Storms and Footwarmers Who: Kai and Marcus When: Anesus 5, late night/early morning after 12:30 AM Where: Marcus’s Room
Though it couldn’t be said that Kai was starting to lose faith in her surroundings, she was really starting to feel quite lonely. Though she’d met many of the compounds other inhabitants and was slowly starting to sort out the myriad scents all over the place, including those that told her there were several Lykos packs around, she was still looking for a place where she could fit and stay for more than just a passing conversation. Oh, she knew she’d have one eventually, of course she would…but she was really starting to have that nagging complaint that she wanted a place now. If she hadn’t known things would work out eventually, she might have wished she was male—then she could make a place and form a pack all her own. But as it was, she just had to keep drifting for now.
But knowing things would work out didn’t stop her from feeling lonely, especially when she’d gotten pettings from the Vrykola Desdemona earlier on, double especially with a true storm weighing heavily on the air as the rain fell harder and harder as the day wore on, and triple especially with the Lenhakriron moon due to rise in full. Storms were made for curling up with the warmth and heartbeat of packmates to wait them out, and the encroaching moon made her wonder who she’d be running with by the time the next Zalaron moon rose into the sky.
The good thing was, though, was one could still have friends without them being pack, and so with the Lenhakriron moon high in the sky and her stuck in her natural form for the night (she preferred full fur, but needed her hands to climb the ropes someone had strung in place of the missing staircases just like she had thought would be a good idea), Kai had found herself with her nose once more poking through the hole-window into Marcus’s room.
Once again, she had found the human asleep, but this time she didn’t have the lure of exploration to draw her away again. She was lonely, she liked Marcus, Marcus liked her enough to pet her, and she was going to curl up on his feet. It was terribly early for her to be going to bed, but that storm in the air was rolling in fast, so she was going in.
And she did. She crawled through the hole while it still existed and carefully, so as not to disturb the human’s rest, crept up onto the foot of his bed. Thankfully she was a fairly little thing in her half-form, so even though she really did arrange her curl on top of his feet, her motions and shifting didn’t wake him. Kai didn’t even care, or even pause to think, that he might be annoyed in the morning. She had intruded on his territory, but…she wanted to be where she was, and at the time she made the decision, it was her only concern.
So there she curled up quite happily, listening to his breathing and heartbeat and untroubled by the sounds of the storm rolling in. By the time 12:30 rolled around and the window-hole that had let her in closed up, the brindled red Lykos was deep and contentedly asleep.
Strangely enough, Marcus had been glad when night had fallen and he could go to bed. He was normally a boy of the most sunny disposition, so much so that he could get on people's nerves at times. Today had not been one of those days. The combination of nearly falling to his death (he'd thought melodramatically), then being unnerved in the pantry by Churat (though that had turned out all right; he liked Churat even if he was a tiny bit strange) had intensified the bit of homesickness he'd been starting to feel. He'd spent the remainder of the day very quiet, washing up in the washroom after his pantry duty was finished, eating dinner and then hanging out in the Oratory for a while to watch the grey shadows from the weather outside shift and change. Painfully, he'd managed to climb back up the rope and gratefully fallen into bed.
Sleep was a great escape sometimes, and he was fully under when Kai crept into his room. He didn't hear her, didn't sense her, and he was unaware when she climbed onto his bed to wind herself into a ball over his ankles and feet. More than likely, he would have slept the night through without knowing she was there if it hadn't stormed.
A lot of people liked storms, and Marcus didn't mind them to a degree. He loved rain; back home he'd enjoyed watching the ocean churn and roil when a heavy, pounding rain had been falling. It was soothing and peaceful, somehow. But anything that involved violent thunder and lightning wasn't his favorite thing. He wasn't scared, exactly. It just made him very uneasy, a reaction he'd always tried to hide from his siblings and quasi-siblings, who were always seeking opportunities to tease. He began to stir when the storm built in intensity, the boom of thunder overhead ever louder. When lightning illuminated the interior of his room, he woke with a start, disoriented and filled with a dread he couldn't have explained.
The blond hitched in a sharp breath as he realized that there was a weight on his feet. His heart pounded, and he tried to get a grip on himself. It would help if he could see more clearly. Even the illuminating lightning didn't help with that. He inhaled, exhaled, and then reached down to feel of whatever it was, his exploring fingers tentative. Now that he was awake he didn't really feel threatened by it, particularly once he realized that it was warm. He was chilled despite his blankets... except for his feet. It was furry and warm and breathing, he discovered. "Um... hello?" he whispered.
If the thunder and lightning had been all that the storm brought over the contentedness of Kai’s sleep, she probably could have slept through the whole thing. In the treehouse constructions of her home, the wooden structures offered little in the way of insulation against the sounds of a storm (not to mention the fact that storms made trees sway), so one just learned to generally sleep through them unless they were also accompanied by far more dangerous sounds, like cracking tree limbs or such.
But what a Lykos like Kai was attuned to, however, were the stirrings of one’s sleepmates. Even if her familiarity with Marcus was still mostly limited to scent after the couple of encounters they’d had, she was sleeping on top of his feet. She didn’t need to be attuned to him on the level of a true packmate to notice, even in the depths of happy slumber, the agitated fidgeting of his feet directly under her body.
Even so, she came out of sleep extremely groggily. Contentment was a heavy narcotic that made awareness something clumsily grasped at, but Marcus’s fingers brushing at the thick fur of her shoulder certainly helped serve as a landmark. With a quiet sound that was equal parts yawn and muddled (but not unconcerned) whine, Kai turned her head and stuck her nose into his questing hand, licking once at his fingers in sleepy greeting.
It was windy, too, as might be expected in a torrential storm. Rain lashed down outside in counterpoint to the lightning and thunder, and Marcus shivered, an involuntary reflex he could not suppress. Suddenly, he felt incredibly grateful not to be alone. Most likely, if he had been, he would've curled up into a miserable ball with the blankets over his head and remained awake for the entire rest of the night. But he had company, and that company had to be a Lykos.
Carefully, Marcus sat the rest of the way up, bending over his legs to get closer to the creature that was draped over his feet and licking his fingers. "Kai?" he ventured. Now that he was awake enough to think about it, he knew that it had to be his friend. Sure, a random Lykos could have wandered through one of the holes in his wall, but it seemed a lot less likely that one would be comfortable enough to climb up on his bed. He'd met Bramble, whose name he still did not know, but she'd been so skittish that he couldn't imagine her going into anyone's room uninvited. Maybe not even if invited, who knew?
"I'm so glad to see you," he murmured, his slim fingers traveling over the furry crown of her head in a soft smoothing motion.
Kai sniffed and blinked blearily at the darkness as Marcus shifted more, this time with definite purpose. With the light of the moon and stars blocked by the thick stormclouds over the compound, and the sporadic bursts of lightning more dazzling than helpful, Kai’s vision in the murky room was decidedly bad. But she could sense Marcus’s movements on the close quarters of his bed and, groggy or not, was unsurprised as his voice came nearer.
She gave her head a little toss, to shake off the cobwebs of sleep, just before the human’s hand found the warm place between her perked ears. Now Kai officially did not even care to wonder why it was so nice to be petted. It just was, and that would be that from now on. Between the rumbles and roars of thunder, the happy thump-thump sound of her tail wagging against the mattress was probably drowned out, but wag it still did at the pleasure and relief in Marcus’s voice. Had her conscience been loud enough to bother her about trespassing, it would have been appeased then.
The brindled Lykos rearranged her curled limbs a little, taking Marcus’s tone as a sort of invitation and shuffling her weight to where she was more on his shins and knees. I’m glad, too, she agreed through a yawn, though her words would just be happy-sounding yowls to his ears.
It would never have occurred to Marcus to think that Kai was trespassing or not to welcome her presence. Even in the middle of the night under ordinary circumstances (when there wasn't a storm!), the Lykos would have been welcome to visit his room. It was actually very nice to know there was someone you could turn to at any hour if you really needed to.
The little sounds Kai made seemed to be happy and agreeable as the Lykos shifted to cover part of his legs-- bringing her warmth with her, which was much welcomed as well-- and Marcus continued to pet her. There was something very reassuring about it, he thought. "Do you not like storms, or did you just get lonely?" he murmured. He knew she couldn't answer him, but it didn't seem to matter. She could understand him, and it was still communication. From what he'd seen, the Lykos did a fine job of making themselves understood without the benefit of words, anyway. "I'm really kinda not crazy about them." It seemed okay to admit that to her... he didn't think she'd judge him for it.
Thunder boomed again, and he twitched a little. "Wonder if it's gonna do this all night?" he mused.
Kai was just the happiest little Lykos in the world right now. Who had room in their head to think about pack when you had petting rubbing the thoughts right out of your mind?
The repetitive strokes were almost hypnotizing, making her want to fall back asleep, but the sound of her friend’s voice—and that was definitely what Marcus was, now—kept her relatively in the realm of alertness. She was also pleased, with a kind of relief of her own, that he could figure out why she was in his room and wasn’t bothered by it. At his guess of “being lonely”, she growled an agreement and leaned her head on his knee to indicate it was, indeed, the company she’d been after.
At his query, she lifted her head again, as much as Marcus’s petting permitted, and sniffed at the air with an ear cocked at the window. The storm-scents seemed even heavier now than they had been before she’d fallen asleep. She was pretty sure that this storm wouldn’t be abating any time soon unless there was some serious fluke in the weather patterns.
With a regretful little whine, she nodded her head to say the storm would last, trusting in the touch of his hand to read the gesture in the dark. Having hands of her own as well, in her halfway form, she also patted his knee in an offer of sympathy and comfort.
Marcus smiled faintly at the little affirmative sound she made. "Yeah, it does get lonely when everything's strange and you don't know many people yet," he said. "I was thinking about that today. It wasn't the best day, and that makes you brood over things. Well, it does for me." Now that he was awake, he was in full ramble mode, but hopefully Kai wouldn't mind. Poor girl couldn't even tell him to shut up in her current form. He supposed she could leave if she got tired of it, but he hoped she wouldn't. It was really nice having her here, nicer than he could have put into words.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he replied to her unspoken commentary on the storm. "Sounds like it's gonna last a while. I was just hoping I was wrong." Curiously, he reached for her hand when she patted him, knowing that it was a little different from her paw in her full Lykos form and wanting to find out how. "Neat," was his comment as he explored it with his fingers, always more helpful to him than his eyes even if it had been lighter here in his room.
Another chill ran through him as he sat there with his upper body uncovered, and Marcus carefully lay back down, making sure not to dislodge the little Lykos from his legs. "I'm freezing," he explained as he pulled his blankets back up and curled himself slightly so he could still reach his friend. "I guess it's this weather." He wouldn't mind if Kai wanted to move further up on the bed to join him, but he didn't know how to say so, so he continued to pet her from his half-curled up position. He wondered if she was going to stay. He might eventually be able to sleep through the raging storm if he wasn't alone.
Kai certainly didn’t mind listening to Marcus at all, though she couldn’t have known he was worried about that. Though she would have been equally happy to just lie there in companionable silence, if Marcus wanted to talk into the silence (comparatively, of course, considering the storm-sounds) that she only had nonverbal sounds to offer into, she was perfectly happy to stay curled where she was and listen. Really, it was even better company than just knowing he was near while she slept.
Marcus actually caught her a little by surprise when he picked up her hand, but she was soon chuffing in amusement and wiggling her stubby, rough-padded fingers back at his, playfully teasing but not actually trying to interfere with his examination. It seemed they were really rather alike in that way, weren’t they? Meaning, of course, that neither one of them was shy about investigating something when it caught their curiosity.
Then, when the human lay back towards his pillow again and shifted his body around slightly, she once again assumed an invitation in his words—this time correctly. She didn’t feel cold at all and wasn’t about to hesitate in sharing her fur coat with her friend as best she could. That was another thing sleepmates were for. Though her limbs might be human in arrangement in her current form, her mannerisms remained all canine/feline as she carefully uncurled and felt her way up into the bit of space his repositioning had created.
It was something of a tight fit on the narrow bed, but close quarters certainly didn’t bother a Lykos. Judging from his body heat and the motions of Marcus’s hand, she stretched out alongside him with arms and paws tucked under her chest and nosed at the darkness until she found his chin, sniffing at him inquisitively.
There were times when Marcus' curiosity got him into trouble, but luckily this wasn't one of them. He was fascinated by the different forms the Lykos could take, and it was neat to be friends with one so he could gain a better knowledge about them. Firsthand, so to speak. There was also the fact that he liked Kai with her sweet and sunny disposition and would have wanted to be friends with her anyway. So it was all good!
He was pleased when she wriggled her way up to join him. He was finding that there were very few things as warm as the fur of a Lykos; it mitigated the cold in a way no blanket he'd ever seen could. He wasn't bothered by the close proximity necessitated by the narrow bed, and he promptly nestled himself against her, one hand still smoothing her fur, chuckling softly as she sniffed at his neck and chin. "That tickles a little," he murmured-- something she'd likely already realized. "Least you're not like my brothers. They always liked to tickle me 'til it wasn't fun anymore." Until he'd thought he'd wet his pants if they didn't stop, actually, but that seemed a little blunt, so he didn't say it out loud.
"I kind of miss 'em even though they're irritating sometimes," he added. He was shivering less now that he had both his blankets and Kai nearby, and his eyes had fallen closed. He couldn't see that well anyway with the near-complete absence of light in the room, so why not? His fingers smoothed over Kai's soft ears and down the back of her head, then up again. "I bet you miss your family too, huh?"
Marcus’s companionable, unselfconscious nestling earned more happy wagging of Kai’s tail, which this time drummed against the young man’s legs and couldn’t possibly be missed. This might only be their third time really getting to interact, but his comfort and ease made it seem like they ought to have known each other longer than that. And in that, perhaps, was Kai’s best assurance that compound life would be more good than bad. When it began with a literal collision with someone like Marcus, imagining that such a first impression could be disproved seemed almost impossible.
She gave his chin one last nudge with her nose before putting her head down and sagging onto one side, so she was leaning back against him in turn with her head tucked against his chest, offering prime access to the strokes that continued down her head and neck. Moons, having to be by herself in her own room after this would be even more lonesome. She wondered if Marcus would like to keep his extra Lykos “blanket” from here on out. She’d have to ask sometime later, when she had her voice again.
Kai chuffed amusement at the mention of his brothers, making note of that little tidbit for later. If he was ticklish, she’d be sure to use that reveal against him sometime in the future. Probably repeatedly. Never until it wasn’t fun, though. She’d only ever do it for fun.
Then she nodded under his hand at his question, softly whining agreement, but not exactly sadly. She knew she’d see pack and family again in the future. Tell me about yours? she attempted to ask, making the noises as inquisitive as she could, hoping he’d at least understand the invitation for him to keep talking.
The thump-thump of Kai's tail against Marcus' legs made him smile, and he couldn't even have explained why. Maybe because she didn't seem to mind him knowing that she was glad to be here with him. He didn't understand subterfuge or secrets, and her happy unselfconsciousness made him happy, too. He was thrilled that she was here, which was probably quite obvious. It was odd how sometimes you could be lonely and not actually realize it until the situation had changed.
If he'd had any way of knowing what she was thinking, he would have told her that she could sleep in his room anytime. Of course he didn't, so he only chuckled at the chin-nudge and continued to pet her, content to enjoy now and not worry about later. The majority of the time, that was his way, and it worked for him just fine.
Marcus correctly interpreted her chuff as laughter. "Yeah, the second they realized I was ticklish, that was it. Brothers." She seemed to be okay being here, at least from what he could tell; her nod and the little sound she made didn't convey sadness, really. Sometime, he'd like to talk to her when she could speak, too, because he wouldn't have to wonder if he was getting the signals she was trying to put across, even though she was quite good at it. "I have two, both of 'em older than me. That's fun." His tone was dry, but in a good-natured way. "My sisters're younger."
The wind picked up outside to a shriek, but fortunately Kai's presence helped Marcus to ignore it. They'd be okay, right? They were in an immense stone building. "I'd ask you about your family," he said, "but I know you can't really tell me right now. There's other stuff I was gonna ask you, too, about Lykos-- I met another one yesterday."
Kai didn’t have sibling relations the way Marcus did, but that didn’t keep her from understanding his tone and what he meant by it. What he had with his siblings, she had with packmates—though it seemed her role was far more like that of the human’s older brothers than of Marcus himself. Which was encouraging, actually. It gave her an even better idea of how and from what stance she could interact with her new friend, for even if Marcus wasn’t pack, Kai still had that Lykos mindset to know her place and hierarchy regarding those around her.
She nodded agreeably to try and indicate she would be happy to answer anything Marcus wanted to ask her later. She’d be able to shift out of her fur come the morning and talk as much as he’d like then. Then it would be his turn to listen like she was doing now.
The mention of another Lykos intrigued her, and she let Marcus know so with her best curious rowl.
Marcus had always been malleable, probably the most accommodating and least easy to anger of all the Armsford kids. That wasn't to say that he didn't have a temper, though it was most likely to emerge when he was thwarted in something he wanted to do because of his eyesight. Still, he definitely didn't have an alpha sort of personality; Kai was completely correct in her assessment.
He felt Kai's nod beneath his hand, and he was intrigued by how well they could communicate during what most people would have thought to be a one-sided conversation. He still had his eyes closed, and he'd relaxed, the pace of his strokes to her fur slowing a bit. Actually he thought it would be very nice to drift off into sleep this way, when the time came. It was just... nice, and he felt lucky that he'd made a friend his first night here in such a random way.
At her curious little sound, he told her, "When we woke up with holes in the walls the other day? I went over to the one that looked out into the Solar Room, and there was a Lykos there. I scared her." His tone was rueful. "We ended up playing a little. She was nice, but I still don't know what her name is. Obviously." There was a smile in his voice. "I was kind of wondering if it's okay to pet a Lykos if you don't really know them, or if that's rude."
Kai had to think about that question a little. She sure liked petting, she’d discovered, but she’d never encountered it before Marcus had chosen to do so. But in the end, she decided, it was really just another form of touch, and not everybody would be okay with being touched at random by a stranger. And Desdemona had asked first, and expressed the exact same concern: she didn’t know if it was rude or not.
It wasn’t like Kai to really think about the rudeness of a thing, since she so often intruded and had her hands on things without a second thought, but it was a very different thing for Marcus to have asked and lead her to consider it on his behalf. She still wouldn’t pause and think regarding anything she did, but she could be directed and put to task by another.
So she shook her head with a soft, somewhat regretful whine. Petting was nice, but plenty of Lykos needed their space, and Kai wouldn’t want to see Marcus losing a hand by being too forward with the wrong Lykos.
She’d like to meet this other Lykos, though. She’d like to play a little with some other people, too!
Marcus had opened his eyes when it took Kai a bit to answer, so he was able to discern the shake of her head now that his vision-- such as it was-- had adjusted to the almost total dark. "So," he said, "sounds like I need to keep my hands to myself unless it's someone I know or I ask first. I can do that."
He guessed this was a part of being here: learning the social mores of the different groups. Of course, not everyone in a given group was going to be the same. He wasn't the same as a lot of the humans, and he was sure Kai wasn't the same as every other Lykos. But the fundamental similarities applied, so he was glad he'd asked. Marcus didn't really like to make waves, metaphorically speaking.
Thunder boomed, and he scooted down a little further beneath the covers. "Yep," he said. "This storm's gonna be with us the whole night."
With her answer given, received, and understood, the thoughtful moment passed out of mind. Marcus would behave and be alright, while Kai would continue to get into the same kinds of trouble she always did, whether or not she realized what she was getting herself into, and everything would be alright across the board.
The booming thunder earned little more than an earflick from the little Lykos. It was a really bad storm out there, but the solid stone walls around her and the company close at paw made it quite ignorable when compared to her usual exposure to storms. Marcus’s unhappy shifting, on the other hand, was far more worth acknowledging. Kai was aware that she’d be falling back asleep fast and soundly when the opportunity came about—but it would not be doing so as long as Marcus was talking and discomfited by the storm.
So she rolled over, from her belly onto her side, and draped a furry arm companionably over the blanket-buried lump of Marcus’s body with a drowsy chuff. The storm would be here all night, but so would she, and hopefully that was still a comfort.
It wasn't merely Kai's presence that was comforting to Marcus, though that meant a great deal. It was comforting that the storm didn't really seem to bother her, fierce as it was. A Lykos would have instincts that were a lot better honed than a human's, and Kai felt safe. That should mean that he was safe as well. He'd just needed time for his practical side to catch up to the creeping uneasiness that violent storms always gave him.
He yawned, turning his head to muffle the sound against one shoulder, and then smiled when Kai draped her arm over him. His eyes gradually fell closed, and his body relaxed as he savored the warmth of his furry Lykos blanket; a regular blanket would never feel quite the same to him again. Seconds slipped by, then minutes. "I'm glad you're here," Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible. He was mostly asleep by now, but it needed to be said.
Just through their proximity and the things her Lykos senses could read even through the darkness of the room and despite the rolling thunder that followed each sky-cracking blast of light that cut through the gloom, Kai could feel when Marcus at last began to relax all the way. It made her own drowsiness pull at her all the more, but she clung to that little bit of awareness she needed just to be sure her friend would make it all the way to slumber.
She only just held on long enough to hear Marcus’s whisper, a feat in and of itself considering his volume versus the ambience of the storm, though the softness of his voice seemed permission to fall asleep without having to worry that he wouldn’t be far behind. But she held off giving in for just a moment longer, giving the side of his jaw the briefest and sleepiest little lick before finally and contentedly drifting off.
The hours passed and the storm continued to rage on, though Marcus barely stirred. Normally he slept reasonably well, with the tendency to flail restlessly around only when it stormed outside, and one might've thought he'd be much more prone to that tonight. More than likely it was the presence of a warm, furry Kai snuggled against him that kept him calm and quiet and asleep through it all.
He was also an early riser normally, but today the sky was so dark that daybreak did not wake him. The storm had calmed somewhat, although a heavy, steady rain fell. The sound of it was the first thing that breached the line between sleep and waking for Marcus. The blond huddled beneath his covers, tugging one loose end up over his shoulder and then replacing his arm where it had been, which seemed to be around something that was incredibly soft and warm. He smiled in his half-sleep, yawned and then cracked his eyes open.
Somehow, his covers had gotten disarranged, the end result being that Kai was half beneath them and half outside them. One of her furry arms was around him, one of his arms was around her, and his nose was nearly level with hers. Oh yeah. Now that he was (mostly) fully awake, he remembered that the storm had wakened him and Kai'd been curled up on his legs. Had he ever been this warm before? Kai was like a mini-fireplace or something. He flexed his sore elbow and then settled back into place, in no hurry to get moving. He was too comfortable, and it was storming outside. What was there to do, really?
Going to bed so much earlier than she usually did had the expected effect on Kai’s sleeping pattern, despite her midnight re-awakening by Marcus and the storm: she woke up proportionately early as a result, well before dawn, around the time when she would usually be going to bed. She was blearily but not unpleasantly disoriented at first, instinctively at ease with the close presence and warmth of the other body she was cuddled against, but it took a few moments to remember it was Marcus and she’d nosed her way into his room the previous evening.
But getting up and moving about while her human friend was still so soundly asleep was not an option. After four nights alone she was in no hurry to abandon the packlike sleeping arrangement, and besides, Marcus would get cold if she left. So she stayed where she was, dozing and daydreaming patiently as she listened to the human’s breath and heartbeat between the bouts of thunder, waiting for him to come awake at his own pace.
It was a long wait, but since she didn’t get hungry nor develop other pressing needs, it was no burden. She waited while Marcus began to stir and shift, to be sure he really was waking and not just tossing quietly in some dream. Not until his eyes cracked open did she decide it was safe to move a bit, even if the young man was still lazing in place like he wasn’t going to be getting up soon. Even so, it was probably best not to shed her fur until she was sure he didn’t need the shared warmth any more.
But she bumped her nose gently against his chin and rumbled-growled a pleasant sound at him in waking-greeting.
Marcus tended to require a lot of sleep, but even with being disturbed by the storm for a while, he'd gotten as much as he needed. A little more than that, really. There was no real way to tell what time it was specifically, though his body clock told him it was past his usual waking time. It wasn't a problem, luckily, since there wasn't a designated time to get up here at the compound.
"Hi," Marcus said when Kai nosed his chin, his voice husky with sleep. "Hope my morning breath's not too terrible." He grinned a little sheepishly and pushed the fingers of one hand through his hair in a futile hope of straightening it. This was definitely a novelty for him; the only other times he'd ever awakened with someone had been on the rare occasion when one of his younger sisters had gotten scared during the night and sneaked into his bed. They'd tended to prefer Marcus to Shane or Angus because he was less inclined to either yell at them or make fun of them for being afraid of the dark, or whatever had prompted them to leave their own bed.
"Did you sleep okay?" he asked, figuring she could nod or make some affirmative sound as she had last night when they'd 'talked'. "Neither one of us is in the floor, so I guess I didn't hog the bed too much." He snickered, amused by the mental picture that provided.
Kai wasn't sure what Marcus meant about his "morning breath", though. Well, she could put together the combination of words to deduce "what his breath smelled like in the morning", but didn't know why such a thing could be terrible. It was just another of his scents to be memorized, and everyone smelled different before they'd shed the night in preparation to take on the day. When human noses were so weak, why would that one scent be noteworthy?
But that aside, Kai had slept better than okay, she'd slept absolutely wonderfully, and a happy nod and vigorous wagging of her tail clearly said so. With the human's company and without the precarious swaying her old treehouse, the storm may as well have not existed.
Hoping it had been the same for Marcus, she directed the question back at him by tapping his chest with a stubby finger and rowling curiously.
It would stand to reason that the different species might have different standards for hygiene, including breath smells, but that didn't really occur to Marcus. He was just glad she didn't seem offended if his breath was rank. His smile widened at her nod and enthusiastic wagging of her tail, which signified to him that she'd had a good night's sleep. Once he'd fallen asleep himself, he might not have noticed if she was restless.
"Me?" he asked, though it was pretty clear that's what she'd meant. "Yeah, I slept great. Probably the best since I got here, even with the storm." Unable to stifle his curiosity, he covered her paw with his hand, his particular way of examining it again. Lykos were amazing creatures, really, he thought. "Honestly, I was starting to get a little bit homesick," he added. "Not that I don't like being here, just--. It isn't being at home." His smile turned sheepish again. "It really helped that you were here."
Marcus couldn’t have continued to endear himself to Kai any better if he were actively trying. He was just so sweet and gentle, Kai couldn’t in the slightest compare him to any of the warnings and tales she’d heard from older Lykos about the human species. If only he were a Lykos himself, he would be wonderful pack. She wanted to chew his ears and gnaw his scruff and tug on his tail, to play and rough around, but he didn’t have any of that! (Well, of course he had ears, but not the furry pointy kind better for toying with.)
She growled happily and butted her head against his chest, only to suddenly be frustrated that she couldn’t speak plainly with him. The annoyance lasted but a moment, though, solved as quickly as it had arisen by a shift that the Lenhakriron moon no longer forbade her. In the space of a few moments, which Marcus might more be aware of by the feel of the stubby hand under his losing its fur and lengthening its digits than by the sight of the change, the Lykos strewn half in and half out of Marcus’s bed became a girl. One dressed in plain hide attire and with a sexless figure, but still technically a girl.
Not that Kai cared, though perhaps Marcus might be more flustered.
“It was good not to have to be alone again,” she agreed with a grin, patting the human’s chest with the same hand he’d half-caught as she added: “I missed the sound of another heartbeat. I’ll share my fur with you whenever you want!”
Marcus had felt comfortable with Kai almost right away that first night he'd bumped into her in the courtyard. He wasn't the sort who'd try to charm another person or to win them to his side, but when he liked somebody, it showed. So it was with the Lykos. She was friendly, sweet and ingenuous, and that seemed to blend perfectly with his own naive optimism.
He grinned as she growled at him and head-butted his chest, only to have the expression change to an open-mouthed stare of complete surprise when she shifted. It was so quick that he couldn't even take in all the details-- particularly with his low vision and the dimness of the morning-- but there it was. There she was. "Wow," Marcus murmured, blinking his eyes as if that might clarify things for him. "You just--. Wow.." That was just about the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. She'd just changed, right in front of him, and now she could talk and she didn't have a tail and...
...well, she didn't have clothes either. He tried to listen to what she was saying (and he was not going to squint to see better, not in this case. Absolutely not.) but he couldn't help it that his cheeks flushed slightly. While it was true that she was another species, she was a girl, and she looked like just a girl in this form except for the fine mane that extended from her hair. And he was a boy, and he'd never had an experience even remotely similar to this before. Winds, he'd only just found out the previous year the actual mechanics of what happened between males and females sometimes. He wondered if he should offer Kai his shirt. She didn't really seem phased by her current state of undress. Maybe she didn't consider it as being undressed?
"I probably, uh... would've been awake all night if you weren't here. When the storm woke me up," he clarified. He might've been slightly perplexed at the moment, but he had to smile when she patted him, red cheeks and all. "I'd definitely like to share our fur again. I mean, your fur. Since I don't have any." He wondered if he could have babbled any more if he'd put effort into it. Probably not.
Not that Marcus was investigating closely to make sure, but at least Kai wasn’t all naked. Somewhat different from a human’s though they might be, she still had notions of decency when it came to showing off skin without fur. Besides, skin-nakedness was cold. Her shorts might fit a little looser without the padding of fur and a tail under the leather ties in the back, but she still had them on.
She’d forgotten she’d lost her vest, though. There’d been more fur for Marcus to snuggle up against without it, so she’d managed to wriggle out of it in the time when she’d been awake but her friend was still sound asleep. And since she’d gotten her top half under the covers for better nestling and now had the blankets keeping that part of her warm instead of her fur, she had yet to realize or remember she was only half-dressed. Not that she even had a bust of any size to conceal, but clearly as far as Marcus was concerned, a girl was still a girl.
Oblivious to its true cause, assuming grogginess to be the reason behind it, Kai snickered at Marcus’s stumbling speech. “Not enough to keep you warm, anyhow,” she observed regarding his ‘fur’ with a grin, reaching up and ruffling his rumpled blond hair.