now meet me by the mountainside; any

[hawke]

clarity, paint me bright like stars in the dark of night

And like that, she was back.

Whole, alive, freed from the grips of Time and adventure that he had placed her on. The world around her came back into sharp relief, and it was if she had never gone anywhere. The forest immediately began to move around her, alive and rustling with movement; her eyes widened and she swung her head around as if looking for Time, for Her. But they were not there, and her heart broke slightly at the thought of it.

However, despite that momentary ache, there was also a soft glow, a warmth that spread throughout her and lit up the inner workings of her heart. She had succeeded—she had helped them find their way back to one another. Loved had conquered all. In that moment, adrenaline surged through her and her heart began to race, pounding in her chest as she remembered all that she had done, all that she had seen.

She couldn’t wait to tell her family all about it.

But she didn’t return to Tephra—not yet. Instead, she closed her hazel eyes and lifted her head upward to the canopy of branches above her, the soft snow that began to fall around her, dusting the pale curve of her haunches. It was good to be back, but it was even better to be back with adventure tucked away in her chest. She would never forget what she had experienced—the supernatural things that she had seen. It had changed her. If she had thought she thirsted for adventure before, it was a thirst that had grown two-fold.

Now she knew what it meant to fight beasts, face fears, feel the brush of death. She knew what it meant to look into the great beyond and make choices that affected not only your fate, but the fate of others. Her lips spread into a content smile, eyes still closed.

She would have more adventure soon. She would see to it. 

[Mauve]

mother tells them of the two gods—

(She does not notice time stop, of course. 
What a funny trick played by a funny god.)

She is none the wiser. Somewhere nearby, she knows Fleece is there—even if she is not, it always feels that way to her. Above are wide, open skies (home of the bone-white moon-man and the lemon-yellow sun-lord). On either side, spreading out like a wooden army eating the world entire, thin and fat trees stand. They do not grow but wait, dormant and achy in the cold. Below her is snow, wet and bright white.

And everywhere else, are the gods.
Her gods, two;

The Mother. Her mother’s god, and her mother before her, and even farther back. A family tree that Mauve cannot follow before her mind is jerked in a wild direction. And she is gone. 
(Ahhhhroo-oooooo.)
The Coyote spirit. Her father’s god. Their god—even mother and Fleece (who, mother says, is just like her). They are prey to the coyote—even Mauve is, to be fair, because she is but half-dog. They are all in obeyance to that cycle, and a hundred others, too.

Or so mother says. Sometimes mother can be boring, but Mauve entertains her nonetheless. It seems important.

She runs, as she usually does. She knows (because mother has said so) that the clock is ticking. There is so only so much time left to enjoy the cool, clean air before the world rolls over and warms itself up. Home is always warm. There is never snow at home. Mauve, decidedly, enjoys snow. She laughs as she goes. Those yaps are half yips as she tries and fails to drag that canine from its hiding place.

One day. 

If she ever adventures, it is only in her dreams. More than dreams, though, they are such waking, wanting things. She is nose-down and tail-up, sniffing rocky cracks for a comforting scent—for a pack member she misses so completely it hurts. She can only howl and hope the message reaches the right ears.

(Hello out there! Where are you?!)

One day.

She smells Hawke before she sees her. The winter forest is so much more blank than the summer one. Or spring. Or even fall, when things are becoming earthier and earthier—and then yucky. She thinks so anyway Mother does not. She follows the scent, quiet as can be (to Mauve, everything can be a game; everything can be a stalk), and finds her inclined skyward, sunning her face. The peacefulness halts the game of surprise.

“Hawke?” her voice is cheery, a bit raspy, as if just slightly overused. She knows the girl a bit, but for young ones, a bit can often be enough. Her strange cottontail wiggles, side-to-side, once or twice as she speaks, “you are looking merry today.”

PICTURE BY PRISS ENRIQUEZ

[fleece]

ooc: i assumed for the sake of fleece's inclusion, that she'd have met Hawke back in Tephra too. <3

Mother tells them of the two gods;
Of the Mother,
Of the Trickster --

She can smell Mauve, tracks her by her scent alone; sky above and earth below, she trails her to the trees, a veritable army of them that hold their arms up in surrender or supplication - she’s not sure which, not yet, as her bright brown eyes look at them. Fleece isn’t sure of the snow underfoot either; sticky, deep, blinding, she blinks and looks away from it, thinking of home - volcanic, hot, perfect. She prefers the home warren, full of black rocks and hibiscus and the river’s song in her ears; Fleece is unaware that she is smiling, that her eyes have shut against the snowy brightness of the day as she pictures Tephra in her mind - home, mother, Mauve.

There it is again!
Her eyes snap open and she sniffs the air - Mauve’s scent! She has it now, thick and full in her nostrils as she tracks her through the trees to a spot of space generously given up by the forest. Tracking is more their father’s forte, and Mauve’s than it is hers, but she is still good enough at it to trail her sister through the world and its ways. She is more like their mother, skittish and quiet but somehow, their father’s blood lays in her - tricksy, mischievous and that is the twinkle in her eye, mischievous as she catches sight of Mauve and another, Hawke.

Both of them seem rather merry for the moment - Hawke basking with her face turned up to the sun and Mauve’s tail wiggling cheerily. Her eyes rest on the cottontail for a second, and she feels a second self stir inside her - it thumps a foot against her skin, unbends a long ear to listen for the thing that will it awaken it further, than it goes back to sleep, as dormant as the trees around them until spring lays her green hand upon their bare backs. Fleece sighs; goes to them on quick quiet feet, even for all the snow that tries to trip her up and smiles at the pair of wild ones, of which she was one too. “Very merry,” she echoes, her nose finding Mauve’s roan cheek and brushing it.

[hawke]

clarity, paint me bright like stars in the dark of night

 
Their friendship was sweet, shallow—beautiful in its infancy, but not full formed.

Still, it was enough, so when she hears Mauve, when she smells her upon the air, her smile deepens, the edges of it pulling even further upward, one pale ear tipping in her direction. At the sound of her voice, she brings her head down, hazel eyes moving to find the source of it and landing on Mauve with delight. “Merry,” she repeats, tasting the sound of the word on her tongue, rolling it around in her mouth as if testing it for its truth. 

Finding it agreeable, she grins again, ears flicking forward at the approach of Fleece, their informal trio reaching full circle. “I suppose that I am merry today.” Which, when she considers all that has trespassed in the last few hours of her timeline, seems odd. She has traversed mountains, felt her flesh rip from bone by the claw of beasts she could not name. She had felt death brush  against her temples, watched earths fade and endings draw near. 

But, still, it had been adventure. It had been wild and magical, and oh—

She had succeeded.

Her eyes light up at the thought.

She had succeeded. She had saved Her. Love had conquered all.

Taking a bounding step toward, faster perhaps than she had moved before, she smiles. “I have such stories to tell you!” Her voice is boundless, laced with excitement, and she does not bother to hide it as she reaches over, pressing her nose to them, breathing in their familiar scent. “I have seen so many things today—done so many things.” Her heart swells in her chest, pulse thudding in her veins at the thought of it all, but she remains quiet, waiting for their response, her story tripping on the edge of her tongue.

[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]

[fleece]

She cannot take her eyes off Hawke; seems to size her up and arrive at the conclusion that there is something altogether different about her, different from her usual cheery self back in their volcanic homeland. Fleece cannot seem to touch upon the difference, pinpoint its exactness because Hawke looks unchanged on the outside and maybe she’s making all this up in her strange little mind because rabbit-horses look for fright and flight where there is no need for either. Or it is the coyote-sharp sense that knows to sniff out magic, even the kind that makes them change shape, like their mother and father can do - a predator, and his favorite kind of prey, a hare-mother and her tender fleshy heart that he loves more than life itself. Fleece longs for a love like that, but she might be made for other things, she thinks, her eyes still on Hawke in her merriment.

Fleece does not see the way Hawke’s eyes light up;
She is busy looking at her sister, at the way Mauve seems at times, distracted.
(Like she is, by selves they can feel like an itch beneath the skin that just cannot be scratched.)

Hawke’s excitement is palpable; Fleece breathes it in the moment they all touch noses together, can feel it beginning to build in her at the mention of stories - she likes stories, they all do. The dreamy easy smile on Mauve’s lips is echoed on her own as they both stare at Hawke in anticipation. Fleece in particular, likes stories - their blood is rich and rife with it, every generation gifted with a storyteller and a trickster (like them, Mauve and Fleece, twinned and entwined together in womb and ever after). If she had a scut like Mauve’s, it’d be shaking furiously in eagerness but there is only her tail, half-dark and tangled around knots of wind and her hocks.

She is more inclined to believe Hawke than Mauve is, who incredulously asks if their friend has really done and seen many more things than any of them can even dream of. Fleece mimics the boundless energy in both of them, her limbs nimble and quick in the same strange skipping dance her sister does. “Tell us!” she implores, equally as breathless - equally eager to relive the things their friend has done in color sharper than a rainbow and it’s less vibrant twin.

(Roots and dirt, the safety of a warren dug deep into good earth with a thatch of thick grass overhead and maybe a flower or two to say hello to. Quick hops away and back again, for food and brief exploration. Curling into herself, furry and snug - prey, and further away, a sister’s predatory heart and hunger that can never keep them apart.)

Fleece smooths the dark strands of her sister’s hair down her neck and never takes her eyes off Hawke, feeling full and replete on happiness and that alone - as if it’s all she’s tasted or drank in the last hour and it could sustain her for a lifetime, but then, theirs’ has always been a life of happiness and ease.

[hawke]

I don't want to wait anymore, I'm tired of looking for answers
take me some place where there's music and there's laughter

They are bright and wonderful, and within their embrace, she feels that new wild magic take root within her even more completely. They buoy her own excitement until it shines from her eyes and through her chest and she feels an unexplainable need to run—to run and race until she struggles to breathe. Until she practically can’t stop herself from exploding forward, chasing them with yups and cries down the length of the meadow. It takes everything within her to stay still, to keep her feet rooted to the ground.

Still, she manages, feet jogging lightly in place as she flips her nose upward, cascading the matted pieces of her pale mane down her neck. “I don’t even know where to start,” her voice is bright, the excitement palpable in the air between them, but she does. Eventually, she does. She starts where it had all begun, in the Forest, when Time had paused it, leaving her suspended between the two seconds, animated, alone.

She tells them of her quest, the mission he gave her, and all the steps in between. She tells them of the wild mountain and how cold it had been; she tells them of the trip through the caverns and the gryffen that had chased her down and ripped in her haunches, pulling her flesh apart so cleanly. She tells them of the prize he had been guarding and then the white room, and the woman who Time had loved so dearly.

Finally, she tells them of her decision, how she had succeeded in saving her, in saving them.

When she is done, her chest is heaving and the truth of it radiates from her. “And then Time gave me a gift—the gift of love.” She explains how it was told to her, the gifts that are now tied to how well loved she is, the speed and the endurance. It pulses in her now, and she cannot help the grin that breaks apart her pretty face as she watches them. “It is so hard to sit still now. All I want to do is chase the sun all day.”

( I don't know if I'm scared of dying, but I'm scared of living too fast, too slow )

would you guys want to start a new thread maybe with them a little older? <3