Some people won't sail the sea, cause they're safer on land
Her paws ached, and she wanted to grumble and groan, throw her head back, and wail and whimper away at the sky like it would do anything. But Dianthus kept her head low, merely walking along, lost in her own head. Her tail draped her hinds, as she nosed the dirt, trying to catch scent of...something.
A twitter and tweeting commotion made her lift her red scarfed neck to face Marlowe. The starling landed on her head, all a titter over something. She chuckled. "Marlowe. Did something ruffle your feathers." A commotion of sounds made her laugh a little, pausing in her walk to watch the little bird as he hopped from her head onto her muzzle to look her in the eyes, still tweeting in an upset manner. She rolled her eyes at the bird. The starling huffed himself, hopping back up onto her head to grumble about whatever it was little birds grumbled about. Dianthus didn't know exactly. Maybe someone stole his birdseed.
"Did you find anything?" A two note whistle made her sigh as she picked her way through the defunct orchard. She knew that meant something along the lines of no. She thought. Marlowe hadn't been with her long. Her face screwed up in concentration as she thought back to when the little bird had joined her, before giving up with a deep sigh. She had nothing. It was better just to go back to plodding along. Her head drooped, her feet dragged, and she wandered on.
The pungent sweetness of ripening fruit was what drew Octave so far from his new homelands, he was one of many healers within the pack and he wanted to make sure he wasn't just a redundancy within the pack. He wanted to make sure he had a cache of herbs for a wide variety of problems, and with spring starting to cause fruit blooms to properly bear fruit he wanted to have a chance at his choice of fruit. They didn't last as long as many herbs but they were sweeter than most ingestible herbs and with as many pups running around as Abaven had that could be a big help.
So he'd woken Noko early that morning and brought her with him, her small dextrous paws were much more suited to the delicate harvesting of ripened fruits than his clumsy paws or jaws. So the Destruction was craning his neck to look up at his companion, his paws on the trunk on the tree, balancing on his hind paws. "Remember to break at the root of the stem without breaking the branch, you don't want the branch to never flower again." Noko glared down at Octave and she retracted her hand from the apple she'd been about to pluck. "Yes I know Octave, why don't you say it twelve more times?" Octave blushed and dropped onto all fours. "Sorry. I trust you."
He heard Noko sigh and her claws scrabble on the bark again. "It's alright." Octave cast his gaze around the orchard, listening to the singing of birds. His gaze passed over a dark form and he only just barely caught the end of what Noko was saying. - I'm gonna drop it." There was a thump near his paws and any concern he might have normally had for the drop bruising the fruit was only a nagging at the back of his mind, instead, he was frozen, eyes wide as he watched the other wolf silently praying she'd simply pass him by.
"Octave?" Noko called out to him, scrambling down the tree to perch in her usual spot on his shoulders. "Earth to Octave!" Octave flinched slightly, knowing his companion was being too loud, he was going to be discovered! "What's the- Oh..." It seemed Noko had finally spotted the stranger and she dropped her voice, probably too late.
Octave & Noko
![[Image: dPPg3BE.png]](https://i.imgur.com/dPPg3BE.png)
Marlowe started shrieking a moment before Dianthus heard the fruit hit the ground. She started, throwing her head back and up, orange swiveling back and forth.
Threat, where where where where- THERE
Panic shot through her blood, turning it to ice. She couldn't think beyond the fact that there was danger, her legs locking up as Marlowe rose from her head in feathery fury, beating his wings and shrieking his angry little calls. Her eyes locked on a figure across the way, her heart still pounding. It...was just a wolf. But wolves could be just as dangerous as any predator. The lemur was loud enough that she could have figured out where the wolf was without her fine tuned ears picking out the thud of the fruit and the low voices. She swallowed thickly, shaking in her boots as she tried to talk, but she couldn't quite force the words out. After a moment or two, she bleated out "H-Hello. Mean. No harm. Promise.". She flushed in embarrassment under her fur, locking her jaw. She wished it was easier to trust wolves. But she couldn't. Not after last time. She awkwardly bobbed her head in a greeting.
If there was any upside to the current scenario it was that the woman seemed equally as unsure about him as Octave felt about her. His gaze flicked upwards to the small bright bird, noting the way it hovered around the woman, no doubt with her. There was a solid moment of tension as neither spoke and then finally the woman broke the silence.
Noko sighed from her perch above his head and scampered the rest of the way up onto his skull, perched painfully on his cranium. "This here is Octave." She began, tapping Octave's muzzle and making him blink. Noko for her part tried a small closed lip smile, avoiding barring any teeth, even her own comparitavely small canines. "And he absolutely means no harm; and I'm Noko."
Noko wobbled slightly on Octave's head, he shifted uncomfortably, grimacing and visibly unhappy that Noko was trying to make friendly conversation. "We're just here to gather some fruit, are you from around here?"
Octave & Noko