there was a sort of threat sprinkled in there too. He frowned thoughtfully for a few beats.
Eventually, he decided to shrug off his misgivings. Besides, her prettiness made that stuff seem sort of unimportant. He was too young to worry about finding a mate and didn't even really know the first thing about attraction. He didn't even know the term "crush." But Tambourine's gaze lingered, perhaps a little too long, and there was a bit of a dopey look on his face before he caught himself.
Gazing back in the direction of Duskvale, he wondered, "What's your pack like?" just to keep the conversation flowing.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - December 03, 2016
Tambourine stared at Saena just long enough for her brow to crinkle in concern. With a tilt of her head, she took a step nearer, but then he snapped out of his seeming trance and asked a question. Settling back, the petite wolf reclined on her haunches and said, with a contemplative smack of her lips, "different."
She wasn't sure how she felt about Duskvale currently, but it was a refreshing change from the simultaneous boredom and melodrama of Phoenix Maplewood and all its incarnations. "We're always together, and we travel a lot," Saena elaborated, "and we're not crazy about the territory. We don't go attacking just anyone who steps into it if they show some respect. It's one of the only ways through the mountains, after all." That about summed it up, she thought.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - December 05, 2016
The instant she said the word "different," Tambourine's eyes flicked right back to her face, his ears both shifting toward the sound of her voice. She described a pack philosophy unlike anything he'd ever heard. He didn't have any firsthand experience with packs outside of the Keep but between his cursory lessons in guardianship and his natural instincts, he knew the typical concepts of pack structure. Some of what Saena described appealed to said instincts, whereas other parts made no sense to him at all.
"We sleep together in The Crook," he said, talking more to himself than to Saena, who might not follow, "but we don't travel together. And we definitely don't let outsiders run around the territory." He licked his lips, comparing and contrasting it all in his mind for a few beats before he had to ask, "It really doesn't bother you? When strangers are all up in your space? What if they, like, steal your food or poop and pee on your favorite sleeping spot?"
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - December 05, 2016
Stark had never supplied a name for the pack he led, so Saena made the assumption that The Crook was it. She listened politely as Tambourine described his pack's lifestyle, unconsciously pulling her paws in and tucking them together in an uncharacteristically ladylike perch, but she shook her head lightly when Tambourine voiced his concerns. She held similar concerns when she first tried to chase her instincts into the light and let go of her preconceived ideas about society and pack structure, but they were long gone now.
"They don't get to waltz in and do whatever they want," she said, revealing her teeth in a lopsided grin. "If they're that close to us, they best be on their back by the time we get to 'em, or they'll be sent packing faster than they can blink." That was Saena's philosophy, anyway, and the larger Duskvale got, the more she would expect absolute submission from all outsiders. It hadn't been so true up until now, but it would be. "Duskvale's a huge territory. It would be impractical for us to try to cover the whole thing all the time. We wouldn't be much of a pack spread across miles like that. We prefer a closer bond, so we cover it slowly by traveling around it as a group. But if anyone gets too close, or thinks they can do whatever they want on our turf, they'll soon learn their mistake. We're tolerant, but not complacent."
Tambourine's question about food was perfectly valid, of course, but Saena tried to explain: "The only food we care about is the food where we are, and we don't leave anything behind when we move on. If anyone wanted to steal it, they'd have to go through the teeth of half a dozen wolves first." She widened her grin when she added, "I invite them to try that if they think they're a god, but if they're just hunting somewhere else, they aren't affecting our current food any. Doesn't matter to us. Nowadays I just can't understand why others make such a big deal of it, actually. I used to, but it seems silly now." Duskvale was a shadowed paradise and there was more prey in it than the pack could consume in three or four years, not counting breeding. An outsider taking one or two at a time was hardly a dent in their food chain, and anyone who hung around long enough to make more of an impact would soon be found.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - December 05, 2016
Saena took the time to explain in further detail. Tambourine listened closely. It actually made sense, the way she described it. "Gotcha," he said simply, returning her grin with one of his own. Although he wasn't sure he agreed with it or could participate in such himself, it was all very interesting to him. Perhaps he had been wrong to assume that all or even most wolf packs subscribed to the same ideals as Marauder's Keep. Suddenly he found himself wondering about the rest of the packs he'd heard lived in the general vicinity known as Teekon Wilds. Perhaps one day he'd seek them out to find out more about others' lifestyles.
After a beat of contemplative silence during which he turned over all her explanations in his head, Tambourine realized aloud, "You didn't say what you'd do if someone pooped in your favorite spot." There was a teasing note to his grin as his pale eyes danced. "Unless you don't have once, since it's so big and you move around so much?" he guessed, feeling sort of clever, which didn't happen often.
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Saēna - December 06, 2016
Tambourine was right, realized Saena, who laughed good-naturedly. "I do have a favourite place," she shared, thinking of the white-barked tree that stood apart from the others in the vale, "and if I saw someone poop on it, I'd make them eat it." It was said playfully, but if truth be told, Saena was unlikely to care if she returned to that tree and saw it slathered in someone else's waste. Being a wolf, she would most likely ignore it unless she actually witnessed it happening.
Speaking of bodily functions, she realized jarringly that she had to pee. She glanced over her shoulder at the cliffs overhead, where the sheep were now completely hidden in darkness, and knew she was unlikely to get any closer to them tonight. She was also unwilling to do her business where Tambourine could watch her—maybe because of his connection to Reek or maybe because she was just a little potty shy—so she stood and said, "it's getting kind of late. Best be heading back."
Come to think of it, the rain was getting worse, too. She'd hardly noticed it while talking, but now that she had, she realized it was falling quite steadily indeed. "You can sleep in the valley tonight if you need to," she offered, "either way, I'll catch you later, Tambourine."
RE: You don't know how the words go, but you sort of sang along - Tambourine - December 07, 2016
He'd guessed wrong, though he certainly didn't feel bad about it as Saena joked that she would make the perpetrator eat his or her own poop. Tambourine tittered, nearly as amused by that mental image as by the phrase "bag of dicks." But the noise quickly fell into silence and a markedly disappointed look drifted across his features when the she-wolf announced that she would be leaving.
Aww, he thought, eyes pinning on her as if hoping to memorize the way she looked. He didn't even notice the worsening rainfall and he had forgotten entirely about the scent of prey. Clinging to the hope that they would see each other again, he managed a cheerful, "Okay. See you later, Saena!"
She had welcomed him to stay and Tambourine definitely didn't want to seem rude. After she had slipped away into the dreary gloom—his eyes lingering until she vanished—Tambourine holed up nearby. He dreamed of pretty bob-tailed women and literal bags of dicks, though he remembered none of it when he awoke the following morning to continue his adventure.