Sunspire Mountains all the butterflies have turned to vultures in my stomach

lmfao i love david gifs

Riley had to slam on the brakes as Esme whirled around, wincing as a sharp pain coursed up his hip. He looked utterly put off by the sudden 180, and he was -- slackjawed and wide eyed as Esme stridently countered the news with petulant dismay.

There wasn't much he could do in manner of response. One, she was the expected brains, and therefore, the elected leader of this outfit. He was just the pig-toting Delmar, along for the ride.

Things were just getting worse and worse, it seemed. Riley bit his lip and looked away as Esme received his query in complete shock, and then unrepentant refusal; he didn't even register her tacked on comment it was more one than the other. Looking at the ground like he had just been kicked, Riley swallowed and began to walk.

Hour away or no, he was ready to put his rejection behind him -- and unwilling to let Esme see how she had wounded him deeper than any of the faeries' fangs had.

he is consistently a whole mood & well i'll be a dirty bird riley is delmar

it wasn't so much that esmé expected brains, as esmé expected a trifle, a kernel, a shade of critical thinking skills. hell, she'd settle for the evaporate residue of common sense if it meant he understood why his bid for companionship was so ludicrous. 

her expression was uncooperative with the weazened, cane-bearing angel on her shoulder, imploring that she confer with the kindliness impressed on her soul at birth, but she blew the sucker off with a puff of breath. the burden of pity was not touchingly borne, and esmé turned impassibly away as he stared sorely at the ground, troubled by her rejection. 

she gave him the helm for the last leg of their journey, "tempt thee not demimondaine with thy callipygian flesh, for thine gentleman is hornt up" so and such, though she did grow weary of glancing to see a face bluer than a dead man's lips.

after a time he walked taller, though she was more percipient than he took her for if he thought she wouldn't still note the air of glumness in his stride. esmé blew a raspberry and groaned, "i'm boooooored."

As was customary, a silence enveloped Riley as he walked.

As far as they had walked, he had not yet put the burning shame of his rejection behind him.

If anything the closer they came to the willows, the more he felt that crushing blow snake around his neck like a noose.

Why was it no one liked him? What was it about him that had first made Laurel lose her love for him, and then outright hate him? What was it, that turned Donovan against him, and Renard and Derg and Colin -- and now, the elusive Esme he had put his life on hold to find?

He swallowed, the unfairness of the world going down his throat like glass lacings. Of course, much of the contempt surrounding Riley could arguably have been well-earned; but Riley was Riley, he did not think like other wolves and therefore, did not act like them either... It perplexed him that he was constantly the pariah in any group -- even those he had taken the pains to make himself.

Esme blew raspberries into the air and groaned, professing boredom. Riley trudged on in soldierly quiet, the hardness of his gaze making it look as if he was outright ignoring her (and he was, for a time).

After a few steps, though, Riley turned and limped in an about-face. "What's wrong with me?" He asked, unabashed in holding her gaze. "Why don't you want to live with me?"

her face was reminiscent of a long shift dmv worker as he about-faced, mooring his gaze to hers, and caravanned them back down the beaten path of their future together as cohabitants. 

"why does something have to be wrong with you for me to say no?" she said, crossness limning the edge of her voice. what was it about some men that they just couldn't accept a no without making it personal? the hackles along her cape piloerected—riley had only asked a question, but his persistence was transporting her to the lichhouse containing the cadavers of things she'd already held last rites for and sepulchred. her black lips skinned back against her teeth.

his last question was trash so she threw it in the compost heap (reduce, reuse, recycle, people!) and strode forward, flouncing her victorine ruff. if he didn't step back, his space would be filled with esmé. if he didn't pull back, the tuft of her cheek pressed against his ear, husked dulcet in his ear: "did you just come to fuck?"

here was a boy pleading to live with a woman who had shown her disinterest in spades. how well did he think he could handle a woman? much less a woman of esmé's persuasion.

she'd first regarded riley with prosthetic empathy for his pubescence, wroth with those plying his biddable, innocent nature and casting him to fit their mould. 

how innocent was he, really?

Riley wouldn't even have had a chance to respond to Esme's heated question, much less the way she strode forward as if he were embers and she was long sick of him. He saw no interest at all in her suddenly kiln-lit gaze; just a species of annoyed disgust that had his personal feelings shriveling a la Shelob.

He scurried backwards. As much as he would very much love Esme in his personal space, it was not this way -- his ears fell to his skull as he bent his spine, casting his gaze away in a show of submission. Her advancement was full of a sudden vitriol he was not aware he was adept at pressing; blindly he fumbled around for some way to switch it off.

Did you just come to fuck? Riley's offset eyes widened in first surprise and then indignation. He didn't have any word for what he felt for Esme (pro-tip: infatuation) but he wanted more from her than, well, that. He stood up ever so slightly, still keeping his eyes away from the abrasive intensity of her own. "I've never done that before." Riley had no reason to lie, and had always been honest -- so, Esme was spared no excruciating detail about Riley's lack of experience in that field. Quieter now than his first admission, Riley fumbled something into the dirt that sounded suspiciously like "I just like you."

he scuttled away from her advance like a crab plucked from the sand. esm's features smouldered into an expression of fulfilled expectations. a smirk quirked her lips. "o, he's only just a soft maiden," she whispered treacly sweet, maintaining her place while riley fumbled with his words not unlike hands with car keys in a dark and dodgy carpark. he revealed his regard for her and she scoffed, a calf-love a day old. 

as she weighed the pros and cons of the various and creative means available to her for dispatching this troublesome situation, with hands clasped professionally against her lap she watched him and considered. esme's face was affectless, an unreadable passage of hieroglyphs.

"i don't want it,"
"just open your mouth and taste a little, it's sweet,"
"no, it makes me sleepy, i don't want it,"
"drink it, you little—"

"the gentle sylph won't even fuck the woman he likes, mm," fire licked her throat, a hearth of sultry flames burning against the calluses coarsened from the constant scorching. 

"and the woman he likes can't very well live with someone who can't meet her needs." she said dolorously, tilting her head down to search for his gaze. no?

"i've changed my mind, this walk is taking too long. i am leaving." she lashed her plume and started back in the direction they came.

The series of events that happened next would be difficult for anyone without some sort of processing delay to follow -- but for poor Riley, it was like being on a carousel that suddenly, wickedly stopped and slammed into reverse. He was open-mouthed, eyes flicking to and from, as Esme first mocked him (soft? very soft -- so soft he felt he might make her laugh if she saw his package), and then carried on in a strange two-sided conversation that had his head spinning.

Hold up, gentle sylph? Fucking? His expression was one of misery, conflicting a rising sense of urgency to backpedal. Anything but this weird, uncomfortable exchange where Esme was just narrating what he said. He fretted too, realizing if she had said no once, that it ought to be enough -- even though he was feeling hurtfully spurned, even though he really liked her... if she said no, then that was that, wasn't it?

And now she was leaving.

Riley's stomach, which had knotted not once but sixty times, plummeted in what felt like the worst roller coaster ever. He knew it was definitely something he had said -- all of what he had said -- that had her marching away, and now he was faced with the cold reality that if she did not like him back, there was nothing he could do.

A strangled gasp escaped him as he watched her go. The pace she set was far too quick for him to follow, not with his smoldering cuts (and other wounds see: anything Esme said, ever).

He wanted to yell after her THE GENTLE SYLPH WOULD TOTALLY FUCK YOU, or, I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN bY NEEDS BUT I'D BE WILLING TO TRY WHATEVER -- all these words died on the edge of his throat, for her tail lashed with such venom as she walked that he was not sure he wanted to face the fireshow of her eyes a second time. He hobbled after her for a few strides and then paused, calling to the wind with a soft and embittered croak: "I'm sorry."

"i'm disappointed by you, gentle sylph~" she trilled after him as she parted, legs churning in a hesitant stride. he had asked to live with her and she had said no, and meant it.

he would fare well with the saints, lest they were all lechers— she had given him an opportunity, a buoy to float upon. 

she'd never said no to fucking.

but he was, after all, mere a maiden fair, and her question had been answered: he could not handle a woman of her persuasian. riley's virginity was a lychgate coveting the soft-willed, jejune palm of a girl, giggling as she picked the lock. 

"apologize to yourself, and your cock as well, perhaps," she added afterwards, thoughtful, having stopped on a slope to hear his self-pitying quacks, before continuing on.

Esme kept on, seemingly intent on leaving Riley in the dust. His cheeks flushed red as she mentioned his unmentionables, and before he help it he was blurting after her. Wait -- why do I have to apologize to my --

His eyes flashed as two and two connected. Riley took a half step after Esme's retreating backside, equal parts euphoric, equal parts suspicious. Are you for real? He called after the receding form, entirely flustered by Esme and her pendulum whims.

her goldentongue spilleth over! he flushed his self-pity and bid her ears indulge his urgent shouts. the shouts of a virgin, for true; they could never quite believe when someone obliged to end their long-suffering condition of possessing an unpopped cherry. 

hearing him scrambling up the slope behind her, she turned with an insinuating look. "real as you'd like," she said,  "alas, i could never besmirch an unwilling maid. it would eat me up inside, the guilt would be insufferable," she sighed, jerking her muzzle away with dramatic effect.

"if only there was a man who knew what he wanted around here," she cast her gaze about the forested scenery before sliding her sights to the hopeful, gold-inlaid eyes admiring at her assets.

Riley was ill-prepared for the look Esme cast behind her; it was burning, but not hot with contempt. His throat ran suddenly dry, and a full thudding pounded its drumbeat staccato in his chest.

She was serious, that much he could tell. He winced as he scrambled after her, ready to shout from the rooftops I’M WILLING! I’M A WILLING MAID! Of course his throat refused to acquiesce with either the racing of his heart or the rushing of his mind. What came out instead was a garbled mumble. Riley’s ears pinned and he sucked in a breath, steadfastly returning Tiercel’s illuminating gaze.

I want you, He replied plaintively — unaware his earnest would be honestly mistaken for desperation. Perhaps it was that total focus, that complete lack of inhibition when it came to baldly revealing himself, that made Riley so painfully honest. Even if this was a prank, even if she was just pulling his leg, Riley had laid it all on the table and now the ball was in Esme’s court.

it was a pitiful display, and she was the rakehelly succubus tickling his chin, whiteknuckling the satin sheets of his desperation with every intention of ruination. a debauched replica of her innocence ravaged, with the roles in reverse—

a bodily memory stole through her and she ached, arching her back as psychogenic pain lashed against her like a scorching, whitehot scimitar.

"i don't want it! stop! it hurts! you're hurting me!"
"should have supped les bouteille de sommeil, eh, you'll remember next time, mon petite putain"
"mommy—"

coolly, playing it off as a sensual panoply of lust, esme milled 'round riley. attempting to stir his loins, she brushed her shoulder adamantly against the erogenous zones of his flanks while her plume caressed the back of his legs, fluttering dangerously near mother nature’s scythe. "he wants, but he doesn't prove it, mm," she tsked, touching her nose to the back of his ear strewing warm breath that might tickle, or titillate.

"stop wasting my time and prove what you want, sylph."

W-wait, Riley pleaded, fumbling after Esme like an enraptured child. Thats just what he was -- a naive and nervous boy, now with his heart fluttering as if a thousand birds had been released inside of his ribcages. 

He did know what he wanted, he did -- in his hungry intensity he missed the dark emotion that raked its way through Esme. Riley wrongfully assigned its presence to a shared excitement, unaware Esme was but the candle before a tar-pit -- enticing him closer and surer towards his lustful demise. 

Riley shuddered as she brushed against him, hobbling unsteadily as her breath misted along his face. He felt a ravenous hunger -- but not for meat -- it was both choking and cloying as it overcame him. He nosed her clumsily, eyes overcome with excitement and a semblance of nervous energy. I don't know how. Riley muttered, feeling instinct's impulse begin to ramp up within him. 

Guided by a mindfulness he was not accustomed to, Riley carefully reached out to Esme's ruff. His touch was nervous but insistent -- present but gentle. A thrumming sensation started along his loins, followed by an unusual fullness he could not quite explain. Overcome, Riley's burning gaze landed questioningly on Esme -- waiting in pining, brooding fervency for Esme's consent.

already marked mature so i'm not slapping that other warning on here that i'd have to go find, but for anyone reading, going forward from here we're entering a realm of impurity, so avert thine eyes if it makes you uncomfy

after he unsexily (is that a word? whatever) thwumped her upside the jaw, dimming her expression somewhat with big "ffs" energy, he muttered "i don't know how," like this mans was staring at a fuckin carburetor trying to make sense of how to fix the thing. 

at first she didn't dignify his flustered remark with a response. she didn't know how sexual awakenenings were meant to commence, either; hers wasn't even given pith to its natural course. she certainly didn't understand this caressing of the neck and held herself stiffly ascant with the whites of her eyes showing like a thoroughbred on steroids, "well, figure it out!" she trilled uncharitably (freaked out by any sort of tender physical contact). she breathed out, forcing herself to relax and accidentally stumbled across his gaze, which felt like a fuckin' blowtorch as it sought her own. was he vetting her for consent or waiting for a thumbs up or ... ? 

she allowed a few heartbeats to pass before realization struck her over the head. consent. right. sometimes men asked for that. "augh, don't 'by your leave' me on this," she hmphed and glanced away, slyly peeking between his thighs, curious if there was any seismic activity yet on that front. aye aye captain. his flag twas flying half-mast.

the burden of riley's chastity belt was on her shoulders, "very well, do your duty," she sighed, streaming the length of her plume along the bridge of his snout.

esme wiggled her shoulders in preparation to bear his weight and anticipated fleshly passage with private, deadpan dread, "while you're up there, call me fille facile if you don't mind." punishment for herself, but she wouldn't let him know that.

"it means beautiful," she purred, turning with a look that might just finish him right then and there.

warning: mature. we talk about riley's lil wick here

Dim as he was, Riley could sense his inexpert caress was met with resistance. He pulled away, made graceless by the burdening nervousness that trilled in his heart. She hates what I'm doing, she's going to change her mind, she thinks I'm stupid -- uncharitable thought-soup swirled its way malignantly into what little reserves of self-confidence Riley had.

Despite the clamoring of his thoughts, it was hard to miss the subtle cant of Esme's eyes. Riley knew where she was looking, and he knew too that there was something fattened there that hadn't been anywhere near as obvious before. Riley's lil wick had gone from unlit to flaring Roman candle. He had presented her with his growing boyhood, and she had not looked disgusted. Rather, she had looked interested. Score. The yearling grinned awkwardly, his toothsome expression falling away to something akin to resilient determination: he would do this, he would by gods tame this frolicsome filly, he would finally pop his cherry and feel what it was like to be inside a woman.

Riley gulped, ignoring the second-guess thoughts that whittled away at his assurance like insectile misgiving. He clumsily felt around Esme's hips, wincing as he moved to limp behind her. For several seconds he was mesmerized by the way her tail fanned out to the side; the intimate scent of her; the pulsing of his undersides and the burning that rippled down his abdomen. In short order the heavy gown of his innocence would be shed, in short order Riley would be something transformed while he thrust his way to some new height, tantalizingly close to ecstasy.

"Fille facile." Riley murmured in hushed wonder. She was so beautiful, she was so intelligent, and she was letting him -- allowing him -- to for a moment share a world together.

Again came that sharp thudding pain -- not the pleasant sensation of his groin and heightened boyhood, but something else. Riley pushed it aside, making a gawksome attempt to climb atop Esme's spine. His breath was faster than said tripped-up-thoroughbred; he felt his blood racing through his head and through a powerful part of him he had never had the chance to experience before.

All he had to do was guide it, point and shoot. Riley held Esme's scruff gingerly between his front legs; it was perhaps the only tender gesture that entire moment. His brow furrowed as pain speared down his hips again, and his tongue stuck out between his clenched teeth as he tried a second time to bring his hips forward, to guide that heat-seeking missile home --

Only to feel another, far unkinder agony flare up along his side like wildfire. It roared like fresh-kindled drywood to life, burning to life in a way that instantly immolated the extended sensation that had hummed pleasantly up and down Riley's sheath. No, this was a totally different experience - and it stole from him the eagerness of his erection.

Fuck, it hurt.

With ears pinned in pain Riley again tried to ignore it; this time he carefully brought his hip, despite all protest, towards Esme's tail -- for a wide eyed moment he thought this was truly it -- the moment he was crowned conqueror -- only to feel his proud flag shrivel into squishy softness. There he hung disbelievingly, limp and impotent, against Esme's backside. Panicked now, Riley continued to slowly rock -- but it was more like smashing marshmallows against Esme's buttocks than prodding with an happy-stick. Riley's enthusiasm was slowly being replaced by horror, for the one thing he had needed more in this moment had poked its head out, stretched, and then said 'nah fam I'm good' and retracted back inside of him.

here was a boy ready to conquer a woman, clambering upon her back with his excitement and determination trussed up and made clear by the huffing and puffing panted hotly against her ear, about to be usurped by the flaccidity of his own manhood. 

his grunted murmur of fille facile made her arch her spine into the incurve of his underbody, but,

she really should have specified that he say it after he'd found his flow, in the the heat of the moment, la petite mort ... ja feel? but then again, this was riley we're talking about. he'd cashed the check to her climax before his battleship even passed into international waters.

still, she raised her back against him like a cat and abided his struggle with listless patience as he labored atop her. regardless, after a while of not feeling any arrival at her port of call, she grew frustrated. he wasn't penetrating anything except her waning tolerance; esme could feel the the rigid lieutenant salute once and then his ensuing dishonorable discharge as riley pestled her rump with his useless loins.

unaware that the pain from his wounds was what had given him a case of whiskey dick, she huffed an offended breath. he went limp on her! on her! the bastard little turtle head had retreated back into its shell! ON HER! he'd pleaded for this, and now he was getting cold feet? esme pinned her back her ears crossly. "you are truly the softest of maidens! TRULY! what's going on back there, sir?! there's no open sesame required!" she hissed, shifting under his weight and thrusting her sex back against the sword's sheathed scabbard.

Bewildered by the mutiny that was happening below deck, Riley tried again for a forward thrust -- this time barely concealing the cry of pain as Esme's back sharply rose to meet him, forcing him to step back and place weight on his injured hip. 

His fair maiden's clear offense did not help the situation. What was previously a firmly taut crane had now thoroughly been decommissioned; said crane had now toppled over and lounged in flaccid misery beneath his belt. 

Riley felt mortification thoroughly flush his cheeks. He nearly withered in the same manner his ungenerous libido had when he heard the clear outrage in Esme's voice. He tried to rally, holding her tighter between his arms -- thumping the softest of uglies uselessly against her backside. It was like coming to a fortresses' barricaded gates with a beanbag; no amount of jostling his squashed jimmies against the hard gate would breach Esme's port. 

Riley's battering ram had firmly run aground. 

Hold still, Riley begged, wincing against the secondary arch of Esme's back. He was bewildered, upset, humiliated, and terrified -- what was wrong with him? Was he defective, or worse, permanently impotent? He kept to mushing his bits to her tailside in futile determination, feeling a mounting sense of dread fill his stomach.

"hold still or i'll have you twice more, fille"

the memory forged esme into a gargoyle; a gothic aspect transmorgifying her normal architecture into some grotesque masonry, lips frozen only until rainwater would grant her back her voice. she stared vacantly at the ground, holding still as he'd bade her, slack-jawed and insensate to the struggling mill of his hips.

devoted as he was to the cause of lifting his little soldier's spirits, it was a most unprosperous expenditure of his energy and riley would likely awaken tomorrow to carpet burn on his nether regions from the friction. her own dehydrated mouth-in-the-south was already getting quite crotchety about this lame ass twinkie insisting (quite aggressively) that she taste his cream, when all she'd sent for a corndog and would not settle for less than a goddamned corndog.

the woman's eyes blinked languorously, as if she was coming to from a daydream. drool dumbly wetted her lips, which she wicked away with her tongue. abruptly, mid-stroke, she ripped herself out from under him and whirled on her heels, the skin of her nose ruched in a grimace. "guess i just don't do it for you, sweetling," she said in a tone that implied it was not her performance that was unsatisfactory. she'd gotten him quite revved up, had she not? 

"and don't you dare tell me what to do like that again," a resentful, flametailed meteor flashed across her gaze.

she straightened and looked away airily, "perhaps this donovan would be more to my liking?" her nose aloft, she let her eyes drift back to see riley's reaction.

Things were going south -- and not in the under-the-belt kind. Riley was so preoccupied by his cannon's lack of boom that he hardly noticed the shift in personality transpiring in Esme.

While she drooled stonily in a transfixed state, a different kind of stony glaze was settling in Riley's eyes: the kind of a man who has tasted the bitterness of his own failure's fruit, and knew he would succumb to exhaustion before he ever experienced success.

He was just about to unfold himself from Esme when she ripped out from underneath him; another catlike move that tore a cry of pain from the yearling. He was ever so slightly top-heavy (considering the sudden lack of weight in his midsection) that when Esme spun around, Riley turtled in on himself with a dull thud.

He pulled his head up with a wince, pinebark and dirt sticking to his muzzle. Esme's poker-hot retort came in far sharper than any sword he could muster, physical or not - -and he just winced and nearly cried into his paws then and there. It would do no good, he knew, to show such vulnerability -- she was furious with him. Nothing like seeing spitfire loathing in your would-be-amore's gaze to really dispel any corndog regrouping.

The mention of Donovan nearly evinced a second cry from the yearling. His face said it all -- a mixture of shame, horror, hurt and plenty of dirt; why the barbed spinaround, how could she? He was at a loss for words and just kept gaping, mouth opening and shutting, while he tried to kickstart his brain into performing better than his floppy noodle had.

Finally, the words came -- like a faucet that had been turned on building pressure, his reply came in short, thick, messy bursts. "You do do it for me!" Riley blurted, voice wooden with shame. "I'm sorry! I don't -- don't know what's wrong with me." He looked down at his paws and a piece of pinestraw that had been sticking to his forehead slid down onto his eye. Wiping it off absentmindedly, Riley looked into his calloused paws and confessed with words that were piteously small: "Please don't go to Donovan."

lol'd @ the gif

he ditched into the dirt with an audible thud. esme made mock sympathy noises in her throat, clucking while he used a wooden ladle to clang on the pity pot hatting him. another lover-adjacent might like to kneel by his side and offer some motivational speech to get back in the saddle and try again or reassure him that there was nothing wrong with him and that they'd have another go some other time when he wasn't freshly tore up from the floor up by soggy bottoom boys tree wolves. 

lamentably, he was trying to bill and coo a woman who was barely tolerating his presence as things were. she curled her lip wryly slightly as she looked at the pinelitter and grime dirtying his face, feeling a bit repulsed by herself and the substandard bedside manner she'd countenanced. by taking advantage of his naivety and virginal buck fever, she'd let him savor something he couldn't foot the bill on once, let alone a second time. 

there was also the fact that she'd made a hypocrite of herself, but that didn't penetrate the petrous walls of her conscience. contrition could be a battering ram and she'd barely feel a tap ... so maybe this was proof that gods and goddesses were real and riley's erectile dysfunction was a metaphor for her own inner-dysfunction? did she have moral limp dick? ah, whatever. she'd splint it.

"oh get over yourself, pain makes it impossible to keep it hard," she said offhandedly, glancing at his visible wounds one-by-one; "though for some, pain makes not being hard impossible," esme flashed an impish smirk and sat down, boredly flicking pine straw at his face to see if it would stick to the dirt.

on word of donovan, she huffed; "no? why shouldn't i?" and pursed her lips "what's he like? sell me on why i shouldn't march straight over to that boring wasteland with its boring river, find its lord and let him succeed abundantly where you failed. what's he like, hm? i'm to bet he wouldn't let some pain get in the way of getting his dick wet."   

naturally, she never had any intention of finding the man, much less letting him conquer her in any manner—she really was just playing at psychological warfare in the absence of anything better to do, and it was far more enjoyable as recreation than sex. the latter was easy to come by, a lump of coal if she even wanted it (which she didn't), but the former was like jadeite, a rare gemstone that she snatched into her purse for its exception and to appease her kleptomania. 

"but mm, like i said, not entirely your fault. there are those with the ... kinky parietal lobes," she said, picking at her claws with her teeth, "and then there's the you types of the world. one step on the toe and it's sulky for days," she looked at him with a pout.

Riley turned truculent, his gaze averted. Were it not for his dark fur Esme would see a stain of red flushing his cheeks; the mark of utter humiliation. He did not rise from the ground, only flinched as she flicked pinestraw at his face.

A doleful expression stole over Laurel's boy, who in this moment lacked any sort of defense against this kind of psychological warfare. Anguish stole in soon after, coloring his eyes with a soft and watery glint. He had enough self-awareness to not utter his first thought (I don't want you to) and he was reflective enough to avoid his second (He'll hurt you). But the third choice fell as short as his half-spear, and was mumbled into the dirt with a certain self-reservation.

"I don't know." Riley admitted in a downcast state, ignoring the part about kinks, and definitely ignoring the really ugly image that rose to his mind of his paramour and Donovan bumping uglies. Who was he to tell Esme what she could do? All he could do was sit and wait; either she would turn around, or she wouldn't. This thought was far from comforting and did little to ease Riley's mind. "You can do whatever you want." But please god, don't do that.

silently she rose to all fours and shook her fur, shedding all the pinestraw from its mussed disarray. riley wouldn't engage with her further, this she recognized by the glumness cocooning his aspect. esme stared down at him for a moment, shrewish seeming but saying nothing as he offered her curt responses. his last comment was particularly amusing, that she could do whatever she wanted—"ah, he knows at least one thing. well done, for a soft maid," she snorted, gazing over his head and getting her bearings. 

in regards to donovan and her pseudo interest in exchanging sexual commerce with the libertine, she mused upon riley's particular sensitivity over the topic of him and found it rather curious and intriguing. the humour glimmed in her eyes. "go home and let that leg heal up, then do yourself a huge favor and forget about me," she suggested, making a few long bounding strides upland before she stopped and teasingly shouted "oh, and if it's not too much trouble, tell donovan his future bride sends her best regards!" at him before departing riley's eeyorish company through a copse.

Actually, it was a bit of both of us. One more than the other -- a ghost of a past conversation lingered by, and this time it was certainly Riley who had failed.

Esme's praise didn't feel much like praise at all. It felt like a criticism, aimed right at his throat. Riley swallowed, feeling his throat was sharp and dry. Already, the she-wolf was leaving -- but it would be a long while yet before she ever left his mind.

It was bitterness, watching Esme go. Riley's mind whirled and clicked through several responses before he selected one; a plaintive, bald admission. "I'm not going to forget you." It was mumbled between his paws, for he was holding his head in defeat.

Several minutes passed. Riley could hear no report of Esme's return. No crash of leaves or twigs underfoot. She was gone. He fought the urge to cry, instead closing his eyes. He was replaying all that had transpired, over and over. Forget about me, I'm not going to forget you, forget about me -- tell Donovan his future bride sends her best regards!

Time would not be kind to him, but it was a long time before Riley stirred once more.