They were interrupted in their game by the sound of howling outside the house, and a loud chaos of barks and yips that carried even through the windowless walls of their home. He stopped and his ears perked up to listen as he stood on the bed, looking out at the wall where the sounds were just beyond their home. Moving with her, he jumped down off the bed and walked into their outer room, which had a single window with blackout drapes over it. With one claw, he undid the tie of them and let them roll up, so that he could see the wall to the compound nearby.
Beyond the fence, the world was a mass of fur and teeth and claws and twisted metal. Any human passing by would have thought the fence was a cage to keep the animals in as they ran mad, but it was actually the opposite, built to keep the rest of the world from getting hurt inadvertently by the insanity let loose every month.
Candra stood beside him and watched, but she had to back up a little bit in fear after only a few moments. They aren’t going to get out, right?
No. He turned around and licked her face once in encouragement and comfort, then looked back out the window. They built the fence themselves. They know their own boundaries when they set them.
Candra didn’t really know what to think about the chaos, since she had never seen anything quite like it. The Fulness for her was always spent in her room in the Council chambers, by herself, possibly with neighbors in the rooms around her, sometimes not. Are all wolves like that a lot?
No. He laughed a little as he said it. No, they’re usually much wilder than this lot.
She couldn’t really help feeling a little horrified, and her eyes widened a little as she looked at him. Really? That’s…terrifying. How are you supposed to protect yourself?
He couldn’t help the sadness in his voice as he answered. You learn to run. Fast. And you learn who you can trust to run with you. He looked back at her, turning his back on the raging pack nearby. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just the way the world is. You of all people don’t need to be afraid of it.
I don’t need to be afraid of it? She looked past him at the insanity caged in not far from them. They could tear me to pieces. Or worse. The warning of the masters in the past rang loudly in her head. The ‘or worse’ was mainly about being around males during the Fulness, and there she was, standing in close proximity to one.
He looked at her for a moment and then stood out of her way so that she could step up next to him by the window, nodding out at the mass of bodies. Do you see all those people out there? Every one of them, no matter what color their eyes are, all of them put together, even including the Heartborn bitch who switched sides from your masters to be here, he turned to face her again, meeting her eyes, all of them together are still weaker than you are on your weakest day. You could overwhelm any one of them with a single scratch.
Not you. Candra countered, since Orlando was her match, her other piece, in every single way.
That was a fair enough point, and so he had to shrug his agreement. I tend to be an exception to most rules, you’ll find.
I know. She licked his face and then met his eyes and stared into them for a moment. I know that this is crazy. I barely know you in some ways. It hasn’t even been…but I…I think I love you.
I know. She could feel his smile as he returned the kiss with a lick of his own. You talk in your sleep.
Oh. Well, that ruins the moment. I thought I was being original.
He licked her face again and closed his eyes against her fur as he spoke. It was original anyway. Because as much as you talk in your sleep, you don’t listen very well. Since you didn’t seem to hear me when I answered and told you I felt the same way.
Really? It almost seemed like her eyes became even brighter and she licked him several more times as she buried her face into his fur excitedly, her whole body trembling with emotion.
A few bits of laughter actually escaped him as yips at her enthusiasm, despite the small note of resolution and sadness in his tone when he’d said it. It’s not like you’re a terribly difficult person to love, you know. Which was true, she wasn’t. For a while, he had worried that she was more or less than she appeared to be, feigning surprise and shock with all the realities of the world outside her prison cell beneath Geneva. But he had been around her for too long and answered too many of her questions to think she was anything but completely earnest in her curiosity and her ignorance about the world in general. She was just so…innocent about everything in life, and yet so excited about it all at the same time. She was everything that the wandering years of his life had made him forget how to be.
Candra couldn’t help but bark a few times in her continued excitement, and then she pounced on him, pinning him down to the floor with a playful growl. She was just so happy that she was bursting with energy, the type that didn’t have anything to do with the light, and that was the type that she actually liked. That makes me so happy!
They wrestled and chased each other around the house for what seemed like hours after that, leaving the entire place in shambles as chairs and tables were overturned, rugs torn to pieces by their claws and most lamps knocked from
