Blacktail Deer Plateau ocean

saarthal should really work on her awareness. it'd been near perfect those days back at home, and even when she was wandering as a loner, even with mallaidh and the others - it never dropped to, well, this level. clearly, whenever someone cute captured her attention, saarthal automatically gained some sort of tunnel vision and promptly lost all her senses to the current object of her affection. anything else was just filtered as excess rubbish. which would normally be fine, say, if she was in her secret spot which unfortunately, she wasn't, and if she'd known mallaidh was anywhere close...let's say there were a lot of things she wouldn't have done. 

but of course, saarth wasn't aware of her friend's lurking presence, and so at the stranger's words, she let loose a whine of disappointment edged with a teasing sort of playfulness which underlined the impish quirk of her mouth. "tempted, huh? i'm honoured..." saarthal took a step closer, teeth working into her bottom lip as she moved with a faux veil of confidence, sure it was going to dissolve any second. "can i tempt you enough to sway you?" and no. i'm not being desperate. okay. i'm not. she's fucking - have you seen her? she's like-my fanta-no, seriously.

her confidence promptly dissolved. "and you know, um, friends with benefits - it's technically an attachment. it's attached sex-" nO i'm not desperate fuck off 

what about mallaidh? oh. um. she's got stuff to figure out, right? i've got stuff to figure out, too. this is my way of figuring stuff out. besides, we're not - she's not ready. and this is just sex - it isn't even sex, she doesn't do unattached. i'm literally just talking. i'm flirting. i flirt all the fucking time and mallaidh knows and she isn't even here - she doesn't have to know. she doesn't even lik- you don't know she doesn't. oh, fuck. off. 

"-and, wait, wow, you've done it with a girl before---? oh, shit. - i mean, sorry, um, i didn't mean to, i-i'm saarthal, by the way." because names mean attachment, right? and because that'll totally correct the mess she'd just made with the words from her mouth and the thoughts in her brain and the complete lack of a fucking filter - gods above, saarth, what the fuck. the blushing wasn't going to save her and the hot flush crawling up her neck was downright uncomfortable. maybe the stranger was nice. maybe the stranger would think it endearing and-