Finally he came out of the water and she breathed an easy sigh of relief, grateful to know that at least some things could still be accomplished in this world. She watches with eyes lightly veiled while he meanders off in common courtesy to shake the remaining water from his pelt. Only once he had finished does his star-filled gaze turn back to her and his comment finally reached her tawny ears. Her shoulders rolled fluidly in a wolf-form of a shrug at his observation, giving him credit but his theory wasn’t one she fully bought in to. “I don’t like to think that one must experience the cold to once more enjoy warmth or that pain is required so that one can fully comprehend the heights of joy. Is the wolf in love for the first time any less in love because he does not yet know heartbreak?” She stops herself, aware that she is dangerously close to a rant that was less directed at her companion and more so at her own predicament.

She looked away guiltily as he came to sit near her, close enough for conversation but not intruding on any personal space. It wasn’t until he began speaking again, most of his words odd and foreign to her ears, do her aquamarine eyes look back and find his once more, calm and understanding though he didn’t know what truly ailed her. She nodded her fox-like head as the gravity of what he was saying set in, wise words from someone who’s name she didn’t even know yet. His words resonated deeply with her, to that place inside where all of her troubles and turmoil seemed to compound, it had formed an almost tangible weight to everything.

He inquired further of her, no doubt wondering now what troubled her so. Surely he thought it some great conflict and she wondered if he might be disappointed that it was just a matter of her having to make a hard decision for once in her life, to choose whom she would be with for the rest of her life when her heart was pulling her two different ways. It was hardly the stuff that warranted so much grief she was sure. Regardless he had asked and it would feel good to get it off her chest so to speak. “I’ve wandered all my life, rambling from one place to another since I was less than a year old. I was driven from my home due to extremists and views I would not bow and bend to and when one travels as I have done you don’t stop long enough to form relationships. Life is based on necessity and survival, who will help me hunt today, who can provide directions, you don’t get the luxury of choosing someone because they make you happy or feel whole. It wasn’t until I came here that I took the time to get to know someone and let them know me, to actually connect and that’s how I found my mate. He supports me in all things, even my wandering ways and says he would never hold me back. Then a few suns later I happen to run in to my imprint, and that meeting put my world on end. I have never known such a feeling of pure ‘rightness’ as looking into the eyes of the one who calls to my soul.” She paused, taking a shaky breath and exhaling slowly afraid to look at him lest he find her boring and contrite. “ I can’t love them both, not in the same way though my heart is longing to. So now I find I have to choose between them, for giving them each only a part of me would be a crime.”

Finally she looks back at him, oddly serene despite her inner turmoil and long winded explanation. She offers him a sad smile and a quiet laugh, “ And so you see for the first time in my life I must make a choice beyond where to sleep that night or what to do in the morning. I am Church, by the way.”