"I found a really cool rock, dude, you gotta check it out!"

Whisper silently unscrews her flask, being the more mature and responsible adult of the two, taking a sip before thoughtfully handing it over to Tangle, who mindfully takes a sip, too, because her girlfriend is right as always – hydration is super important, even when one is excited about a really cool rock they found, that their life partner and fellow adventurer has just gotta see in person to believe, because that's what life is about.

Personal experience.

"Thanks, babe."

"Mmhm."

"Now that's settled - c'mon, I'll show you! It's just over that way!"

Silently, Whisper screws the flask shut and returns it to its little pouch on her hip.

"It looks like an eagle's head, with the curved beak and everything!"

"That does sound cool."

"Yeah! Come see!"

"M'coming."

Tangle turns and bounds off eagerly into the forest.

Whisper rises from her seat atop a fallen log, loping calmly after her girlfriend, amused and fond.

"Hurry up, bro!"

"S'not going anywhere."

"The lighting's gotta be just right! The shadows make it look like a frowning, grumpy eagle!"

Indeed, Whisper follows the trodden trail betwixt the trees and soon comes upon the rock to experience it herself, personally.

Tangle throws out her hands, tail-hand included. "Check that shit out!"

"I am."

"Wicked, right?"

"S'very cool."

It really does look like a frowning, grumpy eagle, with the curved beak and everything.

"I'mma take a pic for Jewel, man!"

"She likes rocks."

"She sure does!"

A pause.

"You wanna pose next to it?"

"No."

Tangle pulls the cutest face. "Aw, babe, please?"

Whisper feels a pang, sighing. She does hate to turn down that cutest face. "I don't like pictures of me."

"But-"

"I don't like seeing myself."

"But I like seeing you! And I hardly have any pics with you in them. I know you're shy and-"

"I don't like cameras."

"…I know. Just, please. Hear me out."

Whisper swallows as Tangle sadly looks down, stopping the pretence of being alright.

"Babe, call me stupid or strange or sentimental, I guess I'm a little of all of those, but... I've kept this mostly under wraps 'til now, but..."

The wolf doesn't like how hard it is for the lemur to be honest, right now.

"...Seriously, girl. This matters. If it's easier for you to think it doesn't, that's okay. But it's getting to me. It matters, to me. And not in some way meant to scare you."

"I'm not scared."

"And that's okay, but I kinda am?"

Whisper frowns at that.

Tangle lives fearlessly.

"I don't understand."

Where is this coming from?

"Okay, don't laugh, but I had a bad dream."

"Nightmares aren't funny."

"I had a bad dream, and in it, we were really old and you got lost somewhere, but it was me who got lost, like, without you."

Whisper opens her mouth to object.

"We went on this big ship," Tangle continues, interrupting. "One of those cruise liner things, and even with the ocean all around us, I couldn't find you in all the rooms. I didn't know where you went, sure, or how to find you, but I remembered how mad I made you. I made you leave."

Again, Whisper attempts to object.

Again, Tangle interrupts. "I dunno what I said or did, but I know it was 'cause I being all geriatric and stuff, and it made me frustrating, so you said you were taking a walk to clear your head. And then you didn't come back."

Whisper stares, utterly silent, appalled.

"And the ship was sinking. People were falling all over the rails, stepping on each other, crowds just crushed and crushing in the tight metal spaces." Tangle bites her lip, flushed, ashamed. "I searched for you. Went upstream, against the people clawing at me and at each other. Fuck, if you'd fallen overboard, or got locked in someplace... I was old, and so were you, and I forgot my whole life, 'cept that I had to find you. I even forgot about the sinking. The water surprised me when it came for me, and I was all alone at the bottom of the ship. Had it come for you, too?"

What the hell does one even say to someone they love, upon their saying that?

"...I'd never leave you."

The lemur flinches.

The wolf does, too.

They won't look at each other, just then, because Whisper did leave Tangle behind, before.

"Are you mad, at me?"

"Huh? What? No! No, no, no, babe, 'course not!"

Whisper looks like a kicked dog, not the regal creature she truly is, their progenitor. Making Tangle's fears of failing the one she loves, all about herself and her own abandonment issues after Mimic and the Diamond Cutters.

"Look, babe, I just... Ugh."

"I'm sorry."

"Please, don't." Tangle heaves a sigh, knuckling her brows. "It was just a dream. But that dream just stuck with me."

It's a beautiful day.

"We're getting older, slowly, but it'll be here before we even know it, and when we realise it, we're gonna want the memories."

"Tangle."

"We're still young, now, Whisper, but we won't always be, and I just love you a lot, and-"

"I won't leave, and I won't forget you."

Tangle swallows thickly, leaning into Whisper's palm as it cups her cheek.

"I'm yours. You're mine."

A sniffle. "God, your logic's so simple, it's kinda refreshing, sometimes."

And yet Whisper can sense that Tangle isn't all that reassured. And maybe this really has been an issue for them, for some time.

"I just wanna capture you like you are, now, babe. And I wanna capture you every day as we change, together. I wanna capture you whenever I can, even if you only lemme do it, like, once or twice a year, so's in the future, we have something to look back on. We'll have something of our years that isn't just recorded in our heads and our bodies, y'know?"

"Oh, Tangle."

Another pause, the women regarding each other closely.

"…Considering how often I fall on my head from high places, I'm probably gonna be hella forgetful as an old lady. Just saying."

The wolf's heavier, larger hands gently capture the lemur's nimble, callused fingers, which are in turn gently squeezed, gently held. "Well, maybe I'll be fat or something."

"Nothing wrong with that."

"This dream... I wish you'd told me, sooner."

"I didn't know how. Like, I wasn't sure when and where, y'know? Context, babe. Appropriateness."

Whisper rubs her cheek against Tangle's jaw. "You can tell me anything."

"And... can I, please, take one itsy-bitsy pic of you next to the coolass rock?"

"Yeah."

"Aaand I know I promised not to take any more secret pics of you being gorgeous unsuspectingly, or sleeping in funny positions with, like, drool and your hair all over the place, but maybe I-"

"S'okay. Take those, too."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Don't show another soul the weird and funny pictures. But take them. Have them for yourself."

"I won't, I swear! I'll just treasure them, all for me."

"Good. Then we can compromise."

"Hey, that's what a healthy relationship's about, right? Mutual give and take, in, like, fair exchanges?"

Whisper hides her expression in Tangle's neck.

"Maaaan, I feel so much better 'bout the getting old thing." Tangle doesn't have to hide hers. "Those pics of you drooling on the couch are some of the most precious memories, to me."

The wolf bumps her cold, wet nose lovingly against the lemur's throat, grateful for the refuge as they both hide from each other, in each other.

"I know you're camera shy, my girl, but… this isn't just for me, y'know, to admire you and stuff. Not this time." Amethyst eyes are dark and alluring as they rise again, gazing softly and yet so intently at the rock formation. It's almost erotic. "It's for Jewel, too."

Who they haven't seen in months.

"She misses us."

Ears fold flat against a silky head, which nods ever so slightly.

"No pressure, babe. But I know you said I can take pics of you, for me. So... Can I please take one pic of you with the eagle rock, for Jewel?"

"For Jewel, and for you."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

Their fingers interweave.

"Thanks, babe."

"You can capture me whenever you want. Sometimes, the others can see."

"So long as the embarrassing memories are kept just between the two of us!"

Whisper manages a husky chuckle, easing out of Tangle's neck to gaze across at her, the wolf grinding her forehead softly against the lemur's fluffy tuft of fringe.

"Thank you."

Suddenly, Whisper is kissed, which feels just as warm and gooey and electric and tingly and overall wonderful as the first kiss felt.

All that's changed is everything beyond every kiss they've ever shared.

"You're the best," Tangle murmurs upon parting lips.

"Yeah."

"Wow, so modest, huh."

"C'mon. Take the picture, already."

"Alrighty, stand over there and be your gorgeous, natural self."

"Cool." Whisper obediently assumes the position closer to the rock, briefly tossing back her mane and running her palms over her travelling cloak, ensuring all is neat enough to be presentable, as if such a thing matters.

"Smile?" Tangle prompts hopefully, reaching for the expensive camera, a purchase that seemed excessive at the time, yet makes so much more sense, now.

A loving token, a bad omen.

Whisper sighs quietly, flushed as Tangle raises the flickering lens, instantly anxious. Then smiles, anyway, and does the damnedest to make it seem natural and not forced, which would be easier if Whisper were still naturally inclined to smile after Mimic.

A healthy, happy relationship requires self-sacrifice in fair measures, without a saviour left to eternally bleed for an ungrateful member of the mob who may or may not carry a spear.

It helps to think about Tangle being the photographer, and it helps to think about Jewel as the intended recipient, even if being the subject of the photograph remains a chore rarely fulfilled out of love or by surprise. But smiles are still so hard for Whisper. And now, she will pose for pictures for the rest of her life, feeling like a bastard for not seeing the importance of it all before Tangle bled.

Loving people implies small sacrifices.

Such as smiling like she means it, sometimes, and being forced to look at herself.

"Aaaaand gotcha! Perfect!"

"Show me."

Tangle almost asks, 'Are you sure?' Stops herself at the look Whisper gives her.

"I wanna see."

Buries it deep down. Bounces over to eagerly show off the picture the lemur just took of her wolf girlfriend, who is still smiling as she leans over to rest her chin on that slender, sturdy shoulder, peering down at the little screen forming part of the camera's interface.

"Wow, you're so fucking hot."

"I know."

"Goddamn."

"You're lucky."

"You said it, babe."

Whisper and Tangle embrace, camera cradled between them, fixed on a frozen memory, saved for future reference.

The photograph is sent over to Jewel along with a handwritten letter, because she's a bit old-fashioned like that and very much appreciates the effort.

Tangle describes their day with happy, distracted, run-on sentences lacking much structure, utterly informal.

Whisper neatly and succinctly reports on their wellbeing and some good food and interesting sights, reassuring Jewel that her best friend is in good health and hands.

The letter - a chimera of two hands writing two reports, two women in a combined effort to make a third woman smile somewhere far away - is neatly folded and slid into a shelf under the desk. The accompanying photograph, another frozen memory, is added to the assortment of static familiar faces within little picture frames the Commander keeps scattered on the periphery of her desk, to keep her company during the longest, loneliest hours with Lanolin.

It would seem odd to most that Tangle didn't send a picture of herself, but only of Whisper.

Jewel realises that this picture was not the easiest to procure, which makes it valuable to her in other ways. Besides, she has many pictures of Tangle. Those sexy eyes watch Jewel in all she does in her office.

"We're running low on frames. I'll order more."

"Thank you, Lanolin."

Lanolin – Jewel's anchor and helper in everything, inherited from former Commander Amy Rose before her, unofficially retired albeit with little intention to return to take up her old post, stepping back upon the realisation that mentally she just cannot do this anymore, not right now, not for a while yet, leaving the beetle and the sheep as two different beasts ensnared in the same trap from which the hedgehog dragged herself, bloody on the inside – studiously polishes the frames every week, once per week, on Wednesdays.

Today is not Wednesday.

"An eagle."

"Mm?"

And yet when Jewel looks up, Lanolin is at the other side of the desk, picking up the latest frame and pondering the picture within it more closely.

"This rock formation looks like an eagle's bust."

"Oh, yes, it rather does."

Whisper had rather distracted from that.

Lanolin tiredly sets the photograph down, then lays a fresh stack of the endless paperwork between herself and Jewel. Blue eyes always a little fogged over with fatigue and distraction linger listlessly upon the pretty stone brooch the Commander is wearing today. "I'll take half, if I may."

An aching, exhausted sigh. "Thank you, Lanolin."

The tedium continues as it always has and always will and must. Until something changes.

The unassuming animals don't foresee it. They will simply be in it, when it happens to them, when they happen to each other.

Something goes wrong, eventually, in even the tidiest of situations, and messes are only good for obscuring until the piles topple and reveal what lurks beneath.

Based on a bad dream I had.
More to come.