Blacktail Deer Plateau Social Casualty

Here goes nothing! Forgive me, I am terrible with reunions. EDIT: Or Malachi just got to the border faster!

He was asleep, that was the only explanation. He was asleep, and she was a dream, and her voice was a ghost. But Malachi knew he was only fooling himself. He was awake, and she real, and her voice was very much alive. And it beckoned from the scent line now.

If she knew he was here, she did not seek him. For now he was safe, and he could run from her and hover by the mountain’s base until day faded to night and she left for whatever land she’d found to hold her, since she had certainly found something after leaving the Glacier. The idea tempted him terribly, but the sheer cowardice made bile rise in his throat, and his heart burned against it. No, he would face her, and Malachi let his paws carry him from the Plateau’s trees to the open stretch of territory that led to the highland’s edge.

He approached her with boldness and fear, a strange combination that brewed into an uncanny neutrality and kept his legs on a forward track. His heart pounded in his chest, and a million thoughts turned through his mind. Their voices droned to a buzz. “Hello Scarlett.” His voice, though quiet, held the same chill that most of his words now possessed, hardened by the world he’d inherited as his own. His eyes fell briefly to her rounded sides, but he made no mention of the lives within her now. Pregnant. So she had settled, and a pang of envy pierced the relief of his ever quickening heart.