now meet me by the mountainside; any

[Mauve]

mother tells them of the two gods—

She has never known fear, except that which comes in the form of longing—
The fear that she might never recover her canine-self from the peaks of that pesky, gargantuan Mountain. The fear of being alone—a funny thing to fear, because she has never been alone—howling to the open air in a world bereft of any fanged song to sing back to her. She has her father; and her mother (whose lapine form, she thinks, must twist Fleece’s gut to see) and sister both bring her pack to a comfortable number.

She loves them, with all the love she has ever known, but they all know that the severance stings and dulls, because they have all felt it before. Are still feeling it.

(She longs to press her wet, leathery nose to the ground.
She longs to be low and sly; she longs to feel the song rattle up her throat, past her panting tongue and through her sharp, predator’s dentition. She longs for such things without ever knowing them to begin with, except in dream.)

Merriment, she knows! 

Even with that strange void that whistles like a breeze through stone crevasses, she finds ways to redirect her mind. Her sister, always. She turns now to her, smiling—she is tangled up with her. When she knows where Fleece is, she is at ease; when they are separated and their songs cannot meet, there is wild, feral panic. She feels the touch and leans back into it. At ease.

She knew she was there, all along, whipping through the trees, seeking her own path to the same place.

Her friends too... which is just Hawke, really, and even that is a blossoming thing.

(Adventure. Success. These things are beyond her scope of experience—
Death? She knows that only in the way it tastes in her mouth, taboo as it is, when she sleeps.)

She watches Hawke’s eyes light up and she tilts her head, her smile growing brighter. (It must feel good—like catching prey at your hungriest!) Her heart begins to thump at the thought and at the energy that seizes the other girl and hurtles her in hysteria towards the twins, exchanging touches that nip like lightening on her nose. Mauve skips side to side, her tail thumping a few excited beats on her haunches. She looks to Fleece and back, her brows coming together suddenly, “really?” her voice is bright, with a slight incredulously.

She counts all the things she could do in a day—
It’s not much.

“Tell us everything!” it is breathless, ritualistically preparing to relive the stories in vivid colour.

PICTURE BY PRISS ENRIQUEZ

-bows head in shame- still love them tho @[fleece] @[hawke]