The careful dance Malina had been stepping lured the puppy deeper and deeper into a strange trust. Carefully, fearfully, Pariah allowed herself to be curious. Ears perked forward, eyes trained on the adult, she completely missed the body language the older woman had perfected. It just seemed that slowly and surely Pariah started not to fear that she would hurt this woman. She admitted to stealing and fighting. Others who were skilled at these also fell to the death she brought, but there was a sense about this woman that led her to feel there was something different. Breathing deep and heart racing she hoped there was something different.
Malina’s tail flopped once. Pariah’s mirrored. Unciously she inched forward, enraptured by the concepts Malina was telling her about. Taking words. Learning secrets. She did not believe anyone could run out of words. They were not what sustained life. As much as she longed for a kind word and being near another, she knew she did not need it like food. She could take all the secrets and all the words she desired and not harm the speakers. Her eyes brightened. She could even be around the others without them knowing. Hear their words without having to touch or talk to them. She could save them from her while she still got to enjoy them. Her mind went wild with the possibilities.
The girl considered what Malina said for a long time. She liked the word she had selected of the many her mother had called her. But there was something about it that felt strange. The idea of eavesdropping excited her. To take words by being there, but not there. To be known but also unknown. Would they know who she was? She felt as though her name were far too personal.
Near the end her mother had gone insane. She knew it deep down. Those final days when everything had been different. She looked up at her in a single moment, only one that had not been filled thick with bitterness and hate. She had called her something else.
Malina had been kind, she had gotten the pup to sit closer to her than she had been to any other wolf without feeding off of them. She wanted to hold this woman in a special place, hoping it would not lead to her death.