Sun Mote Copse I just wanted you to watch me dissolve slowly

With a soft sigh, Alyx settled herself down beside a burbling stream and watched the water slipping past the pebbles lining its bank. It reminded her abruptly of the swollen river and the rapids, which thankfully hadn't become a lasting fear, and that in turn reminded her of her brief time with Rusalka. Of the sunny-faced boy whose smile made her breath catch in her throat. Even now, she didn't get it, but the feeling of missing him pierced her breast all of a sudden.

She heaved another sigh and struck out a paw to smack the water's surface. The air was getting colder and so was the water, she realized with a shock as it bit at her toes. She ought to get up and do something useful, but instead, she began rolling a pebble beneath her dripping paw pad and chewed on her lower lip, seemingly deep in thought.

Fennec was not only thirsty, but the leaves she'd been carrying left a pretty rotten taste on her tongue and she needed to get that out ASAP.  The closest place was the spring, and she dunked her face in to drink deeply without really paying attention to who may or may not have been nearby.

After a few gulps, her ears twisted to the faint sound of something rattling a short distance downstream.  Some kind of grinding noise? It was quiet.

Is that a turtle trying to scratch something? she asked, tossing them question at no one in particular.  Her head was lifted, but the wind was against her, so she had no idea her younger sister was the one making the noise.

Alyx was so deep in her own mind that she didn't notice Fennec until her half-sister asked a question, wrenching Alyx back to reality. What Fennec said was so bizarre that for a few seconds, all she could do was blink. Uh, what?

No, she snorted, laughing with a haughty edge that was suspiciously similar to Niamh's voice when she was being sassy. That wasn't Alyx's intention, but the older she got, the more she took after her mother in the way she spoke. A little attitude. Okay, a lot of attitude, sometimes. She surveyed Fennec for several seconds, noting that the she-wolf didn't seem to even be looking directly at her, before blurting, you blind or something? There's no turtles here.

She'd totally forgotten that Fennec was, in fact, blind. She hadn't exactly spent any time with her sandy sibling before she left on her adventure with Penn, after all, and even at the best of times, she could be self-involved enough to forget important things like that.

As opposed to her brother and Bronco, Fennec wasn't the best at being a big sibling.  Put her recent feud with Niamh on top of that and she'd been practically nonexistent for her half siblings.  Still, she wasn't sure if it was a joke or not when Alyx (she at least knew them by voice) asked that question.

Well, yeah.  Are you? She asked back, taking it in stride since either way it was hilarious being asked.  Truth be told she didn't know if there was a visual aspect to her blindness or not. She'd never bothered to ask, and it seemed like a 50/50 shot someone picked up on it.

Well, yeah, said Fennec in as matter-of-fact a fashion as possible. Oh fuck, thought Alyx, who failed at first to realize that Fennec wasn’t upset about it. Now that she looked more closely, there was some kind of whitish film over her older sister’s eyes that was just downright eerie. How hadn’t she noticed that Fennec didn’t have any pupils?

Shit, I’m like, really sorry, she stammered, snatching her paw back from the pebble she’d been rolling around and clambering to her feet. Probably Phox and Towma and Niamh had all mentioned Fennec’s blindness at some point or another, but she just never really listened. Or cared, honestly. It wasn’t like she’d expected Fennec to come back. She didn’t think she’d ever really meet her, so it didn’t matter.

But obviously it did. I’m, uh… Licking her lips nervously, Alyx crammed her foot even farther in her mouth and asked, what’s it like?

She sounded taken aback and genuine when she apologized, which Fennec hadn't expected.  She never expected any wolf to apologize since she didn't make a habit of it herself.  Don't be. She responded with a dismissive tone.

She actually didn't know if she'd ever been asked the question that came next.  Fennec had to think about it a moment.  It was one of the more interesting ones she had heard, and she wasn't in the least offended.  She liked a good, direct line of thinking.

What's it like not to be?  She did not remember.  I can still smell and hear things, and find my way around.  But if there's something new, and it doesn't make a sound, I don't know it is there.  That was the biggest difference, she thought.  Somehow those with sight seemed a little more prepared for the unexpected.

She left the first question hanging, mostly to see what kind of answer her sister gave.  She'd end up answering most of the questions she asked bluntly, and in the end, maybe they bonded a bit, maybe they didn't.