How exactly she'd gotten from where she'd washed up to here was sort of a blur for Noor. She was half delirious, definitely dehydrated and starving. One thing about being raised in the lap of luxury and having all your food prepared for you, or at least your ingredients supplied for you was that it left you woefully inadequate at hunting. She'd managed to keep herself going on scraps, from royalty to scavenger.

Maybe that was the plan. Chase her just far enough to leave her to die, at the mercy of a wilderness she was unfamiliar with. That hardly seemed likely though. No her former compatriots would likely want to make an example of her publicly. Dying out in the middle of nowhere wouldn't serve their needs at all.

She'd considered stopping at the first sign of a group of wolves she'd found and beg for help. Unfamiliar scents and clearly defined borders. But then thought better of it. Noor didn't know who might have gotten here before her. Who might be waiting for her to get desperate enough to seek out help. So she'd skirted whatever she'd found. Now she was between two unfamiliar but claimed territories, and frankly the idea of going further north where it currently seemed clear didn't exactly appeal to her.

Maybe her plan would be to die in the wilderness. Let her take what little satisfaction she could in knowing she'd finally had some control over her own damn life and narrative. But she wasn't there yet. The lands she was plodding on were abundant in prey at least, if not water... Still she had managed to scare away most of the wildlife she found, barely able to keep her paws under her leg alone be stealthy about it. So her only company were the insects, flies seemed to buzz around her like she was already dead... Maybe she was and just hadn't realized yet.

Movement out of the corner of her eye, a rabbit. Scrawny thing, clearly not doing much better in the heat than she was. Noor tried to approach as quietly as she could. Pausing every time it seemed to perk before returning to fruitlessly grooming itself, swarmed by parasites as they both were. When she thought she was a distance she could clear the woman launched herself towards the rabbit, but almost in an instant it was gone, its burrow only a hop away and hidden from Noor's view until it was too late.

In fact she tripped right over her, or in it? A forepaw getting caught in the hole and sending her careening towards the ground. Where she decided she'd stay. The energy needed to get herself up having fled along side the only promising hunt she'd had in a while.

This was probably karma. Maybe Noor ought to just surrender herself to its whims.

"Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3

She spent most of her time between Avalon and Hemlock after discovering her grey-in-the-muzzle auntie had settled in the farming pack with a surprise litter. Life was strange, sometimes full of second chances. Hadn't she learned that by now? Her tired paws had carried her back to these lands after being chased to the ends of the kingdom's lands, and though there had been some near misses, she had eluded capture. Surely they would grow frustrated and return home, although it was the height of summer now and any impediment from winter and spring had long passed. If they were intent on finding her, now would be their best chance. The day was bright and warm. These lands were usually full of prey large and small and she'd had a hankering lately for young boar. Fable had thought she'd seen a family around these parts earlier in the spring so she'd come to try her luck. She slunk through the tall grasses, keeping all of her senses open and alert. Hunting was a brilliant dance with nature that often left her feeling grateful to be alive, and she'd honed her skills again over the past few months. Catching and preparing her own meals gave her an intense flush of pride, greater than preparing delicacies for prim royal lips with ingredients that had all come from some golden larder. Fable executed the hunt exactly as planned when she came across the lone young piglet and was dragging her kill back towards Hemlock when she came across the prone body of a wolf half in and out of a rabbit warren. "Can I help y - ?" Fable's voice cut off. She couldn't even force her mouth to shape Noor's name. Her heart beat so rapidly in her chest that she thought it might seize and all she could hear was the blood rushing to her ears in a deafening roar. Had she come to drag her back? For Noor... she might let her. speech

Noor couldn't have said if she'd have given anything to find Fable again or to never have to darken the woman's doorstep ever again. Irony being she didn't have to give up much, just her home, her whole family, the only life she'd ever known and any wolf she'd once thought she cared for...

So maybe it was a lot. It was a mixture of elation and deep dread that rushed through her at the all too familiar voice. It had to be when she'd beefed it and eaten a good amount of dirt didn't it? Not that she probably looked all that great besides that. Turning her head so she could see the woman it was almost like instinct: "Hey gorgeous." Noor gave Fable a grin. Her usual charm undercut by how gaunt she looked, and the grimace of pain that came over her face as she twisted to pull her paw free. In truth there was a million things she wanted to say, wanted to ask how she'd got here, if she was safe, how she'd been. She also wanted to confess to everything. Instead she fell back behind the easiest mask. "I had hoped our reunion would involve less showing my ineptitude."

"Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3

It hadn't escaped her notice that Noor was her closest sous chef in the kitchen that night before the feast had decided her fate. Fable couldn't say what that meant for sure - but they were in love, or the closest thing to it she had ever felt. Noor had no reason that she could think of to poison the royal family. She wasn't a fool. The monarchy was detested by many, but the king ruled with a steely grasp. Revolution was stymied before it even began. It would have never made its way into his very kitchen. Maybe she was a fool. She had to be, because seeing Noor made her heart twist and writhe like it was being stepped on. "D-don't call me that," she stammered, "not anymore." In the kitchen it was always: yes, CHEF! But Noor sometimes found a way to slip in endearments in her ears when the others weren't looking, and it had made the hairs all along her back tingle and come alight. It didn't seem fair that she still had the same effect. "Hunting was always my forte, not yours," she added stiffly. Fable hadn't thought Noor would come after her in the chaos, and as the days and months passed, she had become sure of it. Why did she have to appear now, just when she was getting settled? And yet, she couldn't ignore how dull her fur was. Her ribs were peeking through and the sun bearing down was scorching. If Fable left her here, it could be a death sentence. "I'll always feed someone who's hungry," she conceded grumpily. Fable nudged the piglet close enough that Noor could eat, but she didn't come close enough to help her out of the hole. First, she wanted to see what Noor had to say for herself. speech

Yeah she probably deserved that. No, not probably. Definitely. Even now she was choosing to hide her part in the whole disaster. It was purely selfish. Noor couldn't help but still want Fable to think well of her. Fuck, she really was head over heels for her wasn't she? Noor knew Fable deserved to know, deserved to know who she was. Noor didn't deserve to protect herself. And yet... She did.

Fable's stammered rebuff earned her a flash of pain across Noor's face before she turned it away, unable to meet Fable's eyes and too ashamed of herself and her cowardice to face her. Her ears pulled back slightly, from Fable's perspective she probably looked properly contrite. A slow nod, small, similar to what she would have given Fable in the kitchen but with less energy, less urgency, much more reticence, was the response Noor gave to being told not to call her that.

Some part of Noor wanted Fable to walk away, to leave her there, let her die there in the sun and the heat and get on with her life. Fable deserved to be free of her. And yet, she was still the woman Noor had fallen in love with. Even now, pitiful and unworthy as she was, Fable offered her help. Offered her food.

Noor turned her attention back for a moment and grimaced. She wanted to refuse, wanted to tell Fable that she wouldn't take the woman's prize from her. But the empty gnawing in her stomach won out and she gave into based instincts. She had never been starving before, didn't know the danger of gorging herself in the moment but it was definitely too much, too fast and Noor started coughing (turning away from Fable again) and her stomach twisted painfully. "Fuck!" She managed once she'd caught her breath.

"I- I didn't think I'd see you again." She still looked away, staring at the ground and giving a half-hearted try to free herself again. "I didn't know where I was going. If I'd known you were here..." She'd have what? Let herself drown in the ocean? Would that make Fable feel better? Did she know what Noor had done to her? If not would announcing she'd have let herself die really be helpful?

"Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3

"Slowly!" she tried to command too late. Noor had already made herself sick. It was strange - when they'd met a few years back, Fable had thought she was oddly... unschooled in the ways of the world. A bit spoiled, and at first, allergic to hard work. But she had taken the kitchen job and proved her wrong, again and again, even when smoke from the cooking fires had choked everyone else out and sent a few running with tears streaming from their eyes. Noor had buckled down and shown she was worthy. That was what had captured Fable's attention - and eventually, her heart. How had they wound up here, then? Back in Boreas? It had been a lifetime since she'd stepped on these shores, Seeing Noor exist in the same space just didn't compute in her brain. She had been young, and eager, and foolish. That first Autumn here had scarred her for life and made it easier to turn tail and flee for greener pastures. She hadn't thought things could get much more complicated than throwing up glowing liquid and mushrooms and crystals sprouting from things they definitely shouldn't - but now she was back, and Noor was here, and nothing made sense. "If you'd known I was here, then what? What would you have done?" speech

Noor certainly regretted eating that quickly, as the longer she stood there (one paw still firmly in the ground) the more her stomach seemed to rebel against her. Ungrateful asshole...  Or maybe it was reacting to the slurry of emotions she was fighting with. Fable wasn't letting the issue sit, instead pushing her to answer and Noor felt frustration well up in her. Aimed at herself but unfortunately expressed a bit more outwardly as she screwed her eyes shut before snapping. "What do you want Fable?" She regretted it before the words even left her mouth but frustration was the mood she was riding now. "Do you want me to say I'd have sought you out immediately, that I was chasing down my lady love across continents? Or would you rather I have steered clear, walk away with the knowledge of where you were and never give you the option to choose what you wanted? Would it have been easier if I'd just drowned out there?" That one snapped her back, and as soon as the words left her lips Noor seemed to register what she'd said and flinched away and dropped her head. "Shit..."

Noor took a breath, and when she spoke again finally meeting Fable's gaze, her voice was soft. "You're not the only one they were going to kill." A truth of sorts, they had been intending to kill her yes but the reasons weren't exactly the same. "If I'd known you were here I'd never have let myself potentially lead them here, lead them to you. I'd have let them catch me and let that knowledge die with me."

But would she? It felt right to say that right now, and felt true enough but if recent events had taught her anything it was that her survival instinct was stronger than she'd ever imagined... Stronger than even her sense of duty or justice who was to say it wouldn't also prove stronger than the feelings she had for Fable.

"Speech"

Art by Ulfeid3