Firefly Ravine this is a gift, it comes with a price

tux : tries 2 avoid her shoulder smoulders at all costs
also tux : cannot avoid them 2 save his life
smdh

Fortunately for Tux, the she-wolf’s attention hadn’t been on him in the slightest—that is, until there was a rough nudge at her shoulder, shaking her out of her tender reverie of the cliffside. Lashes fluttering, she did a hazy double-take at the rauna, making sure her mind took in what he said. He said they’d be there soon, but from the look of it, it would still be a while before they crested the shadow of that great spire.

To protect Heda’s child, I must be aware, she thought, a bit bittersweet. Even now, dragâ still divides me. Aure only wanted just one more heartstopping glimpse; and then she would expel him from her thoughts—as best as she could:

’Tux isn’t small...but he’s young. He doesn’t know half the shit the world’s capable of. You gotta take care of each other.’

His voice had been low, edged with what she thought had been worry. But she hadn’t been sure, then, just as she was uncertain now. The she-wolf’s gaze drifted from the range and back into the ashen, shadowy ravine they currently traipsed. Then, Tux asked her how she felt; and not the slightest inkling came to her. However...

”Tux?” Carefully, she looked back up at him, halting in his pawprints while the once-comely features of her face shifted into something somber, earnest. Either she could be straightforward, and tell him that cheka had practically promised her to care of him—but, no, she realized, blinking. She had been the one to swear such fealty of it. For the last time, she was relieved she remained such a singular person to herself, even as open and full of whimsy she was; wondered if Verx had ever noted that about her for himself.  

”I need you to know that you aren’t... a mere obstacle in ze way of my acceptance into Drakru. This is my choice—my want.” Loathing to banish the guardian from her mind, but making do; she was a woman of the Far North, as frigid as frost and just as pale—and her oaths were her own. Not a mere obeisance to the men she adored.

Aure went on, gaze softening only a tad, ”We must watch over another. Although I may be quite... ahm.. little... I want you to know that you will have ze protection of my body, against whatever is out there that comes our way.” For Tux, for anyone, this may have been just some trip, done over and time again and now taken lightly. But she came closer, lowering her head in some sort of swear-fealty manner, her brow drawn.

For all the world, for him, she scrunched her brows and her nose up at him in promised determination.