Arrow Lake all you tell me is that im not worthy of your love

max never felt physical pain like this before. her legs were weak from running. she’d lost track of time. how long had it been? weeks? months? years? she couldn’t tell. it didn’t matter. all she could care about was the distance between herself and her so called ‘family’.

the smell of water made her realize just how parched she was. the yearling mindlessly followed the sound. her trot turned into a full on sprint as she came closer. she immediately jumped into the pool, laughing and splashing around like a puppy. who knew water could be this great?

*has no idea where this fits within the timeline but who cares* ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

for some reason, saarthal was craving fish. she had no idea why, but she had learnt long ago not to question why such cravings occured, but rather to sate them as soon as possible. which was why, an hour or two later, the roman found herself nearing the edge of a river, or lake, or some form of water. any form of water was good right now, unless it was a puddle — for some reason, saarthal doubted that fishes lived in puddles...they were too small and dried up too quickly and then the fish would die and oh, my god. if fish live in puddles, and the puddles dried up, then would i get dried fish?? what does dried fish even taste like? i feel like —

the sound of laughter broke her thoughts and saarthal's paws slowed to a stop. quietly, she peered around the tree to assess the 'danger'. her nose told her it was a female, and young, and a loner. all nice so far. well, it didn't appear dangerous, and the girl seemed harmless — she was playing and jumping around in the water like a baby pup after all...cute, she's cute. 

"hey, how's the water?" saarthal called out, a lopsided smile adorning her face as she trotted over to greet the other girl. her cravings for fish could be ignored for now, she supposed.

she stopped to squint at a gray figure. it was hard to tell who it was at first, but was easier to distinguish once she came closer. a girl; a pretty one for that matter. max straightened herself to look as if she hadn’t been splashing around, but rather acting like an adult. but it was too late, she’d already been caught so why act like nothing happened? 

max smiled and swayed her tail back and forth. “feels good,” she giggled, “wanna join?” she gave the stranger a mischievous, playful glance before splashing a bit more.

"really?" saarthal beamed and peered into water, then canted her head and took several steps back. "i'm gonna dive in," she informed the cutie, making sure she wasn't too close to the other girl — saarthal didn't want to accidentally kick the cutie in the face whilst hurling herself into the water. unfortunately, she'd forgotten to take in account her own clumsiness whilst readying herself to jump and instead of gracefully sliding into the water like she'd wanted to, saarthal tripped over a rock jutting out from the ground — "oh, shit-" — and faceplanted into the lake instead, sending splashes of water everywhere.

oh, my god i'm drowning get me the fuck out fuck i'm never doing this again — saarthal gasped for air as she broke through the surface and shook herself, looking very much like a drowned rat. "i'm so sorry, i was going to gracefully, y'know, i just - are you okay? i didn't accidentally kick you or -?" she broke off, coughing and sneezing. well, this wasn't going to way she'd wanted it to.

max swam back to brace herself as the girl got ready to dive in. she came running at full speed and tripped at the last second and she made a not-so-graceful plunge into the water. the small waves that came crashing down soaked her.

she laughed and came closer to her side. her concern made her smile, it was cute. “i’m ok,” she chuckled, “but are you ok?”

saarthal relaxed, a wave of relief rushing over her when the girl reassured her that she was okay. "um, i think i'm fine?" she tested each limb, nose scrunching up in concentration, "i don't think i've broken anything..." she trailed off, eyes lifting to fall on the pretty girl's face...and no i'm not fine. saarthal let out a semi-embarrassed, semi-amused laugh and ducked back into the water, submerging herself until only her head was visible above the surface. in a way, it kinda looked like a headless wolf was bobbing by the water. "but, i always fall in front of cute girls," she wrinkled her face, pouting lightly.

it was good to know she hadn’t broken her skull or anything. cause that would be... super bad. and she’d feel kinda responsible for it.

max met the girl’s gaze for a split second before she submerged back into the water. oh god, she was super attractive. she was on the verge of melting and the flirtatious comment wasn’t helping. her face warmed up and she sheepishly averted her gaze for a moment. “that is so cheesy,” she stated with a light chuckle, “i love it.”

she swam a bit closer to the girl and asked, “what’s your name?”

saarthal would like to say that she played it cool, flashed the stranger one of her famously attractive smirks and a wink but no. instead, the yearling just grinned, her mouth quirking upwards into a lopsided smile at the other girl's comment. nice to know that her cringey, cheesy flirting techniques actually worked. also, was she blushing? no? hmm. she was cute, anyhow.

"saarthal," the frostfur-diangeli licked her lips, tilting her head slightly to the side as she regarded the stranger with bright copper eyes. "what about you? i feel like you'd have those, you know, sexy, badass names, like, um, ryder."

she repeated the name over and over in her mind and murmured “saarthal.” slowly to test it out. “it’s pretty. gotta nice ring to it.”

“psh, i wish,” she laughed. “but i’m stuck with maxine. my dad thought it sounded regal and junk.” she dramatically flung her nose in the air for some comedic emphasis. “but you can call me max, cause y’know, sounds better i guess.”

she liked the way max said her name. really liked it. "you can call me saarth, if you want, or saar," she scrunched her face up into a grimace, "you know what? nevermind. it kinda weird — it sounds weird, doesn't it?" saarthal had never really had nicknames before, everyone just called her saarthal and that was that. but, well, this wasn't noctem vagus, this was new...this was a new start. yeah, no, it still sounded weird.

"max, huh?" saarthal grinned, laughing brightly when the girl flung her nose in the air, "i like it. it sounds badass. like you. maxine..." she trailed off, regarding her companion with an absentminded thoughtfulness, "it suits you too, you know, it's pretty, you're pretty — but like, not in the traditional sense, more like the kickass warrior queen kind of sense, you know what i mean?" you're babbling again, frostfur d-a. stop babbling. stooop. ok, stopping. a warm flush coloured her cheeks lightly but she shook it off. "i think i'd like to call you both."

“i like saarth. sounds dangerous.” oh wait no, that wasn’t worded right at all. she laughed and quickly added, “like a ‘don’t fuck with me’, badass kinda dangerous.”

“well i never thought of my name like that.” she never saw it as anything great or flashy, just a boring ol’ name. but saarthal made it sound like the coolest thing ever and she liked that. her compliments made her blush even more than before.

“so, you headed anywhere special?” cause she sure wasn’t and she was enjoying the company. maybe saarthal could use a road trip buddy.

"most people say it's 'exotic' and 'like royalty'," saarthal said with a soft laugh, "badass is good. we can be badass together!" the roman beamed, copper eyes glittering with some sort of childish delight that most wolves would've had lost when they went past the age of 6 months, but one that saarthal had retained. 

max was cute. max was cute when she blushed like that. god, flirting was exhilarting. "no, i'm n — saarthal cut herself out, eyes flickering to look at the sky for a brief moment as if recalling a memory, "i am, actually. it's not really special? i guess? but i met up with a couple of girls over the mountains, but broke off to explore for a bit. i should head back soon though...do you wanna come with? it'll be fun. they're really nice." saarthal swam closer then, adopting puppy dog eyes, lower lip sticking slightly out in a pout. "and i wanna spend more time with this cutie i just met."

a group? well that was interesting. max was an independent creature but at the end of the day she never wanted to be alone. and traveling with friends was much more beneficial than traveling on your own out here so she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. “yeah, i’ll tag along.”

max swam out the water and on the shore. she shook off the water that clung to her fur and looked back, wagging her tail. “lead the way.”

saarthal openly gaped at max before collecting herself, a faint blush painting the cream of her cheeks a light pink. she hadn't really expected max to agree, or at least, not straight away; not without some chiding and coaxing and begging. it was much easier than she'd expected and a pang of suspicion wove its way into her mind. she entertained it, then tucked it away in one of the numerous 'memory lockers' in her mind. saarthal liked max, after all, and she seemed relatively harmless...surely it wouldn't hurt for her to tag along. and if she stepped out of line, saarthal was a trained legionnaire, the daughter of the emperor's son and heir to the throne — she could hold her own. 

saarthal splashed after max and clambered out of the water, tongue hanging out of her mouth as she panted, happy and eager. after a few shakes of her pelt, the girl sniffed briefly at the air, scanned her surroundings and after a moment, managed to pinpoint the general direction of her companions. "let's go," saarthal chirped, flashing max a crooked smile before scurrying off.