Blue moon orchid

Evening held the land within her clutches, the first stars beginning to emerge between her velvety fingers. They blinked the slumber out from their eyes, gazed coldly down at the earth below. The waterfalls shrouded the Heights in a droning hum. White noise.

Beneath the canopy of pine trees lied the brute. He rested flat on one side, found a makeshift pillow in the exposed, moss-covered root of a pine that he settled a cheek on. The thunder of the nearest waterfall lulled him into a doze.

Deep sleep was not quite in his grasp. His ears still twitched and flicked at the slightest of sounds. The fluttering of a bird's wings as it settled into its nest. Squirrels climbing up and down the cracked and weathered trunks. The snapping of a twig somewhere within the forest's shadow.

Everbane drew in a long inhale, released a deep sigh, and softly smacked his inky lips.

---

@Cvetka

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She fell from the sky with a tumble.

Cvetka landed limply upon her flank, wincing with the blossoming warmth in her side which spoke of a bruise. Blue eyes were squinted, vision blurred, smeared with white ink. 

The girl dragged her body back up to an upright posture, hissing against the stabbing pain in her side. It was enough for her to be negligent towards the dull throb of her head and the absence of what was there prior. 

Mindless nearly as much as she was graceless, Cvetka stumbled over gnarled roots of trees and huffed quietly against the piercing smell of unfamiliarity.

Where had she gone? 

Tufted ears slowly shifted back, the wolfdog laid her scrutiny over the coniferous woodlands. There was no fog, no stench of death nor...

Where was she? Where had she come from?

The woman stalked forward. The hum of waterfalls grew with a steady crescendo as she paced the woodlands with a mindless gaze. 

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Through the waterfalls' din, an ear swiveled toward the ruckus tumbling between the trees. Twigs snapped and branches rustled.

“Hm?” he grunted as his head raised and turned. His eyes were reluctant to open. Lashes fluttered against the blurred vision, gradually coming into focus.

He sniffed the air. A stranger's scent reached his nose. Warm eyes scanned the area around him.

They were near, he thought. He could still hear them. But he had yet to clap eyes on them.

The brute stiffly rose to a seat. A yawn parted his jaws.

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As she walked, she momentarily wondered if the bruise was a broken rib. 

Each step elicited a hitch of her breath and a small grimace of pain. Yet, it wasn't nearly enough for it to stifle the unrelenting need to figure out where the hell she was.

The waterfall grew louder. So did the ringing in her head. Cvetka swayed on her feet and trod over the turf before landing on her haunches with a deep huff of breath. There was no more strength in her frail bones. The haze of her conscience grew too prominent to ignore.

'Hm?' The hum pierced her ears and in an instant, she spun her head—big mistake. The deep toll that resonated in the crown of her head grew strident from her sudden movement. Cvetka's ears pressed tightly to the back of her skull. 

The scent of a stranger evoked the odd amalgam of curiosity that pried her to her feet along with fear—lest the other decided that her presence was enough of a nuisance to drive her away physically. She was in no state to run. All she could do was stare with languid eyes clouded by nonplus and let her throat rumble with a piteous whine.

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The brute pushed himself up to stand. He shook his coat to rouse himself more. Pine needles clung stubbornly to his thick ruff.

The stranger's footsteps had either gone still or silent. Everbane moved away from the small nook. Strong in his gait, a subconscious poise. He zigzagged his way between the pines following the narrow, interwoven trails left by ungulates.

He might have missed the woman were it not for the whine. The brute halted after stepping around a tree. Honey brown eyes took in the pinned ears and shrunken form. He didn't encroach further into the distance between them. Everbane reclined onto his haunches as though that may make him appear less daunting.

His tongue clicked before he spoke: “Well, now—if you had wanted to remain unseen, you should have been a bit quieter.”

He tilted his head slightly to one side.

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Cvetka could hear the footfalls before she could see the source of them. The girl raised her head, brows knitting into a small scowl.

The stranger was daunting. Tall, broad, strewn with muscle. A harrowing sense of dread sent a frigid sensation through her body—this would not be pretty. Her eyes averted to the ground beneath her forelimbs the moment she saw the deep umber gaze befall her frame.

'Well, now—if you had wanted to remain unseen, you should have been a bit quieter.' The voice, ever sonorous, was tranquil. Her fear-strewn body eased its tension, if only slightly.

Cvetka raised her head with a small sniff. There was no musk of carnage that she'd smelled on so many others. 

Her eyes were unsure, flickering to and fro along the forest floor. Yet still, her head leaned forward, nostrils flaring to scrutinize him with nervous diligence. Her tongue timorously rasped over her nose and her tail began to lightly sweep at her feet.

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A fragment of her nerves whittled away. Still woefully timid. The meek tail wag brought a soft smile to his face. A simple inhale told him that she wasn't from the wetland. No scent suggesting that she had come from anywhere nearby. Perhaps she had been plucked and placed like he had, like this world was some kind of catch-all.

“Are you from here?” he asked, already with his own answer in mind.

Mostly, he wanted to see if she may speak or not. She had yet to show much sign that she understood him.

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The smile in response to her gestures elicited the bloom of something—god knows what it was. Cvetka's tail accelerated in speed, hitting the ground with louder thumps in its wake. 

The figure—towering over her, easily able to dispose of her if he so wished... was ever-so gentle. 'Are you from here?' The girl's gaze lowered, if only for a fleeting moment.

“No, I—” She paused. Where was here? Was she from here? She... had no idea. “I... don't... think so...” Cerulean eyes squinted pensively. “I don't know.” Cvetka glanced back up at the sire with a small frown.

“I'm... my name is Cvetka.” The name rolled off her tongue—an innate motion. Cvetka... her name, the title she'd heard since her sealed ears first opened, may as well be the only thing she had left.
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As he thought. The world he found himself in only grew more intriguing.

“It's alright,” he reassured. “I don't know how I came to be here, either.”

His head canted back to regard the pine trees surrounding them. The canopy of thick, needled branches of deep evergreen. The sky peeking through the gaps. Steadily, it grew darker with each passing moment. Night was well on its way.

The brute's attention returned to the woman when she introduced herself.

His smile grew.

“I'm Everbane—pleased to meet you.”

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The bearish sire and his soft words ousted the fleeting few heartbeats of a pensive silence. For a split second, her ears pinned back yet again, as though she hadn't expected him to respond to her thoughtless vomit of words. 'It's alright...I don't know how I came to be here, either.' Like the answer of a loyal pet to its dearest owner, her tail only swept with more vigor at his words.

'It's alright,' his words rung in her head, 'It's alright. Alright...' Her pink tongue again lapped over her nose, her lips twisted into a taut grin.

Nervous? Elated? Both? Neither?

Cvetka herself couldn't even tell. Her ears pinned back, her eyes—ever so blue and round, like that of a robin's egg—narrowed in bliss. 'I'm Everbane—pleased to meet you.' Everbane. “Everbane...” Her words were mumbled softly, devoid of any expression as though her emotions had been drowned away. Yet, the soft drumbeat of her tail told a separate story. “Everbane...”

Pleased to meet her? Cvetka scanned over his battle-worn body, the sinewy physique bereft of tension that spoke of hostility. Further reflected by the mellow softness of his honey-brown eyes. Everbane. He was pleased to meet her. Yet even she knew not who she was.

She shuffled, coiling her tail around her haunches and gingerly placing them on her forepaws. “The... pleasure is mine, Everbane.” His moniker left her throat akin to a housecat's blissful purr. 

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She tested out his name over her tongue. He imagined it was due to the peculiarity of the name. He could not recall how he came to be "Everbane"; whether someone gave it to him or he had christened himself. Only that he was "Everbane".

Anxious energy continued to flood from Cvetka, as if attempting to reach its tendrils for the brute and spread its curse only to be met by an invisible barrier. While curious, he didn't find it off-putting. He possessed a fragment of that boyish desire for attention that tended ego's fire.

Then he recalled when he first woke up in this world. The bleeding wound, still in the process of becoming a scar on his face.

He wondered if the root of her nervousness was the masking of a wound.

“And you're alright?” he asked, head cocking slightly. “Didn't get hurt on your way here?”

He didn't smell any blood, at least.

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There was no disquietude on the sire's face. No sense of... disgust, nor any judgment. His eyes remained soft, sweet, as if the deep warm irises truly did harbor honey. Cvetka wondered that perhaps if she shuffled closer and lapped her tongue over the silky tresses of his face, he would taste like it, too.

'And you're alright?' his words snapped him out of her enamored stupor, raising her brows and momentarily pursing her lips, 'didn't get hurt on your way here?'

The girl's soft brush showed no sign of halting their waving motions—especially not so when the man fretted over her health. It sparked a small flutter in her chest. His demeanor was ever familiar, yet she could not recall where she'd found such a person.

Admittedly, she had neglected to inspect herself when she'd fallen. Everbane was enough of a distraction for her to ignore the burning pain that was ebbing against her side. She could feel remnants of aches that spoke of a bruise, yet nothing beyond that, as she'd feared.

“No, I'm alright,” she paused, contemplating whether it'd be worth telling him or if this was trivial enough to keep untold, “just... a little bruised.” She straightened her posture, letting the tension in her muscles unwind.

Why did he care? Would it be significant to him if she were injured? Her head tilted, gazing at Everbane's soft mien and the slash that was painted in red over his face. Cvetka's paws itched to mend his injury, yet... she didn't know how. 

At least, not anymore.

“Are you alright?” A short gesture of her snout towards his visage pointed to acknowledge the wound. Why should she ask, really, when the girl would be of no help? Perhaps it was the nagging curiosity that spoke from the back of her mind.
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“Ah,” he hummed. “Well—good!” Everbane couldn't tell if she was being truthful or not; however, he could understand the reluctance to admit weakness to a stranger. The way she presented herself when he first clapped eyes on her, she looked to have been anticipating aggression.

Acknowledgement of his own wound had his eyes rolling up in its direction, out of his line of sight near his right eye.

“Yes,” he said with a soft chuckle in his voice. “It's only a flesh wound.”

Curiosity spurred him to indulge himself and ask: “So, what might you do in a place you don't know?”

The smile adopted a hint of a coy smirk.

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'It's only a flesh wound.' Cvetka frowned. Seemingly scabbed over, yet prominent nonetheless. Her paws twitched with an innate desire to search for herbs and help his wound, lest it grow infected.

But, hell, what did she know about healing, anyway?

...did she know anything? It all grew too confusing again. Cvetka shook off the thoughts with a small batter of her head.

'So, what might you do in a place you don't know?' His simper appeared to grow. That itself did not go unnoticed by the woman, yet her oblivious eyes neglected the wry mien which spread across his visage. “I'm not too sure,” she admitted, “I suppose... I could go take a look around.” Admittedly, even if this were a place she was familiar with, she still wouldn't know quite what she would be doing. Probably scavaging for food—yet the thought of saying such a confession made heat gather in her nape from embarrassment.

Yet, why? Why did she care about Everbane's opinion?

Cvetka's lips curled into a frown. Diligently, she rose onto her paws, ignoring the dull ache that remained against her flank. Just prominent enough to be a nuisance, while simultaneously mild enough for it to feel counterproductive to wait for the pain to abate.

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“Hm,” he hummed with a small nod as his gaze drifted to the woods shrouding them. Exploring was the most obvious thing to do. Every now and then, he came across the scent of other wolves—wolves who smelt of the world—but felt no inclination to follow after them with questions. Find someone who was either native or been there longer to acquire answers. He enjoyed making his own little discoveries of the new world he was in. At his own, leisurely pace.

An ear turned toward Cvetka before his head did after hearing movement. She stood on her paws, ready to go "look around," he presumed. The frown on her face caught his eye.

“What is it?” he asked, his own smile beginning to ebb away as his head tilted to a side.

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For a few seconds, she was engrossed in inspecting the state of her aching flank. Then, she heard the deep rumble of his voice.

'What is it?'

Cvetka paused at his inquiry. “Huh?” Her head tilted, brows furrowing in confusion. “It... what's what?” Her head cocked towards the other direction. 

It took a few moments for her to realize that the grimace on her face was far from subtle. “Oh—” she glanced down at her side, then back up at him. “I had a bit of a fall. It's... it's just a bruise.” It was an honest statement. Yet, her voice still wavered with uncertainty. 

The slight cant of her head, the subtle disappearance of his smile. Cvetka was not sagacious by any means—in fact, she was quite the opposite. Yet, what she could flawlessly recognize was the slow disappearance of Everbane's contentment.

She didn't want him to worry. Not over something so trivial. Cvetka's ears tilted back against her nape. “Nothing compared to what you have, really,” she mumbled softly. Her tail lightly waved to and fro at her hocks. Some sort of innate desire to appease the tall sire, to return the simper that once spread over his features. 

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Confusion fluttered across her face. Her head tilted, his own mirrored subconsciously. A pine needle, loosened from his ruff from the movement, fell without a sound to the forest floor amongst the grass, dirt, and other needles. Realization made her eyes glow and her reassurance softened his.

A brow was quirked as his head lifted slightly higher, the smirking smile returned.

“Really?”

While amusement laced his sonorous voice, the question was genuine. Even though he already suspected the answer he may receive: more reassurances. He didn't want to bother her with his boyish teasing to the point it made her more uncomfortable than she already was.

“Well—I would hate to trouble you any more.” With a soft chuckle, he added: “I'm sure I've taken enough of your time.”

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Cvetka's eyes remained fixed on his face, watching the amusement return to his broad visage. 'Really?' No more was there a verbal response—the girl simply nodded profusely.

'Well—I would hate to trouble you anymore,' Trouble..? She canted her head with her lips slightly pursed. 'I'm sure I've taken enough of your time.' No. No, was he leaving? “NO!” Cvetka didn't mean to squeal so loudly, but she couldn't stop the cry from leaving her lips. She shrank back in shame and pinned her ears back to her nape.

What had she done? Did he not want her around anymore? Suddenly, the importance of his gentle presence felt as if it was draining away. Cvetka took a few hobbled steps back. “I mean... you don't—I'll just...” Her body burned with humiliation. How dare she think she was important to anyone? Wouldn't that be asinine?

She slank back towards the woodlands, keeping her eyes still fixed on Everbane's broad frame.

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