Otatso Wetlands Trace the moment, fall forever

Paging @Wildflower but all welcome! Backdated probably

He felt the buzzing in his ears more than heard it, but all the same, it was so, so loud. Tybault hadn't expected that part — but really, who does?

Everyone dreams of running away sometimes. Buy a ticket to nowhere, they say, take nothing; leave it all behind but your bare soul, and that's romantic, and that's freedom, and that's beautiful, that's life. No one ever tells you that it doesn't feel very beautiful, that the taste isn't much like freedom at all but bile gathering at the back of your throat. Less like summer's respite than the stark grip of winter: you're alone and it's cold, the sky is grey, the birds are all gone and nothing grows. Nothing grows.

So you just keep walking.

Tybault wasn't sure if he hoped to find Wildflower still lurking around these wetlands. He wasn't quite looking for him, in any case. Not really. Looking for him would have implied investment, and — no. No. There was no room in him for that.

But he would stick around a little while, at least. See if anything came up.

He didn't know where he would go after that; only that he couldn't go back. Not again.

Investment was a tricky thing. Tricky, in that Wildflower never could seem to see through it. Investment was a fly trap and he, Wildflower, was the bug.

Sabandija.

(He'd never heard that word before. It lived in him anyway in a hundred other syllables.)

So. He'd tracked the man down. Watched him, for a time. Left him and tracked him down again, and that was what passed for companionship for him, most days. That didn't mean he didn't burn for more. So when desperation overcame his fear, he made himself available. Just happened to stumble across his path. His smile was weak, exhausted. Teasing all the same.

"Cher," he said in greeting, hooded eyes assessing his welcome. He did not yet come closer.

Tybault couldn't help but smile, too; just as weary, more sad than anything, but there was relief there too. Hey, He said, feeling lame because he still didn't know what that meant, and he didn't have anything fancy to say in response. What he did say was:

I'm leaving. Do you want to come with me?

Maybe that was fancier than anything else he could have said, in its own way, because it was so much more than just those words. It was the hesitant way he lingered over them; it was the vulnerability in the simple act of asking. Tybault didn't enjoy vulnerability, as a rule. He wasn't sure he would call this enjoyable — but then, he didn't know what to call it at all. Stupid, maybe, if only because he should have known better than to get his hopes up by now. And over a stranger, a coywolf of all people, a coywolf named Wildflower.

He thought he liked that, though. Wildflower. It suited him, somehow.

They didn't know each other from Adam. If Wildflower were a different sort of man, he would've thought that to himself. It would've made him wonder about the kind of man Tybault was. It would've called to mind the teeth of desperation that he'd so often felt pierce his hide.

Thoughtless men did thoughtless things.

Then again, Wildflower had a whole lot of thoughts. He'd still been reckless. Dangerous. Bad.

But he wasn't a different sort of man. These things didn't occur to him. What he thought instead was — leaving where?

"Alright," he agreed, easy as anything. His hesitation only became clear in his follow-up: "Away from your family?" Not that he had room to talk. He'd left two already. That was the coyote in him, though. As far as he knew, there was no such original sin chewing on Tybault's paws.

For a moment Tybault, too, hesitated. Yeah, He said after a moment, and then, because he didn't know what else to say, gestured for Wildflower to follow him. Without much thought, his paws turned coastbound. There was a fleeting thought of the island, though. Sweetharbor. The pack would be gone now, but not the land itself.

Then his eyes flitted back to Wildflower, and it really started to sink in. He'd said yes.

He deserved an explanation, then, didn't he?

We're... not good for each other, Tybault added finally. The words came out more forlorn than he'd meant. Too many memories, I guess. Of where we came from. And they've all moved on, so... I guess I should, too.

He left out the part where he didn't quite know how yet. It was probably implied.