Age is the only thing that puts the semblance of divide between the two of them. Crevan is still a boy, not yet three while Merida is a mother grown. In their natural, equine state perhaps this would present a problem: Merida might even spurn his company could she but know how young he really was. But as wolf and fox the distinction is lost, time seems to have no meaning or order in their primal world and for that, the young wolf is grateful. Merida’s scent washes over his mouth and nose as he paces the border and with pleasing alacrity, (and not a single thought of her possible age) the pale shifter jerks off his current path to bound into the dusky wood.

His navy eyes are first to make her out, little as she is compared to the blackened trunks around her. In the low light it’s hard to distinguish shapes or patterns and most creatures are making for homes and burrows as the rest wake from day-long slumber, but Crevan matches that flaming coat with her smell and puts two-and-two together. In the golden hour, sunlight halos the outline of her snarling form to give her a radiant, menacing figure and, upon halting near to her, Crevan’s bleached snout pulls up into the mimic of a toothy grin.

“Careful there,” He warns playfully, dropping his front-end down low to the earth so his hind end, which remains high in the air, might wiggle and send his plumed tail into a flurry of activity. “you can’t scare away ghosts with a cute snarl.”

It’s been too long. “Why’d you come?” He wants to ask as he pulls himself upright once more, but the thought disappears with his desire not to spoil the moment with something trivial like politics or kingdom talk. They’d done just fine without that prior, thank you very much, and surprisingly he enjoys her company, not her ability to be diplomatic. “Walk with me?” He offers instead, tilting that massive head aside to indicate that they should peruse Sylva in the dark.

It won’t be hard, with their unique vision. It’ll only be hard if she says “no” or “I can’t” and Crevan is determined not to let those words slip past her needle teeth. “Come on -” He begs, slinking backwards step by step as if to make a getaway without her. He won’t though, wouldn’t dream of it. “There’s so much I want to tell you.”

revan

He’d nearly forgotten her. The little foxy thing who had yet to enjoy the fullest extent of her newfound powers. Merida.

Crevan clicks his teeth together in pleasant surprise as she darts nimbly ahead, the swoop of her shadowy tail stirring a breeze that smarts his wet nose. He can sense a change in her too, though between them nothing is lost or gained since their meeting in the woods. Her feet are sure even in the pressing darkness and Crevan grins broadly at her proud bark. The she-fox seemed to have gained an apt sense of her second skin; Merida was a quick learner.

It doesn’t even bother him that he’s become a horrid beast in the meantime. Why would it? As far as Crevan is concerned, what they built between them is still the same, still untainted by anything outside of their friendship. He can’t possibly know that by his own means, (his own selfish, childish, arrogant means) he’s yet to cause her unspeakable pain. All he knows is to clip ahead with lengthy strides and slip further into the nightmare that he’d help create.

“Where’ve you been?” He starts, the most obvious of questions but the most pressing. His breath curls in phantom spirits about his keen snout, clinging to his whiskers as sharp crystals of ice. The frigid dark does little to daunt the pale hunter; Crevan’s adult coat is thick and prime, gleaming with health and immortal vigor in the starry light. A moon peeks somewhere between the trees, but its silver glow has yet to touch them. The night is young yet, a stirring of excitement trips his pulse.

“I can’t look at Foxes the same way now.” He chuckles.

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Merida is a forest spirit, in body and energy. Crevan can hardly twist his head from one side to the other and there she is; he only hopes that a misstep on his own part won’t catch her tail in the aftermath, but the wily female seems to have it figured out. “Everywhere” She tells him and the slip of a knowing smile winds across his lips. He envies her freedom, the lax ability she has to disappear without a trace and leave others wondering as to her whereabouts. Crevan can feel the tangle of dark roots already seeping into his bones the longer he remains here, in Sylva.

Soon he might find himself stuck to this very place. “Originally I returned to Loess,” she regals, perching briefly on the outcropping of a random boulder while Crevan draws to a halt. He refuses the rest of what she says though, his mind won’t have that. Instead it travels to more curious places and arouses questions that, at first, he’s not sure he wants the answer to. “Why would you go to Loess?” He wonders, confusion muddying his expression for the briefest of moments though he says nothing aloud.  She must know .. Sylva and Loess were at strong odds against one another.

Gryffen wanted Heda dead, but was satiating that thirst with any Loessian he could find. “Like Kuma, and Imperial.” He thinks quite suddenly, a sharp pain slicing through his chest at the memory.

Best to leave those things in the past. So he does, and just as quickly as he decides so does Merida - leaping down from her niche to join him once more in travel. “Like furry little meal-stealers.” He tells her, bumping a skull full of iron-hard bone against that adorable, snarling head of hers. “Your cousins are notorious for slipping in right under my very mouth and taking my hard-earned meal away bit by bit.” He barks with easy laughter, clipping ahead into a jogging trot.

The thick of his chest and gut rises and falls with each prowling stride. Easily he slinks up a sloping hill, twisting around the backside to follow a gently-worn path up to its summit. A boulder of mighty height and girth rests solidly into the earth of Sylva land, jutting out to create a natural resting place on top and a dry, leaf-littered area below. Even Crevan with his notorious bulk seems dwarfed by the sheet of gray stone. It’s here that he slows, clicking across the hard surface until he’s come to rest at the lip of the overhang. Above them, the sky is clear of forest clutter and the stars wink brightly from their canopy of night.

“Now I can’t see one without thinking of you.” He whuffs, sitting calmly while throwing a dark stare in her direction. “Why is that?” He muses aloud, half-aware that he’s uttering it though his mind has begun to drift elsewhere. “Why is it that you never came back with me, that day in the Forest? You belong with your own kind … not in Loess.” He spits, the word turning to bile on his tongue.

revan