better an oops than a what if

Awake and yet, Marlene felt as if she were deep asleep. Warmth surrounded her like a blanket, comfortable and not yet too much, and she shifted with a little rumble as she stretched on her comforter.

Only it wasn't a comforter, it was grass, soft and earthy, and Marlene's eyes peeled open as she registered the fact that even in her dreams, she had not returned to the world she came from. It had not been kind to her, not really, if one looked past her friends. Still, unable to focus on that as the warmth soothed her, the Rosewood couldn't help but breathe in the scents that lingered.

Sweet. Floral. Sweet and floral swept through her senses and she couldn't quite pin point just what caused the scents, and yet she didn't mind. The whirlwind of a woman was as quiet as she had ever been as she drifted between what she assumed was dream, and deeper dream, rolling on her back as she stretched out on the soft ground.

Between her lashes she peaked blearily, not yet ready to wake fully as she basked in the warmth and it's comfort. Comfort she was not so easily afforded since that night, and so she was loathe to let the opportunity slip between her fingers paws.

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He hadn't recalled sleeping. Frankly, since he'd uncovered the silvered woman within the water, he had not recalled much of anything. The sight of her, petrified and sopping wet, was an image he didn't think he would forget. Didn't think he could.

But even as he slept, even as dreams danced languidly across his vision, it was not a look of terror that he saw. It was entirely the opposite, a view spun with sparkling silk as it glimmered beneath a sauntering sun.

And saunter it did, as it swept in time with the goad of dusk, trickling from flourishing yellows and soft oranges to deep blues and gentle violets. And as day fled amidst his overwhelming subconscious, Santiago remained—ever still as the grass tickled his toes, watching. Waiting.

A whisper of a dream on the horizon. What could've been, what would be, what shouldn't. A dream deeper than the sleep that captivated him, construing thoughts and feelings otherwise buried within when he was awake. Conjuring a woman, a wolf—an animal—was one of the stranger things he'd dreamt.

Nevertheless, they were there, sprawled upon the plush grass, content and whole. And he ruined it, casting a shadow over her head as he moved to stand above her.

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A shadow came to her before her vision could clear properly and Marlene blinked once, harshly, and opened her eyes to investigate. A man, a wolf, she corrected, still unused to the difference, stood over her. Marlene squinted at him as she remained on her spine, wondering who he was for him to find his way into her dreams.

It wasn't the man she was expecting, but then again, her dreams were often as uncontrollable as she. "Either lay with me, or move," the firecracker told him as she let any thought of danger evade her. It was only a dream, she insisted. Even though it felt like both reality and a dream all at once. Marlene knew she hadn't been a wolf for long but she felt the way their way of thinking came over her with some things, and one of which was the way she could recognise that this was a handsome wolf.

Olive green eyes peered down at her, surrounding by a dark frame of fur, and she made her decision in a moment. A paw lifted where it lay bent at her chest, and her leg extended to rise up to push her toes against his chin.

Stranger danger didn't have a chance with her, not with the way rebellion stirred in her belly. Even here, she wanted to put her middle finger in the air to her blood and her family, and so she dared in her dreamscape to act as if she had no worries to exist at all.

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