I feel it running through my veins. I need that fire just to know that I'm awake.
He is big and warm and scary all at once and Alaska quickly decides that is her favorite combination. Not that she minds the scary part—even when his massive teeth are nearly bigger than her grabby hands. It hasn’t sunk in just yet that there are things that can be scary and do damage and her heart only thumps with the want of adventure, not the fear of attaining it. So she just brightens when he pulls way, when he is able to articulate the words that she had prohibited. “Oh, I am going to be the most ferocious one day!”
She trembles all over, feeling the pleasure of the idea run down her spine.
“I’m going to be the most ferocious thing anyone—everyone—has ever seen!”
She smiles a toothy smile up at him, tumbling down as she scoots away but righting herself quickly. He goes quickly into playful position and she does the same, her body lengthening into a more cat-like form but keeping the same coloring—the same mask, the same tail, the same distinctly raccoon features. Her tail twitches behind her and she giggles as he pounces over her, rolling and batting her paws.
“I haven’t stolen anything!” she cries out as she rolls, righting herself with her bright eyes and then pulling lips back over youthful teeth. “Yet,” she amends with a little yapping sound, leaping forward and reaching out to thump her deft hands at whatever piece of him she could reach.
Laughing at her own joke, her own promise, she lands and then scrunches up, preparing for play.
“You can call me Alaska,” she says with a grin, naming herself in the moment.
“It sounds nice, don’t you think?”
— Alaska —