Blackfeather Woods I hope to God you're never leaving

Kahlil prefers a private corner with his back against something solid — a mercenary habit though he does not necessarily pick up on this. He only knows that given the uncertainty of what Neo and him are meant to be to one another — it certainly looks like rivals at present! — he doesn’t necessarily want to sleep near the other boy. The pale boy whose once pristine pelage has begun to darken with dustings of faint soot color in his extremities stirred in his (light) sleep, on the precipice of awake and asleep when he felt a nuzzle and kiss to his head. It was an achingly familiar gesture that in his state of half dreaming nearly brought to his lips the word mama. His tongue, laden and heavy with sleep did not form the words but instead issued a contended sigh despite that he remembers — with sudden bittersweetness! — that his mother is so very far away from him. Sleepily, he peeks a blue eye: still in transition from milky to glacial open and takes in Nyx’s mismatched gaze and almost falls back asleep before he is roused further from slumber at her encouragement to awaken. He preens for a moment beneath Nyx’s affection.

Eventually he is awake, a little hungry perhaps but is corralled from the den with Neo by Nyx who took the lead though where she was taking them was presently a mystery to the thespian. As he becomes more alert with each step he takes his muscles tense and he spares continued glimpses at Neo throughout their journey, stopping when he nearly slams into Nyx’s hind leg. He adverts it smoothly by rubbing against her leg like a cat might, a slightly sheepish and slightly impish twitch of his lips given, ears fluttering back against the strong curve of his skull as she lifts her voice in summons. Anticipation breathes to life within him and his muscles tense with each passing moment making him into a Kahl sized statue as he scans the woods for whom Nyx has called to them, keenly observant.