Hoshor Plains Your future ex-wife

@Phox

Sooo... perhaps at the age of five a spinster should realize that to her the sky is no longer the limit. Both in terms of prospects in life and also that, while still lean, fit and well-maintained, her body prospers in beauty sleep and carefully chosen activities. Certainly not in spontaneous decisions that involve rushing after a snow-shoe rabbit across the plains and ending up stuck chest deep in snow, out of breath and coughing her lungs out. "Now this sucks..." Lele sighed, looking around and turning so to face the path that had led her here. Ploughing through snow all the way back to a place, where it was easier to walk, did not seem enjoyable at all. It was far! On the other side - she eyed the snow-clad fields before her all the way up to the forest line. Just as bad. 

"Oh, well," she sighed again and settled down for a nap. Having no curfew to take in account, she decided to figure out getting back to Moonspear later. 

this thread title, lol. also: her av reminds me of jenny!

Phox meandered away from Epoch, letting @Towhee Sr know he'd only be gone long enough to track some of the nearby herds. He had never lived so close to the gigantic creatures that were bison, and Phox was curious about their movement patterns, their lifecycle, and whether or not there would be any worth keeping an eye on for future hunting prospects.

When he spotted a regular ol' grey wolf downed in the snow, Phox worried that they might not be alive. As he drew near, he saw the steady rising and falling of her lungs (a girl?!) and the scar that rivaled his own across the left side of her face.

You okay, miss? he asked, keeping a safe distance in case she was easily startled. He knew he would be if he were asleep, and he didn't want to risk opening the old wound on his face.

Well, this was taken from Tinder profile introduction pages. A list of catchy - check me out - phrases. A-a-a-and the photo is of Jenny, because, when I first brought Lele in, I needed something sad and melancholic. :)

Rumours (or assumptions in this case) about the extent of fragility of Lele's facial "ornament" were exaggerated. It looked worse than it actually was - a two year old wound that now had left ragged scars and slight disfigurement of one side of her face. Still - had she known that Phox was concerned for the part of her complexion that she herself hated the most - she would have appreciated it. 

"Oooh, I am fine," she lifted her head and yawned and only then took a better look at the source of the voice, who had addressed her. It was an older man - closer to her age, still handsome, though he had only three working limbs and - well, well, well... they had something in common too. Lele grinned at the irony, because the centuries old principle of sharing at least something in order to form some sort of connection, in a very different perspective. 

"Are you?" she asked, uncurling, getting to her feet, attempting to stretch, but then falling chest deep in the snow heap again. Deciding to ignore this inequality of their positions and treat it as something normal instead, she looked up at him and smiled. "It seems to me that somebody was very envious of your feet and face. I admit - you are good-looking - but not exactly so-good-I-want-to-rip-you-to-pieces good," she pointed out. Tactless and frank she might have been, but middle-age came with such freedoms that youth did not possess.  

well, that explains that!

She assured Phox she was fine, though he had his doubts when she yawned and promptly resettled into the snow. Before he could open his mouth to reply, she wrapped an insult and a compliment all into one. Thankfully, he had years of experience with Towhee trading such talk, and Phox didn't bat an eye.

Says the lady clearly stuck in the snow, he replied with a wry smile. He thought about offering to help her, but she didn't seem in distress. Besides, Phox didn't want to presume that she even needed his help. She was a grown woman who probably didn't need no man.

"Well, at least I have better odds at freeing myself than if you were in my place," Lele pointed out to the fact that stuck or not four paws were better than three at setting yourself free. Oh - look! - this rhymed! On the other hand this did change the fact that she was still stuck and he with limbs of three had a far better spot to carry on with the conversation. 

"Besides - ain't there worse places to get stuck?" she asked rhethorically. "Besides the obvious of being crushed under a pile of rocks, buried alive in sand or drowning, people get stuck in their heads, relationships and sometimes lack the flexibility to get their heads out of places they should not have shoved their heads to begin with," she said.

"Name's Lele," she introduced, sitting down. "What's your name, Knight Valiant?"

the new avatar looks so good on her!

He thought about saying something crass about getting stuck, but Phox held his tongue. They had only just met, after all. And boy howdy, she was a talker! Not that it was a bad trait. In fact, Phox found himself laughing and in good spirits as she continued on to introduce herself.

I'm Phox Redhawk, he said, but 'Knight Valiant' does have a nice ring to it, eh? A boyish grin, and Phox felt like he was actually hitting it off with her. Do you want a boost out of there, damsel in distress? he asked, feeling a little less like he was imposing now.

"A family name - a noble blood then," Lele drawled, teasing him for having more class than was required out in the wilderness. She had never had a true surname herself. First - had not considered necessary, because she thought that everyone had just one name. Later and that had lasted for a long time up until very recently - she had felt as a second class citizen. In her eyes family name meant that you belonged somewhere, that you were part of elite. Something better. She had craved that very  much. Until she had learned that the proportion of jerks and bastards with family names was equal to the population of wolves, who had only one name or no names at all. 

"Don't let it get in your head," she warned. "How exactly you are going to help me?" she asked laughing. "It is more likely that you will get stuck in here as well and then we are both screwed," she pointed out. "And I have no family to mourn me - but yours would like to attend your funeral, wouldn't they?"

He puffed up his chest a little at her remark of him being a noble. The Redhawk name did have some sway to it in these parts, though Phox felt it was less intimidating now than it had once been. They'd grown peaceful in their later years, and both he and Towhee had chilled out a considerable amount since their youth. Phox felt it was better this way.

The mention of a funeral stung a little, but there was no way Lele could have known about Leona. And Phox wasn't about to bring that up right now. Instead, he set to brainstorming a few moments before a comical lightbulb flicked on in his head. Let me just—he said, his gaze scanning the immediate area before he saw the tool he needed—aha!

He scampered over to a large stick, plucking it from the snow and sending one end of it toward Lele. Gr' o'! he said, hoping she'd be able to understand his impeded speech. If she could grab the other end, he might be able to hoist her up, tug-o-war style!

Lele did not pick up, what Phox had in mind, and therefore she stared incredulously - first at the stick pointing in her direction than back at the man holding it and staring right at her. No explanation of, what was this about and, what was she supposed to do, came. She focused on the stick, lifted a paw and pushed it away from her. 

"I haven't had much dating experience, but usually to impress ladies - I have heard - you bring gifts. Either something beautiful - flowers - or something practical - food," she commented, looking him in the eyes now. "Is poking people you try to impress with sticks a custom in these areas? I am not from around here, I might not know," she said.

His hopes did not hold up, and he laughed at her interpretation, losing the stick from his mouth. If you grab on to the other end, I'll bet I can drag you out of that snow drift. He wasn't entirely sure of it, but it seemed worth a shot. And if it didn't work, it would at least make a good story to tell their grandkids.

Again, he picked up the stick and offered the other end to Lele. Once she took it, he would heave-ho backward, and hopefully she could wiggle her way out of the drift.

Lele weighed out her options. Knights in shining armours (hmm... what did wolves dream about?) apparently came in different shapes and forms and she realized only now that fairy tales were oddly quiet about, how well the hero of the tale looked like. Even less, what the opinion of the damsel in distress had been, upon seeing him first. Would you turn down somebody, who has offered to save you from eternal solitude in some creepy tower, even if he was far from an ideal? If you were desperate, you took, what you were offered. If you were a middle-aged, not-very-athletic spinster stuck in snow, you should give it a try. 

Except... she did think that despite his good intentions, Mr Valiant here was overestimating his strength and underestimating her actual weight. Just because a piece of lead looks small, does not mean it is not heavy. Lele was a lead-girl - or so she would like to think. "I appreciate your kind offer, but I would not want you to lose another limb by trying to help me," she teased him in a good-natured manner. "Old people are brittle you know..." she told and then muttered under her breath something that sounded like - god-would-I-have-loved-to-see-dear-ol-mom-crumble-to-pieces. Lele had spent many years appeasing Larkspur and never telling her a bad word. Now - however - with her not around some of that pent up resentment found its way out of her heart. 

She measured the distance between herself and, where Phox was located, and then with a sigh of resignation she gave it all and leaped and pounced and thrashed and bulldozed her way out of the snowy trap, until she made her way to, where the man was sitting. Wheezing, gasping for air and coughing. "Do you think," she said between cough spells. "That spring is far off? 'cause I doubt that this body and these lungs will make it back all the way there, while this stuff is there. I may sound like I am dying now..." she coughed again. Damn, chronic bronchitis. "But I sure want to live a bit longer."

Did she just call him old?! Okay, so he was a bit up there in years, but how dare she?! Queue mock offense that she would ever say such a thing. Unlike old brittle Phox, Lele managed to spring right out of the snow as if she hadn't been stuck there at all. Well, what a sly little game, to go pretending she was stuck until somebody showed up to help. Phox tossed the stick aside and shook his fur free of the snow that had popped up with Lele.

Pretty soon, she was coughing and hacking in a very unpleasant way, and Phox wondered if she might keel over and die right there. He stared wide-eyed for a moment, wondering if he should do something, before she spoke again. Gosh, I hope it's not too far off, he replied. Getting around in the snow suuuucks. And besides, spring is when my sister's kids will start getting a lot less boring.

"Yeah, I might have to reconsider my current choice of home," Lele remarked, gazing thoughtfully at Moonspear in the distance and letting out a cough here and there once in a while. "Would it not be nice to go somewhere, where there is no winter? Or not as intense as it is now?" she asked absentmindedly, not really expecting Phox to answer. 

The mention of kids caught her attention, reminding her that yet another spring would arrive and be gone, and she would still have no kids to call her own. 90% of the time she had come to terms with her involuntarily voluntary singleness and childlessness, but every year she let herself be overtaken by the seasonal irrationally romantic thoughts and let herself imagine all the, what ifs and hope is not all lost. At the end she would mourn a bit the life she did not have and go on enjoying the one she did. 

"What about your own boring kids?" she asked. "Or are they born all discussing with you politics, world order and philosphy?" 

Oh yes, he replied. They’re all straight up academics, the lot of them. Thankfully grown up and out of my hair these days, he teased. The truth was that he missed each one that had flown away from the nest. Fennec, Fig, Alyx, Quetzal, Prevost, Vesper, and Peregrine were far away, and not a day went by that he didn’t wonder where they were and how they were doing.

You got any of your own? he asked. She didn’t appear far removed from his own age.

"The joys of having a blissful family life, eh?" Lele asked, referring to all the unromantic stuff that came right after the kids stopped being toothless loaves of easily impressionable furry doughnuts. She could not speak from her own experience, but she throughout her travels she had seen parents at various stages of raising children. From lovey-dovey - can't wait to meet them! To - "1001 things that my kids trouble me with, BUT... I love them nonetheless...". 

"Well, some people are meant to have kids by the God's Great Plan," she said playfully. "The rest have a different Great Plan to fulfill. I always like to think that while other people are having loads of kids every year also to fill in for me, I enjoy the life for them in the meanwhile. And when we meet - we swap stories with each other and each envies, what the other has got," she smiled. "So - does your Missus not mind you flirting shamelessly on the sidelines?" she asked next with a good-natured grin. 

He honestly hadn’t expected the response that she gave. At her age, she was a diamond in the rough. He felt like every woman leapt at the chance to have children, whether or not she had a steady partner along for the ride. It was how he had become a father the first time, and in some ways, a second time. Phox found it refreshing to meet somebody who didn’t leap at that chance every year, and he felt even more intrigued by her.

But it was the last question that sent his smile into some sort of lopsided frown. Ah, not around anymore, either of them, he confessed. He let the details remain for her to pry or not. Phox was not a private wolf, but he wouldn’t offer up details unless she truly wanted to dive into that curse of his life.

Well, it is quite easy to form misconceptions about people you have just met, judging by few phrases. In her younger years Lele had not been that much different from the women Phox had come across in his life. If she was very, very honest with herself, then - yes - she had wanted to have all the bliss and joy and troubles of a family life. A husband had seemed a good way to escape the life she had had. Turned out that good beating makes you reconsider your life choices. She had considered to become a mom on her own - she believed she had a lot to give to a kid and there were plenty of men around ready to mingle for a while and then never look back again. Still - she had not acted upon it. First - she was too shy for a fling. Second - she had no control over, how many kids she would have. Odds of survival were already not good for a lone wolf. They were worse for a lone wolf with little kids on her paws. In a nutshell - reality had struck her every time she had dare to dream. 

"And you did not make any of those silly blood-pacts that ties you to the wife in this life and the one that comes after this one?" she asked. "Have heard yarns on deceased spouses haunting their other halves and so on. Nasty stuff," she added to lighten up the conversation and to point out that she was not seriously interested in the very long and complex history of Phox's love life, since she was not going to share anything about her own.

Phox honestly hadn't thought about what either of his kids' mothers would think of him in the afterlife. It was always hard to tell what Camilla was thinking at all, and Phox was pretty sure that Niamh would still be pissed at him for... well, he couldn't even really remember the details. Something about Towhee getting in the way. He didn't want to think about that right now, though.

I'll make sure the next wife gets the afterlife blood pact, he teased. Phox peered toward the sky, noting that he would have to hurry up if he wanted to find that herd before he returned to Epoch.

Say, you want to help me track this herd? I gotta head back after that, but you seem cool, and I could use some conversation outside of my—lovely, I promise—family. Whether or not she joined him, Phox would definitely keep an eye out for her.

can you fade & archive with your next post? i'm heading out on vacation for a couple of weeks, and i'd like to return to a clean slate!

"And here I thought that naivety was a thing only among young people," Lele responded, smiling both to him and herself. Nah, even if there was a small corner in her heart, where hope for romantic love still resided, life had disappointed her on far too many occasions for her to believe that any person was worth a "blood-pact". Or a promise "Forever and always" or "Until death do us apart". But she found it nice still that this fellow was more of an optimist in this aspect. 

"The offer is absolutely lovely, but my portly figure and creaky joints disagree with an activity of that grandeur," she told. "Here I say to you a - see you later, perhaps," she got to her feet and stretched. "Good luck and don't die in the meanwhile," she grinned and after receiving his farewells took off back to the Moonspear.