you let me set sail with cheap wood

In another life, Olive might have been a vegetarian. She was intensely averse to killing, though she knew the usefulness of it — for food, of course, and for ceremony and ritual, but also for the god-complex it gave unto the killer. It appealed to her predatory nature more than she felt comfortable with, and around this urge, the sylph did her best to employ some haphazard sort of self control. Everything in balance, she debated with herself constantly, and everything for a reason. She only ever used her fangs if she truly famished, or if the gods willed it, and even then she never let anything go to rot. With balance and reason, how could she do wrong?
 
Still, it was these things the little witch pondered as she trotted through the pastural milieu, the felled hare swinging from her jaws as if it were a pup, and she looked for a shady spot to retire and indulge.

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Slumber always wandered slowly to the young lads' doorstep; pacing on clumsy feet, back and forth along his narrowing line of sight as if it were teasing him. Some nights were... Rougher than others; stringing him up in his nest for hours on end until a heavy blanket of nothingness eventually swept his tired body off to heaven knew where. Though usually, he found himself up during odd hours.

He’d fumble around with little odds and ends until someone got a bit too sick of the ruckus he was making, nagging him to keep it down. But, truthfully, no one ever told him to keep it down. As no one really noticed the male, after all. Sleep, well, It noticed him, just not in the way he wished it would. It was empty, aphotic, he might go as far as to say spitefully. He would try to bargain with it, but bloody hell, the two spoke in separate tongues. Though, on this occasion, things were a bit different.

Yes, Flynnigan had spoken. It just hadn’t been to sleep.

He'd spilled words to his wayward heart, legs traveling far past the boundaries his limbs had told him. Today, in particular, he had no real sense of direction, only that he was hoping the walk would direct him into shuteye. Though instead, he stood, practically frozen in awe, blushing green optics latching onto the ghost waltzing in her delicate ballgown. She was extravagant, wasn't she? Cursed in fur as a pale as mothers milk. From her maw—dainty and red—dangle a gift from nature that he'd unknowingly been tracking. 

There was no hiding his interest in her catch, not now. But these weren't his lands, nor was that his meal, and he simply watched onward with melancholy eyes as she danced off into her own reality. He wished he could speak, to cast her out, but how doths one speak to a phantom?

—

 

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These days, her standards for reprieve were low, and her options were many.  Grateful as she was for the blessing, Olive often found herself overwhelmed by choice — thus was the plague of any lone wolfess — too many roads to travel, too many lives to live, too many threads to unravel. She was a homebody and a wayfarer both at once, coexisting and intermingling in one corporeal body; but where her definition of home changed constantly, her definition of scouting did not. Home was fleeting. Home was this place, or that place, or every place at once. Home was here, just as it was over there. For her prey, home was nowhere. This rabbit; it had no more choice.
 
A lone yew caught her attention and her leonine stride diverted at an angle to intersect with it.  The tree was heavy with thick, emerald foliage. Sunlight poked through in places, dusting the soil underneath with a smattering of light. The sylph circled once and settled upon the earth, setting the meal off to the side. Soon she would pluck the fur from its carcass and set it aside, perhaps for a rodent to find and use to make its nest. For now, she preened one feathered forelimb, busy cleaning the dust off of her roadweary heels.

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She ate, he observed. Silken furs, ivory dressing, not a splatter of red. A delicate display of marksmanship began to digest in his gullet, all the more seating the currents that bellowed within. No longer famished, merely... Starved for consequences. A quiet beckoning emitted from hushed lips, hastened forelimbs halting mere breaths from her gates.

“I will be frank with you, stranger,” Cooing soft hymns from between his teeth, a lowly breeze shifting through a well-groomed mane. “if you consider yourself the type to keep air in your lungs, venturing southbound will rip you from existence.” Mayhaps she would have questions, pondering on his odd format. He would have answers.

But for now, he sat by her side, respectfully averting his gaze.

—

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She eventually grabbed her meal and unhurriedly picked a leg or two clean. The shrouded sylph lay, savoring every morsel of her hard-caught meal, and one moment she was alone; and then the next, she was not. Another sat abreast of her, underneath the tree — perhaps too close for unfamiliar wolves, but Olive was familiar enough with almost everyone.
 
“Oh?” she chimed inquisitively, having noted the pack on the wind. But scent never accounted for non-biological factors, like their morals and values, and often this was the information that truly mattered. Truly evil creatures were few and far between; certainly, Olive figured, certainly this man was speaking in hyperbole. “Did they cross you, or did you cross them?” the diminutive sprite blinked up at him from her place upon the floor, not entirely sure if she should be taking him seriously. Now feeling nourishment emanate from her belly, she could easily procure a silly mood, if it so pleased the stranger.

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“I believe they think of me as the crossing sort, yet I have done no such thing.” He knelt in her presence, princely optics batting heavy lashes laced with somber appetite. Her words met his ears like a spring drizzle, and he drank it lavishly. “The men of the south raise torches in the face of white, the creatures up north bare their knives at anything that walks.” How ironic, for her to be both bathed in ivory and graced with the ability of movement. It was almost as if their motives for killing were flawed, hm?

He had been blessed with the gift of thought, carrying it with him here and there, and onto the next destination. His legs had landed him here, far from home yet not distanced enough. “I beg of you, do not tread long. It will lead to nothing but devastation, I do not wish to find you again... Mangled of your beauty and identity.”

—

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When he knelt before her, Olive was almost immediately certain of his graveness. Soberly, she slicked her feathered ears against her skull and pointed both her nose and her gaze upon her own toes as she listen to him, quite literally, beg her to leave this place. The moonglow woman needed no further convincing. “I see,” she commented as the man spoke. Silence, for a moment, and then she shifted her gilded gaze to settle upon his, holding the weight of his concern with but a soft glance.
 
“No, I do not want that outcome either.” Olive spoke in a more hushed tone, as if it was a proper shield against the barbarians of the south and north. The little witch had no doubt that this man had improprieties with both these factions, and with those baleful lashes she was bound to believe him, but she was also aware that each side had an infinite number of stories to tell. Even now, the pack which bore knives might see her as a transgressor, whereas the king did his best to gently cajole her to action. Even Olive could not say which was more right, or which she was more deserving of.
 
Still, Olive was not one to tempt curses or fate. Without realizing that her ears were still tucked down, almost invisible, she gave a nod. “I’ll move on, I’m just not sure which way to move on towards.” For a moment, her eyes re-trained on his, but then she turned to regard the half-eaten hare at her side. “Should I bury it?” Was it worth sacrificing a hard-earned catch? She suspected so, but Olive was not the local expert, here. If he was willing to dole out more advice, she would be willing to heed it.

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Her words etched notches betwixt soft tissue; sweet spots of curative flesh splintering apart with each cry her lips spilled. She told an aphonic story, one of peregrination without destination. A kindred spirit—a fickle choice. Bowing further his downy head of gold, sighing peacefully the weight of the world from between clenched teeth.

Evermore had tampered limbs traveled in search of nothing, seeking a home where home no longer lived. Was it possible to be a wanderer when your heart stayed caged? A prisoner within its own court? Melancholy visionaries held her gaze, allowing it to run freely in the forest that clouded his thoughts. He hadn't much to offer, nothing more than an empty promise, “I find that in some cases you must become what you are searching for.” a promise of safety away from... Whatever they'd spawned. 

He knew why he strayed so far from damnation. As he wished not to be damned. Wise words riddled from his childish tongue would craft a kingdom away from uncertainty... Or, perhaps, for it. “I plan on doing just that.”

She spoke in regards to the morsel, “Bury? No.” and in response did he simply nudge it closer. “Finish what you've begun, leave no door open for strange hands... They cannot accuse you of what they cannot obtain.”

The stag stood, giving a final blink to the pale reed before parting ways. “Prince Flynnigan... Until we meet again.”

—

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In regards to her directionless wandering, the man could have spoken no truer words. Olive, a solitary sylph, often found that home became where ever she was, or whatever action she was doing — home, a concept she had been musing upon mere moments before, when she had stolen the corporeal home away from her prey. It was a treacherous act that she had not at the time realized, but now appeared to be ripe with foreboding. Omens spoke loudly at time, and sometimes came in the form of pleading, golden princes. Clearly it was the gods' will that she move on, but first she would resign herself to finish her meal andperhaps pass on a couple hours of sleep. Then she could move forward with an intention in her heart, and with purpose lighting her path forward. “From our lips, to the gods’ ears,” the wisp of a woman bade his endeavors, with a smile. She had no doubt that he would succeed in becoming the thing he wanted so badly, just as she had no doubt in herself.
 
“Aye,” she concluded, with a nod towards the remaining evidence, and watched him keenly as he readied himself for departure. “Olive,” the faerie introduced, letting her attention follow him until his gilded coat melded in with the golden sun, sitting fat upon the late-afternoon horizon. Without knowing the mistake she was making by not departing at that very moment and following the wayward steward, she set upon the carcass and got to work. The woman maintained little worry or anxiety for the near future — she knew this wasn’t the last time they would meet. It this land was like all the others, paths could only remain separate for so long before eventually rejoining. It was an eventuality that she looked greatly forward to.

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