the sound of branches breaking under your feet || any

[Lichen]

Wind howls; rages; moans. 

All around them. Even above them. Rattling leaves and clacking branches. There might be a wolf’s song or two in there, or even a bear’s grumbling growl. But she cannot hear any of it above the wind in the trees. 

She doesn’t hear the squeal he gives in fright. The wind snatches it away and screams in her ears instead. Loud enough for her to give an angry shake of her head that sends the straggling fluff of her silvery mane flying. Not once does she take her eyes off of him.

Nutkin can see that his knees are just as knobby as her own. That his build is similar to hers in youth alone. He is flashy and flighty, and she thought she ought to have been the one to choose flight. Her face gives in easily to a pouting frown as she tries to figure out why she never ran from him. 

He stretches his neck out towards her and she finds her chin tucking snug against her breast. She shouldn’t be out here alone with him as the wind rattled the trees all around them. There is a sort of quiet to the maddening vortex of noise that Nutkin finds, still looking at him - still with her frowning pout. But his confession and confusion are her undoing.

The fight goes out of her. 

She may come off as brave, but deep down she knew she wasn’t. 

“Something else...” she murmurs before eying him quizzically with a tilt to her head. “Like what?” there was something he wasn’t saying - something he kept back to himself that she wanted to know. She could menace him with her budding antlers like the bucks bother the does. But she’s curious - too curious.

Just what had he thought she was?

Or could be?

A monster? How absurd!

Tail-flicks and head-bobs aside, she stares at him but her posture is less menacing and more friendly in its lean towards him like he has a gravitational pull that sucks her in. It could have been the blue of his eyes, so unlike anything she’s ever seen. “Yes.” she responds easily and without thinking. Part of what she said was truth as much as lie - it was her forest and it wasn’t. Nutkin could lay no more claim to the ancient trees and roaring wind than she could the skins they wore. But she said it anyway as if that alone would make it true. 

Besides, who was he to question it?

@[Warden] ❤️