some sad singers, they just play tragic

@Rosencrantz

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dreams. vivid dreams. Visions of a land, from another time — another life. Faces of wolves, as familiar as they were foreign, beings of shadows that spoke in voices only faintly discernible. They came to her in her dreams often, these souls, and felt as real as if she could reach out and kiss them. The lamb often did try to touch them, and that was when their shrouded manifestations fell away, and Olive realized she was dreaming, and that they weren’t actually real, and she had gotten no closer to knowing who they were than any other night that came before.
 
It wasn’t always pleasant, but Olive did her best to interpret whatever message she was receiving and to act upon it, and not really complain about it. After all, who could complain when life was filled with such weather, full and heavy, at the end of a long summer? Lazy from a night of interrupted sleep, the woman spent the better part the day strolling along, categorizing the seasonal blooms. Only this time, she took nothing, and left only shallow paw prints in the dirt.

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They were gathering their final moments in the plains to move toward the mountains. Embittered by Guildenstern's lack of interest in leaving their mark against the herd of deer who took their field of flowers from them, Rosencrantz walked back to the little flat lake once more for a drink, alone, to calm his fiery side.

He would certainly remember this treachery. Remember how Guildenstern insulted him about a matter that would, should, bother him too. To be chased away from their squatting by mere deer was a shameful thought and it would haunt him - and certainly he would make sure Guildenstern would not forget this neither.

But he wasn't alone here. Another wandered the side of the lake as he approached to take a few sips, lapping up the water with careful flicks of the tongue as he let a single ear trail her. 

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Ordinary life had always held a sort of special magic for Olive. When done with intention and fervency, there was nothing that couldn’t become entertaining. Out of this curiosity, grew her love for cataloguing — it was her main goal in any place to understand it from the level of its flora and fauna. Who lived there, why they did, and what role they played; it was a passion as much as it was a pastime and it’s what kept her busy most days. It kept her busy now, but honestly, there wasn’t much to see — just grasses, just as she knew there would be, and not a lot more. After a small bout of consternation, she made her way towards the nearby body of water, where a man was drinking water.
 
The moon glow woman gave the man a wide berth, approaching the water’s edge and skimming a drink from the reflective mirror, smooth and placid. The little witch watched him out of the corner of her eye, just as he watched her, and it dawned on Olive — the reason she had been brought to this place might in fact lie with this man. He was the sole interesting thing she managed to catalogue in this entire expanse of a place, so she decided to nibble on the bait which the gods had laid out for her. Lifting her head, she smoothed her tongue over her lips.“Hail,” she called out, but began her introduction with the question of “Friend, or foe?” because Olive didn’t need to learn her lessons twice.

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As their group settled, the area around the lake had become their new resting place away from the deer who decided to take the floral meadow. The lake was placid, mirroring the sky perfectly as though its large endless expanse did not end just waist deep within the water should he walk out into its depths. The rippling on its surface disturbed by his tongue as it flickered on the surface.

The female wandered closer and his posture grew stiff with her presence. Though they did not claim this land and he had no reason to grow territorial at the sight of her - being too near was certainly good enough reason for him to warn her with a growl as she too chose to drink her fill by the water's edge. 

She was a pretty little thing, reminding him of Miriam in a way merely by appearances alone. 

Pausing at her question, he did not rise to meet her gaze but only let that one golden eye shift its position within its socket to watch her from its place. “I can be either.” He said simply. He was no saint but nor was he a demon. It all depended on her which side of the teeter totter he would land on. “What do you want?”

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The man was put on edge at the her approach, yet approach she did — her thirst was strong, and she did not smell a claim on this lake. Water sources were few and far between in there arid, hot areas . If she were going to be chased away, better it be done with her belly full of cool, quenching water. Who knows when she might be able to find another. The sylph knealt down to take another long drink of water.

For a brief, electric moment, the two were silent as they regarded each other. He did not do more than express indifference, which pleased her — anything less than hostility could be tolerated. The shakti woman took note of his eye, passed a brief thought for his scarring, and turned her cheek. "I find that often the most interesting relationships are a blend of the two." Her feathered ears moved forward, hoping to imbue the interaction with some form of familiarity. "Olive," she introduced, with a small dip of her maw.

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“I'm not looking for interesting.” He barked with mild irritation. Her little games or whatever she might call them were unappealing. He was too straight of an arrow. Seeing only one path and there he would walk down. Very little space for the grey as there was only black or white as far as he could see with his one eye.

She offered her name, a simple one. Almost as if Olive was offering her own little Olive branch which was fitting for the moment of mild tension. Yet the archangel did not feel the need to offer his own name. Not now at least. “I ask again, what do you want Olive?” He put a lilt in her name to nail home what he wanted before things turned sour.

Olive didn't seem like trouble - but then again, trouble often came in different packaging. Innocent looking ones were often just as dangerous as those who clearly held their dastardly banners high and proud - if not more so as they weaselled their way in past one's walls to break them down from the inside.

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Olive wasn't used to not immediately being liked. She worked hard at being likeable — she studied other wolves, and practiced interactions. For the most part, she kept to herself, and traveled alone; but the little sylph enjoyed nearly every interaction she had, for better or for worse. and, honestly, it never had truly been 'for worse' before.

So when the scarred stranger did not soften, and instead her bristled, Olive was taken aback. She felt she had no reason to have angered the man so — but in the same moment that the woman became flustered, did she manage to quell it with this realization: it was possible that this man had suffered some sort of loss and it perturbed him so, or maybe he was feeling ill and his turned stomach was making him unkindly. For a moment, Olive was lost to her thoughts, but after a entertaining silence for a moment longer than she desired, Olive replied. "I seek only to slake my thirst." and, at this point, her task was finished; she decided to happily leave him to his dourness, since it pleased him.

"Forgive me —" Olive shared, eyes still managing a sense of sweetness. "I hadn't realized this lake was closed to travelers." and with one final glance to the prickly man, Olive departed.

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