[Ki Tisa]

Mismatched eyes watched the twinkling stars above as the girl settled in the soft grass for the night. She doubted that she would be able to sleep, the seasonal cycle of her insomnia encroaching with the eventual winter, but at least the nighttime show was a sight worth staying up for.

She curled her tail around herself, and listened to the nearby river babble in the night. The wraith had been a rare sight around Inaria as of late. Weiss knew she had duties as the kingdom's Emissary to uphold, but had been struggling with the death of her brother. She knew she should be out there, mingling with the wolves from the cliffs, but couldn't find the energy or will to try. What happened to the boy who had shared the title with her, who seemed too perfect for the job? Weiss was not personable, she wasn't someone who people wanted to talk to or go to with their problems. Hell, she didn't even know any of her nieces or nephews, and had only seen them once at Wheatley's-

A failure- that's what she was. No one would doubt the claim.

In the comfort of her own company a tear, fat and shining, budded in the corner of her eye before rolling down to dampen and darken the fur of her cheek. She was falling apart and grasping at the shards of glass. Her nails, split and bleeding at the funeral, had still not healed fully because she had taken to compulsively chewing them raw. She tucked her feet underneath herself, embarrassed and ashamed.

At least she didn't have anyone to see the state she was in but the stars above, and no matter what happened on the world below they would always continue to turn and glow.

---

Poor Weiss! If only she could keep her solitude and her distant, galactic voyeurs. But wolves are social creatures, and nature is not so kind to allow them to revel in loneliness like the disgruntled bear or prowling cougar. Most of all, it's just not how the story goes.

Ki Tisa came to Inaria because his legs were itchy, he couldn't remember the last couple weeks, and Gemini weighed heavily on the spine sometimes. The destination didn't matter so much as long as he could run for miles. To his chargrin, he was still restless days after "settling" into the purple flower kingdom, and under the moonlight he finds no reason to settle down.

So, while the wraith mourns the grievances that hang so pregnant in her soul, an idiot boy blunders into her space because she is something interesting and oh shit is she crying ABORT  but it's too late he's directly in her line of vision and he forgets how to move those itchy legs all of a sudden. Uhhhh how does one social, interaction, crying person, uuhuhhhhhh....

"Heey," ok good start, those are definitely words. "You uh. Hm." Keep trying, you got this. "Sheesh you look terrible." NO.

---

The hair on the back of her neck hardly has time to rise before she's reflexively rearing back and blinking wildly at this body that was all of a sudden waaaaay too close to her. She's left off balance and frazzled by the interruption that ripped her from her meditation, and it takes a few moments of instinctive back-steps and full-on raised hackles for her to recognize those eyes that had seemed like the missing pairs of her own. Of course, if you were into that sappy garbage or whatever.

"Heey," "Hey there-" "You uh. Hm. Sheesh you look terrible."

God, what a DICK.

Still, she found herself ugly snort-laughing at his terrible introduction. At least it was better than his last one when he was busy dragging those bleeding feet everywhere. How long had it been since Gemini had last been in Inaria? With all the puppies around, she hadn't expected to see the boy again since he wasn't exactly the typical pupsitter type. But it was a nice surprise to see a friendly face, she figured, especially since she had fallen into a terrible cycle of self-isolation these days.

She met his eyes for a moment and then pretended to turn her nose up at him. Her face, shifted slightly away, hid the fact that it threatened to break out with a rare grin.

"Well, you," she rubbed hard at her nose to try to stop the last of the sniffles, and peeked a slit of a red eye at him. "You smell like a gross boy. Like you've been sweating ALL day."