a house into a home

Aris froze when the woman looked her way, cursing the impulse to get closer. Unfortunately, she was midstep and her paw raised when she had to freeze, so her muscles very quickly started to quiver from holding the position. But Halo didn't look away, so Aris couldn't put her paw down. It was an awkward position, and quivering gave way to cramping in short order. Damn, fuck it! She was going to have to go in.

She took barely a split second to rock back on her heels to gather her weight before springing forward, scattering accumulated mud and vegetation in her wake as she bounded up to stop in front of Halo. "For someone putting in a flower garden you spend a lot of your time standing around doing nothing," she sneered. "What's the point anyway? You could just go collect herbs from anywhere like everyone else. It's a waste of time and space to even have one, and now you're stuck in pack lands taking care of it. It's stupid." It felt good to voice her irritation with the whole idea, even if it was to someone timid enough to have been staring at a bunch of mud in fear. She couldn't have said it to her dad, who only had experience with quiet, mousy little healers who were prim and proper and fussy, who wanted to be stuck in pack lands so they could depend on everyone else to defend them. She didn't want that life.