Swiftcurrent Creek close your pretty eyes, my butterfly

for @Soltero <3

she balances upon a thin precipice. to her back twirls the present in her frivolous display of startling vibrance, and before her lingers the slumbering past; unperturbed until this very moment as minute paws press against the very blades of grass that had once stood tall and adorned in the scent of swiftcurrent creek. 

"i'm home!" she declares with inadvertent vigour, as if challenging the frisky breeze to suggest that this place was no such thing. the french loiters sourly upon her tongue and she is quite suddenly convinced that the twisting air's whistles take the form of a smug snigger at such a ridiculous notion as to hope fruitlessly to hear her announcement returned by another. shoulders sag as she rattles a hasty inhale, quite suddenly grasped with the cowardly desire to flee away from this gateway and all its hungering ghosts. to this day all of her memories of swiftcurrent creek are of a time of unruffled bliss, a constant refuge for her mind to retreat to when all else seemed to be falling apart quicker than she could put it back together. if she ventured forth, she was risking replacing these images of radiant life with the stark truth of the corpse of her home. but...she does not turn away. 

for this is not her home, there truly is a place of vivacious tranquility that she can find sanctuary within. a place of the present, with real wolves and real possibilites, she could not rely on the what had passed to be her saviour. and so, picturing the verdant embrace of easthollow, her chin tilts upwards. the heavy sky weeps, delicate rain clinging tight to her pelt as it journeyed with her as she stepped across their fallen borders.

the lush aromas cradle her with each shaken step, lustrous eyes wide with rue as vague recollections prance before her vision. the twisting blades shiver where she'd once crouched with helios, chasing after buzzing crickets..and that clearing where she'd scuffled with lainie and zephyr, mama and maman watching on right beside....she passes hurriedly by the den area, the tightening of her throat an indicator in itself that there were some things that should be left only to memory. her paws shift mechanically, as if aware of her desired location before even her mind had caught up. 

the stream comes into sight, babbling and giggling away to itself as it roiled and danced; not a care in the world for the loss of the wolves that had once relied so wholly on its source. so much so that they'd been forced to flee at its demise, only for it to have returned to its full potent now as it gleamed and sneered at the dejected dove frozen before it. 

here was the first time she'd seen her papa let broad shoulder's sag in a moment of solitary weariness, where she'd come to accept that adults were not some invincible force in this bizzare world. her body thumps upon the damp earth, long limbs draped across the bank as she glared hard at the distorted image staring back at her. "where ever you's are mama, maman and helios...i hope you's are so happy. no matter who brings you that happiness i hope you's have found it, and papa..." she idly recalls the first unalloyed conversation she'd had with valette before whispering "the wolves of easthollow believe that the dead watch over them in their eternal standing stones, i think it's a really nice thought and, well i don't know when the water of the creek returned here but i'm going to decide that it did the day you became one with the earth, that part of your spirit is what has brought this place to life once more"  

she lapsed into silence then, feeling strangely at peace as the rain pattered softly around her and she gazed unwaveringly upon the river's eternal dance.

thank you for starting~ <3 sorry if i'm a little rusty, it's been a while!

Verdant pools, viridescent, descried upon the fragile serenity with a shroud of solemnity. A curtain of cynicism, as was the tread of his melancholy thoughts, a procession of pessimism in his wake. Mother's benevolent kiss, high upon a crown of smoke - the stroke of warmth across his spine, mirrored ribbons of bygone affection. Summer's touch, or windows into the past? It was not his river; he knew it well.

Indecision, ambivalence. Cast back upon a trail of memory, he would find a shadow of himself lurking at this very ledge, rivulets of running water gyrating fluently beneath his step - mind beyond, encased in thought. Swiftcurrent Creek. Irretrievable, yet not entirely forgotten. A flourishing congregation; it stood no more. As if in mourning, the clouds began to tremble, and from their embrace showered a current of rain to flood the intercises of this meditative ambience. Visage of melancholia deepening, the traveller let his tongue breathe the petrichor of this weeping sky, before shifting his stance and drawing himself to depart.

The longer he mused, the greater his sorrows.

Noise. A voice materialized from the bubbling of the creek, to which his despondent pivoting paused, and lifted once more his snout to the heavens. It lacked familiarity, as did most. Warped in stoicism, he situated himself there for a solid heartbeat as the drizzle pooled around his figure, pondering departure - it was only as the voice continued, baring foreign words to the zephyr, did his curiousity finally take hold. Back into the gathering mist did he peer, a man of smoke himself; enigmatic.

Poised at the water's edge, a little beyond himself: a figure. They had escaped his vision during contemplation, but now stuck out like a sore thumb against the monochrome. He blamed this oversight on the thickening of the air. Rain was adept at masking all beneath it, scents and sights alike, clinging to the earth as a film of dew. She was speaking - to whom, he couldn't say, for her words were in a tongue he didn't recognise, but the Valento chose to remain in place beside the creek, watching idly with a veil of confused consideration as the wisp muttered to the wind.

A sea of strangers - he could avoid them if he persued his solitude, but loneliness was destined to set in eventually, and he would long for company. This morning was no exception.

i spy no rust on that lovely post!

something is coming, no, someone is coming. and yet...she does not stir from her recline, eyes do not flutter from the rollick of light and water performing their eternal, mesmerizing dance. she opts only to listen, delicate ears shivering in the breeze as they tilt and sway to the gentle footfall, so like the patter of scattered rain drops that they are only identifiable by their irregularity. she relaxes at the closed proximity, mind coaxing the phantom to reveal itself to her; for who else would yearn to linger amongst the dead? they still and the dove finds her very breath mimicking such an action, gossamer tears pressing to rain stroked cheeks, please. but it appears that that marks the conclusion of their approach and the girl glares harder at the distorted image looking back, the uncanny shift of her rippling figure only now leading her to realise her own lack of motion. she has never been so still, and there is a tranquility to its embrace. out there, she is light and vibrance and while that energy is euphoric and riveting it is also exhausting, draining but here....she is but a drifting wisp. she should really turn around, face the figure and return to the living. for they could only be but a ghost when she let eyes linger away from where they'd surely discover a solid, breathing creature but she has to, she has to return now. to dwell with the dead is no healthy thing at all. 

and so, seeming to somehow move both like a clockwork automaton kissed with stiffened life and a whimsical sprite of endless grace; the girl stands. she lifts her head and she breathes, if she could recall such an event, she'd liken it to taking ones first breath as they emerge screaming at the earth they've been gifted to. and as the air is returned to the firsky breeze and eyes of touched lustre reopen, she turns to regard whoever had intruded on her moment. and with the eddying mist clinging to his frame draped in muted ash and ivory, he very well could have been but a haunt of the lands were it not for the verdant look piercing the gloom. that and, ghosts were not real and the foolish yearn of a wayward mind would never spin a wish into a fact. there was no world in which the living and passed could linger within reach of each other, and coming here, merely tasting the hints of whom she'd lost, it let her accept this fact with liquid ease. 

he is unfamiliar and upon his pelt lingers only the earth and its air, drawing muted intrigue to the vigilant look pressed upon him. her head cocks, the motion confirmation in itself that she has wholly returned to the land of coruscating life and its need to expel energy in whatever mannerism possible. regarding the wayfarer for a moment longer, she'd finally dare intrude upon the sempiternal silence hanging over this place with a softly lilted "hello"

<3

Porcelain; alabaster.

She was as a pearl – embedded in the humidity with ethereal refinement, a ghost amongst the caress of mist. River-born, crafted by the rivulets in their guided turmoil, sculpted with such raw delicacy that he might've considered her a fabrication if not for the trails of torn flesh on one flank.

As the wisp pirouetted to cast her gaze upon him, the sightseer quirked his chin inquisitively back toward her, verdant gems swerving to ingest the duality of her stare. Esoteric in nature, enthralling, earth and ice. The princess, lulled euphorically from the depths of his mind - a memory, of the daydream by the stream. Eyes glazed in sugar, saccharine; a delphic concoction of mellow browns and sky blues. Her gaze almost mirrored the stranger's; individually composed.

Soltero whisked an ear away from his crown, emitting a diminutive drizzle of rainwater as he peered toward her - she seemed to awaken from an unearthly sleep, and for a heartbeat, the only sound between them was the gentle shuddering of the rain. Ruminative.

The sylph casted a greeting his way, then - of satin, soft to perforate the heavy silence. A ribbon, to encase their collaborated isolation; this gossamer bubble, a world of its own amongst the gloom of reality. "Hello…" He returned huskily, in a tongue of smoke. Their tones provided a euphonious divergence. "…I heard you speaking."

he is crafted of the finest smoke and bone, a diaphanous concoction of only the purest gossamer indulgences. yet that look of such verdant lustre....it betrays any faux idea of delicacy about him. it scintillates with such sibylline intensity that polaris finds she cannot bear to look away, in fact does not even wish to. it instead sparks a hunger within hollowed insides, nurturing a flame of zealous intrigue. she simply must know what it is that such a gaze feeds his mind, what does he think as he stares at her in such a way? for an expression of such chilled aloof, emeralds scream and rally well kept secrets that coax her forth like a fish towards bait. and the way in which their vigilant press strips her bare, rather than cowering at such frank intimidation- it lures the desire of a challenge forth. her own mismatched stare narrowing back, chin tipping high, she would not be easy to read.

and if her greeting drips from a tongue like sweetened honey, his rolls from parted jaws like spiced smoke, as tame as it is unyielding. and...eyes widen a fraction, ears twisting back in startled fluster. shit. of course he'd heard her, the silence eddying amongst pattering rain drops would have been all too eager to whisk her soliloquy to any who dared intrude. she can only be grateful that it had been french she'd slipped into, far from eager to share such bittersweet murmurings with any at all, let alone a stranger. "ah..." she finds it in herself to break the contact now, cursory glance instead offered back to the chuckle of the mettlesome creek. "well if you can take my word for it, i can promise you i'm not crazy" ardent look catches ahold of his once more, tone feverishly chipper despite the restless pace of lingering shadows caught within bicoloured pools. 

she wonders, had things played out only slightly differently....could there be a chance she would have spoken to this man on this very day regardless, but as a member of swiftcurrent creek and he a curious traveller? or in the nature of butterfly effects, maybe one of them would not even be alive in this moment should things have taken a different route, possibly even both. how delicate was the balance of time in such a way? something as apparently miniscule as this very meeting, could it have jarring effects further down the line. glaring up to the heavy sky as she persevered with irksome weeping, she'd hum somewhat listlessly "i'm polaris"

Gaze continued to light upon her own with an inexplicable intensity, studying the idiosyncrasy of her eyes as though watching shafts of liquid sunbeams, dusted in honey, pooling down from the sky to meld into a river of ice; not simply eyes. Pallid teeth crooned at the insides of his cheek, pulling and tugging at the skin lightly as he studied and thought and bathed in the silence that swathed them. Perhaps it was the ambience that submerged him so – a fathomless chasm of relentless thought, but as she began to slip words from her lips to the mist, he finally drew away his gaze and lulled himself out of the abstraction of his mind.

She’s not a ghost, he breathed humourlessly to himself in a wordless hum, attempting to shake the unwelcome feeling, but distantly he wondered of whom she reminded him. There was some vague familiarity in the hues of her pelt, but also a distinct foreignism. The duality of her gaze, near and far all the same.

“Polaris,” he repeated, murmuring into the air with a light puff of air from his jaws. “Uhm… Soltero.” A gesture to himself, shaking away the melancholic tread of contemplation before brows creased and stared toward the creek in crafted sobriety, frown ceasing to fade. She was right – he couldn’t read her, nor could he read himself. Whether or not she had intended humour in her former words, he hadn’t considered, simply glanced back and forth between herself and the rivulets along the water’s surface.

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

sorry for the wait!!

a quick nod of confirmation at the embellishment of her name upon the swipe of his tongue, ever intrigued to hear the way in which it's displayed to the world by another. and she returns the favour with a hummed "soltero" clement smile playing along charcoal lips as she went on to lilt an easy "nice to meet you." carefully probing look dances about the fringes of his stare as it drifts not without poise to the shivering waters, snagged by the lingering frown settled snug upon his features. it is somewhat disconcerting, for he cloaks himself in an aura of sweet melancholy and yet it is tranquil in its presence; as if there is no desire to slip it free from his shoulders. as if he wears it as an adornment rather than a burden. brows furrow only momentarily before lustrous verdant snaps back upon her once more and she lapses back into something of a more reposed neutrality, unsure why but not quite wanting him to know how nonplussed he left her. 

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

bemused blink at the serious nature in which he presented this fact to her, searching the gutter of those astute emeralds before huffing a soft laugh and letting her stare flit free to prowl along the creek. "well i'm glad you don't soltero" she allows silence to linger in the follow up of her murmurings, content to let the flutter of sodden ears be greeted only by the sweet lullaby of rain as it pattered down arround them, accompanied only by the giggle of the peppy stream. interesting how water too, could appear in different forms just like themselves. did they all get along? did the pocket river rejoice in getting to dance with the rain on these days or did it bitterly envy the freedom of airborne water? her head tilts curiously but when she looks back to the hoary man, it's only to softly inquire "tell me, what do you think of this place?"