[PRP] are you running after, or away? [Foxy / Shush]

[Maxx D]

Foxy had mulled over this decision for a few days, roosting on her legs like a perturbed chicken, rising only for food and drink. It had been a while, quite a while since she had answered the Ache and found her way to the swamp, and though she had taken the swamp's curiousities and differences in her stride, she was starting to find the emotions and the vagueness and the dreaminess of the swamp just slightly tiresome.

This worried Foxy, because it was clear to any kin that had found their new home, that they could not go back.

Sometimes she could feel her steadfast beliefs shift too, as a daughter of the mountains, into these emotions and vagueness and dreaminess, and she found her stubbornness just slightly tiresome.

She had thought, and thought, and perhaps she would come to a compromise. She would make it back to the route that she'd dragged herself, weary and wanting, into the swamp. If she could just see that path, that path that led back into the snowy mountains, and bled into the heat of the swamp, perhaps...

She remembered the spread of grass and mud very well, at the start of her new life.

Foxy didn't quite know what she had hoped would happen, but she thought it would give her some solace, and help to settle her restless thoughts. It was, she thought, appropriate for a Totoma to find a goal - and attack it, headstrong. And so she moved.

And so she found her, as she turned at the brief sound of slowed steps.

For a while, her tongue struggled between her usual endearments, charmed by the tilt of her head, the fall of her soft locks, as pretty as she'd remembered.

"Hello darling," she acknowledged with a smile, before she caught herself, and moved to touch her nose with her own.  

[Jun D]

If it were a conjuration, then the conjuration spake – and it could not be a conjuration, for Shush had never been able to imagine the words she would put in her mouth.

Hello darling, the velvet murmur: she sounded exactly as she remembered, and so the slip-swish, the feel of hard-soft, and the scent of soft petals, always.

She had drifted so long – wandered and sought so very long – for this moment. Since the dream – since so many dreams. There was much she had to tell, and much to ask, for there was no one else who she could think to ask – no one else she'd spoken to, since…since – ah, it had been so many dreams.

Long had she conjured her, in her mind, but never this moment.

And so Shush did not know what to do.

And so Shush fled.  

[Maxx D]

THIS GIRL, she thought exasperatedly, immediately taking to her hooves in chase - in the back of her mind, she wondered if she had searched for her, for it always felt like she discovered this doe, and this was the first time, it seemed, that she had found her - and off she had gone again.

"IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME," she thundered behind her, labouring after the kiokote. She was not quite as adept at running, but she would try. "WHERE ARE YOU GOING EVEN?"  

[Jun D]

Where was she going? Shush did not know. A moment before, she knew: she was seeking the kind doe. Now that she had found her, she was only running. Where was she running?

This doe was kind. There was no one else that she could think to ask. She had spent many – so many – heat to cools, crisp to chills, wandering to find this doe. The velvet murmur, the slip-swish, the feel of hard-soft, and the scent of soft petals. The Shush had never yet conjured this moment, but still it was upon her, and she had only fled.

There was no one else that she could think to ask.

She stopped.  

[Maxx D]

"There we go," she gently crept up, with the practised stealth of a kin who had hidden in many a bush, voice soothing, "have you anywhere to go, my dear?"

It wasn't much of a question. It was a polite one. She knew she didn't have anywhere to go, because she was always running.

"I haven't been sure myself, lately," Foxy stood, tails flicking gently. "So you can come with me, if you like."  

[Jun D]

The velvet murmur, the swish-slip-swish. She once had words to say, but now found none. And so, she stilled, turned, and followed the scent of soft petals.

END