Numair frowned at his reflection, hating the lines around his eyes, and despising the shimmer in his hair. It wasn't the luster of the healthy mane he had once took pride in. The moonlight was simply catching the grey threads woven through his dark locks. He had more and more appearing every day.
Numair wasn't a vain man, not really. He knew that Onua had once told Daine he took forever to get ready for court functions. But, to be honest, that was usually because he got distracted. He wasn't vain...but he hated the reminder of how old he was getting. The older he got, the more glaring the age gap between him and Daine seemed to be.
He swiped angrily at the creek until the reflection blurred, splashing his face with the cold spring water.
"What's the matter?" He could almost feel her breath on his ear, and the stream water settled out so that he could see her reflection just behind him. Her voice was small, tentative. He closed his eyes.
"Nothing magelet, I'm fine." He opened his eyes in time to see her face fall, before her stubborn mask re-formed. She took a step back and then turned back towards their campfire. His chest cramped. He wanted to reach out to her, and his hands shook with the effort of resisting. He closed his eyes again, breathing meditatively.
He had done well for the last fortnight. He hadn't allowed his touch to linger. He'd resisted pulling her into his bedroll. She had seemed confused the first night he had pulled a bedroll out from Spots' saddle bag and set in on the opposite side of the fire from hers. He was "feeling ill." That's what he told her. He didn't want to infect her.
He assuaged his guilt by telling himself that he wasn't lying. He did feel ill, even if it was only from want of her, and disgust with himself for deceiving her. She hadn't argued, but he noticed that each night that he pulled out his own bedroll, she seemed to gain another visitor in hers. By the seventh night he could barely see her under the nest of fur that was martins, rabbits, foxes, and mice. She didn't say anything, but that alone told him how hurt she was. It hurt him, to see her in pain, and his resolve faltered. Yet, he refused to yield.
"Numair...did I do something wrong?" Her voice trembled, and he opened his eyes and turned to face her. Her back was still facing away from him. Firelight casting shadows at her side, flickering and fading as the flame danced and cracked higher. He felt his stomach lurch at her anguished tone.
"Everything is fine Daine." He tried to keep his voice even, but heard the faint note of ambiguity that he couldn't hide. She turned to face him. Her face cast in shadow, and backlit from the camp's blaze. He couldn't see her expression.
"Packs..." she trailed off. Numair knew what she was going to say. Packs hunt together, eat together, sleep together. He bit back his feeling of frustration. Did she not know how hard this was for him?
"You're a two-legger Daine." He saw her face fall a little at his words.
"Brokefang told me that occasionally packs make one packmate go through 'dispersal,' at least I think that's the term he used." She swallowed, glancing back towards where the horses were tethered. "He said sometimes a packmate isn't valuable to the pack, and that they have to be dismissed from the pack." She tilted her face towards the ground, and he saw she was fidgeting with the badger's claw. He still couldn't make out her face. "He said some wolves just aren't capable of being a contributing member of the family." She was whispering now, shifting from one foot to the other. He could see sparks of copper light threading through her fingers. Her magic was a wild thing, fractious and impulsive, but not usually this visible. "Those are the lone wolves Numair, the ones whose pack doesn't want them anymore."
He was close to her now, less than a foot away. He wondered how she had moved so near without him noticing. He didn't think he had taken his eyes off of her for a moment. Then he realized it was him. He had moved closer to her without even being aware, his hand searching out hers. He felt her palm, small and soft, tremble in his, but she didn't return his grasp when he squeezed it reassuringly.
"Is this what dispersal is Numair?" Her hand fell limply to her side. He could see her face now, being so close. Her blue grey eyes were a deep slate color, glassy with unshed tears. She blinked rapidly to keep them from falling.
"Sweet..." his voice caught, and his throat spasmed. He brought his hand up to cup her cheek, but instead placed it over his eyes, remembering his resolve. "You aren't one of the people magelet..." He said again, trying to get her to understand that this wasn't the same thing at all.
She took a half step back. "But I'm not a two-legger either Numair...not really." She hugged her arms to herself, hands grasping her elbows. "I know I'm not an animal...but I know I'm not really human." She took another half step away from him, and he dug his heels into the dirt, forcing himself not to reach out and stop her. He could barely hear her whisper now, and her face was entirely lost in shadow. "I just need to know if what I am...is alone?"
