Crafting snares and futures

The day certainly wasn’t shaping up as Rudyard had imagined it.  Sure, he liked Fern and it had felt great having her sleep next to him.  Sure, when she leaned into him or touched him with her paw it felt like electricity running up him.  Yet this was just taking her to work on some hunting basics.  How did it get to her thanking him after all his screw-ups?  If he hadn’t bit her she wouldn’t have needed to run off and hurt her should to begin with.  Now here they were with Fern giving him such deep sincere thanks.

When she presses her head into his chest Rudyard lays his head on top of her forehead.  “Don’t thank me yet Fern,” the young man responded softly, “wait until I do what I say.”  Rudy had said he’d do whatever he could for her, offered to take her on grand adventures, offered to make her an amazing fighter, and yet for now they were all words.  Rudy still hadn’t brought into being his very first promise of the future to himself, that he would become a leader in the pack.  If he hadn’t kept that one who was to say he’d keep all the promises he’d just made to her?  

Fern had put too much belief into him so Rudy would have to make it happen.  That was pretty simple, right? It needs to happen so it will.  Mom had to live.  Rudy had to escape Ox.  ‘Had to’ didn’t always work well.   “Silly Fern,” the motley wolf speaks tendely with his jaw still on her forehead, making it sound a bit thick while still soft, “you deserve a lot more than who I am.  I’ll try to be the wolf you do deserve.” A tall order right there.  She had way too much faith in the screw-up he seemed to be these days.

Rudy’s jaw loses its resting spot when Fern turns about and is then pulling his face closer.  Rudy finds little option but to stare in her eyes.  He’s feeling so strangely humble and offset at the moment Rudy’s eyes shift away at first but then he spots the sign of tears.  She was crying?   Before he could speak to try and stop her tears Fern’s words pierce his heart.  Talking about his kind heart and second chance.  Ah, crap.  It’s fine when girls cry but now there were tears in Rudy’s eyes and guys aren’t supposed to get mushy.  She was cutting into those infections scars of guilt and self-doubt.  

Rudyard was offering to make her a great fighter and she comes up with this?  She loved him? Rudy always knew what to say and always knew what to do, well, with a few missed moments.  That said he wasn’t used to being so stunned and having to think over saying the right thing but this seemed too big of a deal to risk messing up!  Then she was kissing him.  Rudyard melted inside.  She loved him, she was kissing him!  The thick-skulled idiot finally just did what felt right, returning the kiss to Fern.  It was time to quit thinking so hard.  His puff of a tail behind him tarted its twitching wag back and forth again but Rudy was far too interested in Fern to pay attention to it.

Finish a kiss and then she goes back into fighter talk?  It was like an ocean wave had come in from nowhere, enveloped him, sent him spinning, and then he was thrown back onto land wondering where the ocean had gone.  Rudy wasn’t of a mindset to fight or talk fights at that moment, he’d been enjoying all her gentle touch and kind words.

Oh well.  He’d have time to get his thoughts sorted out with fighting help. “Sure,” how to help on fighting at this moment? “Lets stretch out first, run some of the borderline, and then see about more real solid training.” They’d run the border and he’d find his focus again and quit feeling like some giddy little pup. It wasn't until he'd start to move away for their run that Rudyard realized there was something else he hadn't said, glancing to Fern, "I love you too Fern."


Rudyard Carpathius