There are a thousand things running through her mind, a thousand thoughts in a thousand different directions, but the strongest one says run. She stands like she might, that beautiful blue tail uncurling from her feet as she takes a step back, her ears flattening. There is such instant vulnerability in the way he looks at her now, in the way he knows what she had meant to keep a secret. Her eyes flash and her lip lifts in a snarl, but it is fear instead of rage that fuels her graceless, lurching movements.
But then he says the only possible thing capable of making her freeze in her snarling retreat. Well, you are, but I’ve got enough siblings to know a wolf shapeshifter when I see one. She pauses, and there is an almost softness in the way she watches him now, curious and confused and with her hackles settling along her spine. Does that mean he is like her? Or that one of his siblings is like her? It is a terribly corrosive kind of thought, because the very moment she first considers it she can feel the seeds of hope (and belonging) being planted in her chest.
And then he apologizes, and she can feel all that built up armor around her heart fall completely to shambles around her paws as she watches him. No one has ever apologized to her for anything, because no one has ever cared. Whatever puzzle he had seemed before he now seems twice as much, and she finds herself padding up to sit quietly in front of him - much nearer than she had dared to before. There is no snarl on her face, and the only movement of her ears is an uncertain swivel as she warily looks up at him. She thinks she is still trying to decide what to do now, but the decision was made the moment she chose not to bolt back into the woods.
She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it again as a wave of wild uncertainty floods through her. Maybe running would be better, almost certainly it would be easier than this is. But she firms up her resolve and looks up at him with an expression that is bafflingly part scowl and part gentle uncertainty. “My name is Winslow.” The words are a little slow and a little staccato, like she’s taking careful steps over thin ice with every expectation that it will crack and drown her. “Tamlin is better than Bird.” She means it sincerely, because it reminds her of the rain somehow - like if raindrops could speak, that’s the word they would sing when they landed on the leaves and bounced away again. Tam-lin, Tam-lin. Her tail swishes over her paws again. “Are you a shifter like me?”
the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight
@[Tamlin]