Broken Boulder leaving traces of us down the boulevard

If there was a certain state the Olive preferred to live within, it was this — light and blissful and possibly a little ignorant and all-too-willing to lean into the good parts of life. It was always this way in the beginning of things, was it not? Beginnings were always beautiful in ways that endings rarely were, so she was quick to embrace it, and cherish these feelings while they lasted. Nothing was ever permanent, she had come to learn with the death of Oaxaca, and it was a reality that could either help her remain firmly planted in the present, or could threaten to rip her from it.

Were her babies not at the best age of their nascence, when they were beginning to piece together thoughts and make sense of the physical world within which they existed? She so loved to listen to them speak with the other children, whom the entire family group considered to be their bothers and sisters, and steep her soul in their lovely innocence. Was her partner, her sister, not the most gentle and devoted of individuals — and was she not the most fortunate wolf to have found such a kindred spirit? It was as if things were working out perfectly now, but as she was quick to remind herself, the future was always bright when it existed solely in her own mind.

The present, though — it was not so bad.

There was something about Seabreeze’s touch that simultaneously put her at ease and lit her nerve ending on fire. It was so clear that their bond transcended simple friendship, for the feelings that stirred within her were reminiscent of her feelings for the late Dakarai, or the anonymous man who had fathered her litter. When she was near Seabreeze, she felt safe and at the same time, piquant and playful in a way that it had not been with the others. With men, their romances had been fast and fiery. When love bloomed from a friendship, it proved to be gentle and sweet and strong in the face of hurdles; strong in a way that her relationship with Dakarai had never been.

Grinning into the fur that lined the sprite’s shoulder, she cooed “I missed you —” pulled her beaming visage from the fluff to clarify “I missed your scent…” and then re-buried her head to take a big inhale — a drag on something that was very much a drug to the ashen sylph — and noted affectionately “I think you smell sweeter away from the mountain.”