Sleeping Dragon Getaway

She was officially aboard an emotional roller coaster. The previous days' fine mood took a sudden plunge this evening, for no apparent reason at all. Rather suddenly, Wildfire felt terribly distressed. She couldn't pinpoint the source—likely because there wasn't one—but she found herself pacing around the territory, figuratively wringing her hands. In fact, it got so bad that she began to cry, which startled and upset her into crying even harder. One might say she was a hot mess.

The perturbed and embarrassed Bandrona scooted in the direction of the den she shared with her mate, intending to hole up lest someone find her in this sorry state. She was forced to pause in the middle of her homeward dash when a rope of phlegm suddenly flew out of her right nostril. Wildfire went very, very still to avoid it swinging upward and sticking to her snout, then reached up a small paw to swipe it away.

The sound of crying and hurried steps drew the Feisripa’s attention from the trail she had been tracking and towards the source of the distress. Soon enough, her chestnut colored eyes fell upon the Bandrona. She frowned at this, feeling as though she had seen the leader in poorer spirits as of late. She knew why the leader had been so down lately, but, regardless of her knowing, Freyja couldn’t help feeling concerned.

As Wildfire stopped, Freyja seized the opportunity to press forward and make herself known. She was positioned behind the leader, so she could not see what exactly was going on. Chuffing lightly to make her presence known, Freyja paused at a distance and held herself low. “Wildfire?” despite the hesitance in her tone there was a smile planted upon her lips.

She managed to take care of the rapidly cooling snot, which she wiped on the grass, but before she could get a move on, a voice said her name right behind her. Wildfire jumped and jerked her head to look over her shoulder, eyes bleary and face damp. When she saw Freyja, her eyes dropped in embarrassment and she turned away forcefully, not wanting to be seen like this.

"Please—" she mumbled, then changed tact. "I'm fine. Really. I promise. Just leave me be." She felt bad for closing herself off to the young girl but the embarrassed heat in her cheeks was enough to keep her face hidden, head ducked low between her shoulder blades now. "Please," she tacked on softly.

Despite her overwhelming need to comfort her mentor, Freyja stood her ground and listened as Wildfire spoke. Her features twisted to express her concern, but, eventually, she obliged to what had been said. She knew it was the hormones and grew curious on whether or not the red-haired woman was with child or not. Without having her conversation with Gyda about the birds and the bees, Freyja was still in the dark about sexual reproduction as a whole.

Taking a step back, she nodded. “Of course,” she replied gently. Her subconscious urged her to reach forward, lock Wildfire in an embrace, and tell her it would all be fine but he logic spoke louder in this situation. “I am here when you need me.” She took a step back and hesitated, just in case the leader had something else to say on the matter before dismissing Freyja completely.

Wildfire was able to peek through the space between her foreleg and rib and watched as Freyja backed away. She felt a wave of relief when she saw that the youngster wouldn't put up a fight. But then she felt an overwhelming sense of guilt as Freyja offered a listening ear whenever she needed it. Her hesitation, coupled with the troubled look on her face, drove the Bandrona to lift her head and turn around to face her.

"Wait—" she said, aware that she was a complete mess. "I'm sorry, I'm just..." She shrugged even as saltwater continued to ooze out of her eyes. At least her nose wasn't running at the moment. "I'm not really sure what's gotten into me. Nothing's happened." She tried to laugh, though it came out sounding wet and hollow. Her eyes dropped as her embarrassment flared again.

“Wait--”

Freyja lingered, her ears perking as she listened. Soon enough, from the teary mess that was Wildfire, Freyja was invited to stay. Her expression brightened remarkably to this and she quickly pressed forward to clear the distance between them. “You don’t have to explain or apologize for anything,” she assured the leader with a wag of her tail.

“You can cry if you want, I can tell you a story-- whatever.” It didn’t matter what they did, Freyja just wanted to be there for the woman who had done so much for her. Perhaps overstepping her boundary in that moment, Freya reached forward to press her nose to the leader’s neck, knowing that this gesture often did wonders for her when she felt distressed.

The youth's reassurances only made her eyes leak all the more. She was touched, really, though that sentiment warred with her deep embarrassment. Wildfire really didn't want Freyja seeing her like this. She wasn't holding it together at all. What kind of leader and role model was she right now?

She felt the cool touch of Freyja's nose against her neck and she steeled herself from flinching away, lest she upset the well-meaning Feisripa. "Thanks, Frey," she murmured quietly, trying to get her eyes to stop watering so much. She drew in some deep breaths, trying to steady and collect herself.

She'd instinctively turned her face away but now Wildfire squared her shoulders and sat up straighter, still sniffling but able to look Freyja in the face. "Hormones are no joke," she said weakly.

She smiled to the other’s word, thankful that she had yet to experience them. She didn’t doubt that they would catch up to her someday, but, in the meanwhile, she would enjoy her days with the surge of hormones.

“Just you just get them suddenly?” she asked, curious of when she would fall victim to them. “And Portia couldn’t do anything about them?” She had recalled recommending that perhaps Portia could help the leader, but, given the other’s emotional status she knew that whatever had happened had not fixed the hormones.

The child's questions were an effective distraction. Although she wasn't particularly knowledgeable on the subject, Wildfire decided she'd do her best to explain. She idly wondered if Freyja had had the talk with Gyda but doubted it if the Feisripa still seemed in the dark about something like hormones.

"I'm no expert but I think you have hormones all the time. They're part of you, like your blood and bones. But when you're reaching, ah, sexual maturity"—she glanced at Freyja to confirm her suspicions—"then they might go a bit out of whack. Like, they get imbalanced and make you act weird. And I don't think there's much she can do for me," she added in reference to Portia. Wildfire had mentioned the issue to the Skayona but there had been much more pressing medical maladies to address at the time.

"I'll be okay, though," the Bandrona assured Freyja, glad that her eyes had stopped leaking and that her cheeks were drying now.

Freyja listened closely to what Wildfire had to offer and nodded, despite her knowing little about sexual maturity. “It’s like the feelings that I felt for Seff, right?” she said in an attempt to comprehend the Bandrona’s statement. Even with her confusion, the Flemia smiled to Wildfire’s last statement. “You will,” she agreed.

"Sorta, yeah," Wildfire said, managing a weak and watery smile. "Hormones are definitely involved in attraction. Although hopefully Seff doesn't make you want to cry for no reason," she quipped, still feeling embarrassed for losing her cool so completely and getting caught red-handed. Well, she'd once told Freyja that leaders didn't always keep their heads and now she was living proof. And the girl was being very kind about it.

"I really appreciate you not pointing and laughing at me," the Bandrona said a moment later, smile growing because the idea of Freyja doing any such thing was, of course, absurd. "I think I'm gonna go crawl in a hole now, though." Wildfire not only wanted to hide out in the den to recover from her humiliation, she also figured that grabbing a snack and taking a nap would help even out her emotions a bit. If not, at least she wouldn't be hungry or tired anymore!

"If you see Thur, ah, please don't tell her about this," were Wildfire's slightly pleading parting words before she nudged the pup and crept away to the shared den.

Though she was surprised by Wildfire’s sudden need to get away, she nodded gently to her mentor and smiled. “I didn’t see anything,” she promised with a soft smile, knowing that she would never tell the Heda of what had just happened. Lingering then, even after the Bandrona was well out of sight, as she attempted to comprehend what she had been told. Once she felt somewhat satisfied in her understanding, Freyja turned tail and headed towards the family den where she settle down for a nap of her own.