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 Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 8:33 pm
Women.
Thable didn't plan to test the theory on if he could or if he couldn't. The fact was he didn't want this to end up in some physically confrontation. Weren't they friends? If not, they couldn't really dislike each other enough to start this.
She just-- Wait.
"Oh, I see." Thable grinned like he had the day they meant and raised his paw, batting at her nose. "You're in a hurry because you like this one, huh?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 9:57 pm
"What?" Now that stopped her in her tracks. She blinked at him, at a loss, too flabbergasted to be angry even when he bapped her on the nose. "With Kai? Oh Gods no!" She gave a small shudder. She'd seen the females that made up his harem -- well, the harem he would inherit when he took over the pack, at any rate -- and they were all the sniveling, whiny, absurd excuses for females. Not at all the way she'd been raised.
"No, I don't give a damn about him, I just..." She stopped, then, and her bright eyes narrowed shrewdly. "...Why do you care?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:07 am
Customarily, this was the part of the story where the hero, confused and frustrated with his obscure emotions, acted flustered; he withdrew and insisted there was no reason; he backed away in the physical and emotional sense. Thable was tempted to do just that -- his personality was that kind. Stereotypical in its simplicity. He was predictable.
Fate was just something that threw the building blocks down on the floor. Life was the one whose hands picked them up and actually built something. It had made him a wolf that knew hiding things -- good things -- was not worth it just to save face.
He had watched his mother wail when his father left. No one told him to stay. (Thable was too young to do it.)
He had watched his alpha's daughter struggle against herself. No one told her she wasn't wrong just for being born. (Thable was too young to scared to do it.)
He watched Kamiya fight some battle he could only see one side of -- a side that was foggy and unclear because she didn't want him closer.
Too bad. He already was. Thable was not young or afraid anymore. He figured she'd just have to live without it.
"I have a right to know," he asserted. "And... maybe I just like you." A broad grin, again -- the broadest so far. He purred her "name" like an affectionate mate, "Princess."
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:59 am
Her eye twitched, and she did withdraw -- emotionally, physically -- and stared at him with a cold, even glance. "Like me?" She asked, tone incredulous, eyes skeptical.
Kamiya was not a wolf given to emotion. She was hard, strong, callous. She pushed others away to avoid the complexity of relationships. She had seen countless wolves fall into love, fall into traps. Seen them kidnapped, ripped from homes and families and forced into submission...saw those same wolves become mindless fawning servants, crawl their way into the alpha's good graces, his harem or his private guard.
It was a sham. All of it.
So why do you want to go back so badly, Kamiya?
Her ears fell back to her skull. "You barely know me," she said, and an even cold steel came over her voice, but a quiet glow was evident in her eyes. It spread, slowly, to the rest of her features, and her maw twitched slightly. She was, for the present, able to forget that there were others nearby. That, perhaps, this sign of emotion -- of weakness -- was being witnessed by the squirrel or that human-smelling shaman.
The first hint of a smile touched her lip, curled it upward. Her blue eyes glittered. "...But perhaps you deserve to."
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Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2011 5:16 pm
Thable looked arrogant as arrogant could, made worse by knowing that, when he did have reason enough to, he managed to use it in a way that was more charming than girls like Kamiya wanted to admit. He wasn't sure, anymore, if "girls like Kamiya" included her or just referred to her personality type.
He remembered his first little emotional fling with someone similar, though her name backed into the shadows of things forgotten whenever he tried to find it. It was on his tongue, somewhere, but when he opened his mouth it just clung to the tip like he'd never known it to begin with. He did remember she was green -- and blue. A lot of colors, like a lot of wolves in the forest.
Puppy love in adolescence was quite the experience. Thable had learned a lot from it, and a lot from Kaho, the wolf that tried to persuade him togetherness of the more physical variety was beyond anything he'd find carrying some unrequited "male crush" that he refused to act on. Back then, Thable had wondered why what was wrong with him. He didn't behave like males should behave, so foretold by their seer. (And, at this age, he assumed a wolf who knew your thoughts knew everything else, too.)
But...
But then they had lost Solan, the one who mothered the only children Kaho had acknowledged as his so far in public, and Thable understood something he couldn't possibly have comprehended until well into adulthood: there was no such thing as a "male crush" because genuine affection was not something meant only for females. The wolf Kaho wasn't trying to convince was Thable. It was himself.
As he got older, Thable could see the seer watching Solan when he didn't think anyone was looking. He complained about her sister, he taunted her and argued with her whenever she started one (and she did, often). Thable noticed a running trend with that kind of thing... The more they complained about someone, the more they watched them. When he thought about it, it made perfect sense; they had so much to gripe about only because they knew so much from keeping such a close eye on them.
He saw that in his relationship with Kamiya. He didn't dare say aloud her many shortcomings he had picked up on -- his only options were to tell her directly or confide in the squirrel. He thought them, though. A lot. And he found himself watching her without realizing it.
Thable liked Kamiya. He wasn't ready to go to war for her and die for her all in the name of love (though he would have fought to the death for her on the grounds it was the right thing to do), but this was something. Something like it had been with that other wolf from before he hadn't been mature enough to really get until now.
They had broken down barriers, the two of them. Emotional and physical -- just not the kind of "physical" Kaho had spoken of. This was a simple, childish invasion of the personal space barrier that even Thable had subconsciously assumed was there when they started, never to be taken down. He reached out and pawed at her face again.
"Good. Now, let's handle this in a way that isn't going to get me killed." Just because he'd fight to the death didn't mean he wanted to. He wasn't suicidal. Eesh. "SQUIRREL! COME ON! WE'RE GOING!"
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