when i run through the deep dark forest long after this has begun,
The tiger is much larger than Dayé - bulky and massive with each pound of her large paws into the damp, cold earth that the wolf can feel the very ground shake with the strength that emulates from the sienna creature. It fascinates her, keeping the Loessian Ranger on her target with ease. The shift in the environment around them is palpable as the stranger quickens the pace, the wolf’s ears training forward and a soft huff of air leaving her lips. What the feline has in sheer power and build, Dayé makes up for in cunning and swiftness, shifting gears in her once lazy lope into a full out run - leaping over the bramble and brush from the shadows, her coffee eyes never leaving the bright and mighty form of the striped tigress.
The two shifters seem to feed off each other’s energy, instinct and innate senses growing ever stronger as the unfamiliar duo dive further into the impossibly cold forest; both content to remain silent in their run as if they were already comfortable with one another.
Time stretches on for an amount of time that Dayé does not keep track of. Suddenly the air changes once again, the rhythmic pulse of their feet slowing almost simultaneously as the wolf matches the tiger’s pace, intelligent eyes unwavering. A clearing has opened up before them and the soft rays of winter’s sun attempts to touch their heated skin, though Dayé remains partly hidden within the shadows. Her head is low - unassuming and a display of harmlessness - while the blackness of her snout shines in the sunlight with moisture as she sniffs at the air curiously, watching the captivating tick of the tiger’s twitching tail.
Dayé’s chest rises and falls as she catches her breath, her head lifting as the tiger’s jaws open to reveal a pink tongue and the casual flick of it over sharp, menacing canines. They stare at each other for a handful of moments, their breaths a cloud of white vapor leaving their open mouths. The wolf then huffs, stepping forward with silent paws as the tiger speaks - a shifter, as she had previously guessed.
“Only when they are worth chasing.”
The wolf’s voice matches the tiger - unthreatening, yet robust in its delivery. She offers no other explanation to her, merely giving her a slowly-blinking look with a rather straight face. There is a tilt to the dusty-rose of Dayé’s head as she comes to a halt within the clearing, her normally ivory legs caked with tangles of leaves and twigs, stained a muddy shade of brown all the way to her chest from their break-neck run through the forest. “I’m called Dayé.”
A pause accompanied by a slight tilt of her chin upwards:
“Are you running from something? Or to something?”
Dayé
where the sun would set, trees are dead, and the rivers were none.
@[Sochi]
<3