Rising Sun Valley Dear Fellow Traveller

@Louis the Blue c:

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When had she become such a desperate thing? So frail this wind would ground her, and the world, with its thousand variations of hardship, was full of much more than fellwinds. She was a solo wolf, in title alone that drew into question the length and breadth of her future. Both exhilarating and terrifying in turns, the latter prevailing as she fought to push her way beneath a churning iron sky.

It had been years since she’d seen a proper white-out, but she could remember her father’s instruction to wait out the storm. And so when senses failed she squandered no time, but sought the earth with her nose, pushing through veils of piling snow and pitching into the narrow opening of an abandoned fox burrow.

Louis knew nothing if not the cold. In his home, summer was brief, and snow dominated all other seasons. You learnt to live with it, or you did not live at all.

So when the scent on the air changed, and the skies greyed, he'd gauged quickly what sort of storm it was liable to be, and made haste for shelter. An old fox hole, long abandoned, presented itself erelong. Deep enough to keep him well insulated.

It would not be like home. He would not have siblings and parents and grandparents to curl up with in the damp warmth of their ancestor's den to feel safety or love. But he would see the other side of the storm in comfort. And he'd honor them by doing so. There was pride in knowing they'd taught him well, and a kind of affirmation, lonely as it might be.

Lonely, or so he'd expected, anyway. 

But a nose and a pair of shuffling feet arrived not terribly long after the blizzard's onset.

At first he thought the den must not have been abandoned by its owner after all -- but a sniff soon told him otherwise. A stranger seeking shelter, like him. A she-wolf.

He waited in the farther reaches of the dim dark until they were more or less inside, and then gave a curious woof -- ears pricked, tail wagging. "Hullo."

In one swift crack her senses recovered, scent and sight and hearing. Too quickly to recast the decision, now. Hanging in the air was the overwhelming smell of stranger, their presence affirmed by a gentle greeting. She crouched, hypnotized, like a rat before the adder’s mouth. A pair of blue eyes were all she could make out as she adjusted to the dark of the roost, and like hers they were wide in surprise. They did not move to strike or give chase, only to hold her in cordial wolf greeting.

Tauris did not want to share space. Least not one so scant and intimate as this, where she could not draw breath without a strange scent filling in her nose. Worse yet was the idea of being forced to make small talk while they waited out the storm. But with the needles of ice on her back still, a lesser of two evils was clear.

“Share your den,” words broke the quiet in half-rumble. Not a question, not a demand, but confident, she hoped. Maybe if she spoke loudly and clear enough they wouldn’t hear the quiver in her voice. Maybe they’d leave her alone. Most of being confident was playing the part, anyways.

Tilting his head, Louis pricked his ears, "S'not my den. So I don't suppose you need my permission." His mouth parted into a grin, and his tail continued to wag. "But you're welcome to join me. I'm Louis."

She was a pretty wolf, with a silver tick in her fur that made her look wreathed in frost even where snow had not gathered. It was hard to be polite and not stare.

He knew well enough that some strangers were not friendly, and could see she didn't look thrilled about his presence -- but they were both still standing - er, crouching - here, and nobody had bared fangs. So he reasoned she couldn't be all that bad.

He did not protest her company, and she was grateful. She thought of Reverie, the kind girl with the kind words and whispered a “thanks.” When he made his introduction she listened and answered “Tauris,” in kind, and she’d hover a moment longer before easing her stance. She curled into herself, making small her body, shuddering against the bite of cold and peering around the earthy hollow. A barrier of roots muffled the dissonant cries of wind outside, and though still drafty, it would suffice.

Moment passed into moment and as the air eased Tauris began to let her eyes coast over the stranger called Louis- though only when she hoped he wouldn’t catch her. A body manifested behind that cobalt stare, a boy of silver, like the ones back home. Northern. Refined. There was a little reassurance in that. But he was different, too. Some unconventional wildness in the shape of him, mirroring the energy she saw in his summer- sky eyes. She would not dispel the silence, yet allowed her mind to sail in the stretch of unspoken words between them.

"Tauris." He tested, nodding, wiggling a little as if the excitement was difficult to contain. "That's a pretty name."

He watched her shrink inward, and had enough forethought to feign placement of his attention elsewhere. Louis didn't think of himself as particularly intimidating, but then, the rivers of life were vast and varied, and who knew what experience she drew from.

There was not too terribly much else to look at. 

He studied the dirt-stained roots weaving through packed denwalls until he had fairly memorized their winding paths. Then the scrape marks between, echoes of a long-gone stranger, and tried to guess what manner of fox they were from the shape left behind. Had they lived here long? Had they left, or passed on? Was this a home of hopes and dreams, or a bastion of solitude? The answers to such questions were long gone.

He reached out with a paw to scratch a print in the cool earth, then pressed hard to solidify it. Perhaps other visitors would someday wonder what had drawn him here, and where he'd gone next. Or maybe the next stranger would trample it, and no one would ever know. Both ideas sounded a bit romantic.

There were no bugs about in weather this cold, but he did drag an interesting looking rock towards himself, holding it between both paws and nudging it with his nose as a way to fidget politely. He'd planned to sleep through the weather, but rest was now the farthest thing from his mind.

He was curious about the girl. He wondered how she could stand to be so quiet, for so long.

Increasingly aware of her stolen glances from the corner of his vision, Louis finally braved another look in her direction. Ears drooping placatingly to either side, he whined a little encouragement and offered, "You could sit closer, if you like. It'd be warmer. I don't bite. Well... I do, but not you. I mean." His tail wagged again.

She’d avert her eyes awkwardly at his compliment, but something in his voice and the ease of his words drew her into a languid state. A little less war-torn. She watched as he gently revolved a stone under paw, and fiddled like a fledgling whelp with the dirt. Tauris too was a bit like a pup, grief waning once her belly was filled. Which was perhaps why she marshaled to her elbows, before she could backpedal, and inched closer to Louis at his invitation. The earth was cool but she could feel the heat given off from his pelt. She folded her front paws into her chest and settled down, taking care not to touch him.

She had spent hundreds of nights beside her mother and father, and all the brothers and sisters who had come and gone through her days. But she’d been alone for so long, now. The warmth of another being was familiar, yet faraway. It made her homesick for a time and place she couldn’t return to. She felt the ache of loneliness.

Tauris cast a terse glance from the corner of her eye to Louis beside her, inspecting closer before daring to open her mouth. 

“If this is a trick, I warn I’ll not be so easily pacified,” the ghost of a smile touching her lips.

He grinned widely in response. "Of that I've no doubt. You could probably chase off a bear if you had the mind to. Got that look in your eye." He winked. Though it might still be mistaken for empty flattery, he was nonetheless sincere in his offering of compliment. She had a wildness about her. The quiet, thoughtful sort of circumspection that usually belonged to much older wolves.

She had no obvious packscent. He assumed she was a dispersal, like him. Bobbing his head down and then lifting it again, Louis let his curiosity loose, "Where are you from, Tauris? Is it near, or have you been traveling a long way?"

A dark muzzle listed over her paws, stifling a throaty simper.

“You mock me,” and yet she fixed him with a twinkling eye, sharing the intrigue that came over his face. Tauris couldn’t spook a fieldmouse from off his seed, but she indulged in the compliments if only for the fact it was fun to imagine she was a master of bears with a pretty name. Louis didn’t seem the sort to charge a bear for something to prove. Charm one into submission, perhaps.

She fell into silent contemplation with his question before answering.

“Far North of here. A pack called Lyotak,” Her heart tugged saying the name aloud again. “My father, the alpha, covered both my mother and his mate the year I was born. She allowed us- my sisters and brothers- to stay, but only until we were old enough to hunt for ourselves. I don’t think she wanted the reminder. Can’t say I blame her.” She’d been small, in Lyotak, an inferior cousin. But she had been happy, too.

Her eyes wound their way back, searching the expressions that crossed his face. He couldn’t have been much older or younger than her, with only the faintest point of age under eye. 

“What of you, Louis? You have a northern look. Are you far from home yourself?”

"I'd never mock a lady while in reach of her fangs." Louis replied with a somber, playful flourish, lifting a paw to his chest.

But his manners were genuine. He listened astutely, ears drooping a little as she spun her tale. Still, he smiled when she returned his gaze. "Aye, Lamartine is my home. Or - was. I left to see the world about-" Louis lifted his head, blue eyes aimed at the ceiling in quick recollection, "Two seasons ago?"

Then faced her again, "It was an amiable parting, though. My parents were sad to see me go." Since Tauris had shared her origin, he supposed he ought to, as well. "Mother had been heir to our neighbors in the mountains. Stern wolves, they are. Rules as old as the sun. But she took two lovers, in secret. Both Lamartine. Strong friendships and strong heats make for easy accidents."

Louis' tail wagged. This tale was undoubtedly a favorite. "When her father found out she carried sins, he was furious, and chased her away. Lamartine took her in. Come whelping, it was obvious my sister's father and mine were not the same. Mother is white as snow, my papa is black as moonless nights, and Newt - she's red like a fox. Like her pa. They made peace with it, though. We were raised by many parents. If there was jealousy, I never saw it." He shrugged.

Then, with a curious tilt of his head, asked, "What about your mother?"

His tale unfolded and an intentness would sweep over his face.

Sin. Her heart hitched at the brutality of such a word.

Cold lands bred cold wolves. There was little to laugh about in the dire North. But Louis’ mother had been right to leave her natal pack. No cub should be reared beneath the frame of sin. Still, it could not have been a choice made easy, to abandon all that she knew.

Her eyes found his, “She sounds strong.”

“My mother will stay in Lyotak. She is loyal to her sister, the alphess.” Tauris had never seen true, romantic love. But what was shared between Mother and her sister- that was love. Deep, unalloyed, built stronger upon the roiling foundation that would see frail loves fall apart.

There was a moment of quiet; then Tauris hummed her interest, “So. What’s out there that’s not at home?”

"The strongest." Louis agreed. He had learned about strength from many wolves - his father, his grandfather, the alphas, the subordinates, even his sister. But mother had always been the greatest of bastions. Where others would hesitate, she plunged ahead, fearless.

It had often been remarked he took after her in that regard.

An ear twisted back. Louis did not know Tauris. Not really. She had shared a story - a brief one, and the context to make sense of it must surely elude him. Laws and values changed with the scent of borders. But Louis' mother had chosen him over her other kin. And to him it felt strange, wrong, to imagine there was anything admirable in a reality where he might have been sent away while she preserved her good graces. Tauris, after all, had not asked to be born.

"It's a shame that loyalty didn't extend to your litter," he answered, lip curling a little. Naive or not, he lacked sufficient restraint to keep his mouth shut.

Yes, she was a stranger. But she was young, and lovely to look upon, and he could not see where she'd done anything objectionable. He felt the compulsion to defend her, even as thin a tie as they had to one another. Whether she felt any need to be defended, herself.

"I'm not sure what's out there... but that's the allure for me, I suppose. Who knows what I might find." Then, grinning, "Or who. Like a pretty lady blown in with the storm." He winked.

Once she might have felt one way or another about Louis’ words, a great, creeping sadness or otherwise an innate instinct to defend her family. Now, she only brushed her chin to her shoulder in a shallow shrug, absent of further feeling. 

“I think there are many ‘shames’. And I might be lost if I allowed them to consume me. She is not without faults. Neither is my father.” And neither am I. “ I love them anyway.”

Louis the romantic. Heat flared and she looked away from him with amused scrutiny, wondering if she’d miscalculated. She felt a familiar tightening of her spine. His were flattering words, like the sweet-nothings of her youth. And there were excitements and secrets in his voice. She knew so little but she didn’t want to know more.  She allowed her imagination to fill in the gaps, allowed her eagerness for the idea of who he could be to eclipse her fear. She was tired of being a rat caught in winter. She wanted to be once again the girl who surrendered to fanciful pretense only because it was fun to do so.

So she gave a playful smile to the boy seeking for El Dorado. “And do the storms blow to you many ladies?”

His lip tightened, but he supposed that was fair. Loving family came as easy as breathing to him, and though their faults seemed small compared to what Tauris had told them, his parents weren't perfect.

His tail wagged a little at her returned banter, and he grinned all over again. "Not so many... You'd be the first, actually." He'd met girls in flowered meadows, and girls under shaded willow, but never in a storm like this. Maybe it was fate.

“Kismet,” came a hush with a shy smile. Her response to him was disturbing, but she wanted to explore it. She was anything she desired to be, beholden to none and emboldened by the enclosing fold of darkness, concealing truths that existed far from their pool of shadow. She’d decide then to shape herself into some idealized variation, lifting her chin so it might sweep over strands of fur along his blue shoulder.

Was this the girl Louis would like? Bold and agreeable, with eyes that sought for him and did not dissuade his own. A girl that, beyond this tunnel of dirt, would not exist. That mattered not in this moment. She hungered for this affection, a decent sense paled in comparison.

“Louis,” she spoke his name, as if persuading him to buy into her make-believe, “I’m glad it’s you. There are many rogues on the trail. Few so amenable.”

Least not herself. But Louis did not need to know it.

In his infatuation, it took Louis a moment to realize she was giving destiny its due acknowledgement, not asking for a kiss. His cheeks flushed at the presumptuousness of his ears. But then again... she wasn't exactly keeping him at paw's length.

Maybe it wasn't foolish to hope her appraisal of him was equally... captivating.

Leaning into her touch, he grinned again, softer, "I'm, uh, glad it's me, too." Was that silly to admit? It was honest, so he couldn't doubt himself too much, in the end. His head leaned a little closer, taking in the scent of her - strong now, in this warm burrow where they sheltered from the unforgiving world outside.

He let maudlin impulse take rein. "I wish you hadn't been driven to ground by such a storm. A smile like yours seems like to force spring's arrival in earnest. But then we might not have met, and I..." Usually not one at a loss for words, he nonetheless staggered.

"I would have missed the chance to see it for myself." His tail wagged again, perhaps more tentatively than before, and he gave a mild chuckle, "And to try to impress you, with my good manners." Swallowing, Louis kept his attention fixed firmly on her, entranced by every move and making not effort to fight the allure.

She does not need the validation of the charming stranger-boy, but is it so bad to want it?

She would not cling to him like his words might pull her from her broken world into the safety and surety of his arms. Like so many women she’s seen bind themselves to the predominance of their masculine counterparts. Like her own mother had with her father.

A little voice urges her to slow; that she did not know this boy, that she would not ever fall prey to the loveliness of a handsome face even if he spoke to her handsome words, too.

But his eyes are blue and full of whimsy, and she is a creature of curiosity who wants to feel only the novel surge of this moment between them. And it is her choice to inhabit a world with him if only while the muffled storm outside carries on. Does Louis feel it too? She thinks he might in the way he draws close, admiring her tattered pelt like it is not a thing to discard, but to treasure. She has never before felt that.

She shivers and presses the crown of her head into the fur beneath his throat. He is warm and sweet, she feels the words as he speaks them and on her maw is a brazen simper.

“What if good manners fail to impress?”

Blinking in surprise, Louis nevertheless wagged his tail in earnest. There was no reason, as far as he could see, to doubt her sincerity. He felt the draw between them, too, and it was easy to believe their sentiments aligned. She'd said as much, hadn't she?

She was beautiful and strange and familiar and wild. He might as well be a moth drawn to her moonlight.

Nuzzling into her touch, he gave an eager, stupefied little hum and unfolded a paw to wrap across her shoulders, hoping to draw her closer and evade the merest hint of winters chill between them.

"Well... I come from a long line of rule breakers, so I guess a little mischief would be called for." He couldn't entirely keep the eagerness out of his tone at that.

They might be kindred spirits. The way she teased him, he thought he was half in love already.

Into his arms she slinks and strokes the bridge of nose beneath his jaw, the corners of her mouth curling. It feels crazed to treat a perfect stranger so dear, with nuzzles and embraces previously given to no one. She can’t tear herself from their reckless lure.

She sinks into his scent and explores his edges greedily, shyly meeting his eyes at intervals and wondering how it would feel to kiss him? Would he be familiar like the native winterlands, from which they’ve both fled? Or does the wayward boy beget a worldly tenor?

She raises her mouth to his to for herself see…

What the hell am I doing?

Her body seizes! There is a fleeting gasp and suddenly she’s scrambling out from his clutch, banking against the wall of the earthen shelter that itself undulates and shudders with falling streams of dirt.

She stares wide-eyed and wordless, lungs filling, chest pounding, ridge bristling.

“Shit!” She hisses and her body quivers in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I’m- It’s just that- We don’t- I mean I’m-”

Damnit! How would he think of her now? As a witless fool?

And how quickly could she bury her head beneath the dirt? She couldn't bear the thought of him seeing her shame.

“I’m… a mess.”

And now he knows it, too.

Would she replay this moment in her mind every night for the rest of her life?
Probably.

Caught leaning after her for the split second it took to realize she was terrified, Louis scrambled as far back as the small space would let him, fur fluffed out in surprise.

"Wha-?" He'd managed, before her explanation... or the attempt thereof, was offered.

The excitement of a moment before had failed to dissipate, only changed into a confused, directionless energy that Louis in his young years wasn't quite sure how to redirect. A moment ago there'd been no lack of curiosity. Was it better to encourage, or put the idea to rest? He didn't know. He'd never met a wild, frightened girl in a snowstorm, either.

But he gathered that of the two of them, she might have less experience with courting. And he understood how all of this might be overwhelming, though it hurt him to think she could be so distressed over what he considered a fun, natural thing.

"It's uh... it's ok." He offered, flattening his ears and offering a soft whine. "I mean - it was a little fast." Faster than he was generally used to. "Maybe we just, I dunno, talk some more? Or... you can still sit with me if you like. But I don't want anything you aren't willing to give."

There were no kisses but those freely given, after all.

He scampers away and on the opposite side faces her. Two cornered beasts.

In her youth she was too wild to feel regret. Somewhere along the way she’d begun to grow in self-awareness, and there were opinions she’d come to value above even her own. She hated how she couldn’t go back, and she couldn’t rip from her skin this roiling shame hot as blood no matter how ardently she insists he is only a boy, and what does it matter anyway?

She hides away her eyes as Louis speaks. “Look- can we just forget this happened. Please?”

He sounds so controlled; forgiving. For some reason that makes her feel all the more pathetic, like a reminder that she should know well enough at her age to exercise equal restraint.

But she is a jagged cut of lightning- striking solid ground only in brief moments before returning to the storm. She chances one small peek at Louis.

Louis' head tilted to the side, lip twisting. "It wouldn't change the fact that it did. But - we don't have to talk about it." Fear made it hard to think, and without your wits you had storms ahead if you tried to force a resolution. His parents had taught him that, too, and without personal experience to fall back on, their lessons would have to provide roots for him.

He hoped she'd lose her fear more quickly if he was patient.

But that did nothing to abate his own restless energy. So, easing himself back down into a comfortable spot in the dirt, he let his tail wag a little at her again, and then occupied himself with grooming. Thick Northern fur kept the chill out, but it certainly didn't breathe well in a confined space like this.

And moreover... her scent was on his coat, strong over his nose.

Maybe this had been a foolish distraction.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she snaps.

Her jaws clutch in frustration. Mixed with her disgust at herself was contempt for Louis’ resistance, then guilt again because she’d caused this. She shudders like a vulnerable little whelpling half her age.

I’m so stupid, she thinks ruefully. Stupid Stupid Stupid.

She sniffs and turns away from Louis and his amicable little tail-wagging gesture and slumps into a ball. She is not making peace with that boy. He’s seen too much of the fool she is and when the storm breaks she will ensure they’re headed in opposite directions.

If this fucking storm ever would end.

She tries to steady her breathing to move past the moment and on to events beyond this limbo, but her mind loops back.

Blinking, Louis gave his shoulder one last lick and heaved a sigh. Let his head rest on his paws. Tried to accept the silence.

He'd never been all that good at ignoring distress. Even if talking hadn't been an option, at home there had still been the comfort of family to curl up beside. The certainty that mistakes weren't permanent. Affections weren't damaged - not forever.

With Tauris distanced so, it was easy to feel the chill of storms inside and out. This was different. A whirlwind. The girl was a storm herself.

He breathed another sigh, heavy.

Then, wide-eyed, tilted his head to watch her. A new impulse inspired him. It was childsih, puplike even, but he grinned. And crept toward her a couple of inches before stopping, with a playful whine bordering on a growl. His tail thump thump thumped against the packed dirt behind him.

Maybe if he acted thus, she wouldn't be so frightened, and the air between them would be easy to breathe again.

Quit it! She warns with a deep-throated rumble. She turns not to face him, but listens to the eager beat of tail and those winsome croons- as if this cute puppy act could provoke anything but her anger!

He wont stop, his croons curl into grumbles and her pelt barbs in return. Her body stiffens and she'll hold in view the silver boy from the side of her eye.

Lips lift to glint her teeth, a final warning.