Stavanger Bay run doe run

I fell asleep midway through writing this! @.@

For all of his bossiness when it came to Doe and self care, Szymon possessed precious little of the same regard for himself. Helpless at the shackle of her small paw around his ankle, he remained where she’d caught him, the fond and bemused expression turning into a grimace as she scraped her teeth against his paw — a ticklish sensation that he was wholly unaccustomed to. She bade him to rest, and he hesitated — but when she fixed her bright eyes upon him he glanced over his shoulder in consternation, shook himself decisively, and somewhat awkwardly stretched out beside her. He could not hear the internal battle that raged in Doe’s mind, and perhaps that was for the best — he would have agreed with both sides, and they would have found themselves in quite the pickle indeed.

Szymon, perhaps unlike his grey and cream-patterned muse, always preferred solitude — especially when it came to things like sleeping and eating. Letting one’s guard down was folly, after all. Once his crueler siblings discovered his affection for the Witch Doctor — a shudder darted down his spine, causing the tip of his ever-flickering tail to twitch wildly like a wasp imprisoned in a window screen. No. They would not harm our Witch Doctor. Skellige has deemed her presence a needful thing. Satisfying himself with this knowledge, Szymon stretched his neck forward and scraped his teeth against her paw in turn. Doe would come to no harm, and he could withstand the worst of his siblings’ bad tempers. All would be well.

“T-T-T-T — ” he gritted out, grumbling his discontent at his inability to express himself as fluidly as she did. Often, when he was gripped by a particularly bad stammer, he had to stand as all of his muscles locked rigidly — starting at his throat and spreading outward until the effort of breathing was like trying to draw water from a stone. Bending his head to the little odd-eared wolf, he slicked his elongated ears back and pressed one scarred cheek to her paw. The touch exhilarated and relaxed him all at once, and he did his best to present the words to her calmly and easily — but despite his newfound strength, Szymon was still Szymon, Jonah of the Warsaw Cairns, and he barely eked out, “T-T-Tell — ab-ab-aba-aba-out — rrrrrocks.” The last word was ground out between his teeth and left him panting raggedly, rubbing his cheek against her paw as though he’d crossed hell and high water to complete that sentence — and perhaps, in some sense, he had.