Keeper-
Keeper finds him. Will always find him. Realizes that in a matter of moments that somehow, this cave-dweller has tunneled into the very heart of her being. She is not stupid enough to believe it is love but it is something powerful and consuming that has taken root in her. It is nurtured by the mousy twitch of his nose against hers, encouraged by the coiling of his muscles that she can feel against her own side as his uncertainty mounts and rides him hard to go right back into that cave.
But he is so bold and brave! That she likes him all the more for that quiet persistence he shows as he stays. Stays tight against her side like a small shaking babe and Keeper keeps her breathing light and pacified, a tender smile on her lips, and pride enriching the dark shine of her eyes as she looks between him in tiny covert glances and the outside that she leads him into. He never balks for all that he trembles at each step taken, but he remains warm in their union of shoulders and hips and matched steps because she keeps pace with him, slow and steady as a heartbeat by his side.
For just a moment, their shoulders part in a quick cold severance that she feels as keenly as a thorn in her skin. Her offer has caused him to shy away momentarily and the briefest look of regret flashes over her face. If she had only kept her mouth shut… but his shoulder comes bumping back into place against her own and Keeper’s initial bubble of distress bursts inside her. “Not yet.” he concedes, voice gravelly but determined and she can only nod her head to that. He controls how many steps they take, how far from the cave-mouth they go, how deep into moonlight and madness he’ll let her lead him.
He halts; head and neck poke out of the tangly mess of vines that shroud the rest of him from her. She is a little further out than he is, can feel the vines sway against her shoulders but on him, they are like a robe and he looks kingly in his halting emergence from the cave. It is enough to take her breath from her and she has to remind herself to inhale and exhale, slow as not to startle him as he begins to breathe in of the deep intoxicating smells of night and forest that lie just outside of the cave’s musty reach.
In the moonlight, she can see him close his eyes against it and she does not blame him - while not bright to her, it would be painful to him who has known nothing but near-dark and dark for most of his life, so she assumes. She is caught up in looking at him, in what could almost be a blissful look on his face as he communes with the night and the forest, that she almost doesn’t hear him mention how clear it smells or ask her what it smells like to her. There is an anxious flick of her ears, back then front and back again before they settle on him in curved upright alertness.
Keeper is not poetic. She does not know how to describe to him how the night smells, how the forest smells in a manner that would make him like it as much as she does. But she tries. Because he asked it of her. She clears her throat and remembers to keep her tone soft and whispery;
“The night is clear. It doesn’t smell of rain or snow or fallen leaves. Just good wind and I like to think the stars have a smell to them, a bit like magic I guess not that magic has a smell I’d imagine.” Oh, she is bumbling already! But she presses on. “Starlight and moonlight mix, soft but sometimes bright enough to blind. Only for moments, then the night opens back up to you like a flower, inviting you to look within. I guess the night smells a little like a flower too, full and new but no night is ever the same.”
Keeper pauses for a breath then resumes.
“Same with the forest, but that has sharper scents. Of bark, leaf and moss. Of roots that break up the dirt and leave a loamy taste in the air. Makes you think like a worm, of good deep dirt and snuggling up in it. Oh! And mushrooms, they’re my favorite. They smell like earth and rain, rich and heavy. The forest smells fertile, like a mare just come into heat. But sometimes like death, full of rot and ruin. It gets in your nostrils and won’t come out, can make you sick and dizzy but it’s part of life too. To smell how even the earth dies, from tree to leaf to squirrel.”
She cannot describe it further. Has prattled on enough, she thinks for the moment. Lapsing into a silence with him that is fast becoming familiar to her and even just a little bit comforting. Her nose, always of its own accord as if detached from her brain, moves to find his neck and brush against it, filling her nostrils with the scent of him and the cavern at their backs, as if she needed to clear it of the memory of rot that has filled it just from her telling of it.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless
@[Balto] i couldn't wait to reply! <333