psychoshenanigans | Gathering Seeds // Canon

Entry tags:

irahl,
trixie

Gathering Seeds // Canon

After her impromptu "lesson" on shape-changing, Trixie wandered through the park for a while. She felt restlessly empty and her face was a mess, so it only took a couple of near-misses with other humans and ten minutes of sitting on a park bench for her to realize that all she really wanted was to go home.

She didn't want to be around anyone, but she also didn't want to be alone. She wanted room to think, but didn't want too much room, otherwise she might just spend the rest of the night crying.

So she patched up her makeup as well as she could, hoisted herself up onto her glittery platform shoes, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed out to find Irahl. She knew he was having a hard time too, for different reasons, about different things--but he was quiet, and wouldn't try very hard to cheer her up, and maybe he wouldn't mind hanging out with her a little like they used to do, when it was just the two of them.

She eventually found him chasing squirrels, or whatever, in a remote part of the park. Just her presence was kind of the antithesis of a noble hunt, so it wasn't hard to get his attention and convince him to come back home with her. It helped that she promised there would be blankets, a peanut-butter Kong, and absolutely no shenanigans for the rest of the night.

The only interruption was a quick stop at the grocery store for some steaks, gummy worms, and canned coffee, but that was totally worth it.

So now they're both settled into Trixie's pink-and-purple apartment. She tries to keep it pretty clean, but she hasn't been able to help the multiplication of blankets and pillows, or the perpetual dog smell, or the scattering of toys and bones that never quite make it back into their pretty pastel baskets--but she secretly kind of likes it this way. Since it's just them, she's changed out of her costume and into a t-shirt and too-short shorts. She scrubbed her face and retired the day's wig, and now she's semi-sprawled on her bed with her phone and the gummy worms from earlier.

After a couple of hours of relative quiet, she finally puts down her phone, sending Irahl a quiet little mental "hey", in the hopes that maybe he'd be up to talking a little. Or letting her talk while he listens. Or even just humoring her and pretending to listen--she'll take what she can get.

"...So, uh, can we... talk a little, about yesterday? I know it's been really overwhelming, but I don't want to just leave you on a really awkward note."

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Despite what most would assume about living with the owner of this particular space, this den has always been one of the most comfortable for Irahl. Yes, it symbolizes the most confusing and uncertain part of his life thus far, and is still full of so many things that are far beyond his realm of understanding, but it's familiar. He knows what to expect out of his time here. This is one of the few places where he doesn't feel he needs to stay on constant alert, because this den had been established before all of his responsibilities were.

Trixie's home is just as unchangeable as her nature is. She might change her face every day, but everything underneath always stays the same (for better or worse) and he has grown to accept and understand this fact (also for better or worse).

So, in light of the last forty-eight hours, Irahl was more than happy to retreat to this sanctuary, separated from the rest of their momentous, important lives. Right now, he's eager to just be a dog for a little while. Trixie is good at pretending that everything is fine and the world is proceeding as normal, so he plays along, lets her treat him to steak and peanut butter, and naps on his favorite blanket.

There are still signs that he's indeed feeling low, however. When Trixie's mental voice comes calling, Irahl doesn't lift his head from where he's curled up. He only rolls one deaf ear back in her direction, signaling that he's listening.

"I mean..."

She turns her whole head so that she can speak in his direction without craning her head. It's a useless exercise, since she is using their mind-magic and not actually verbally talking (and even if she was, he wouldn't be able to hear her anyway), but the intent to give him proper attention is there regardless of the delivery.

"Are you okay? Sounds like it was... kind of a lot, all at once."

Irahl's other ear joins the first in folding back--though, the point is more about how they're flattening against his skull than it being an expression of listening.

Even with the pack's handy mental connection, Irahl still isn't a chatty fellow. Consider that wolfy expression of disquiet an entire answer, because he isn't going to add words onto it.

"Yeah..." She is quiet too, for a moment, while she fidgets with her toes against one of her socks. Then, she projects, "I'm sorry. I just wanted it to be fun."

The words are accompanied with a small feeling--guilty and sad--not because Trixie wants to share, but because it is so poignant that she can't help a little of it leaking through.

"It's not like you did anything wrong..."

It seems in reaction to what she's saying, but it's much more about the feeling that Trixie accidentally shares--Irahl finally picks up his head and turns to glance back at her. His ears are perked forward now, in that way that way that seems like there might be a forehead wrinkle under his fur.

It's a question. That's the look he gets when he wants something explained or elaborated upon.

"...Huh?"

That one is out-loud, as she tilts her head against the mattress. She may be better at reading Irahl than she used to be, but in general... she's still miles behind her peers when it comes to the intricacies of canine posture.

"...Well, I mean, you were just having a nice time, right?" She guesses that his questioning look is about that, as she continues to talk into his head. "You didn't even kiss anybody. I wouldn't have let you."

She frowns, then, half-pouting. "But now it's ruined, right? Like, Bridget totally freaked you out."

And she feels like that's partially her fault, hence the guilt. Maybe she should have done a better job of going slow, or making it clear that she had it handled--or maybe if the others trusted her more, they wouldn't have intervened at all. It manifests as a feeling of not being good enough, which is an uncomfortably familiar disappointment.

Edited 2017-10-22 03:24 (UTC)

Can dogs look embarrassed? More expressive canines probably can, but Irahl isn't one of those. For him, the look is pretty vague beyond just seeming generally negative.

His response is folding his ears against his head again and returning his attention to something that is not Trixie. It probably looks like he's agreeing with her statement much more than he actually is, instead of just avoiding eye-contact because he's a big awkward dog.

"See?" She hauls her arms over so that she can gesture widely in Irahl's direction. "That's exactly what I mean! It's okay, Irahl. You're oh-kay."

And then she lets her arms flop lifelessly onto the bed with an out-loud sound of frustration.

"And it was just-- You know, the first time I've had, like, fun since I moved out here, and you were actually having fun, and I just..."

Ugh, ugh. She stops mind-talking, pinching the bridge of her nose. She knows she's rambling. She knows that Irahl doesn't like it when she starts mind-rambling.

It's not so much that he doesn't like the mind-rambling, it's just the inescapeability of it that is sometimes hard to deal with. To go from being so isolated within yourself that sound can't even get in, to having words and pictures and noise shoved directly into your brain, is a big jump.

He tries to be as patient as he can at times like these, but actually being part of the subject being ranted about adds to the discomfort. He doesn't know how to handle it.

So, still looking off into the rest of the apartment, the big, silent dog just rests his head down again. Like he's trying to get away from the conversation, but this is the best he can do.

Trixie is quiet again for a little bit. She does not block off the mental connection, so Irahl will still have some idea that she is stewing in her own thoughts even if her words have stopped coming to him.

But around the time she'd normally start talking again, or change the subject, she doesn't. And as the seconds tick on, her mood suddenly declines from bad to miserable. All of a sudden, she sits up, slides off of the bed, walks over to where Irahl is laying, and plunks down on the blanket next to him.

She blindly shoves her face into his fur and grabs at him with her little hands and tries to pretend that she isn't actively fighting back an overwhelming urge to cry like a little kid again.

Irahl is more than a little startled when Trixie suddenly appears at his side, but it's only partially because he'd failed to notice her approach. Without being able to hear, he relies on the feeling of footsteps across the floor, and she has an understandably light step.

The rest of the surprise comes from the fact that he'd just been about to rise to his feet and walk over to her side, but she'd beaten him to it. It's almost as if he summons her over with the thought.

He's stoic enough to only balk a little bit, however. Once he catches up to what's going on, he covers the way that his posture straightens by shifting so that she can better settle where she has clung onto him, and so he can plunk his chin down on her shoulder.

This is the part of every relationship where the other person thinks that she's crazy, or immature, or childish, or needy, or stupid. This is where other people stop calling her, or avoid certain topics around her, or conveniently move on to other adventures just in time to leave her behind.

So this is nice. Really really nice. She is upset for a while, and it's probably good that Irahl can't actually hear her pathetic little sobs--but reaching out and being reciprocated goes a long way towards her settling down. The storm eventually blows itself out, leaving only the calm that comes after.

"This is dumb," she eventually thinks aloud for him. Even her mind-voice sounds kind of relived, though. "It's been a really weird day."

Appreciating the difference in species--or, at least sitting very intentionally in the mindset of canine--helps in this situation. He doesn't have to think about how complicated the human world is if he doesn't consider himself part of it. It doesn't have to use words; he can just drop into the old habits he'd had with the tiny members of his old pack, and leave it at that.

If he is thinking that she's crazy, or immature, or childish, needy, stupid... that's okay. So are puppies, and that's because they're growing. Trixie, like the rest of his current pack, are also new and growing. For a dog that is all about judgement and order, he is giving her an awful lot of leeway.

And with the use of words being pretty far from his thoughts right now, he agrees out-loud with one of those good, open-mouth, dog-groans of complaint. The past few days have been absurd.

The sound almost startles her, but it's a good thing--because either her surprise or the sound itself makes her start giggling, which is a far better sound than crying.

And now that she's all empty of bad feelings again, she feels confident enough to ask the one thing that was really on her mind. She does it while wiping wet salt and dog fur away from her face, but still:

"But... Did have fun last night, right?"

Irahl is conveniently not looking exactly in her direction when she asks the question, and he once more neglects to reply with words.

...The wordless imprint that she gets in her head does seem to lean toward the affirmative, however.

Wordless or not, she's happy to get the message.

"Good." She starts petting his fur, because he's there, and there's a lot of it. "Think you'd ever want to do it again sometime? Maybe slower, though. And not drinking so fast..."

This time he definitely doesn't answer. He just slumps gracefully and rolls onto his side, so that she can scratch the itchy part of his shoulder and he can pretend that he didn't hear her... in his head.

...She sighs, but she's still smiling as she hoists herself up on one of her arms and scratches the supposedly itchy spot with the other.

"Come on, you know me. I won't judge you..." She laughs out loud a second later, before sharing the joke, "That's your job."

The big, embarrassed dog opens his mouth and waves his toothy jaws in her direction, as if he's expecting a play-fight to kick off. It's probably the closest thing to Irahl's version of sarcastic or playful that she's seen yet. Or, maybe he'll just gnaw on her tiny face until she stops asking questions.

Finally, though, he lets his head flop back onto the floor and resigns himself to using his grudging, mental words.

"I don't know."

Miracles abound, there are words now. Even if Trixie doesn't get anything else out of this conversation, she feels very accomplished for making the reserved Philadox to communicate with more than just yowls and ear swiveling.

"Okay..." Perhaps to placate him, she starts scrubbing big handfuls of fur around his neck and shoulders. "What's got you worried? You know I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you."

Maybe Irahl doesn't know that, but her statement is backed up by a surprising amount of genuine confidence.

Really, it's only the fact that she'd just been in big, vulnerable tears (and maybe the neck-scrubs too) that prevents him from responding with a skeptical huff of a sigh. He still breathes out a meaningful lungful of air, but it's more long-suffering than dubious. He doesn't want to hurt her feelings.

"It's not worry."

But that is a string of three whole words, so good luck getting him to explain himself beyond that.

"Then just... Embarrassed? Awkward?"

The long-suffering sigh from Irahl does not seem to deter her. She does settle back down to where she isn't looking at him so much, though. She decides to approach from a different angle--maybe she can startle a truth out of him, somehow.

"What about that friend you made, that Sebastian guy? Would you want to hang out with him again?"

Well, if the answer she was hoping to startle out of him was an unintentionally-ducking head and reflattened ears, then she gets it. And he is still conveniently looking elsewhere.

He doesn't want to talk about it.

So that's... basically a yes, then. She laughs and pets his head, scratching affectionately behind his ears. Her pink lacquered nails really come in handy for things like this.

"It's fine, Irahl. You didn't do anything wrong, all right?"

That's another thing that she really wanted to get across... Though it's much easier to do so now that she's in a good mood.

Okay... he maybe finally glances over at her, because he maybe would like to shake the feeling that he had somehow done something wrong. Or, at the very least, he has no idea how he should be reacting and that is something that he needs to know at all times.

Not that he trusts Trixie's opinion or anything, but... he might trust Trixie in this case.

She doesn't laugh at him for glancing over, because she was already secretly worried that the others had filled poor, new-to-being-a-human Irahl with all the insecurities and societal pressures that most humans don't get until they're teenagers. She remembers going into all of this and feeling like shit for most of her adolescence, and she does not want Irahl to have to feel like that too.

"Yeah, don't worry. Seriously, you were fine."

And she really was watching out for him, to make sure nothing too embarrassing happened to him. Her mind-tone is playfully self-deprecating as she shrugs up her shoulders.

"I mean, if anyone knows about the wrong stuff to do, it's me."

There's a mental grunt of agreement (did anyone know that could even be a thing?) because she does make a good point. When he glances forward and away from her this time, it's thoughtful instead of avoidant.

"I just didn't know..." Anything, really, and maybe that's what is digging at him the most.

The alcohol had been new, the freedom and fun of it had been new, letting himself follow what had caught his interest because he was being mindless about it... and then that had led him into a talk that he definitely had not expected. He'd had no idea that there were implications and social clues and facets of living layered into everything going on that night. He feels stupid that he'd walked blindly into what had apparently been a minefield. He feels embarrassed that he might have given signals about himself and his intents that he hadn't meant to. And he feels mortified that he might have to consider it further.

If all of that could be summed up into vague clouds of impression, that's what he finishes his statement with in her head.

She gets it, or at least the gist of it. She was there, once.

Now she pets his shoulders again, partly for her friend's comfort--but largely so that she has something to fidget with while she tries not to stumble over any of her own feelings. She doesn't usually have "real" talks with people without lots of drinking, first.

"That's okay. That's why we practice. I mean, I didn't know anything about anything when I started going to clubs and stuff..."

She was very small, then. For some reason, that's the feeling that gets attached to everything else she's saying: subtle notes of helplessness in a sea of much larger, louder, confusing things.

"...But I caught on pretty fast, and I think you would too. Eventually you'll know everything. And then it'll feel pretty good to be, like, in control of the situation wherever you go. You know?"

Which is her end goal, even if it is not what other people normally go for.

"Besides, the nice things about spaces like that is that everything is really impermanent. So even if you fuck up really bad, it won't actually matter because everyone's already moving on to the next thing."

The New-Moon does her job in knowing how to speak his language, at the very least. He follows her path of logic better than he's followed any of the other advice he's been receiving lately, and is finally able to relate it to anything at all from his own life experiences.

The settings and goals might be completely different, but the process is familiar. There's a long pause, full of thoughtful space, before he breaks the mental silence again.

"You would make a good hunter.

Her reaction to that, after all of that quiet space, is a sputtering laugh. Earlier today, she would have shot that down immediately--and she almost does, because she does not consider herself traditional "hunter" material.

But after today, she's inclined to look at things a little differently.

"I guess I'm good at, like, hunting for cheap drinks?" She scrunches up her face, "Does that count?"

"You know the land, the habits of the creatures there. You know what to look for. You know how to get what you need from it."

So, in other words, yes. And he must be serious about it if he's using so many words, very intentionally put together like that, in her head.

"Wow," she says out-loud, mostly because that is a lot of words for her quiet friend to have used all at one time. He must really feel strongly about it.

And while that could have kind of horrifying connotations to a normal human, Trixie just smiles and pats Irahl-the-good-dog on top of his head.

"See, with an attitude like that, you'll be just fine! And I'll show you the ropes." She stretches out her arms and flops playfully over Irahl like a tiny, ineffectual pillow. "I wouldn't just send you out there to drown."

Don't worry, he'll make up for all those words by going silent again... mostly because he is not about to answer that statement with anything definite. Disagreeing would invite an argument, and agreeing would invite outright chaos.

So, he just groans as she flops on him--the complaint equal parts about what she is proposing, and melodrama over the weight she's physically dropping on him. Trixie really brings out the vocal curmudgeon in him, apparently.

"Uh-huh..." She kicks her little feet from where her knees are propped on the ground. She's already made up her mind, of course, that they'll try it again with a different mindset and a little more knowledge of how everyone interferes around here.

Which reminds her of her own intervention meeting from earlier today, which was the other half of why she abandoned her gummy worms to come flop over onto a wolf twice her size.

She might as well tell him. It's the perfect time for a segue-way, and who knows when they'll get another chance without Belle and Nef listening in on them... But despite all of that, and her newfound perspective on the whole thing, it still just... kind of... makes her a little sick to her stomach to think about.

Irahl can feel her deflate a little as she changes gears, eventually slinking back to resting her head on his side.

"So, speaking of embarrassing things..." She fidget-pets him again. "Guess what I did today..."

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Gathering Seeds // Canon

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