what was i made for

Warmth.

It's the first thing that Ada noticed as she's drawn from her slumber. The lady was still rousing, her brows pulled together as she shifted on her belly, her chin on the grass between her paws as she felt the pull of the world start to wake her. Her spine was cast in a golden glow as the sun shifted behind the canopies, sparkling through the breaks in the leaves and branches, and Ada sighed softly in her snooze at the way the warmth felt.

Her eyes slowly blinked open, once, twice, thrice — a fourth time and they were open half-wide as she came to. A golden light blinded her as the sun beamed and she hummed gently as she withdrew her head from the ground to start to arch her body in a stretch as her belly lifted from the ground. With her rump hoisted in the air, Ada stretched out her limbs and bones and glanced around with a sleepy expression still shadowing her delicate features.

Strange, the Fairchild thought. It felt familiar yet foreign all at once, and in her memories she recalled a golden ray as she traversed the greenery, only for a beast to venture near. She recalled him hotly, the way he infuriated her and scared her all at once. Quick to shift from her stretch, Ada glanced over her shoulder as if looking for him, and allowed herself to relax as she looked around. Her belly rumbled a gentle reminder that she was hungry, but the Fairchild was more focused on where she was, and why.

It wasn't the first time, pulled pillar to post, and in the back of her mind she mourned her home once again. Basking in the warm light, Ada tiptoed forward in search of something familiar, whilst seemingly keeping her eyes peeled for the possibility of being reunited with a once-upon-a-time beast. As she grew comfortable, her steps grew light with a bounce, her tail flourishing in the air above her.

---

@Mordecai

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Hibernation. Was this what it was like? He had learned of it, once, long ago. It felt like a lifetime ago, now.

He remembered snow, and clay. Ghosts, emotional and literal. Feelings, boring and taboo. It all blurred together; a smear of colors — too many colors! — across a canvas that had so much life to it already.

Hibernation...

Why did the thought come back to him?

---

The man groaned, shifting in his sleep as he began to rise from its velvet depths. He heaved himself upwards, breaking the thick surface with a deep, lung-filling breath; his eyes opened with great effort, a heaving thing, as if he were picking up a dense and burdensome weight. One long blink, and then another. Another, flushing the sleepsand from his eyes. Vision yet blurry, Mordecai Sharpe squinted against the early afternoon sun.

This... was not home.

---

Hours had passed. The man of sunset strokes had made it to the treeline; he had every intention to stroll into its grasps when he spotted it. A pale ghost, starkly visible through the trees. The closer he got, the better he could make out the other's form — petite, spritely, feminine. His voice rang out, hailing the girl with a strident bark. Mordecai closed the distance and asked: “Do you know where we are?”

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Despite all of her lessons in etiquette, Ada still jumped when a voice called out to her. Startled, the Fairchild all but leapt off of her paws like a kitten, and her head whipped around towards the sound. Half expecting it to be the heathen, Ada's little frame was taut, but upon seeing it wasn't, she settled and soothed. He was of forward nature, she thought, as he strode forward without hesitance and closed the distance.

Her tail swayed behind her and she bounced on her paws to right her position so she was facing him, her delicate features alight with a smile. He gave no greeting but a question, and Ada hummed as she flourished her tail behind her. "I do not, sir," she told him as she observed him. Bigger than her but no mountain, and coloured with contrasts of the sunset. A handsome face indeed.

"I woke here not too long ago," Ada revealed, almost sheepishly, regarding him curiously. "Not the first time a world like this has harangued me," the freckled woman admitted without shame.

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She did not. Ears flickered as lips thinned — the thought that he had been taken from his home and brought here, wherever here was. The days past had been filled with tumultuous, bewildered thoughts and wonderments; how had he gotten here? Who had brought him here? What was happening? So when she so casually mentioned that this had happened to her before…

The man’s countenance shifted, a single eyebrow lifting as he looked upon her form. “Is realm-jumping a pasttime of yours, Lady…?” He paused here, an expectant pause given as he sought her name.

She was a pretty thing, a sweetly curved face, colors that drew the eye, a voice that could melt snow. She was a soft, building beauty, her glow radiating the longer his gaze remained upon her. A painter’s magnum opus.

“Mordecai Sharpe,” He offered, head bowing in greeting.
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