onepassingnight | 003. the strength of the Wolf is the Pack

It's a meadow, surprisingly bright and green and the heat of an early spring sun is just beginning to warm the air. The grass is tall and green and there are almost more flowers than blades of grass in the area, riots of bright color and pure white hanging in delicate bells or open bursts of petals. Listening there's the faint drone of bees somewhere nearby, busy with their pollen and even fainter the hint of a stream somewhere, quick with the melt of snow from the mountains that take up the not that distant horizon. Weathered, stunted trees form a wood of sorts nearby, full of cool shade and the old smells of moss and bracken and last years fallen leaves. And Cloud -

Cloud is hard to find.

Until you notice the ears above the grass. Or perhaps a stray breeze blows by and you catch the ripple of gray fur between the swaying blades. He's lying on his stomach, chin resting across his arms and he's...

Well, he's a wolf. Grey and furry and lean muscle with eyes the color of the waters off Costa del Sol. And at the moment, he's watching the whispy clouds overhead, one ear twitching absently at a nearby bird that's trying to decide if he's invading it's nest space or not.

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He's panting, tongue lolling happily from the side of his mouth as he skids to a stop and flops down next to her on his belly. The ice ball is long gone. He still has enough energy for his tail to wag though and his ears stay up and happy too. It was a good run. Nosing at the palm of her hand, he then huffs out a content sigh and traps it under his chin as he drops his head to the ground to relax. If that was the way he spent his entire day - it was a very. good. day.

She doesn't bother turning onto her side. She speaks to the sky with her words aimed at the wolf-Cloud.

"Next time, how about a fish?" She could use a day of swimming the way they'd run today.

Her suggestion gets a happy huff from him and he'll wiggle his chin on her hand to show his approval. He's not used to being careless and carefree and today was... today was amazing. Unaware that it's going to be a very long time before he'll be able to think of freedom and laughter again, he'll snake out his tongue and lick her cheek in a quick brush. Yep. Fish sounds good.

She'll be there when the bad times come, too. Anything less just won't quite be possible. For her, though, it's the opposite; she's become able to relax a little, let go a little, for real, not just as a rare treat. Something has calmed inside her, a little bit.

"You're pretty bold," she teases him for the 'kiss', but she doesn't turn him away.

He woofs a soft sound at her, blue eyes slit with pleasure as his breathing starts to return to normal. The lick just seemed like the right kind of thing to do to the wolf side of his brain and he's not going to question it. He's happy, she's happy, and there's nothing here to take that away from either of them. After a minute more, he rolls onto his back, imitating her, paws politely tucked up against his chest and he looks at the sky and the way the setting sun gives the clouds colors of their own. He's been teased about his name often enough but here, now, even he has to admit that the white fluffy things above them are pretty. Softly, he repeats his content 'woof'.

Kaylee taught her to take the time to cloud-gaze. Now, it takes on a certain irony with 'Cloud' right beside her. Ami doesn't tease him, though; she's had enough teasing for the moment, from either of them.

Though his lack of speech makes her feel compelled to fill the silence, the urge seems to dissipate as the sun sinks slowly down.

"That one looks sort of like waves," she remarks. The sky as a sea.

He squints and he can see it. Somehow only because she's here though. Her affinity to water makes it easy for them to be under an ocean of air, looking up at the cloud waves. He snuffs his approval. After a long minute, he raises a paw to a red and purple colored cloud. Just to the side of it, the first star of the night has come out.

She asks it, somehow led into the comfortable feeling that she can say it. She turns her head towards him, considering, and then the words simply come.

"Do you believe in making wishes on stars?"

She doesn't, now. Not really. That sort of thing belongs to an entirely different life, so separate from the life she lives now that it may as well be the past of thousands of years ago.

He tucks his chin, eyes narrowing just a little in contemplation as he watches that tiny lone star. Wishes on stars...?

It's almost ten years ago and a sky of endless stars in his memory. He made a promise that night but deep in his heart, when he watched that star fall afterward, he'd made his wish too. Had it come true...? He still doesn't know but after a long moment, he huffs a soft sound and his long chin bobs just a little.

Yes. He believes in wishing on stars. He doesn't know if he thinks that makes them come true but the wishing itself...?

yeah. Tonight at least - he believes.

"It doesn't make any sense. We even call it 'wishful thinking' when we know something isn't likely. When it's empty wanting."

She is not the most cheerful of persons.

"But, somehow, it's hard not to look up at the stars and want it to be true."

He thinks it's called 'hope', Ami and it's something he struggles to hold onto sometimes. Sometimes the impossible does happen and it's happened enough for him that it gives him something to use to remember why hope is okay to have. But he's not going to say that. Even if he could talk, he's pretty sure he wouldn't say it. He's not good at that kind of thing - encouraging about things that belong in the heart - and he's pretty sure it's the kind of thing that you can only show anyway. So instead he rolls over and rests his chin across her nearby shoulder.

Maybe, just for here, just for today, it's okay for her to let go and wish on stars if she wants to.

She never had a lot of hope. Things don't 'just work out', people don't just 'get along' easily, everything takes hard work and effort.

For her.

But back then, she'd tried to believe things would change. Her 'friends' would come back together. Someone would come to save her. Now, she's given up on those girls - she tells herself - and on those naive thoughts.

But she still doesn't want to give up on everything, if she can be here talking about stars and wishes.

"I want to show you the stars sometime." Nothing about wishes. Just getting closer to something that's still beautiful.

He's been in space once. Granted it was on his way toward what would have probably been a painful and fiery death... but a lot of the most beautiful moments in his life seem to have been while on the way toward dying. He remembers seeing the stars... and he remembers seeing his planet... and he remembers the tiny tug in his chest to stay among the stars.

That wasn't where his life was at the time though. And it still isn't. But - he wouldn't mind the chance to see them again all the same.

Gentle, he puts his nose against her ear and lightly snuffs. His agreement.

She can go there, her birthright as the soldier and princess of one of her solar system's planets. It gives her strength, even; her powers are several times more effective in space.

The last consideration may be the strongest, for her, as she is now.

"Some day," she says, avoiding any words that would make it a promise, "I'll bring you."

He already knows the transience of promises for the future and so he doesn't need one. He'll accept her words and know that, if the opportunity comes up, she'll invite him along.

It - sounds like fun.

Looking back up at the stars, he'll huff his approval of this plan.

It's not a bad way to end the day. Not at all.

She's not surprised in the least when she wakes up to find the sun on her face, filtered through the lightweight curtains. It's such a normal, and pleasant, way to wake up that she smiles quietly to herself before finally sitting up, and getting dressed for a day at the hospital.

003. the strength of the Wolf is the Pack

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ending of thread?

sure~