To heal a troubled Spirit - P1

Who had been startled first - or most - Tana wouldn't be able to tell. The only one that stayed calm was Spirit and Alban, Aluaq had snorted and backed up just slightly his ears flicked back and the female had also taken a few steps back. Her ears flicked back and forth and the woman could see her nostrils flaring slightly to catch the scent of the males - and herself. The female hadn't left yet however. She simply stood there, seemingly trying to determine what to do next. Aluaq seemed to have recovered as well and Tana petted his neck gently.

Tana had heard that there was a female tokota that had begun coming too close to the populated areas. The tokota had belonged to a man living in the Taktuq pack lands and one day he had left the female behind without even looking back. The female had stayed, like the loyal spirit that she were, waiting. For days Cocheta as the man had named her waited. Tana had asked around for information but not much had been provided. Some replies was even going against eachother. When she finally found the tokota she tried to make some sense of it.

One said a woman named Lady Fortuna  was involved. Another said the man had become ‘sick’ and had gone ‘Abroad’. A third voice had told her, while leaning closer after looking around, that the man had been really lucky on the underground lottery and walked away with ‘some’ money. The black coated female eyed the three equally black males. Like four dark spirits in the misty woods. With eyes almost as blue as Tana’s own eyes the tokota and the human looked at eachother. The skin on Cocheta’s neck twitched as Tana sat down, coming to a more submissive level.

Alban kept his tail raised, showing his dominance even if his eyes was kind. The other black barbary male, named Spirit or at least that was what he was called was Alban’s son. Tana had heard he had a longer name but that hadn't stuck to her memory. Either way one could really tell that Spirit came from Alban’s own spirit, and had molded itself after his father’s image. The biggest difference was perhaps the eyes of Spirit, one blue and one shifting towards a hue she would give one of the pale almost lightblue light purple colored summer flowers.

Cocheta kept looking at her and as Tana kept looking back into those blue eyes of the female a shiver went through her. It wasn't a clear feeling, more of a hunch, like a memory of a memory or a dream. Something you couldn't be quite sure if it was real or not. What was most in what she felt was sadness and sorrow. Of being left, forgotten and unloved. To know you were rejected and displaced for something else. To feel you had done something but at the same time feeling the almost paniclike feeling of not knowing...why.

From her pocket Tana took up treats and gave to the tokotas behind her. By now Aluaq was calm and looked at the dark coated female with kind eyes. He wagged his tail a little. The female seemed to have trouble feeding herself, Tana noted. Her ribs could every now and then show just a little. Cocheta sniffed the air when the woman took out another package, this having a much meatier scent. The woman tossed something to her from the first package and it landed quite near her. Quickly, before the others took it, the female ate the treat.

With the way the female kept gobble the treats down, but still with distance between them, Tana wondered what had happened. Softly she began to hum something she remembered her mother doing when her little brother had been fuzzy. She wasn't sure why but it had always helped to calm him down. Cocheta had twitched and looked at her, the clear blue eyes darting a little before deciding that nothing else would happen. With just three bags of treats the content was soon finished between the four tokotas. Unpacking the homemade treat rose everyone's attention but mostly the black female.

Spirit sat down on his rump, both hindpaws sticking out on either side of his frontlegs. Alban and Aluaq sat down as well. All the males perhaps hopeful in getting something. For a moment Tana sat there and simply watched the dark female tokota. Watching the small twitches and how the ears moved as the misty Tartokian woods seemed to shift and change as the mist did. The change sometimes make it feel like you moved some place else even if you had been standing perfectly still, not moving at all. If you didn't know better, you would get lost.

Just like with the other treats the female gobbled down the other bits Tana tossed her way. These treats wasn't as hard packed as the others. Instead they were meatier and more fat to them. There was even some crumbs of bread. Tana had made the treat herself, mixing leftovers of her own food, together with cooked meat scraps and fat. She had used it before even if she doubted that Cocheta cared on what she ate. A troubled spirit didn't care about things like that. It was only the matter of taking the day as to came, to survive.

To survive with a wing clipped spirit is hard. To move, to eat, to just be is hard. To lose someone that was a direction on your inner compass make the world a uneven, scary place. Everything seemed to be turned inside out and upside down no matter if was a place where you were born and raised. It don't matter if you knew it better than anyone. Without them the world seem so much darker, pointless and there are nothing that would take you forward. The sunlight lose it's gleam and the darkness and it's shadows are welcomed sight.

Tana knew that feeling. She knew the pain of the dark tokota female. In different ways she had felt it, lived it and survived. Even if it didn't felt like possible at first she knew it was. One simply needed time and someone to lean on. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and moved a little closer to the female. From have been perfectly ok with the human this close Cocheta’s lips twitched just slightly, letting her pearly whites just show a little. It was the first warning. The males coming closer didn't help. She growled.

When she did Tana stopped. “I be here for you. I know the pain you feel.” Her voice was soft, a singing whisper, carried on a misty breeze to a troubled heart. The woman knew the tokota wouldn't understand her exact words, but it was clear the black tokota female knew a friendly voice. Her ears was tipped forward even if her tail was tucked. A sign of her troubled soul. A part of her wanted to go forward, but her heart said no. At least for now. Only time would tell if she would let anyone closer than this.