Silver Creek i was wide awake - but when was that?

The water was his lead, carrying the willowy two-toned figure from beyond the wilds back into them. He almost knew when he had crossed the threshold. It was as though – suddenly – things had become familiar again. Even while he hadn’t really seen that terrain in some many months, Deku knew the mountains ahead of him as he had often fantasized of what creatures would lurk in the dark crevices near the top. The starlight color of his eyes traced them for a moment as his dark lips curled fondly into a smile. The memory of his childhood was sweet to him, even though things had not been easy.
 
Passing through the creek and to the other side, the starchaser found newfound life in his steps. He had recalled passing through that stream when he had left the wilds. The entrance to his home felt satisfying to him. It left him with the promise of familiarity. Deku wondered faintly if Orochi was there, and safe. He wondered if Weejay still visited the woods in search of flowers and plants. The memory of their shared moment was a fond one. He knew that he would like to see her again, if given the chance.
 
His mother too…
 
The lean figure paused for a moment to survey his path and what was ahead. He drew his muzzle into the air and breathed in the scent that the wind carried to him. Summer had arrived in those territories; it could be felt in the earth and the air. Deku was pleased that he could return at such a good time. He wondered if it was at all possible to consider a home in familiar land. The thought left him feeling torn, so he shook it off and quickened his pace.

There were very few times that Weejay roamed far; today, she had informed @Eljay she was looking in the neighboring territory for more of that moon-moss. She had noticed her stores had withered, and after a fulfilling breakfast, was off.

Into high noon, Weejay was occupied by her own thoughts. She had hoped to spend this time alone thinking when she thought she sensed a scent that, for whatever reason, reminded her of @Elfie. Could it be..? It had been so long since she had seen her brother, that his scent and even his face were fading from her memory. All the same, she was sure this was Elfie's scent, and she followed it for miles and miles as it meandered across terrain she had never seen before.

Eventually, she lost the scent and set up camp near a quiet glade. She was feeling a strange brand of dejected -- it seemed like no matter what she did, Elfie was never to be found. It was rare that Weejay cried, but today, faced with the mortality of life and the futility of it all, Weejay wept silently by the stream as she held her sore paws under the cold water.

Through her quiet sniffles, she thought she heard footsteps. Her ears straightened and a line of spooked hairs rose along her neck, but she did not rise from holding her paws underwater. It was probably her imagination getting the better of her, or maybe she was just exhausted and envisioning things that simply were not there... just like Elfie's scent..

It was as though the mere thought of her had created a ripple in reality, for as soon as the image of her bright orange eyes had flickered through his head… there she was.
 
“Oh…”
 
His voice was hushed, reverent – it was almost like crossing paths with an apparition. The very idea that he would be standing before her was so absurd to him that he was forced into a dead stop. The girl before him was no longer the young thing that his memories painted her to be. She had grown into an adult. She had filled out the length of her limbs well. Even with sadness painting her features, Weejay was like a droplet of sunshine. The young starchaser could not help but to breathe a sigh of relief that carried the weight from his frame.
 
“Weejay is that you?” he asked softly, leaning toward the girl with a curious gleam in the warm starlight colors of his eyes. There was no mistaking it. Many months had passed since he had last seen the girl who collected flowers, but he would not have forgotten her so soon. That day had left an imprint on Deku that had helped shape who he was. Such things could not easily be let go.

Startled by a voice over the water, Weejay's gaze lifted, tears brimming the dark eyeliner of her gaze.

Deku?

Her forehead wrinkled, her eyes lit with confusion. The luminescence of the water rippled in darting light across his pelt, across his soft and kind eyes -- across his features, no longer puppyish, but grown -- just like her.

"DEKU!!!"

Weejay leaped into motion with an overjoyed cry, fully ready to bear-hug the starchaser boy that had grown into a gentle, soft-spoken man.

The girl bounded toward him. His name filled his ears. A laugh slipped through the boy’s muzzle, filling the air. His tail whirled behind him, forcing his hips into a sloppy sway that left much to be desired of his tall and gangly frame.
 
Deku welcomed the embrace of the girl. He seemed to dance toward her, a few small steps, and then froze. The boy could not help but to beam at her, toothy and accompanied by a lolling tongue. His back seemed to spin, though sheerly out of the delight that had swept through his figure. It did not feel as though the moment could be real, but there she was. It felt as though returning to his home had been validated.
 
The starchaser spun backwards before stopping and drawing his muzzle upward. He peered at her with feigned suspicion. There was a playful air to the black and white figure as he took a step toward the girl and sniffed. “You’ve gone and grown up, Weejay,” Deku remarked to her, a smile curling the edges of his dark lips.

Could this moment be real? Weejay dove into it headlong, abandoning her normal reserved decorum as they danced in place, embraced -- two friends long at last reunited.

Could it be real? She parted reluctantly, realizing they had touched and she had not at all felt self-conscious or worried, but now that she felt the parting of Deku's warmth, she wanted to seek that feeling again. Sizing him up, she was astounded by how much he had grown too; they were a far cry from the pudgy babes they had been in the woods so long ago.

"You've grown too." She remarked, grinning widely. "Old age suits you." Her joke was accompanied by the crack of a wild smile that was shadowed by long-standing concern. "Where did you go..?"

’Old age suits you.’
 
Warmth rushed to the boy’s cheeks and he turned his head as though she might be able to see such a flush beneath the white fur. The starchaser was not used to such remarks. His time alone had been challenging, and he had been left with many nights that he wished he had never removed himself from the wilds of his birth. As though she could read his mind, the girl asked him where he had gone. Deku’s gaze lifted until it latched onto her concerned expression. He felt his heart beat guiltily. If he could not stand to see such a look on Weejay’s face, he could not imagine the reaction that his mother’s might inspire within him.
 
“I went to a forest where I stayed for a long time… or it felt like a long time,” he answered her in a soft voice. “But every night the fireflies would come out and fly into the sky and become stars. It was amazing.” There had been many things about the wood that had appealed to the young wolf. He had thought several times about returning to the wilds to collect Orochi and his mother so that they could live there with him. Of course, it hadn’t ended up that way.
 
Deku looked to the orange-eyed girl with a wave of his tail. “They had these flowers that I had tried to bring back to you, but every time I plucked one… it would wilt and turn black before I could get close. I guess they needed to stay in the forest,” he recounted to her with a furrowed brow. The boy had thought about Weejay quite often. Every time the girl would cross his mind, it would fill him with a wave of nostalgic sadness. Deku didn’t want to share that part of the story with her.

Weejay giggled as rose crept to Deku's cheeks -- it had been so long, and yet, she did not feel any distance had come between them. If anything, their isolation from one another had only softened and warmed her memories of him -- and she was pleased to say, the real Deku dd not disappoint.

Her eyes lit up, much like the fireflies of his clandestine glade, as he mentioned flowers. How sad they had to die, but how sweet of him to remember her! "Oh no! I am sure they were beautiful." Weejay chimed in softly, a warm smile etching her features. "Can you tell me what they were like? Like the story with Mino and Ori?" Already the girl closed her eyes, ready to plunge into the daring world that Deku painted for her.

Beautiful indeed, the flowers that he had seen had looked like brilliant blue bells. He’d found himself transfixed by them when he’d first discovered them growing near his temporary den. The woodland was filled with an array of life he hadn’t experienced in the wilds of his birth. Deku had only imagined that Weejay would have found the flowers to be inspiring, surely. He’d felt guilty after they had died, and he had been the one to try to remove them from their home.
 
“Hmm,” the young wolf mulled softly.
 
“Well I had decided to make my den in the darkest part of the forest, you see,” Deku began with a soft smile that danced along the edges of his features. “That part of the wood was where the trees grew thickest and the sun was blocked out. I had gone searching to find food and to see if there were any threats nearby,” the boy continued, recounting the experience with vivid imagery in his mind. The memories felt so crisp to him. He only wished he could reach out and touch it – show her what he meant.
 
“I’d gotten lost after wandering too far, but something caught my eye. There were these blue flowers that were clumped together in a cluster. They made a shape I’ve never seen before. Their color was like the sky on a warm summer day with no clouds. It turned out that these blue flowers grew all around the area where I’d made my den,” Deku laughed softly. “I never lost my place in the forest again.”
 
In a way, the flowers having secured his home in the unfamiliar wood was a comfort feeling. This may have been the reason for wanting to carry the flowers home to her.

Deku had always had a way of painting to life the brilliant imagery in his mind. Weejay listened, feeling herself sinking into his word-realm; she saw the dark pines, the shadowy copse -- and even imagined the cool moss between her feet as she walked as a ghost besides the Then-Deku.

When he described the bluebells Weejay saw filaments of blue bending into shape, edges glittering with iridescent dew. She imagined them in little clusters, materializing from the shadows to add a little brightness to his covered glade. When she opened her eyes the vision slowly disappeared, replaced with the reality. "Those sound gorgeous." She liked to think they appeared there because Deku needed them -- maybe it was Mino showing up earthside rather than star-bound, leading him home. "I'd like to see them someday.

"Maybe we can find some here," Deku offered softly. 

Though, he had a feeling that if he were to find the bluebell flowers in the Teekon wilderness, he would likely never leave again. It felt foolish for him to have gone in the first place. The two-toned boy had missed out on so much. Knowing that Weejay accepted him back with the same joyous gleam in her fiery gaze was difficult for him to fully comprehend. He had never felt the sense of relief that washed through him that way. 

"Where is your home right now, Weejay? Could you show it to me? I have none... you know," the young wolf then inquired of her with a cheerful wag of his tail.

OF COURSE WEEJAY WOULD WANT TO FIND THEM!! RIGHT NOW!!

But she stilled her tapping toes. She even managed to stop her tail from its idiotic waving. "That sounds good," Weejay responded, her tone ineffectively lidded the way a pot of boiling water might only barely keep the bubbling, scathing heat at bay. Oh, she wanted more than anything to find that magical copse with its beautiful, rarefied flowers..

But that might mean she was gone from Eljay, and she couldn't do that. "I live in the copse over there --" Weejay threw her paw in a vague gesture behind her. "It's a nice place, mostly quiet - lots of trees. I have a stream I like to visit, and a garden. Would you want to see it?"

Do we wanna wrap this and do a thread to see her garden??? <333

Weejay’s thrill at the prospect of the flowers did not go unnoticed by the young Deku. He could not help the smile that curled his features – soft and warm. Though he had never really taken an interest in the floral world before, the sunflower eyes of the girl across from him would have been enough to convince him. He could not help but to find himself mesmerized by her knowledge and her energy. Though he was still young, Deku believed that these feelings were appropriate for their level of friendship. It must have been a natural occurrence.
 
“Would you? I would love to see your garden,” the young wolf spoke breathlessly, almost as though the offer would disappear if he did not treat it with the level of respect that it deserved. To think that he had been invited to see her home was a tender thing. He would not think of it lightly.

yes!! <3

For exactly two seconds Weejay considered that Eljay might not like it -- but then she was on her way, looking back excitedly once or twice to make sure Deku was following.

Overjoyed by her friend's reappearance, Weejay couldn't help but feel a little spunk returning to her. Yes! You can meet my daddy and see my garden and -- She grinned and bolted RACE YOU TO THAT TREE!!

The pair bolted, Weejay laughing -- a wide smile on her face that persisted well into that evening.