Jade Fern Grove We mean it, but I promise we're not mean.

Fade with your next post? Unless you have another idea, I'm down for anything (:

Takiyok met her with initial silence, but patience trained the stormy girl, and she allowed the quiet to settle upon them as her company seemed to consider her blunt and perhaps brazen remark. Nanook couldn't read the other woman's face, but she knew this meeting could go at least three different ways - acceptance, neutrality, or immediate rejection. She wished for the first, banked for the second, and expected the third. Even still, none of those endings really mattered, because whatever happened, Nanook would become a part of this. She had made up her mind on that, and Takiyok's answer would merely guide her how.

The Northerner's decision exceeded her expectations, and the Apaata's eyes reflected this, yet glinted with knowing at her words. "It would seem persistence is a thing I've always known," she said with the slightest crook of a grin, "Perhaps I'm too stubborn to give it up." It had led her astray at many times, and into many griefs, but she had grown since then. Her mind was firm and steady now, capable to part the emotion that had often clouded her judgment as a youth and see with clarity the path she wished to take. With the Northerners here, she saw it as clear as the noon-day sun. "I don't expect the task to be easy; the right path is never easy. But I will take it." For she was convinced that theirs was a path that was worthy to strive for.