Whitebark Stream rotten apples

A dark, cloudy night, there was no snow, and only a bit of the moon shown through the dense white clouds. She lay in the light powdernear the stream, watching the water go through, sometimes taking a bit of lost ice, or a few debris that follows along. Her wonderous, and normally amusing look had faded into a tiresome yawn, as her body felt mellowed, and she felt sleepy.

Perhaps it was time to go to bed.

On a night so shadowed, the girl was not alone.

This stream was unforgiving - a writhing snake of shivering depths and harsh stone, and yet, full of life. He was a master of the waterways, this smoky traveller, and as he dipped a leathery nose toward the surface, his tongue pooled out of his jaws to lap up the palpitating liquid. He felt it dribble down his throat, sear like the burn of ice, but he savoured it. He would never tire of the water, nor its winter sting.

What he would tire of, though, was others. He could sense her presence, as the wind carried her scent toward him, and eyes of emerald traced the meanders of the stream until his vision was locked onto a patch of luminiferious moonlight. There, in the pool of white, lay a figure - draped beside the water like a cloud, fallen too close to the ground. Initially, the wanderer sighed inwardly to himself, reminding himself he craved the solitude of his lonesome days, but something about her lured him closer. Bewitching. Perhaps it was the inevitable loneliness sinking beneath his skin - something he'd never admit to himself - perhaps the lingering memories of Ruenna, but whatever it was, paws dipped in stark white dragged him closer, and closer still, until he was within speaking distance, breath misting into the air like puffs of smoke from a dragon's nostrils.

"Have you ever thought about all you must miss while you sleep?" he murmured, eyes still soaking in the the soft glow of light drizzled around the wispy stranger, ears twisting to accompany the rushes of flowing water.

Peace for eternity, even when another entered the realm. Her tired attitude wasted away her senses of being alert, as she sleepily looked toward a gray figure in the distance, approaching the Princess. Oh, where did he come from? She had not heard he was coming. Unguarded as she normally was, but even more so as her nature felt drowsy and plopped her head sideways into the snow. A smokey lad, with grassy-emerald gaze looking toward her, asking the most unusual questions, she thought.

"Aree youuu, a dream?~" A smile fleeted across her face, as she craned her neck back upwards towards him, figuring this gray wolf was that of a dream. Spirit guide, so she heard rumors about? Wouldn't that be amazing, for his words were like a wiseman, "Hmmmmm," she considered with a hum, "Lifeee, is interesting, yes?" Aerasha was fascinated about- everything. She admitted to times of being bore, but, his words spoke truth, "wouldn't it be sooo sad to missss the shooow?~" Couldn't dream of missing such important gossip that the wind could deliver!

"Aree youuu, a dream?~"

Her voice - so softly sweet. Saccharine, drawled out in peaceful serenity, a stark contrast to his own husky tone. This girl was oddly enchanting, and perhaps, had he been more exhausted, the smoky traveller might've thought he was the one dreaming, the one speaking to naught but a ghost of his mind. No, this was very real. Soltero gazed a moment longer at her, at the way her eyes melded from a cosy brown to a soft arctic blue, and wondered to himself in silence, lips parted to encourage the timorous nature of his speech.

"Perhaps."

It couldn't hurt to play along, could it? Maybe she'd forget about him after the night had passed, as though he were indeed nothing more than a figment of her imagination - and perhaps that was for the best. He wasn't sure whether this was for her own wellbeing, or his own, but growing familiar to a man such as himself, it never seemed to bode well for either involved. He had never been very adept at the social life, not even while aiding leadership himself. He much preferred the security of his private life, the unsolved enigma, however despondent and isolated it could become. It was better if she thought he had never really existed at all.

"Mmm," he murmured, partially lost in thought - an aberrant one, this girl, but refreshing, almost. Unique. "Night holds many secrets. I wonder just how many there are, mysteries we'll one day solve, and those that we'll never know."

"Perhappps?" Oh dear, maybe the wolf really was part of here imagination. Surely she wasn't that tired, was she? "A shaaame,~" she spoke out loud, eyes turming cresent as she looked toward the handsome dream. His gray like ash, and beautiful eyes like the sea of green, roaming through the blades of grass and stopping to smell the flowers. Though a touch of white through the volcanic ash, Aerasha thought it would be disgraceful if he truly was, but a dream.

Though words held like one, he faintly reminded her of the advisor from her maiden pack. An older fellow, but wise in his words, and gave guidance through her parents, and onto her brother. He too, was a dashing gentleman, that at times haunted in her dreams. The strange engima before her seemed to be one with him, which made her mindset believe, he really was a figment of her dreams. She had hoped he would be a newer one, and not a shadow from the past. Only his demenour reminded her of him, but everything else, was different. The Princess felt confused, as it was hard to tell from reality, to her tired and delusioned state.

"Are youuu, one of the mysteries?~" Aerasha faintly chuckled in an amused tone.

A shame...?

Chalk-dusted brows fleetingly furrowed, contorted with confusion, before Soltero allowed his visage of riddles to smooth, features settling and ears tipping forward, to listen - to really listen, let his mind soak the honey dripping from her lips. There was something about the way words drifted leisurely from her tongue, airily and fluent; soothing, reposeful. It was enchanting, and the more he pondered her words, the more he felt as though he was traipsing on clouds. Heavenly adrift.

It would be a sin to fall into the sweet berceuse, but so too would it be a sin to resist, would it not?

"Maybe," he hummed, gruff baritones rumbling like muted thunder unto the waves of the wind, before his lips parted a second time - unable to help himself in this delightful game, the steady beating of his heart an anthemic rhythm against his chest. He was nothing but a bygone puzzle, washed ashore for somebody to decipher, elucidate--

--or not. 

"That is up to you."

"Maybe?" Her dream was one of riddles, Aerasha felt puzzled, for her mind felt split. One said it was just a pleasant dream with a handsome man, but the other felt it was real, that surely none of this could be a dream. Though he was no help, for he left it all to her to determine if this was reality, or an imagination. Here eyes moved like the cresent moon as she narrowed toward him, fascinated by this dreamy wolf, one who felt neither reality or fiction, a hard tale to tell, "Up to me, hmmm.."

Upwards they go, she smiled like a siren, "What ifffff, I don't want this to be a dreaaam.~" Playful as she was, it wouldn't change even if it was all in the mind. She felt a stress, and relinquished it to a more playful banter and followed his whimsical words with her own.

Reality or fiction; to her he would leave it, indeed.

To grasp such a power within his own palms, a curse; he did not want it, to sway her mind to left or right, to truth or lies. If she solved this riddle, sought him from the depths of his own demise, he would accept, but should she choose to let herself be lulled into naught but a daydream, he would slither back from the cracks he'd emerged, to avoid the shattering of yet another damned yearning.

He could feel it, that longing, it stung and caressed, a pain and a soothing - and he hated it. Such conflict. But he loved it. He feared, in this drowning of his senses, tugged along by her lattice of mysterious enchantment, that he might get lost and spill over himself--

--end it, he must, before he could not. But a parting gift! So that perhaps, after all, she wouldn't forget...

"Then you will see me again, i'm sure." A gentle quirking of his lips. "And it will not be a dream. Farewell, princess... until next time." And with that, he began to dissolve back to the shadows, to wander and ponder in his newfound curiousity. He prayed it would not become his fantasy, his obsession.

"I wish naught be a dream..~" Her words became clear- words she had spoken oh-so long ago, but felt stiffling to her own ears. Glass amongst the sands, the sophistication forcibly brought down to the Princess, a dream that sometimes still plagued her sweetened thoughts and twisted to even her words.. But not in the horrendous terror, but the devil was for herself, and herself to the nation. Let not the rotten fruit come through! Let thy' sweet red apples be to her death, and none to foreshadow her rotten teeth, for the sugar runs deep, too deep to forget what had been left behind, what she was okay leaving behind.

Though of course, words were a joke. She was never one to be as valiant as Valette, or as kingly as Greyback, she was the jester, "Ohhhh, waaaaitttt,~" sweetened words and drawled voices came to her warm chest, calling back the handsome male. Oh dear, she wouldn't want him to leave, now would she? "Staaaaaay.~" A childish plead, a demand to stay beside her in such a lonely night. She dreamed of warmth, and wouldn't the dream give her what she desired? Warmth of another beside, one she has not gotten before, but forcibly given. Asleep upon a mountain, and sat alongside the ladies, but none willfully came beside her, to talk, to cuddle.

Princess, truly - whispers of honey soaked intoxicated thoughts, tugged along on seraphic daydreams of tranquility; everything about her presence was soothing, even as steps begged to pull him away. Into the confidentiality of fog he'd have dissolved... until, of course-

"Staaaaaay."

Plea; demand - he cared naught what it was, but movements stilled in frantic escape, and a chiselled jaw was inclined back to face the woman. Viridescent gems met seas of a setting day, glacé, endearing. A sigh, soft in departure from blackened lips, and then to her side he returned, maw quirking in reposeful acceptance. One time - surely, it could not hurt... and besides, much worse a crime it would be to leave her alone in the winter's turmoil. Slowly, a smoky visage pivoted to the sky, and his body lowered to rest beside her own.

"I'm here."

--admonitions forgotten.

The silken beauty did not hesitate to lean over, and press her own earthly body upon his own; a thankful rest. She hoped he wouldn't reject, and let the her come closer, but if he was truly a dream, there would be no reason for her dreamy man to reject Aerasha. He was gray and white, with the hint of black from behind, seemingly the opposite of herself with the more colorful tones, he was a winter wonder. But a shade she did not have, a beautiful green; he was handsome.

"Whoo, are youu?" Which the question came, who was the mystery wolf? Naught but a dream he claims he could be, or the reality she would like him to be. He stayed as she so wished, but she also wished to know more on the fixed fascination the creamy one had upon him.

as aerasha is currently inactive, i'll leave this slightly vague so you can decide whether you want it to just fade out here or continue <3

Taut; he felt his body tense at her touch, muscles rigid as the daydream reclined against his side - so guileless, warped in innocence. Singlehandedly, with merely the graze of her skin against his, the woman had rendered him speechless. Sick with apprehension, deep in his gut, at the presence of such proximity, affection; comforted, too. An anomalous concoction, it didn't quite make sense.

But nothing here did, truly. He didn't reject it.

Again her voice lulled into his ear, a tread like silk, and the traveller inclined a silver chin toward her own, enraptured in contemplation. Who was he? Perhaps she anticipated another answer of riddles, but as enigmatic as he might appear, the man was no illusion. Perhaps he might simply will himself to be. "Soltero." came the reply, steeled in a tongue of smoke. He was out of riddles. Nothing more fell from his lips, and smaragdine eyes peered up toward the skies, allowing himself to be ensnared by the low chirp of wildlife, the benign sway of the breeze, as it began to hush into sleep.

For now, he was content. And so, he hoped, was she.

leaving this and will archieve!

"Soltero." He felt of comfort as the girl of clouds sunk into his side. She felt like it was an heavenly dream, wrapped in the sweet nectar of relaxation. The very notion allured Aerasha to the land of sleep, as the sandman took her hold. Only uttered his name, before her starry eyes started to close, and soon, the Princess was asleep beside him.

She was also content.