SSWM Word Count → 677 :: You would be correct. And I made you that avatar, darling.

Distraction had become the scarred coywolf’s boon in the tumultuous time, and she found herself grateful to have a clan to watch over and responsibilities to keep her busy. Her raging mind fell into familiar grooves, and she diverted all of her pent-up aggressive energy into acceptable channels in a textbook example of sublimation. She walked the territory boundaries almost constantly, occasionally following a newer member of the clan though rarely if ever did she say anything to them. In fact, she had spoken few words to anyone since returning from the west—the better to hide wounds that were proof of her disobedience.

Luckily, Vesper and the others who had taken part in the raid on Salsola had not been found out, or at least not to her knowledge. Natheless, she remained on edge. The skinny albino coydog who named himself spy had found out what happened when that nervous energy exploded—but the scrap had done her some good. It was nice to fight without ulterior motives other than driving him off and releasing some of her burning emotions.

Today, the only creatures that felt her fang were small ones—mostly lemmings that had been burrowing for food underneath the snow and leaf litter. She’d eaten all that she had found until her hunger was sated, and at that point she dug a cache for the remaining rodents. It was a normal routine; when she could, she took advantage of neutral territory to hunt, leaving plenty of prey animals untouched within Inferni where those who could not travel or were not comfortable traveling could find easier meals. It might have destroyed the point of having claimed hunting grounds, but her mind did not work like most pack canines’ did.

More than anything, venturing into the Dampwoods in search of a meal soothed Vesper with a sense of familiarity. She could pretend for a moment that she was not a pack luperci, and that she had nothing and no one in the world to fret about. Others might have called it a lonely existence, but though she had been grateful for responsibilities in Inferni these past couple of weeks, being by herself for a while was good too.

The only problem was her vulnerability to thought—and she overcame that issue by simply not thinking about anything. Treading through the snow, she lifted her head and absorbed all the sights and sounds and smells around her: squirrels searching for acorns, naked branches clattering in a chill wind, the spoor of a stoat that had passed this way yesterday. The crisp, ozone-like tang of the wintry air danced on her tongue, and her mood began to lift quietly. She did not wag her tail or even smile, but her cornflower blue eyes softened, and she loped without effort through the forest, letting herself observe the world and nothing more.

But then the muffled sounds of a snow-covered forest were interrupted by something like hushed whimpering. All four paws halted. One large ear stood to attention and swiveled, while its ragged companion merely twitched. The small hybrid dared to lift her dark nose to the air again, and the scent that reached her washed away everything else.

With a heart and mind as numb as the paw pads touching the snow, Vesper walked in the direction of the smell then paused. Against a tree huddled a familiar dark brown shape; bleached and red-streaked hair fell over the precious face from her memory, but then again, she was all too used to the changes of the fickle young wolf.

There was no evident disappointment or hurt or anger or joy in the she-yote’s angular face. She only looked across at Blind, standing perfectly still, as if she were something fashioned out of the flora and snow no more alive than a tree.

Then she found her voice, although it didn’t sound much like her voice to her own ears. Her lips did not smirk, and her eyes did not tease.

“Come now. I hate to see pretty girls cry.”

SSWM Word Count → 512 :: You would be correct. And I made you that avatar, darling.

Blind lifted her head at the scarred woman’s approach, and Vesper feared for her resolve when those mismatched eyes locked onto her: sunlight yellow and chilling blue. Her heart, entrenched in ice as it seemed to be since the raid, skipped a couple of beats and left the rest of her body feeling like a gust of wind could blow it all away. Had she been a weaker creature, she might have trembled, but firmly she pressed her emotions into submission and shoved them back out of the way where they belonged. Only the loose feeling of strangeness, that weird detachment, was permitted to stay and envelop her protectively.

The curvy shape of the young she-wolf’s optime form condensed into one that was more familiar, if any of her forms could be considered that to someone who was realizing she knew less and less about this girl. A streak of white and red remained on her forehead, but otherwise Ves could have pretended that this was the same sweet creature she had played with in the forest so long ago, when both were untouched by the virus.

The Praetorian inhaled once more as Blind took a small step forward and did the same, taking in her scent carefully. The Crimson Dreams scent had faded from the chocolaty-black pelt, mixed instead with something that seemed fresh and new: the wilds of someplace that the well-traveled hybrid had not been, or at least had not been for a very long time. She had eaten recently and met with some strangers. It was all so very normal other than the lack of a pack scent, but that too Vesper already knew.

And then Blind let up a cry, and her body was pressed against the coywolf’s, and Vesper fought to keep control. She wanted to sink down beside the girl and cover her in kisses and tell her that everything was going to be okay again, and to confess how many hours had been spent thinking about her and where she had gone and the devastation that lingered in her heart of hearts at the abandonment she should have expected from experience.

But, although she did not pull away, Vesper made no move and remained quiet for several moments as she listened to the other’s irregular breathing. She finally dipped her muzzle and pressed her nose between the girl’s dark ears. “You left.” She sighed, her warm breath tickling the hairs on that oddly-colored stripe. “I had to ask one of your leaders, and she told me you had gone.” She did not want to put into words the tumultuous thoughts that had led up to the decision to visit the pack’s borders. “But she couldn’t tell me where you’d gone, or why. I’d given you up for lost.” The words fell calmly and quietly from her mouth. That was as much as she’d say, for now; she couldn’t trust letting out anything else. There was precious little in this life that she could control, and so she had to hold onto what she could.

SSWM Word Count → 608 :: I just realized how much I missed reading your posts ;__; You give me so much muse, even if it's teenage-angst-muse. xD

The dark she-wolf knew that something was off, but even when she drew away it was not for long. Mostly her form remained plastered to the small coyote’s, trembling against her, and the deep-rooted instinct to comfort overtook whatever distance Vesper had been thinking about keeping. So she kept close, her chin resting lightly on the girl’s head and neck, waiting for the shaking to subside and for the girl to calm down. It didn’t seem like it would happen anytime soon.

After a while, Blind managed to calm herself enough to speak, her two-toned gaze seeking out the hybrid’s. She explained vaguely that she left because she wasn’t happy with the pack, and then a gentle vow escaped her lips. The proverb “once bitten, twice shy” seemed to relate to what Vesper was thinking then, and she quickly turned her pale eyes away, letting them land on a cardinal perched on one of the tree branches. It was a splash of bright red color in an otherwise subtle landscape.

She ignored the promise, remembering all those other things the girl may or may not have said, and pressed her gently: “You weren’t happy… Did you still feel like you didn’t belong? What about your mother?” That was what her friend had been worried about before, both her adoptive parent and the general detachment from the rest of the pack. Ves was—and had been—acutely aware of the fact that Blind might belong even less with her; she hadn’t wanted to be selfish, and she knew now that it only added a host of problems to the already shaky ground they were standing on right now. She could blurt out a whole host of reasons why Blind should go back to wherever she had found happiness in the wilds, but she held her tongue.

Blind’s tongue on her tattered ear made her breath stop, though, and when the girl begged her to say something, to show some warmth, Vesper quickly looked away again. This time, however, she looked less cold and more just flustered—a fallible creature. She was even more at a loss when the she-wolf pressed her face against her pale chest, sobbing quietly and trembling, and it was all she could do to reach up with a foreleg and draw Blind even closer.

“I’m sorry,” Vesper murmured, nuzzling a black ear. The truth came out without any more fanfare other than an undertone of guilt. “It just—it hurt, and I felt alone. And I adjusted. And I don’t know if things can ever go back to how they were, never mind how much I want them to.” She would not abandon Inferni, not after rising so high in rank, not after apparently proving herself capable in the leader’s eyes. Were she to be cast out, she probably wouldn’t think twice of whisking Blind away to court her, to explore the rest of the entire world with the girl by her side, but the former loner felt a surprising burst of commitment to her new clan. After all the trouble she had gone through, it didn’t make sense to throw it all away.

Her breath caught again, only because she was forcing back another well of emotions once hidden so well behind their icy dam. “I feel torn.” Not in a neat half, but in several pieces, all strewn throughout Nova Scotia and beyond. She thought of Inferni, of Ichika, of Sequoia, of the vast world beyond the mountains and of the girl held tight against her. She could not fully commit to any one without making more sacrifices than she was ready for.

SSWM Word Count → 840 :: Holy crap this is long sorry ;__; I wanted to get out some extra words for SoSu and got carried away. And much for not being melodramatic, Vessie-poo.

Vesper pricked her ears in disbelief and concern as the dark wolf explained her adoptive mother was the only reason she’d stayed in Crimson Dreams. Soran must have been a caring wolf for Blind to feel about her the way she did, and to give up freedom in order to stay close—not that Ves had ever experienced something like that. Or—perhaps once, when the young coyote band’s leader had neglected and abused his groupies, and the she-yote only found herself giving a damn because of, surprise surprise, a pretty girl. But she’d actively done something about the group before needing to flee with blood on her paws.

There was no way that she could understand what Blind had been feeling, with a pack she didn’t truly belong in rooting her to the spot. She couldn’t know how hard the girl had tried and how cold her comrades must have been to not make her feel welcome, or if it had just been something that could have been worked out. She simply couldn’t know.

The phrasing on the last statement made her flatten her ears against her angular head and draw back a little, glancing down into the mismatched eyes in confusion. “When you thought of me?” she asked, prompting her to explain while she was worried about the answer. What had she done to urge the young she-wolf to take flight? She remembered Blind honestly telling her that she’d instilled something in her—but causing her to tear away from her home wasn’t something that she had wanted unless Crimson Dreams really was a distant place. And in that case, why hadn’t Blind come to her?

Because you told her you didn’t want to go with her, fool, a sneering voice retorted, its teeth dripping with acid. What the hell else was she supposed to do?

Giving her head a shake, her mangled ear flapping against her skull, Vesper smothered the tiny ball of self-resentment. She had promised herself long ago that she would put herself above all but a select few others. There was no point in being the type of wolf to glare daggers at their own reflection and wish to be taken from the world they did not deserve. She had never been at that level, but her flaws were rearing their ugly heads. A creature of pride bordering on sheer arrogance, she could tolerate her own defects only briefly. It was much easier to ignore them and live life how she wanted to.

If only she didn’t care so much.

She almost sighed before the dark wolf skittered backwards, eyes fixed on the ground. The sudden movement had the hybrid’s patchwork fur standing on end, and she wondered what had prompted this shift in behavior. Take your pick, the voice replied snidely, and once again she drove her thoughts back with bared teeth.

Blind protested suddenly, ears flattened, her body regaining control of itself though her emotions were as wild as before. Her words planted another seed of guilt, but logic halted whatever quiet sympathies the coywolf was about to share. Instead, anger welled up inside of her, and she took a step back and lashed her tail.

“How?” Vesper demanded—one word, yapped out harshly. Her claws dug lightly into the frosty soil, and a skinny branch rattled as a cardinal took flight from it, startled by the hard sound of her voice. “We can make things better—how, Blind?”

She did not need a sarcastic little voice telling her that she was being impossible at the moment. But she refrained from a more biting tone, and she kept the distance between them for safety’s sake rather than cruelty. Her jaw clenched, the muscles in her face fighting to keep her expression in check.

“I don’t know what to do,” she hissed out, her ears pulled back tightly. “I didn’t know what to do even before you left.” Oh, the sleepless night after their last reunion had been torture, all of those lovely images replaying through her head, her mind dancing through the alternatives—what if she had said this, done this—and she’d thought she would fall asleep happy until the stressful realities put her fantasies in check. “All I know is that I’ve never had a friend like you, and that some of my clan mates would not hesitate to cast me out if they knew I—” Deep, shuddering breath. Regaining some cool. You’re acting the fool all over again, Ves. “If they knew I was consorting with some wolf.”

Her voice growing firm again, the tension in her body relaxing into something fluid and controlled, Vesper wanted to snatch back those last words. She would not throw away Inferni so easily, would not paint the fire clan into the same violent picture others did. But the divide still lay wide and unsurpassable before her. She could never invite Blind into that part of her life. She could not promise her safety in her home. And it was a shame.

SSWM Word Count → 848

Vesper cursed her emotions for the umpteenth time as she stood, her paws slightly splayed as if to keep her body from collapsing, her fur puffed among the scars that riddled her lean frame. She could control them so well for a time, locking them away behind ice, speaking only the clearest and most coherent of words—but this outburst among several others that had occurred lately confirmed that her supposed discipline was a joke. It was one of the few flaws she wanted desperately to work at and polish. She didn’t want to be a cold and emotionless individual, but she didn’t want to feel so wildly out of control like this, didn’t want to spit words out into the cold air only to regret them immediately. Had she a tighter claim on her coolness, she might have explained all of her troubles calmly to her friend, and they could have sorted them out. But no, they would have to play this game of whimpering and shaking and snapping and crying.

Something that had burst out among the messy wash of words seemed to strike a chord in Blind—a dissonant chord, one that apparently grated on her attention and left her wide-eyed and slack-jawed in the worst way. The light disappeared from her heterochromatic eyes, and her voice came out in a mutter.

Disbelief rested among the cornflower blue hues of Vesper’s gaze, and she stepped backwards as if trying to avoid a precipice. Her head shook back and forth quickly, a little frantic motion she hoped would catch her friend’s attention. Despite what some of her clan might believe, the same prejudices did not exist for the coywolf—but they were still a very real part of her life. She could not ignore how the others felt, no matter how much she agreed or disagreed, and that made this road even rockier than it had been.

“Forbidden—maybe,” the tawny she-yote breathed, abandoning the last traces of her bitterness as she just hoped to correct her mistake. “But you’re—Blind, you’re everything I’ve ever said you were. Wolf or not doesn’t matter, and it’s inane to think it does.” Her head lowered, paws shuffling against the cold dirt. The warble of a bird rang out alarmingly through a forest so quiet it seemed to be holding its breath. “If anything, I’m the canine who’s keeping you from being happy. I made you feel chained to this place.” Her eyes softened with desperation; if only Ves were detested instead of looked up to, the dark auburn she-wolf would feel free to go seek out her own life. If you love something, let it go, right?

She lowered herself close to the ground and crept forward, pushing her narrow muzzle under her friend’s, hoping to tilt her head back up. “I care about you too, Blind. I don’t want our friendship and everything else”—there was something else, even if it was just the hint of an idea of something else—“to be ruined…but I don’t know what we can do. Not with Inferni—because I care about some of the coyotes there too.” Or if she didn’t, she easily could. That much had been proven with the night of drunken laughter and confessions with Helotes, a man she had once feared and resented and now respected as a comrade and a surprising lightweight for his toughness. There was so much potential in the clan and in her rank, and she could craft a meaningful purpose there that she could not while wandering about the wilds. Vesper still wholeheartedly believed that she could be alone for the rest of her life and still find satisfaction in it—but purpose, purpose was hard to come by without others joining the cause.

And that was the problem here, two options calling at her with no alternatives. Only compromise could save her friendship with the dear girl—but that did not guarantee anything and might even just sour her relations with both coyote and wolf. The heat that danced through her stomach when Blind smiled or laughed at her complicated matters greatly too.

“And I’m—I’m afraid of you leaving again,” Vesper admitted, hesitant to bring up this point as she did not want Blind to feel guilty. “I had a…friend like you once…” Beautiful and sweet, eyes like the berries of the plant she was named for, a companion to run alongside her at day, a side to nestle against during their covert nights. “I made a sacrifice for her.” She would never be able to get the image of Oliver out of her head, get the taste of his blood and fur and tears out of her mouth. “She abandoned me.” The scarred teenager had steeled her heart against such matters and set out and proceeded to pick a fight with the whole goddamn world. She had matured since then, and even if Juniper’s memory still stung, it did not dominate her entire life; it was only a small part of it.

But those small parts added up.

Word Count → 457 :: And normal-sized posts again! Haha yours was fine, and I understand about cleaning. ;__; Think this should be wrapped up soon? :x Like Ves said, it wouldn't be goodbye forever.

Was it worth it?

Blind grew rigid and cold, a stone statue resistant to her would-be soothing words. There had been a time where such words had brought a smile to that pretty dark face, when both had been stumbling over what they had to say because of their proximity. But while the scarred woman’s explanations limped broken from her wagging tongue, the girl was silent and mostly unresponsive. To see her shut out the emotions like Ves often was troubling, to see those mismatched eyes lose their light almost nauseating.

Is it worth it? the voice whispered again, and Vesper twitched her ragged ear. Have you done anything but speak truth to this girl? You know it’s going to be hard to make a friendship work while you’re so torn. You just can’t get over it because, face it, she hurt me. The sudden pronoun change made her realize that these were her conscious thoughts, not a disembodied conscience muttering bitter words into her ear.

The dark auburn she-wolf spoke, and though the hybrid listened with attentive ears and searching blue eyes, all of the fight had left her. She was too tired to force this anymore, whatever “this” happened to be. She’d completely lost track of what they were arguing about since the beginning, other than her own stupid emotions.

“Perhaps,” Vesper said, even as she screamed at herself not to agree with the bitter suggestion. She nearly winced and amended her statement. “Perhaps… Perhaps we should just see how it works out. I know we care dearly for each other”—or used to, at any rate; those empty eyes stared back at her—“but if you want to enjoy freedom and I want to work on my duties, it’s probably best that we part ways.” She was careful not to refer to Blind’s decision as misguided; after all, the coywolf had been a loner for most of her life and had only now found a home. Hopefully, that would be the case for Blind too, unless her paws were the kind made for wandering. There was nothing wrong with that.

“I don’t want to say goodbye, though,” she added quietly, lowering her ears and averting her eyes miserably. “I just want to see how it all works out. I just want both of us to be happy.” There was no point in sacrificing happiness for the sake of one, after all. She had become soft, had risked her life to save others before, but she still spat upon altruism. She wouldn’t cast her life aside if it meant running off with Blind and a host of doubts, and she didn’t want the girl to feel guilty if she wanted to ever wander off again.

Word Count → 523 :: I'll let you ask for it to be archived/even post again if you want once you've read it. <3 It was great threading with you again.

A soft tongue pressed to her head, and blue eyes shut quickly to hide the soft emotions conjured by that touch. Her tail swayed brokenly with hope that the girl would understand and that she wouldn’t end up hurt too. All she wanted, all she prayed for, was that their friendship would not be destroyed—or at least that they wouldn’t part on a dark note. She didn’t mind if they never saw each other again, as long as there was hope that, somewhere out there, the other was thinking fondly of them. She needed a conclusion to this that wasn’t so conclusive, one that offered some freedom, so she could think that everything would be great no matter what.

Vesper was tired of lying to herself, but she could tolerate this one last lie. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

Her tail faltered in its low wag when the girl stepped away, and her eyes opened to meet the dual-colored ones hovering in front of her. The promise and the nickname made her smile crookedly before Blind pressed her muzzle under her neck; she licked the fire-and-bleach streak on the she-wolf’s head to comfort her before the young female ducked away again, pawing at her face.

The coyote continued to smile—but sadly, knowing that there was nothing else she could do to help her. But perhaps that was for the best. Blind would have to walk without using her as a crutch; she would have to take flight again and discover her own desires in life. She was young yet.

The sudden transformation into optime startled Vesper, who took a step back but openly watched, her gaze lingering on the result. Pale hair, once unruly and constantly brushed from her eyes, framed her face gorgeously; the rest of her managed a build that was trim yet womanly. There was a dark pattern on her navel, something like a bird—what type of bird the she-yote would not dare to guess, remembering part of the origin of her very own name. It seemed that Blind was not quite as young anymore.

A pair of outstretched arms and a quiet request caught the tawny female off guard, though she smiled faintly in amusement and affection before letting her own change take hold of her. Feral lines crafted her androgynous body, giving her that hint of a hunch and the scruffy look that she knew would never leave.

But the wildness was tamed enough, and Vesper stepped forward to wrap her lean arms around the girl. Claws unsheathed lightly in a touch of desperation, will alone keeping them from burying into the young woman’s shoulders, from holding her there for the rest of eternity. Her nose sought the platinum hair, burying in it lightly as one paw rose from the small of her back to an auburn cheek.

She drew away long enough to smirk faintly, showcasing that teasing signature look one last time, and planted a tender kiss between the girl’s mismatched eyes before drawing back and turning away.

The coyote woman walked away from the wolf girl, heading through the forest toward home.