A Heavenly Oracle

A disoriented Katarzyna lifts her head from her paws, blinking wildly back and forth as she peered over first left, then right. Her body felt strange, how on earth did she end up here? Her head lifted to the sky as she felt the wind react to the long, silken fur that kept her legs warm. The tufts appeared as if they were floating and whatever was happening, she was witnessing it in pure awe and astonishment. She was careful with her surroundings, her ears perking so she could detect sounds soft and harsh. Kat wouldn't be quick enough to her feet to not notice the soothing stream near her small skull, she backed away and tilted her head. With no idea in her mind how she could've gotten here, what could've possibly brought her to this area? She'd been wandering, tirelessly- at that but it begged the question. For how long did she wander the unknown land and when did she happen to rest? And end up near a lake she'd hardly recognize. 

Katarzyna raised an eyebrow, her curious nature was always tempting her but a part of her always wanted to be a skeptic and enjoy the mystery of life but she couldn't help but let out a breath. The wind toyed with it, crisp and cool as it faded away from her like a soft mist into the cold, ethereal air. There was something about this place that seemed like home. The feeling in fact, only grew as she walked around, wandering the grounds. The ground was chilled, and though her body was used to it and could handle weather quite well with her plumage coat, it was difficult to discern what felt real and what felt like she was daydreaming or somewhere else entirely. The thought chilled her mind, the daylight only sneaking through bits of cloud and arriving to give her a luminous glow that made her smile brightly. The sun was always so kind to her, regretfully, she wanted to be in it much more but her eyes being so light made her incredibly sensitive. 

Katarzyna basked in the lovely breath of her mother's earth and returned her nose to the ground. She sniffed around, maybe others had been close by. Maybe she was the only one. Could she have been dead? It was far too surreal to be a given death. She thought she could be trapped in a void but the clouds moved properly across the sky as one after the other chased each other, building shapes and structures she'd always gleam at. Her brain was fogged but she wanted to memorize the ground, to give it the grace it deserved. The world around her was beautiful. 

Hmmf. 

She huffed, planting her backside down for a moment before raising a paw to play with the rippling stream. She stared at her reflection, waves formed a picture of her she only recognized for a split second before it seamlessly tore apart and created a new vision. Her eyes squinted, leaning into her very own reflected image. Her paw softly brushed the water, scattering it into a bleeding watercolor.
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Something had changed about him, though he wasn’t sure what. Whatever it was, surely he was not the same man that had awoken before the day spent enshrined in fog atop violet petals. He was altogether different now. A part of him wished he could return to last week, the before. A time when his mind had not been so jumbled and running on overdrive, when he hadn’t found himself overanalyzing everything time and time again. Despite his efforts to stay focused on the present moment, daydreams coalesced before his eyes before he knew that they had taken hold. It was something that he couldn’t break free of, his mind instantly traversing those murky waters again and again anytime that he hadn’t been completely immersed in something else. For a long time he battled with them, feeling sick the longer he thought about it. Unease crawling up his legs and hooking its claws deep into his fur. It coiled his stomach into knots and made him feel uncomfortable when he wasn’t being satiated by the one thing that delivered his remedy.

Restlessly Beck moved through the forest. He had gone hunting and was quite successful in catching four large rabbits. Considering the success, he should have been happy. Delightfully plump and licking his paws while he basked in the warmth of the evening sun. Instead he roamed, a feeling of need itching him from deep within. It was a hole that could not be filled with rabbits. Leaves that had long departed the bare limbs of the old oaks crunched beneath his enormous black paws, each crumpling into rusty dust as his weight moved from it. There was a beauty in those dull brown spears. Never quite did they turn like the maples or the sassafras trees, boasting a parade of vibrant reds and golds. Still, they held their own sort of beauty.

Avoiding what he knew would satisfy his yearning, and avoiding admitting he knew exactly what that was, Beck would look for other fillers. The scent of water called to him and his body responded. He moved toward the stream, a cloak of sunlight dappling his dark back. When he arrived, he was met with two perfectly crafted, crystalline blue eyes. Their owner, a snowy white wolf who appeared as though she was once an owl who decided to shift species. He blinked at her, eyes trailing her up and down and wondering if she had somehow been an apparition, her scent lost on the wind that sailed away from him.

@Katarzyna
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It was sudden, but all the while exciting when she picked up scent of something new. She thought it might be food. Prey easily could've warmed her belly and made her less antsy but when she raised her head it's like she knew something was attached to it. A stranger. Dark, following her with a wandering gaze. It was intriguing and nonetheless, made her excited in terms of meeting someone new. Though, she would have to hold her wildest thoughts. Katarzyna had a problem holding her tongue, especially when it came to rather striking, vivacious men. A lot wanted to be said but she couldn't scare him off, right? 

With the way he was staring, fixated to her like bees to honey, it made her smile. Quite wide. She turned to him, purposively swiveling to swoosh her tail and let the wind guide her fur in all different directions. The tousling was to simply enchant him, her whimsical body sauntered over to him. An open invitation to start up conversation, something she was rather quite keen on. Especially with handsome strangers. Her eyes followed his, batting large speckled eyelashes at him. Or what smelled to be a him. He was rugged, a hint of curiosity on his face. The question was, where did it arise? Was it when she walked over or when his eyes laid upon her? It was curious. Something she'd only seen in her prior mate. A look of longing, painfully unromantic and nonsensical. She'd never understand it. "You must like what you see, hmm?" She brushed the tip of her tail against his paw before sitting down before him. Kat stood tall, her stature never faulting since she was strong in presence. "It's okay to be speechless. Though, I'd prefer if you told me your name," Her voice was silken, leveling off at the end as she let out a giggle. She was testing how he'd react to such a bold statement, it was mere fun for her. The most satisfactory reaction would be to see him flustered, perhaps break out into a heated rouge. "What lovely eyes you have.." Her head tilted, he was more meek than she'd usually go for but he was certainly the only thing she'd seen out here. And after an experience like she had this morning, it would've been nice to calmly ask for answers. The land was new, a different air entirely to it but so was he. Maybe he was in the same predicament. His eyes were glossed over, a sense of peace in them. She'd take quite a liking to those unusual gemstones, warmth like a fire burning under fresh kindling while the other was cool and completely opposite.

"I'd be happy to tell you mine, stranger.."  She let a fang sneak from her upper lip and her incisors flashed for a millisecond before staring at her feet, rummaging the dirt underneath her paws. "I can see something's got you in a daze- just can't tell if it's me or not.." Her eyes disregarded him for only a few moments before feasting on that rare, striking and fresh memory of his eyes in her mind. A new thing to memorize besides the cloud patterns, the number of raindrops she'd count during a heavy storm and how long daylight lasts. This new stranger was as captivating all with being quiet. It didn't take much to peek her curiosity but this happened to be a new feeling for her. A man as timid and as quiet as a stream would be different for her. While in her thoughts, she awaited his response patiently. Her claws unsheathing as she painted marks into the ground.
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Almost immediately she’d respond to his presence, those glassy eyes looking him up and down in an evaluation of her own as her lips curved into a dangerous smile. The woman turned, angling her body against the breeze and drawing his attention. He was aware it was a show, the why is what got away from him. She moved then, slinking over to him like a viper crawling over the rocks, her languid body a ribbon of silk. Beck stiffened, the skin atop his muzzle twitching for the first time since he had arrived in the realm. This woman appeared hungry, in the way she moved, in the way she smiled. He hadn’t known what it was, though it prickled against his skin in an odd way. Beck stood taller, his shoulders squaring, unworried about intimidating her with the full extent of his height and mass.

Then she spoke. A soft croon lullabied against his ears, her body ebbing into his personal space without an ounce of hesitation. His eyes skirted away from her only for a moment, watching her tail stroke his paw before they immediately returned, resting again on hers as she sat herself just before him. Tensions that had brewed atop the tightened skin of his muzzle relaxed, but the man as a whole did not. It felt ridiculous, foolish even to have considered her to be anything but a wolf, and yet, despite the feel of her touch… Something about him remained suspicious of this woman. She was unlike anyone he had met since he had woken, unlike anyone he could remember meeting from the faint and few memories of his former life. This girl was something else entirely.

Before he could respond, she was talking again. That all together too sweet voice producing melodies that danced and swayed in delicate cords wrapping around his body, ensnaring him in her invisible binds. A single brow raised as he watched her. She was quite the animated little thing, her voice a constant in a very much one sided conversation. Her body and mouth were continually moving, preforming quite the unexpected spectacle. He’d allow it to go on, watching with silent amusement, half unwilling to interrupt.

It was only when she fell silent that he responded. Noticing the way a thought appeared to grab her attention and whisk it away to distant places. “My name is Beck,” The titan’s voice was a rumbling baritone. It vibrated through his broad chest, masculine but not unkind. “I was just noticing your fur and how you look like the owls of my homelands.” He looked her over again as if to confirm that those words had rang true. He hadn’t been sure how to respond to everything she had said, mostly the comment about the daze in his eyes. Beck wasn’t a man to hand out his insecurities like greeting cards to every passerby who he happened upon. He kept them close to his chest, guarded behind an iron resolve.

Angling himself around her, he moved past the woman slowly, casually striding toward the water’s edge. Without allowing the woman to drift out if his line of sight, he lowered himself to the crisp rippled surface to take a long drink. It was just as he thought. Despite the crispness that coated his throat pleasantly, the water did nothing to satisfy the thirst still lingering inside. Turning back to her then, a small smile parted his lips in a friendly manner. “What brings you here?”

@Katarzyna
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Beck. Beck. Beck. 

The words grazed against each cochlea, playing wistfully. "Beck," She repeated, watching as he passed her with an ease, his scent was strong. As bold and lustrous as she was being, she let her ears pin against her temples almost embarrassed by the reaction. Katarzyna's chest flares, mumbling to herself as she turns her head to watch a bird flying across the horizon. The sun is at it's peak, sending down the beam of light directly towards the lake. She turned to him, noticing his smile. His subtle rejection to her comment made her pull her bottom lip back between strong teeth. "I have never been told such a thing. I appreciate the compliment." She nodded, swallowing her pride as she followed him. It didn't exactly look like him inviting her over but she followed regardless. 

You could say, from his non-lustful approach, the curiosity churned deeper. "Not entirely sure. Peculiar, heh.. I must've wandered in, fell asleep near this spot." She pondered for a second, quirking a brow and looking at her mirrored image and his before tilting her head to the side and shaking her fur out. "I don't know if you'd be abandoning a certain family," She was trying to delve into him, hoping to crack at least where he was heading in this anomaly of land. "Don't know if I'll hang around quite yet.."  Her breath separated her words, letting a smile cross her face. Still devious as ever. 

Her words were never harping or crossing the line over to desperation, she always kept eloquent and didn't let herself lose that part of her. She couldn't. Kat's eyes closed as she hummed the faint hymns with the wind, it was a pattern. It was inauspicious, the wind parted with the soft tender ripping of the sky, forming patterns against her luminous, dazzling plumage. Her mind wandered as she awaited another answer, her body swayed back and forth as she dipped her head side to side. It must've been so silly to find him so fascinating. How foolish. Katarzyna met his eyes once more, she squinted her eyes not in irritation but just to focus on him. She studied him. His muscled body, his stature, the way both eyes moved side to side or stayed completely still. It was alluring all the while utterly frustrating. "You must forgive my forwardness, Beck." Kat paused. He seemed real. Maybe it's what she needed in such a odd reality right now. Her teeth glittered against the sunlight as she stretched her mouth to form a warm, positive smile. "You might've just looked lonely to me since I saw no one by your side. Perhaps you dislike eyes on you," She sighed, letting her head fall and her paw rest above the floating water. "Perhaps you'd rather me avert my eyes and pretend you don't exist, hmm?" She really couldn't read him. Her eyes fled all around him until she licked the side of her neck in long strides. At this point, she didn't expect him to answer based off his previous responses. However, he was kind. Kindness was a rarity and something she didn't want to grip onto so quick since she knew she wouldn't be able to have it when she needed it most. Katarzyna hated that side of her, the soft, gentle and nurturing side that wanted nothing more than to love. 

She thought she'd experience it, she did. The commitment not being reciprocated had broken her trust causing her to indulge in frivolous behavior only to spite him. Not realizing he had completely forgotten about her. It shattered her entirely. The shell of the kind, respectable women was now shrouded sunlight, their was a consistent dullness to her if you'd known her. Thankfully, him being a stranger was something he couldn't appreciate. All the years, the bleak smile, the ever-so-present frown. How troubled she truly is. He saw none of that. And for that, she was thankful.

@Beck
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