Horse or bear, she never retraced her steps to places she had known before except here. She’d always come down this particular forest path and poke her nose in this particular cave just to sniff the air and think she still smelled his scent on it. It was the one link she had to him besides her memories and those couldn’t be trusted because they tricked her heart into feelings she knew she had but shouldn’t. Then again, Keeper always knew her heart was too big to love monogamously.
She has gone on to be a lover and a mother and settle into the bliss of days that are always the same with a small herd and children underfoot. But that never stopped her from leaving in the dark to run to a place and a time that made her heart palpitate in such a way that the pain of it was exquisite. It was like when she found her mushrooms and gorges on them, or swiped a big paw through a hive to get the delicious honey inside.
He was like a taste she couldn’t get enough of - a wine, dark and mottled with notes of dusk and shadow. Keeper wanted to drink him down as if he was the last drop of pure glacial water running down the inside of that cave that had always been the dividing line between them. She couldn’t explain it and didn’t bother to figure it out; she just felt the emotion and let it control her and refused to think of the consequences later. All of that could be damned, this was Balto! - and his name rang through her like a song that could never be forgotten.
Keeper is unaware of his torment; of the demons that coax and cajole in his ears and plague his spirit. She could not combat them anyway, lacking any magic but the bear inside her and unable to take such pains away from him. If asked, she would do anything she could to make him whole again and less damaged, had she been aware of just how changed he was. She’d had an inkling of it not long after he came back from a quest but never really knew just how different he’d become.
In the meantime, she hangs in the grasp of sunlight and vines at the cave’s mouth; half in and half out like she usually does, never fully intruding on his space. Her ears cane forward at the sound of hoof on stone which confirmed all her hopes and lifted her heart up from its interrupted beat of nerves and fears that it would be someone other than him. It still could be but scent and sound told her otherwise and she chose to believe them, as her senses had not failed her yet. Even the bear gave a throaty rumble of pleasure from somewhere deep inside her.
“Keeper?”
Yes, oh yes! She wants to shout out her joy to him but this cave has always been a place of hush and secrets and she honors that by answering him back with a low whicker of confirmation. Emotion takes hold and chokes her anyway, so she probably wouldn’t have even been able to say all the things that came to mind in the first place. Chiefly a plea to don’t go and a desire to beg him to stay. Except a strange thought occurred to her then - she was always the one coming and going, as if even the wind couldn’t keep her in one spot.
“It’s me,” she finally manages around a thick lump of emotion because she wants to bulrush the cave-mouth and press every inch of her to him until there is no telling where one of them begins and the other ends, just a jumble of horseflesh and them, them, them. Her heart knows better than her brain and she is breaching the vined threshold to be nearer to him, his scent a beacon as she sniffs and blinks at the sudden darkness. Her eyes adjust and she finds him, he looks different but then she imagines, she does too. Time does that but it doesn’t matter to her.
Just him, Balto. She smiles and offers him her nose before deciding that’s too shy and she skims it across his jawline before she can stop herself. “Oh I’ve missed you!” she breathes out, in confession and relief and happiness. Other things come to mind that she wants to say or ask but the timing doesn’t seem right, Keeper has never been one to pry and she just wants to be there, for him and with him. She feels like part of her has come home, and he’s always been a reason to haunt the forest in either shape in hopes of stumbling across him like it was an unplanned accident.
@[Balto] me either but I couldn’t resist! Can’t wait to see how this goes lol. ❤️