Keeper-
Good and evil.
Predator and prey.
Beginning and end.
Keeper tries to take it all in stride but the bear’s emergence has complicated that as she faces a new set of challenges in embracing what the bear has to offer. Through a gradual progression, much like the slide of rocks down a mountainside or the creep of moss across the tundra, she is beginning to embrace the nature of a predator and find ways to marry it to the nature of prey. Some things end, others begin and some things are rooted in good and others, in evil. That is just the way of it and Keeper can no more shirk the natural order of this than any other can. The struggle is real though. For all of them.
She cannot comprehend what he is going through; to endure all that he has is foreign to her and it is a tale that she does not push him to spill from those trembling lips that suddenly mash together in an effort to keep back more sobs. Her heart is forever his in that moment, so full of compassion as to be fit to burst if it must beat one more time with such a heavy throb of emotion to back it up. Of course her heart does not burst at all, it beats and beats, but she can feel some nameless emotion choke up her throat - no amount of soothing can take away the pain of what he is feeling.
But she can see that her presence has some kind of effect on him that keeps him there, stuck to the spot. Her nose continues to smooth down the rumpled strands of his mane, and sometimes she chews a little tuft of fur here and there on his neck with her blunt teeth. Grooming has its benefits, she believes, even if it is just to make him realize that she is here, in the now, real and realized, and isn’t going anywhere at the moment until he is ready to make that decision with a step of his own.
“I would be honored!” her enthusiasm is demure, softened by the creep of anxiety in his tone. Her nose finds his cheek in a chaste touch, no more than a little rub of her lips over the skin there before her mouth climbs to his ear, “I’ll take you to my home, Hyaline. It is beautiful there and you will be safe from all harm.” She tries not to make it sound like a promise because she cannot promise safety from even the simplest things like a hole in the ground or a hissing snake, but she’ll try. Keeper will be damned if something happens to him whilst under her protection.
She gives him one more nudge, turning his head towards the proper direction that will see them off to the mountains that hem in the blue lake and all the wisteria and maple trees. It gives her a thrill to think of going home, and bringing him with her so that he can heal and reclaim some measure of himself that seems to have been lost. Hyaline will be good for his soul, she thinks.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless
@[takei] let me know if you'd like me to post again, introducing him to Hyaline or if you'd like to just post there and carry on. <3