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geneva. <3
The past few weeks had been unsurprisingly overwhelming for the Patriarch. He had barely made time for himself at all; each time he tried to hide away in the ranch like he had done for months on end, he was interrupted in one way or another. DaVinci stopped by rather often with whatever concerns or questions he had to discuss, not to mention pack members had learned that he could be easily cornered there for whatever they wanted. In addition, Addison had found refuge there in the ranch house with him under his watchful eye and care, and there was always something she needed, he realized. Whether the pup was hungry, sick, or simply wanting some other type of miscellaneous attention, she always ran to the one-eyed brute and demanded something from him. With the pack slowly beginning to grow again, more and more was being demanded of him day by day, though he'd already grown used to that. But with the recent loss of Iskata, he still found himself stiff and cold to most, hardly wanting to deal with anyone at all.
Before he'd been thrown into Phoenix Valley's highest position, he had commonly hunted down a book that looked interesting from the ranch's small library within the walls and made his way to the rocking chair by the fire. He had a hard time reading, still, but had dedicated himself at one point to learning how to read more fluently. Jefferson had come to believe that his amnesia had somehow wiped out the ability, since remnants in his brain recognized the most random of words and connected them to memories he could not quite identify, thus growing to believe that he'd been able to read once. It was strange that he'd forgotten, and the brute regretted losing his memory for the sake of reading almost as much as he wished he could remember his own family.
The afternoon was a particularly slow one, for whatever reason. The clouds had broken into a downpour outside, thus possibly keeping his underlings indoors and out of his hair, at least for a few hours. Addison was passed out in the bedroom, or so he assumed; he'd directly told her not to leave the ranch while it was raining, and she normally followed directions when presented to her so sternly. He'd sparked a fire in the hearth as always, retrieved a book from the library, and sat down in the rocking chair pleasantly. Jefferson looked forward to reading so comfortably as he had months before, without another worry in the world, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, the brute's single eye fluttered and his head tipped back, jowls parted only slightly as he remained in an unexpected rest. Once asleep, he characterized a picture of peace rather simply: the beast's threatening composure seemed to erase considering how gentle he appeared; the countless scars he bore on his skin became meager papercuts instead, as if his whole body was temporarily cleaned of some sort of sin or ordeal. The book in his single hand tilted away from his grasp, dwindling over his scarred and destroyed fingertips atop his knee.
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[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/12.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;"> Geneva's ears lay flat against her head as she moved swiftly in her Optime form. Lime green eyes blinked rain out of her face as she hunched into herself. It had been foolish of her to venture out in midday, when clouds had crowded the sky. But the gray wolfess had felt the need to visit Savina. The dark furred fey had been in her thoughts a lot lately. She had felt a yearning in her heart that day, a spot of warmth on an otherwise cold day as she thought of her friend. It hadn't been very long since she had seen her, but it felt like lifetimes anyway.
She missed the way the light flashed in her emerald green eyes when she spoke of her future, how her words would speed up as her excitement sparked. Little miracles were all around, if only Geneva could take a step back and take the chance to enjoy them. She was looking forward to meeting Savina and Kansas' children. She loved children so much. And she hoped that Savina's pregnancy would work out, unlike her own.
She still felt the slightest ache if she dwelled too long on thoughts like that. Haven and Mati had helped to fill a void she didn't know she had in Crimson Dreams. In Phoenix Valley, she had begun to feel that hole in her heart again. But the world had changed once more when she had laid eyes on Addison. After the initial shock and terror of walking the tight rope of a path at the Quarry, she had finally felt her heart turn at the sight of the girl. And it seemed that the one-eyed Patriarch had taken the girl as her own. She had to hide a smile despite her dissatisfaction with the rain. It seemed there was a way to reach him after all.
Her eyes flicked to the light coming from the window of the ranch house. She picked up her pace, running to the door and opening it with a slight creak. She shook herself slightly coming fingers through her short hair, moving it out of her eyes. She entered the ranch, immediately feeling some warmth already. She unfolded her arm, looking down at the book she had been carrying with her.
It was a bright purple book, slightly worn with blank lined pages. She had wanted to go find Savina and write down the names she had in mind for her pups. She was brought up short when she heard deep, even breathing. Raising her eyes, she saw Jefferson in a rocking chair. She had to blink to be sure she was seeing straight. But there he was, a vision of peace as he exhaled gently. She gazed in wonder at the man.
This wasn't something she would have expected. Another side of him. Or perhaps not another side at all. Maybe this was him without the barrier he felt he needed to erect when others were around. He was unguarded now. She shook her head and stretched out on the floor a few feet from the rocking chair, sharing the warmth of the fire with the unknowing Patriarch. After looking at him for a moment more, she flipped the book open, pulled out a pen, and began to write in silence.
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The pressures of his rank and responsibilities were evident in the way he normally behaved, but the tranquility of his sleep was another story. It was as if a book had been closed, as if a candle had been put out. All the energy and vivacity of his daily life was very suddenly silenced and put at peace; fortunately, that type of rest was exactly what kept him going. It was a brief numbness to it all, a pause button on a life that was playing in constant fast forward. Jefferson was grateful for that, even though the unwanted nap was interrupting time when he could have been reading or amusing himself one way or another. He stirred awake groggily, unsure of how long he'd been passed out. Head still tipped back, the cyclops listed quietly to the tapping of rain on the roof, eye wearily staring skyward as he breezed through the variation of quiet, sleepy thoughts in his head. His ears flicked forward at the sound of a page turning and Jefferson tilted his head forward just slightly, eye gazing down at the grayscale-hued wolfess as she lay across the floor before him.
He watched her a few seconds before exhaling and leaning forward, bending an elbow onto his knee as he rubbed at his face as if to wipe away the weary within. After collecting himself, he let his arm fall loose as he stared down at her, half-awake, still bent forward onto his knee in the chair. "You're soaked," the idiot stupidly observed. "...and you got the floor all wet."
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[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/12.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;"> Geneva's lime green eyes flicked upward when she heard a change in Jefferson's breathing. The sound of his deep, even breath was a constant sound, coupled with the rain. It served to relax her, helped to make her feel at peace. And honestly, she hadn't felt even a measure of this sort of peace since she left Crimson Dreams behind her. It was a sort of relief, and a deep breath of relief fanned across the page of her journal.
She returned her eyes to her writing before he looked down at her. She didn't want to be caught looking at him, didn't really want to be the culprit for breaking his peace. She made a lazy loop with her pen, waiting for him to talk to her if he chose to. Geneva continued to scrawl her thoughts with little care, her script becoming larger and less uniform as she reflected on different things now.
She didn't have long to wait. She heard the rocking chair creaking slightly as he moved. She could tell by the change in his breathing that he wasn't completely awake. Then she heard his voice, and kept her head down to hide her smile. "I know," she said, flipping another page to a new, clean one. Then she set her pen down, resting her elbows on the floor so she could look up at him and rest her chin on a hand. "You have a gift for stating the obvious, Jefferson," she said gently, teasing, figuring if she could get away with something like this, now would be the time.
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Her response was hardly a surprise; no explanation for being there or doing what she was doing, just a simple sarcastic retort. Of course, the cyclops was still groggy and hardly able to think straight, and thus his direct reply to her comment was a stupid, groggy scowl pointed directed at her. For a brief amount of time, his worries and frustrations had been put to rest while he'd dozed off. Such thoughts were still dismissed from his mind in the process of waking up, though the sight of her delighted him nonetheless. Her presence somehow made him a little happier; he could not explain why, nor did he ever expect it as such.
He watched her a long while when she returned to her writing and scribbling. Jefferson was no good at writing, considering he'd hardly tried, and the process of reteaching the art of reading to himself was an ongoing process of unending effort and frustration. After some time, he leaned forward again and watched a little more closely, then gently spoke up. "What are you writing?" He muttered, withholding how impressed--and almost jealous--he was by the skill.
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[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/12.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;"> Geneva had to keep herself from rolling her eyes when Jefferson shot her an all-too-familiar scowl. She was tempted to tell him that he continued to make faces like that at her, that his face would freeze that way. She wondered if he had ever heard someone tell him that before. She remembered her father telling her something similar, except she had pulled silly, light-hearted. She couldn't detect any animosity in the Patriarch's groggy scowl, so she just shrugged and let it go.
She flicked her own gaze down to her journal, her first instinct to keep her mouth shut. Writing had been something she had picked up because silence had suited her in her youth. It had been a way for her to share her thoughts without falling prey to disinterest or critique. No longer a child, she didn't hold those fears quite as close to her chest. Still, it felt strange to think of sharing the words that filled these pages.
The gray wolfess realized that this was perhaps the first time, outside of the day she had joined Phoenix Valley, that Jefferson had asked her anything besides what she wanted of him. She looked back up at Jefferson, "An overview of thoughts and events," she said lightly. Her eyes strayed to the book in his possession. "Do you read?"
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Jefferson anticipated a level of privacy that accompanied her writing. He guessed it was some sort of journal--she didn't exactly strike him as the novelist type, if there was one such still--and while the concept of a personal diary was somewhat foreign and understood to the one-eyed man whose thoughts were perfectly discontent revolving around in his head at all times, he chose not to give her trouble for it. Even if he had, surely she would have retorted with something just as witty or frustrating. For some reason, he wouldn't have been surprised if she'd suggested he begin using some sort of journal himself, considering the thousand plagues in his mind, but she didn't know him well enough to remember that he could barely even read.
His reaction, sheepish. Jefferson shrugged his shoulders and glanced idly at the book still balanced on his opposite knee. "...I'm working on it. I'm pretty sure I could read before I got my brains conked out." He was trying to reteach himself, even if he didn't have the time to read anymore. It had taken him several minutes' thought to recognize and read the factory sign that named him the moment he woke up from his amnesia... that enough was plenty to tell him he'd been able to read once, even if the ability was jumbled and difficult now. "I can't write... but having only one arm doesn't help."
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[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/12.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;"> Geneva listened intently as Jefferson spoke, surprised by how candid the Patriarch was being. This mood was definitely a rarity. Perhaps he was a "morning person," waking up refreshed with a brand new outlook on life. Or perhaps, and more likely, she had caught him between waking and dreaming, before he had the time to piece his armor together too tightly. She knew that for some reason or another, she had a way of getting to him. But she found that she preferred this interaction, not because it was easier, but because it didn't seem to upset Jefferson so much.
She blinked once, her only out of step reaction when Jefferson mentioned his life before now. She wanted to stop him in his tracks, and ask him to go back to that topic and elaborate. She wanted him to ask a million things, but held her tongue curled against the roof of her mouth to keep from interrupting him. He was volunteering information, and about himself no less, with very little prompting. She wondered if ice cream was being sold in hell.
Geneva smiled gently when he admitted the last bit. "I can teach you, Jefferson," she said almost instantly, excited and sincere. She realized she might be coming on too strong and turned the enthusiasm down. "Only if you'd like me to."
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He wasn't exactly expecting her to offer to help right away, but she did. Immediately thereafter, his bright green eye stared at her in complete bewilderment--why in the hell would she want to help him now? Was this more of her silly little experiment, trying to get into his head and mix around the demons within as if they were part of the grimy concoction that summarized who he was? Jefferson wasn't about to agree to something like that; nobody in the world deserved to hear the burdens that weight his shoulders. Slowly but surely, he was wasting away as the sole bearer of what plagued him, willingly taking his cross on his shoulders and walking alone. No Simon could run up and help him now; no Simon wanted to help a demon.
...How long had he been staring at her like that?
"I don't need help," he clammed up, withdrawing back into his armor as quickly as he had slipped out of it. No, his wits were quickly returning to him now, and thank goodness for that. Green eye was sent elsewhere, forehead creased and habitual scowl darkening his scarred and torn demeanor as it always had. "I'm fine on my own. There, write about that." That gruffly said, he took the book he'd been reading before the nap back in his hand, opened it, and glared daggers at its text as if demanding that they suddenly become comprehensible. Somehow, even as his eye grouchily stared down the pages and breezed over words, understanding them became far more difficult in the midst of his grumpiness.
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[html] http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j40/k ... ump/12.png); background-position: top center; background-repeat: no-repeat;"> Geneva knew better than to expect anything but his bewilderment under even the best of circumstances, but still his rejection burned her a little. She blinked once at him and shrugged, leaning heavily on her elbows once again. She traced her fingers over the words she had taken such care to write, feeling the tips of her fingers dip into the depressions she had made with her writing. It was something that she had loved to do for ages, had found countless hours of comfort in. She thought it might be something that Jefferson might like too, a somewhat pleasant distraction.
She felt a grin return to her face as she looked up into his scowling visage. She smiled sweetly, picking up her pen as she responded to his last words. "I will," she said, before turning her eyes away from him and letting the script flow across the paper. She turned slightly toward the warmth of the fire, stretching as she felt the warmth on her pelt.
The sound of rain on the roof was rhythmic and she fell into a pattern of writing with the ebb and flow of the sound. After several minutes, she turned her eyes back up to the Patriarch and rested her pen on the ground again. "I'm done," she said. "Do you have any other suggestions?" she asked, winking at him.
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The fact that she smiled at him knowingly and turned right back to her paper so quickly had caught him a bit off guard; the one-eyed idiot straightened his back and tried to peer his single eye over her shoulder as she quietly started to write about him. Unfortunately, he couldn't read a thing, as much as he tried, as her handwriting was nowhere similar to the easily legible text of a regular book and his comprehension of even that was difficult enough. He remained silent all the while, and the second her olive eyes turned back up to him, he immediately pushed back into his seat and tried to look casual, though he hadn't gotten to read a thing.
Jefferson's eye was cast on her suspiciously and he raised a cautious brow. Slowly but surely, he tried to retort something. "...How much have you written about me in that damn book?" A moment; slow realization that such words sounded sort of needy, as if he actually wanted to know because he took an interest in it and wanted to be flattered. Green eye quickly averted. "I don't want you putting too much dirt on me. I'm not that bad, is all." He cleared his throat and stupidly decided to distract himself by picking up the book again and opening it up to some random page, making sure to flip through it thoughtfully first as if he'd actually had a place in it.
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Geneva bit her lip to hide the bright smile that tried to fight its way on to her face. She found that she couldn't find the will to even downsize the smile. Her lips curved up, but she kept her pearly whites under lock. Jefferson's interest in her was comical in a way, as he pretended that what she did or said wasn't of consequence. But she felt, that on some level, she had gotten through to the one-eyed idiot. It seemed impossible, but she saw it bit by bit in the way his eye flashed at her - still electric, and intense. But instead of feeling as though she were in the middle of a thunder storm, in danger of being struck by lightning. There were small things, in the softer sounds of his voice when he spoke to her, and in the lack of tenseness in his shoulders, that let her know that he wasn't as guarded.
She laced her fingers together, resting them on the ground to keep her hands busy. The fire had served to warm her now, and although the floor was still wet around her, she no longer felt the bite of cold that had sunk into her skin. She felt as though firelight had settled just below her skin, giving her a sense of security and comfort. The gentle flicker of light played against them, casting shadows across the Patriarch's face as his eye flashed from the darkness, bright as ever. She listened to the crackling of the log couple with the slight creak as the male leaned back in the rocking chair, returning his eye to whatever page he had last read.
"I've written about you since the day I met you," she said, not turning her eyes from his face, though she felt embarrassed for some reason. "Not everything in detail, but some things I've thought and felt." She cleared her throat, unlacing her fingers to touch the edge of a page gently, self consciously. "It helps me to sort through things, when I look back. It helps me to remember, and to decide." She smirked at him suddenly, "You're bad enough without any help," she said wryly, teasing him.
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So, she'd written about him before. His gaze on her, though still drowsy and reminiscent of sleep and weariness, tightened in slight suspicion and curiosity. Jefferson beat down the immediate impulse to question her about it--he couldn't be too nosy or forward, after all--but his suspicion only rose when she very obviously took all efforts to keep from laughing at him one way or another. His scowl lengthened, darkening his face into a dumb pout and frown. To remember, to decide. Why would she want to remember him? What was there to decide?
It was too much. "Decide? Decide what?" His voice raised somewhat, the cyclops leaning forward in the chair. He hardly cared to make it look subtle anymore, that he wanted to know what she'd written. "What did you write about me?" A pause for consideration. He leaned back again, breathed, and sighed, momentarily feeling the heat and flicker of the fire in the hearth. "Read something," he dared her, resisting the impulse to smirk.
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Geneva angled her face down so Jefferson wouldn't catch her rolling her eyes at him. He tried to seem so unaffected by everything, as if he honestly didn't care what she thought or had written about him. But his actions betrayed him, the tight way in which he stated such loose words. Her smile was hidden by her down-turned face as she flipped the pages of her journal back, looking for a particular entry. She was too embarrassed to share any recent discoveries she had made, putting her pen to paper. She wasn't ready to share those yet. Those thoughts still echoed fresh in her mind, raw and new, something for her to explore.
She screwed up her face as her light colored eyes scanned the page, unconsciously wrinkling her nose as words flew in her vision. Then her face smoothed out, satisfied when she found a particular entry, one that she wouldn't mind sharing. Sighing exaggeratedly, she stretched out her arms in front of her, propping her chin on her hands again as she read aloud. "Today I meandered - foolishly, as usual - into a new place. The male I encountered was strange, to say the least." She grinned, looking up at him for a moment before returning to reading to him. "He seemed angry, and that frightened me. But after several moments, I did not run, although he told me to. His name is Jefferson, and I think that I may want to see him again."
She swallowed before continuing, feeling ridiculously self conscious revealing her thoughts like this. But upon glimpsing Jefferson's face, she noted the ghost of a smirk on his face. Raising her chin a little, she narrowed her eyes and continued reading. "He's unlike anyone I've ever met. I've never felt so rooted to one spot before in my life. It was hard to swallow his anger and to see the sudden shift with in him. In short, I don't understand him at all."
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What she read came across as no complete surprise; Jefferson realized that much of what she'd written had already been admitted to him one way or another or the cyclops had seen and figured out in his head without the use of words. Geneva was incredibly expressive--her fear, her happiness, her anger were impossible for her to mask, at least from him. He'd become familiar with the workings of her expressions, what manufactured them, what cooed at them and what eased them away. But why had Jefferson even bothered to learn? Why was he starting to act so that he didn't affect her wrongly? When had he ever cared enough to do that?
Just as they had the first time, the affirmation that she wanted to see him again still came across as a surprise and misguided notion. His scowl lengthened somewhat at that, as if he refused to even try believing. Though, when she continued and reported him as being impossible to understand and grasp, the cyclops pushed his back further into the chair, tipped his eyes, and tried to relax. He tried to absorb those words, he tried to make them sound better than they did. He was... impossible. The beast knew it was true, but hated to think of it as such. For a long while he said nothing, the old, habitual scowl not as darkened and grim as it normally was. Instead, the frown seemed... hollow. Empty, perhaps. Sad. "You're a good writer," was all he could mumble in the midst of his thoughts. It was the only thing he could think to reply within the stormclouds and torrents.
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She swallowed, finally finished. Lime green eyes searched his face, tracing from the electric green eye to the scarred side of his visage. She waited to see what was writ in his expression this time, waiting to see his reaction. She didn't really know what to expect, although the last time she had looked at him he had goaded her into finishing by stirring her defiance. She never knew what to expect with him, what would flare to life inside her just because of something he said, or the way he looked. There was a bit of a thrill in it, tangled in nervousness.
She searched for any indication of reproach, interest, anything. Instead, his expression seemed closed to her. She could sense a storm that left a hollow sound behind his expression, a hint at something bitter. She frowned at his compliment, pushing it aside. Somehow, in sharing, she had managed to push him away. It was like gravity had changed. In fact, she always felt like she was fighting it when she was around him. She felt like she was fighting to coax him from the shadows when they sucked him in like a black hole.
Sighing, she flipped forward several pages, flicking her eyes back and forth from the text to Jefferson as she read aloud once more. "Today, I saw a glimpse of a side of Jefferson I never imagined I'd see so soon. I saw that he loves with the same strength with which he casts aside such words so easily. It was impossible not to see it written in the concern in his voice, in his face when he took Addison into his arms. It was like the world had stopped turning for him..."
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He could feel her searching him, waiting for some sort of valid response to her words after such nagging in the first place, but still the male said nothing more. For a moment, it was as if Jefferson had disappointed her, but why would that have been? She knew him well enough--he was caustic, an emotional hazard and easy to predict and assume. His actions were always burdened with thoughts, his mind always spinning, his mood always bitter and independent. He was a creature who just wanted to be left alone... there was never any reason for her to be disappointed in him knowing that would never change and he was making do with it.
However, she sighed and went back to her book. The cyclops's attention was temporarily pulled out of his head as his single eye slowly moved to look at her, wondering what she was doing now. The girl hadn't even replied to him; inevitably, he felt pangs of guilt, but brushed them away just as any other time. She spoke again--a bit more lightheartedly this time, perhaps--and his ears perked, though he told himself it was undeserving of his attention. She mentioned Addison and when they'd both managed to "save" her, not to mention how he'd acted that day. So he'd shown a little bit of concern and comfort, so what? He was still the heartless beast, regardless. Surely she knew that. "...I'm taking care of her," he muttered some sort of excuse. "Her mother's gone. If she came back for her and Addison was dead, well..." That's right. It was just another job, after all. She couldn't expect him to feel something more valid than that. His eye averted, in denial, and a sigh escaped his lungs.
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She watched carefully, closely like she was watching a cloud. He was like an errant cloud over the sun that could so easily be blown away by the wind. Sometimes, with him, she felt like she was chasing something far up in the sky. Something she couldn't completely grasp or define. Something she wanted to hold on to that slipped through her fingers like smoke. She didn't know why she continued to chase him. She couldn't put a name to any reason she might possess. Instead, she listened to the crackling of the fire as he digested what she had read to him, barely daring to swallow the lump that had formed in her throat.
She noticed how his ears perked up and her eyebrows drew up. He was constantly surprising her. At times when she felt she was making progress, might being drawing him out of his armor, sometimes she found that the door slammed on her face. And other times, he seemed to come of his own volition. Beneath the stormy exterior lived a creature who could feel as vividly as any other. Underneath it all, there was a pain that battled with a conscience, a pain, something that kept him locking himself away. She wanted to get through to that man.
She smiled slightly, not bothering to turn down the wattage. He mumbled some sort of excuse, trying to remove himself from the situation. But this time, Geneva wasn't fooled. He wasn't shutting her out this time - now he was just trying to hide from himself. "Just another duty, Jeff?" she asked, winking as she used Addison's nickname for the Patriarch. "I have another name for it. A labor of love."
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It was a surprise when she responded to him with the pet name Addison had adopted. Needless to say, Jefferson was a bit of a professional: nicknames and the like were a bit too loose for him, normally, and he simply was not used to them. However, since Addison had started to refer to him so amiably, he had learned to take what came at him from the pup; she was always teaching him something new, whether it pertained to the behavior or children or even something about himself, how he reacted to things, anything. At first, it had been discouraging to know that he hadn't known everything about himself as he's once thought, but after a while, he went right along with that too. The one-eyed brute had grown unbelievably attached to the child... and he knew Geneva had seen that.
He sighed, gruffly embarrassed. "Call it what you want." A moment's hesitance. "She means a lot to me. I... don't want to see her hurt." And it was the truth. It was the truth for most faces he knew and came to recognize; the one-eyed Patriarch hated to care for the weak and powerless, but that was of no comparison to his worry for those in pain. He considered for a moment how he might have reacted if Geneva herself was to get hurt--and frowned, realizing similarities. "So I have a softer side. So what?" Green eye pointed accusingly at her, daring her to give him reason as to why she seemed to be seeking those different sides of him so often.
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Geneva masked a smile with a cough this time. He seemed to try to hide from parts of himself that he displayed in plain sight. It was like that with love, affection - whatever it was he felt toward Addison. The gray wolfess sensed that whatever emotion he wanted to call it, that it was a positive influence on the Patriarch. He was so distant most of the time. It was good that he let someone in of his own volition. Geneva could try to find the chinks in his armor, try to find a way in through his walls, but in the end she would end up going against the grain. It was good for him to let someone in without a fight. Although he still insisted on fighting the truth. Geneva hoped one day that he wouldn't struggle with it so much. That wasn't a good way to live.
Clearing her throat, she regarded the one-eyed brute again. "So...everything!" she said in response to his "so what?" That phrase was something that got on her nerves for no reason. Still, her tone only held a trace of annoyance, defiance. There was still laughter there, mingled within everything else in a confusing conglomeration. She had gotten used to mixed emotions, jumbled thoughts around Jefferson. He seemed to disorganize her mind at the strangest of times, a mystery that made sense one moment that was shrouded in secrecy in the next instant. She had learned to embrace the enigma instead of bristling at it.
The wolfess stretched again, feeling her limbs infused with warmth from the fire. "I'm glad we got the chance to talk," the wolfess said sincerely. This conversation had been fun for her, a treat when she got to look into the depths of this man. She got up, carrying her book and pen with her. "I'm going to go put pen to paper a bit more. I'll be down the hall if you need me." She winked at the Patriarch, hoping to get a rise out of him, before turning to walk down the hall, seeking her own bubble of solitude for the next stretch of time.
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