Whitefish River I had long forgotten I belonged to you

she eases herself besides @Dragomir, unsure whether he's drifted to consciousness or remains asleep. she doesn't try and rouse him, for perhaps it's better he be not entirely aware of her attempt. Isi clears her throat softly, licking her lips once before beginning. "so once, there was a wolf. his name was—" her gaze wanders to the ground. "dirt. and Dirt was really stupid and everyone in his pack hated him. "you're an idiot," they'd say. and stuff. and one time there was this hunt - no, first there was a time were Dirt was supposed to watch the caches but he didn't and coyotes got in and ate all the prey so the pack was hungry." 

she paused, shifting uncomfortably. she sounded incredibly stupid, she mused, probably as stupid as Dirt. still, she bit her tongue only a moment before continuing. "and so when the pack hunted next they told him to stay behind because they hated his guts. and so he did but because he was stupid, he wandered into the hunt. and he walked in front of the doe the pack was hunting and it tripped over him so the hunt was saved and the pack tolerated him again and he got to eat. the end." Isi exhales through clenched jaws, not quite looking at Dragomir and not quite believing she'd spewed so much nonsense. she hooked her lopsided fang over her bottom lip, chewing carefully as she waited for some sort of reaction, or perhaps the utter lack of one. maybe Aure was wrong.

Dragomir was drifting on the edges of consciousness when Isilmë settled down beside him and began to tell a tale. Her voice roused him from the film of sleep into wakefulness, but he kept his eyes closed. A pleasant shiver darted down between his shoulders at the soft rise and fall of his sister's voice. It occurred to him that she was the only one in his life who hadn't let him down in some way. Perhaps that was why her voice alone was able to coax true relaxation into his bones. For the first time since waking, he felt safe.

To him, Isilmë's story was wonderful. He thought it was better than anything he could come up with. Maybe it wasn't completely cohesive, but that's what made it good. Dragomir could tell she was thinking about it as she went along, practicing beside him something she might not have done elsewhere. His lips quirked upward as he imagined a wolf saving the day by simply being tripped over. He remembered Kazimir getting hurt during the moose hunt in Diaspora and wondered if the moose had tripped over her instead, she would have been a hero.

The end, Isilmë announced, and only then did the boy crack his eyes open. You're really good at telling stories, he mumbled, making an effort to tap his tail once on the ground. D'you have any more?

his eyes crack open, and at his words, an uneasy smile paints itself across her muzzle. "really?" slips out of her mouth before she can stop it, and her smile becomes more concrete. "yeah, I could - give me a sec." she ruminates, put on the spot and grasping at nothing. she's silent a few moments before some part of her brain has pity on her and supplies her with an idea. 

"ok, um," this time, she attempts to organize her ideas a moment longer. "one day, there was this wolf, and his name was rock, and he was dirt's best friend." she goes on to spin a meandering, somewhat confusing tale of rock and dirt and how they incurred the wrath of the entire pack. one of the characters seems to vanish halfway through, and she calls rock by the wrong name a few times, but by the end of it, she glances to her brother hopefully, waiting for feedback.

Of course she had more ideas. Dragomir had never doubted her. Aurëwen saw Isilmë as her little free bird, forever untamed, and Vercingetorix saw her as his wild warrior child, but Dragomir saw her differently. She was a beacon of light in a darkness that sometimes threatened to swallow them both. To him, she was unflappably upbeat and always present. She had her outbursts at their parents just as he did, but it never shook his high opinion of her. He hadn't doubted for a second that she would come up with more stories.

Okay, so it was a little confusing to follow. He could have swore the character's name was supposed to be Rock, but once or twice she called him Tree or Branch or something. It took him a little while to figure out who she was talking about. And okay, somewhere in there Dirt disappeared completely. But when she finished her story, his eyes glowed with appreciation and his lips pulled into a warm smile, one of few he had issued since his abduction, and he quietly said, you could be really good at this, Isi, you really could.

Perhaps that was simply a testament to how bad Dragomir would be if he tried to tell stories, for what he said was meant sincerely, and not just as a kindness to his sister. Neither of them would amount to Aurë's ability to spin whimsical and fantastical stories ... but she had more of a chance at it than he did. He craved more stories and ways to escape his current situation, but instead the boy lifted his head and asked, what's it like out there? with a pointed look to the edge of the glade. He hadn't seen anything of Kaistleoki yet, but he hoped she could fill him in.