Barrow Fields a twist, a tale, a rip through my sail

The cast of the sun bore into her face, lancing her gaze. Lusca shrouded her profile from its white streaks, recanting her glow-edged muzzle to face away from the glare. Ducking into the shade, she scrubbed her hackles against a crowd of pine tree branches, then carried on with a flick of her tail and the trek of mincing steps, hips bobbing as she picked her way shoulder-to-shoulder with the tree-line. 

This was the furthest she had strayed from the bounds of Ankyra Sound in the weeks since her capture, and Lusca was glad for the independence. Vlad had made himself irrelevant as of late and no other soul that haunted Caiaphas' habitation cared enough to keep her scrappy little gudgeon from abandoning her post––an opportunity for freedom that she was unwilling to let pass her by. 

In the early hours of morning when Caiaphas hid away in the intricate, water-slick passages of her beloved grotto, Lusca slipped away, traveling long into noon until she came onto the stillness of the grasslands. Here was a place that stirred nebulous feelings––almost evocative in nature. The better part of her early days in the Teekon Wilds had been spent in this hub, and she couldn't help but hold close a fondness for its windfirm silence. 

Withdrawing to a lonesome and unfrequented space in the brush, Lusca sank to her elbows and supped from a rainfed puddle. 

since lasher had lifted the barricade forbidding any donnelaith wolf out of the harem, tachyon found himself often revisiting the fields as often as his health was able. it was a staggering distance, and tachyon had prepared himself for the lengthy quest by depositing a few hares in the cache before his departure, and eating his fill of the older remnants. when he came to the barrow fields he expected it to be empty and disappointing, but there was a scent he could not mistake or misplace. his ears flew forward and he started to gallop wildly, howling like a honking goose for his long lost compatriot.

The whooping clamor that came from the east-end of the sward caused Lusca to startle. Her heart scuppered and she flailed to the right side in one unthrifty sweep, plashing through the puddle. In her urgency her foundered paw sucked into the clay-like substrate and twisted wrong––a shrill yelp pealed from her throat. Her immediate thought was that the wailing specter was Caiaphas come to collect her mislaid soul, and she was loath to go back into the custody of the briny litch. She began to run, throwing a panicked look over her shoulder.

As the figure jounced up and down through the tallgrass, it became abundantly clearer to Lusca that the gunmetal frons did not belong to the wicked woman, but another contact entirely. She pumped the brakes and her ears flew backwards. "You!" She roared, haunches screaming to a halt into the ground. 

His inbound form did not show any intention of halting, and if she knew this guy as well as she thought she did, she was sure that the pilot helming that plane was poor at navigation and even poorer at sticking the landing. As soon as he inevitably crashed into her, she had half the mind to wrestle him to the ground and sink her teeth into his gizzard. 

"AND JUST WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

he gallumphed like a drunken kangaroo, all powerful limbs and no coordination. it was her -- it was -- and with a final howl he nearly careened right into her protesting form. she was instantly upon him, her wrath white hot like a cauldron's boil, and he fell to the ground in a dramatic simper and exposed his belly in a smooth seal-like bellyflop. "hi!" he breathed, his tail beating quickly against his thighs as he overjoyously supplanted a million sloppy licks to lusca's cheeks.

In typical Tachyon fashion, the male splashed into the ground without a struggle, rudder-like tail battering both his and her thighs furiously. Ignoring his onslaught of adoring smooches, she pressed her forehead into the bridge between his eyes, gaslight stare unflinching just inches from his eyeballs. "I could kill you."

her glare, righteous and withering, seemed to bore holes into tachyon's ego. tentatively he stopped and looked at her, doe-eyed and still -- her wrath was mighty, and he did not yet want to test it. all the same, he had looked everywhere for her -- had she even lifted a toe to ensure his wellbeing? unfortunately, tachyon was not the type to suspect others weren't as contributory or even benevolent as he. "i looked everywhere for you!" he exclaimed, still on his back in the most absurd of fashions. "don't kill me, please." he shut his eyes tight and his ears pulled to his skull as he winced, expecting some sort of angry blow.

For the first time, his visage broke and crumbled into the fragments of despair. Lusca balked, recoiling away from him with a sour expression and hurt written across her face. He claimed to have looked for her––everywhere, he said––but she did not believe a word of it. "You looked on the sound, did you? Everywhere?" Her voice was raspy. "No, you didn't. Because if you had, you would've found me weeks ago, and I would be safe. I'm not safe anymore. I'll never be safe."

he felt stung to learn that she did not accept he had sought her - the disbelief was writ across her face far sharper and more intense than even the flickering glow of her jackolatern gaze. tachyon felt defeated -- he had no way to prove he nearly died to find her and, at the last moment, had crawled towards donnelaith's doorstep to save himself. "what do you mean you are not safe?" he simpered sadly, his gaze forlorn and focused on the ground in sorrow.

"You know, not safe––the opposite of safe, in danger," she hissed at him, eyebrows scrunching together to form a pained scowl. "Some witch named Caiaphas hurt me. And then her friends hurt me. And if my worth is measured by the number of times I've been struck, then... ugh! I can't even think. I'm so mad at you!" She swung away from him and loped a short distance, shoulders shrugging off the vulnerability she felt so rawly.

he swallowed, his throat burning -- and he felt a flush of regret brim his features. he hadn't done anything wrong, but he deeply felt he had -- and the saltiness of her words stung him greatly. he was concerned -- at the mention of these wolves causing her harm his hackles bristled and he shifted onto his elbows alarmed. "they hurt you -- what? how, how could they?" he felt a frown swallow his features and his brow furrowed. "the sound? they're supposed to be friends. what did they do to you?! he would kill them, every one -- even if it meant going against lasher's blessing.

"Not something you should concern yourself with." She said with a dismissive thrust of her funnel-shaped snout, trying to restore herself to a state of fine-fettled dignity and nonchalance. To reveal a helplessness like she did, in front of him, made her feel oddly abashed. Lusca traced his mouth-line and in doing this, experienced some sort of delight; that he was so ruffled gave her validation. 

Holstering her weapon of vitriol, with a sharp intake of breath, she smoothed out her nerves like an uptown missus would brush out her Sunday's best. She cleared her throat and circled back to him in a lofty manner. "Great news––there is no monster." She shot Tachyon a scrutinizing look, curious if he could place the context of her humor. "Reached that conclusion with my thorough investigation. I took one for the team and you're welcome."  She said, then squinted, leaning towards him a step. "What do you mean by, 'they're supposed to be friends?'"

he watched her, a mixture of puzzlement and great sadness hanging off his long muzzle. she turned aside and walked away and for a moment tachyon was fearful it would be a repeat of last time -- that she would be gone forever. he rose to his feet immediately and was just about to set after her when she returned from her inordinately short jaunt. he tilted his head, perplexed -- and a look of confusion washed over him. her monster quip flew over his head for a moment but as he realized her insinuation he nodded his head dumbly and slid back to the ground.

as she approached he weaseled towards her, maintaining no amount of dignity as he did so. "the witches and donnelaith -- donnelaith is where i've been living." his countenance brightened -- "it's where you could live too -- please -- let's go home." he smiled and his tail whumped on the ground as he wriggled to her cheeks in the hopes to sneak near enough for another sly bushel of kisses.

She drew aside her ears with lukewarm interest as he described his living arrangements, and felt the cusp of a deceiver's anlace dig between her shoulder-blades. The deception she felt was felt unjustly so––his exposure to the nature of his Alpha's comrade was not a heuristic process; Tachyon clearly hadn't felt imposed upon by her in any shape, shadow, or form, and even more clearly, Caiaphas herself hadn't laid bare the unsavoriness of her character to Donnelaith. 

Otherwise, his packfellows landed on the unscrupulous side of the coin, and weren't opposed to her practices. Bile gathered in her throat at the thought.

Like a disobedient dog resisting the insistent yanking of his tether, Lusca pulled back at his suggestion. She was openly soured to the idea of seeking refuge under boon companions of the termagant––the root of all evil in her scarcely traveled world. "Security. That's home." She snipped, low-set head swinging skyward in a gesture of decisiveness. "I won't fain to live amongst her friends." 

Too weary to snub his advance, Luc relented to Tachyon's trillion-count rosette of kisses. His public displays of affection were to be expected and routinely disciplined, but after enduring weeks of harsh rebukes as the dross and dregs of Saltwinter's hierarchy, gentle physical contact was a favored change. 

Slinking unbidden to his side, she brushed her muzzle under his grizzled chin, permissive of his doting.

lusca was, under no uncertain terms, unthrilled by the prospect of living under donnelaith's hedge -- but it was not that fact that caused tachyon to freeze. instead, it was the unheard of -- she slipped towards him, her muzzle stroking across his jaws. a fire-lick of sensation thrilled him and he turned to her, tilting his muzzle sideways to lick along her ruffled cheek. she did not strike back, nor scorch him with her draconian tongue. emboldened he placed a paw gently along her shoulder, a primal gesture that caused great stirrings in his stomach. but he was afraid -- he was timid -- he tipped an ear forward and looked upon her with the bashful question writ silently across his countenance. all of her prior dissent was forgotten -- for now, he wished only for her consent.

*seinfeld riff*

Biological imperative was undiscriminating, rarely a thing that stood to be ignored, and not even the black gutterpup could long abstain from its dissipated draw. Her body responded to his touch with an instinctive flex of her waist, an untaught impulse against the breadth of his roving muzzle. She froze upon his intrepid approach, but came at him with no intention of hurling him to the ends of the Earth, nor with the corrective fret of teeth, but tolerance; a simple, rare mercifulness. She draped her paw across his nose, mouthed at his snout and rumbled friskily, rolling onto her back and batting his chest before leaping to her feet and romping away.

Perhaps the Sirens had more influence over her than she thought, as she led her jolly sailor boy away into the pall of shadows with her features a stretch of finger's wooing. 

and there it was -- tender permission, thrilling his every sense and sending his skin crawling. she rolled on the floor and then just as quickly rose, her slender hips captivating as she strolled into the duskfilled woods. tachyon felt his heart hammer his throat and, in turn, hammer his reaction -- he sprung forward after her. he was entirely consumed by his wish to be near her, with her, around her, forever. the two then strode through the shadows, delving into the dark in the manner that the two would eventually, surely, delve into each other.