Dragoncrest Cliffs if you can't feel me?

“uh… allow.”

she said it again. twitch’s eyes narrowed, as if maybe that wasn’t the word she meant but maybe if she said it more confidently it would become right. it didn’t. it hung there like a dead bird between them, limp and awkward. the silence that followed was long enough for her heart to start thudding again, real slow and heavy.

oh! “oh god, no, sorry—aloe,” she amended too quickly, voice flat with urgency, correcting herself like a kid caught cheating on a test. “i meant aloe. for soothing. not permission. sorry.”

already, she wanted to jump into the ocean and drown. what the fuck even was aloe, to most wolves? green goop from the ground, probably. and yet here she was, playing ambassador from the valley who couldn’t even articulate her trade goods without sounding like a lunatic.

a pause, her eyes flicking to the space just beside sobeille’s face, never quite meeting her eyes again. “i can offer meat. herbs. or time, if it’s that kind of trade. She didn't specify on what you would need,” she meant work. meant she’d lift rocks or clean dens or chase gulls off a tidepool for a week if that’s what it took. anything to not go home with empty handed.