Felltree Marsh but i've wandered much further today than i should
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Her sister dropped away in Bat's rear view mirror as she followed the distant sound of running water. It led her through a thick tangle of trees, an obstacle which would've thwarted the lazy youngster if not for the promising tinkle of a refreshing swim. She bore through (not without a few grunts for the effort) and was rewarded by the sight of a shimmering stream. With a light laugh, Bat leaped toward the shallows, the sound of splashing soon filling the air.

The hour grew late, the shadows lengthening, and finally the Goufa paused midstream and took notice of the dimming sunlight. She felt a little jolt and made to jump out of the water, only to freeze with one paw crooked in the air and look from one bank to the other in confusion. Which way had she come? They looked much the same to her. Eventually, she decided the one side looked a little more familiar than the other, so she waded onto the shore and began picking her way, presumably, back toward Drageda.

Only she'd gotten turned around while playing in the creek and Bat unknowingly headed in the wrong direction entirely. But Bat didn't realize she was lost until the trees grew sparse and she found herself gazing at a totally foreign marshland. The Goufa stopped and blinked, her bones going to jelly both with exhaustion and fear. She slumped onto her hindquarters, trying her best to maintain her chill even as stars began poking out of the dusky skies overhead.

*squees at @Tegan*
hey, motherfucker!
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towhee and @Raven knew he'd left, that he was going on a big ass adventure to the other side of the wilds. butto be honest tegan had no idea what the fuck he was doin. he was by-- uh-- drageda. kinda. well, also by where easy was from. morningside. man how was that bitch? maybe he should stop by, hm. or maybe not, lmao, let her come to him, she totally wanted him. 

or something. 

he'd actually originally left to go visit seabreeze, cause she was like-- kinda cool, or maybe kinda lame, one or the other he hadn't decided-- and she told him to visit! but he thought that the territory had been on the other side, so he went around. and, well, he was wrong. there was nothing on this side-- and traveling up those mountains was a PAIN!!! so tegan was just gonna go back around and try to find sunspire again. maybe he'd do it this time. whatever, he was learning.

he'd spent a good part of the day chilling while the sun was out, planning to travel now since the temperature had dropped. but after just starting to continue his little adventure back around the mountains, he spotted a fuckin c h i l d. a child! who left that out here? tegan blinked-- approaching slowly and looking at the kid as it started up at the sky. "hey, b!" he called, then did a mental pause-- you probably shouldn't call kids b, whoops-- "you good? what's up?" he stopped a little ways off, looking at her. oof, she smelled familiar? what was that.
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The stars were comforting for reasons Bat didn't bother trying to pinpoint. She sucked in a breath and gazed upward, further soothed by the sight of the moon rising. It was only a sliver tonight, thin as a human fingernail clipping, but she had by now seen that same moon from just outside Hougeda a handful of times and she knew she wasn't that far from home.

She jerked slightly when a deep voice called out from close by, her mercurial eyes dropping and her big ears standing ramrod straight atop her small head. "Hello?" she replied tentatively, squinting through the gloom until she spotted a silvery shape moving toward her. Bat licked her lips a little nervously, though otherwise remained calm as the stranger approached.

She had never met anyone outside of Drageda before and, aside from some instinctive wariness, Bat didn't really have much sense of stranger danger. There was certainly nothing threatening about him. He was larger than her, though he made a point to stop several yards away. There was something friendly about his face, a benign luster to his eyes. He spoke with a casualness that immediately endeared the youngster to him. There was also the fact that he was a (presumably) responsible adult come to rescue her from being alone and lost in the dark.

"I'm lost," Bat said, quelling a sudden lump in her throat as the weight of her predicament settled on her all at once. "But, um, I'm okay," she added, peering at him and letting herself be reassured by that charming look on his face, even if she was too little to recognize his handsomeness. "I'm Bat," the Goufa offered, "who're you?"
hey, motherfucker!
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"oh fuck!" he exclaimed, suddenly realizing where she was from. fuckin drageda! oh but-- "oh fuck--" he repeated sort of painfully and much quieter that time-- "i didn't just say that-- you didn't hear me say that." ah fuck. tegan could not talk to kids. this was fuckin dumb. why can't we just treat kids like adults? bad words shmad words-- they're all just words. who the fuck cares.

"sorry-- my bad-- i'm tegan, my pack is pretty close with your pack-- you're from drageda, right?" he said, trying to recovering-- full sentences, this kid seemed competent, "i can take you home." 
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Somehow, innocent little Bat had never heard the term "fuck," so she neither recognized the swear, nor was she perturbed by it. She was a little taken aback by his sudden vehemence. Her eyes widened slightly as he stumbled over himself, eventually apologizing before introducing himself. She was curious about his strange reaction, though the instant he mentioned her homeland by name and offered to take her there, Bat felt an immense relief wash through her.

"Yeah! I'm from Drageda," she replied, tail giving a hopeful thump against the grass. "Thanks, Tegan!" she chirped with more enthusiasm than she usually displayed. She was feeling particularly grateful to this random stranger—who evidently wasn't a stranger at all but a friend to Drageda—who had miraculously appeared to help steer her home.

Rising onto all fours to display her readiness to follow him home, Bat said, "I like your name, Tegan." She paused for a step before wondering (with an endearing head tilt, big ears flopping a bit), "What does 'fuck' mean? Is it something bad?" she guessed, having gathered as much from the context of his quite frankly entertaining monologue.
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tegan nodded as she hopped up to follow him, looking relieved. aw, he was such a knight in shining armor. he'd tell sapphira about this when he got back-- bet she'd swoon all over that. saving kids? shit, he was so fuckin hot. 

oof, and then she asked what fuck meant. uh. tegan's lips tightened as he thought. oooooo, got it. "no! adults wanna tell you it's a bad word but it's not, they think it's some secret language that only adults can use-- but that's so untrue. so they'll tell you it's a bad word, but they're lying, they just want the word to themselves," he shared, eying her curiously, his tail flicking, "it can mean whatever you want it to mean-- like, when you're frustrated, or excited, or realize something, or just wanna describe something but can't think of the right word to call it."

this all sounded good to tegan, who saw absolutely no problem with children cursing-- as he himself was a children who cursed. "here, watch-- look at that fuckall rock over there," he said, pointing with his nose to some fuckall rock, "that's how you use it in a sentence."
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Tegan launched into a passionate explanation of the word and its uses. Bat usually would've tuned out about halfway through such a long speech but there was something so fascinating about Tegan and the way he spoke. She was (quite literally) a captive audience and her eyes shone up at him like big, bright nickels as he vented about the limitations of "fuck."

He even went so far as to demonstrate its usage with a sentence, though she must have misheard him because she repeated, "Fuckall?" with a slight note of confusion in her voice. And she was so caught up in the subject—and by the expression on Tegan's already eye-catching face, let's be real—that she didn't notice they'd reached the stream again.

When the ground unexpectedly gave way beneath her foot, she pitched forward and face-planted directly into the black water. She flailed and sputtered, quickly jumping back onto her feet and managing to dart onto dry land despite the lack of light. Although usually a big fan of water, there was something deeply unsettling about tumbling into it, unseen.

Before Tegan could even ask what'd happened, Bat said, "Yeah, I'm fine. I meant to do that. Yeah, everything's under control."
hey, motherfucker!
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"yeah--" tegan began, but was quickly cut short as the girl fuckin fell. right into the stream. tegan hesitated probably way to long to scoop her outta the water, but she picked herself up pretty quickly. pretty ungracefully too. tegan snorted, breaking into a loud laughter after she covered her ass saying she meant to do that. 

"fuck!" he exclaimed, his tail wagging, "you gotta yell fuck! when you do stuff like that-- that's literally perfect!" with a bright, crooked smile, tegan said, "try it!"
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While Bat tried to smooth her metaphorical petticoats (with water still dripping from her nose and chin), Tegan began braying with laughter. The Goufa wasn't sure if she should feel more amused or embarrassed by the situation. Her head cocked when he informed her that she'd missed a golden opportunity to utilize the newest word in her vocabulary.

"Oh," she blurted softly, "oh... fuck?" But he'd used the word "yell," so Bat cleared her throat loudly and said quite a bit louder, "AH! FUCK!" She paused to see if Tegan approved, feeling a little giddy despite being a little lost and a lot wet now. Bat couldn't even remember the last time she'd shouted anything but it felt so—wild to do it here, in the dark, so far from everything she knew.

And that suddenly made her think of her nomi, weakened and bedridden, and Wildfire worrying over her endlessly. All the ill feelings of the past week came rushing back in that moment and Bat fell silent and strangely pensive. But just for a moment. Before another, "AHHH!!! FUCK!!!" surged up and out of her, likely carrying all the way over to Drageda (and probably to @Kiwi hanging out in the neighboring ravine as well).
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"fuck yeah!!" tegan exclaimed as she yelled out the word. his tail waved happily at her shouts, super god damn proud. this was his prodigy, this dark-coated, sopping wet drageda kid with the fuckass ears. hell yeah. "atta girl-- see? super easy," he said to her, bending to give her a little nudge forwards-- they should keep moving. 

"prolly shouldn't like, tell your parents who told you that tho-- you should keep using it, but it's sort of a secret among older wolves and when the words potential gets out to children they get mad, and i don't need to be getting in trouble," he added, on a more serious note. raven would be so pissed if wildfire (this was wifi's kid, right? he assumed) showed up one day talking about how he had taught her daughter the f-word.
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Her throat felt scratchy but Bat felt better after shouting curses into the dark wilderness. When Tegan praised her, she felt a warm glow suffuse her and she grinned, albeit tiredly, as she suddenly realized how exhausted she was. Slowly, she began plodding along beside her newest friend, ears twitching a little bit as he explained that she shouldn't tell her parents who'd revealed the secrets of the word "fuck" to her. She smiled to herself, pretty sure she understood that it was a bad word despite Tegan's thinly-veiled back story.

Having apparently emptied herself with those loud, foul exclamations, Bat stayed more or less quiet as they shuffled through the dark. She only perked up when she saw a dull reddish smear in the distance, rapidly bobbing toward them. "Mama!" she realized as the figure took on the characteristics of a wolf, one who appeared tailless until Bat realized it was just blending into the night air.

"Bat!" Wildfire cried simply, tucking her muzzle into the Goufa's nape and almost sobbing into it. "Where have you been? Have you seen your sister?" A beat later, she seemed to realize Tegan was there. She stared blankly at him, unable to place him in her stricken temper—could you blame her, after what she'd been through lately?—before blurting, "Teg—Tegan, right?"

"Yeah, I just met him and he brought me home," Bat chimed in a bit wearily, shooting him a thankful smile. "Kiwi's off exploring," she supplied absently before wondering, "Can I go to bed now?"

But Wildfire was too busy saying, "Thank you, Tegan. Thank you," and nuzzling him to answer right away. Eventually, she did turn bright, watery chestnut eyes to Bat to say, "I have to find your sister." She hesitated. Could she simply send Bat back to Hougeda, alone? Did she have a choice? "Go straight to Hougeda. I'll come find you as soon as I find Kiwi. Thanks again, Tegan, and sorry for—" She flitted away before she could even finish her sentence, a cry of, "Kiwi!" sounding in the distance a moment later.

"Well," Bat said to Tegan, "I gotta go home now. Thanks, Tegan, and fuck you too." With that, she began trudging toward Hougeda.