The Sentinels Sometimes the answer lies in a memory.

Daybreak, and Dacio felt the ache in his bones as dawn roused him from slumber. Pastel eyes cracked open lazily and, with a groan, he pulled himself up into a seated posture. Forgetting the recently reopened wound of his elbow, he gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath to accompany the sharpness of pain that served as a sore reminder.

Tongue swept over the raw flesh without thought, instinctively eager to soothe the discomfort. The pain relief had worn off through the night and vigorous activity made him feel as though he'd aged a decade overnight. With a grumble, the young warrior's attention turned to his most recent companion who rested close by. Dacio looked at her quietly while she rested, a charcoal lobe turned backward as he considered the intimacy of their encounter. He didn't know how @Raleska would feel about his proximity, despite her earlier reception of him. She-wolves were complex creatures, Dacio knew, and so did not move to make attempt at further invading her space unless she sought his attention again.

Dacio stirred besides her, wincing as he set to nursing a wound on his forelimb. Raleska was asleep in that moment, but her months of fitful rest made her a light sleeper: she was stirred into wakefulness by the light shift of body away from her.

She awoke sharply, raising her head abruptly as her mind caught up from its dream-world into the now. It took her several seconds of mental organization to recall all that had happened yesterday -- shit.

Raleska's ears flipped back and she propped up to her elbows, leaning away from Dacio as if he was about to strike her. Her heart was hammering, but her nerves gradually settled as it all came back to her. After a few steadying breaths, the Eyjolfur spoke. "You're still here." It wasn't meant as a criticism, more of a rhetorical statement of surprise -- pleasant surprise, too.

Her surprise was acknowledged with a mere cant of a dark ear, for he'd found himself expecting such a reaction. In the short time Dacio had spent alone with Raleska, he had learned a lot about her. Primarily, he'd come to realise that she and her mother really were nothing alike.

He would've never had to tiptoe around Caiaphas like she were a baby deer. No, that particular hell hound was as bold as they came, flaunting herself with a sour arrogance and determination to weave her way with ease beneath his skin. Her daughter really was different: fearful, emotional, everything Blackhead couldn't ever be. As he regarded her reaction to his presence with a cool stare, Dacio wondered if the sea witch had dropped her babe from a great height or, more realistically, if she'd stolen her from another she-wolf.

"So are you," he observed, though not unkindly. The space she put between them was noted, though Dacio made no move to close that distance. "I can go if you'd prefer."

DROPPED FROM A GREAT HEIGHT im rolling!! the caiaphas in me CLUTCHED MY PEARLS she would NEVER LOLL

Raleska had realized she had put her foot in her mouth a bit too late. What was she supposed to say now? Don't go? Please don't leave me? Her pride was too steel-backed for such begging, but she knew she would be sorry when it was his time to go. Not because in a matter of short hours she had come across her One True Love, but because Dacio signified the revelator in her life:

That it was okay to let her past go. That it was okay to move on.

She shifted, made uncomfortable by her own prickliness. Dacio had to be feeling it too, so Raleska loosened a sigh between them. "You don't have to if you don't want to." It wasn't please don't leave me but it wasn't fuck off either -- that counted for something, she hoped.

You don't have to if you don't want to.

Okay. Cool. But what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Pastel eyes blinked, and the hot-and-cold nature of he and Raleska's relationship (lol what?) Had already brought forth the beginning thrum of a fresh headache. Dacio chose to ignore it in typical Drageda fashion, figuring it would disappear simply if he didn't think of it - the very attitude that would be his downfall in the weeks to come.

He looked at her for a long moment, mind swirling with wonder as to why she did not turn her teeth on him and shoo him away now that they'd returned from the high they'd shared through the night. Dacio recalled rousing a number of times through the night to find her still tucked snugly to his flank. He had found it odd to hold the daughter of his enemy so close, but not enough to let her go.

He wanted to believe that they'd found one another for a reason. Even more strangely, he wanted to find out what that reason might be. "Then I don't want to," came the Gona's smooth response.

Hope held on the end of her breath, Raleska did not allow her investment to shine in her gaze. She didn't want him to leave, but she was too proud to beg. She waited, then, for his response -- would it... could it...?

He didn't want to go. The tension she had been holding in her chest dispersed. The worry clouding her mind rolled out like mist... but... now what? It was so strange to see him here in the flesh, not trying to kill her. She couldn't help the way her eyes roved over every minutia; the direction of his fur, the darkening of old scars, the lake of peace in those mossy green eyes --  had he always looked so..?

She had always seen him as an enemy, and now that he was before her she was seeing him as a being, an individual full of beauty and poetry, like her. "How is your leg?"

---

It seemed like only a short time before they parted, Raleska more mournful than before. Unused to such a feeling, she stuck close to the forest and occasionally hedged a sigh into the winds as she went.