Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was true that she worried if Helaku had been scarred by the skinwalker ordeal, but she wasn't a foolish mare. The whole thing scared her. What could she have done if he HAD become a skinwalker?

Truth be told, she had taken up baby-sitting her older sister's foal lately so Lia could have time to herself and with Eachann, and had lost track of time and with it, her thoughts on the matter. Even so, she knew that Helaku would wonder where she was.

Perhaps that was why she took up to walking near his teepee, yet never actually seeing him, as she felt a lingering guilt for feeling this way and not telling him. If he was a skinwalker now, she didn't want to see him...yet she couldn't stop herself from treading through his home territory daily to 'accidently' run into him.

That's what she was doing today; standing quietly off on the edges of his usual stomping grounds, delicate head tilted to the side as she tried to decide if she should just go in and see, or keep wondering about how he faired.

She twitched in surprised, head jerking level and her ears pulling back at the same time as his familiar voice rang through. Oh no...he had found her! A pang of guilt hit then for thinking that; she should be glad he could at least recognize her! Perhaps he was fine. Oh goddess...what if he wasn't?

"Yes," she answered hesitantly, ears whirling forward as she shifted uneasily, noting his grey coat growing more distinct as he moved forward. "I...you...I'm not interrupting am I?"

She certainly had never met a skinwalker, so she had no reason to believe the stallion before her COULDN'T be one. However, he seemed to be acting normally, if not saddened, and she gave a distinct frown and exhaled a small, quavery sigh. Olathe didn't move when he did reach over to her, but wasn't surprised when he paused either. She wasn't exactly acting like herself either. His appearance didn't help her feel better; instead, it made her feel guilty and anxious at the same time.

"Are you okay? You know.......okay?" she blurted out finally after a long silence, pulling her ears back again as her eyes adopting a telltale shimmer of moisture as she looked up at him. "'Cause I haven't seen you since that day and I was afraid to see and I didn't want you to have to tell me you were one of those...those THINGS....but you haven't been to see me either and so I wasn't sure...."

She looked undoubtly stressed over the whole deal as she steeled herself and tried to fight the wave of anxiety that had come up from lord-knows where.

"Just don't lie to me. Please don't lie to me."

She gave a long sigh, though it quavered immensely as she released the breath she didn't realize she had been holding while she waited for her answer and with it came a trickle of tears.

"I don't -know-, Helaku," she whispered, closing her eyes to try and stem the rush of relief and worry that swept her up. She rarely got upset about ANYTHING and it made her feel foolish. "I just know what you've told me and when you said you might have been one the last time we met up...I don't know what to think!" She shook her head, eyes still clamped shut for a moment, then parted so she could stare at him blankly. "I didn't even see Mai. I just saw you."

She sniffled, loud enough to be audible, and angrily rubbed her cheeks on the side of one foreleg, bitter all of a sudden with herself for becoming so emotional. She'd never been this way before and it was that damned stallion's fault, she was sure of it. Olathe had always been good at keeping her emotions on a particular subject in check so she seemed cool and collected. Not tonight, however.

"I just thought...I don't know...like I meant something to you enough to where you'd come find me," she mumbled weakly into her foreleg as she kept trying to rub those stupid tears away. "I was afraid to find you myself...you even said that I shouldn't come looking for you!...I was only even here because I was so worried and felt like I should make sure you were okay."

"Damn it, Helaku," she snapped in frustration as she lifted her head back up, a fresh trail of tears marching down insolently across her cheeks. "I wanted to -know-. I would have made it work in either way, even if I had to live my life in FEAR of you. Skinwalker or not, I can't just tell myself to move on. I'm not that kind of mare."

She snorted softly, muzzle twisting into another frown, and shook her head sadly. "If I didn't care about you so much, maybe I could have just left you to whatever fate you had, but I can't do that. If you want me to, I will, but it won't be because -I- want it."

Olathe forced herself to breathe, and to breathe deep even, as she tried to form a rational thought amidst the screaming in her brain. She felt like she had a right to be angry, and she was, but she hated it. She especially hated it because now Helaku looked trodden into the dirt for as cowed as he must have felt. That wasn'the goal (at least, intentionally).

"I don't know, Helaku," she said, softer this time and in more control of her emotions. "What do you want from me?"