She's running. She's running? She's running! Oh goshies, <> goshies, she's running!! Just look at her go, she's never moved so fast in her entire life! This is amazing!! Do you see her, Hyra? Do you see her, Kat? No! You [i]don't[/i], because your silly little legs aren't fast enough to keep up for once! The wind is all... woof! Er, wh-whoosh! Blowing through her [s]hair[/s] fur like a gale and it feels so nice it doesn't even matter that the air is so thin up here or that she misses the tug of a long ponytail she always imagined a moment like this would have, because that stuff is folded up into a ball and wound so tightly with excitement that she doesn't have time to hardly notice it! There's no time between steps to think about what she's doing, and more to the point to overthink what she's doing. All she has to do is feel the rhythm of her body in motion, like a song Sis might sing for the husband she's almost definitely got by now: her muscles bunch up underneath her and all her weight gathers at an invisible point in the center that pulls all four of her legs together, and pap pap pap! Her paws touch down and the ground shivers underneath her and powie! She's stretching, bounding, leaping, uncoiling, somethinging forward as her body gets ready to do it all again! It's... it's powerful, like she never thought she could be. It's, it's graceful, in a way that even being held and controlled nobody could force her to be. She's speed! She's agility! She's got no idea how to stop and today that's only half as terrifying as it is exciting! Yue throws up her head as she runs and calls out to the world around her with a joyous howl. "Awoo!" "Awooo~!" Over yonderwise in a grassy little park a couple of children (a brother sister combo! probably! they smell pretty similar, and isn't it weird that she can tell that?) are trying their little kid best to howl back at her. And if she tried to smile at them the way she would if she thought about it? Probably it'd be terrifying! All toothy and too close to snarling and stuff. But this far in the zone, her body takes over and she flashes them a goofy puppy look instead. Her eyes sparkle and her tongue bleps and she jumps several feet into the air and she lands so heavily that she goes rolling over onto her side and then around and around and around a third time before she finds her paws again. And when they laugh it's like the warmest hug inside her heart. And even that doesn't stop her from running! As soon as she's upright her body is filled with zoomies and she's off and bounding up the hill into the park to zip around the younger sister's legs like a sillyhead. She scoops the girl up onto her back, because the weight will help with her training or something sure why not, and then she's off again, leaving Older Brother to come chasing after her across the outside of the sky castle! Come on, come on slowpoke! Aren't you gonna rescue your darling little sister? Hey there silly, quit giggling! You're gonna give the game away! How's he supposed to be a hero if you're over here laughing like you're having the time of your life? Gosh, it's like you've never been kidnapped before! Yue runs a little slower now, and more gently by half so that those bouncy, shaky, breathless peals of laughter don't stop for anything. Zip zip, zip! They go darting agilely between grand flag poles and then zoom! It's off at top speed to run around a windmill, which's close enough to a castle for a young up-and-coming knight to come and fight her in, right? She circles merrily and waits for the boy's aching legs to finally catch up, and yelps her very best Surprise Yelp when he tackles her to the ground, though neither of them are paying enough attention to realize that if he'd really gotten her then Little Sis would be a Little Pancake. Which is a lot less delicious without the chocolate chips, y'know? Still, the role of every good monster is to know when they've been beaten, and Yue's read enough stories and been in enough villages (or... well, the same village enough times) to not miss her cue. She gives the both of them a big wet silly kiss and then goes zipping off at top speed again, following the call of her heart. She's running. She's running? She's running! The air's so thin up here that just a couple days ago this kind of activity would have downed her for a good several days, and yet! And yet! She's running! The song in her heart says go, and the faster she gets the harder it is to stop. And so? She doesn't? It's magic, and it's music. It's training, but it's play. It's the new most beautiful thing she's ever seen in her life. She runs nearer to the outer ring of the grounds, now. To her right it opens up to the sky and the lazy tufts of cloud that refuse to get out of the castle's way as it floats above the world. Beneath her are trees, rivers, valleys, hills, and glints of more spectacular things besides that explode with color and delight her shimmering eyes like she can't remember happening before. Which is funny, 'cause she thought the same thing when she was flying up here, and shouldn't it be the same view? Maybe it just feels fuller when she's less scared of falling, or maybe they've gone to some new and somehow even prettier vista while she was busy? Maybe it's love that helps her see the true beauty of the world, even for somebody who was always trying her best to find it under every single rock. Or maybe... maybe it's because it finally feels like [i]she's[/i] the one who's flying. Her body is sailing over the ground and she's moving like a bullet. Or a train. Or some kind of... bullet/train hybrid, even (what a silly thought!), and she's not being carried. She's not riding anything, she's not even pedaling a bike! She is [i]running[/i], and the great big beautiful earth is opening up beneath her, and if she never turns back, never has the fingers again to finish learning her spell, it'd be o... She whimpers, though she keeps on running. No. No it wouldn't be ok. Even for Hyra's sake it wouldn't be. She's not a wolf, ok? She's not a wolf. She's Yue. She's in love. And she's never managed to kiss her girlfriend at a time when both of them had lips. They've never gotten to hold each other with hands. She's never gotten to find out what it's like to press her body against someone who's just like her, to find out where she yields and if a bony, scrawny, unpretty thing like her has anything about her that'd squish softly and pleasantly like Chen must feel all the time, or if her silly twig arms could make a lover feel safe the way that Rose must do for everyone she's with. She's never learned what it's like to trust somebody with your body, just you and them, no darkness, clothes, or secrets (or fur!) between you. She's never known that. And if she's a wolf, or Hyra's a wolf... she'll love her just the same. But she'll never know it, ever. And that isn't fair. And that isn't right. But that's how come she's training, y'know? That's how come she's zooming around the outside of the sky castle even with a bunch of sore bruises and burning muscles that are starting to whine at her to please please please remember we're at altitude Yue! She runs and she leaps through a puff of cloud vapor and she's straight back to grinning again. And y'know why? Because she might not be a wolf, but that's not gonna stop her from being the very best one that she can be. There's so much to learn now, so many new things to practice! And every single one of them's a treasure! Every single one is a little tingle and a thrill and this... this adventure is more than she'd ever dreamed about even after the long night's chase and her stumble across that fateful shrine. Actually, where the heck did Cyanis get to, anyway? She's been awful quiet for a long time, considering how fond she is of... oooooooooooooh! The thought's chased right out of her skull by a pair of gossamer rainbow wings lifting up over the side of the fence beside her. Up they lift, and up! The sun catches the material and suddenly the whole world is bathed in a prism, and a woman with a shocking pink mess of punk-as-heck hair poking every which way out of a headband and goggles gives her a grin and a brief thumbs up before she leans back on the bar of her hang glider to turn deeper into the slipstream and spread her rainbow all the way into the depths of the outer market. Yue yips and leaps to celebrate this bold artist and turns down the road to roam for a while with a pack of cyclists out for an afternoon stroll. They shout words of praise for her coat and her extremely silly smile, with so many words of encouragement she can barely pick them all out from the noise. She woofs her best Agreement Woofs and follows them up with a few Encouragement Woofs to return the favor. Which manage to draw a lot of fawning 'aawwwws' as they all break away on their own separate journeys again, but for some silly reason she's not sure she really got through to them? Gosh, she wishes she was at least one of those magical talking wolves. She's running. Running in an infinite world without end. She's running, as if it's all she's ever known and it's all she'll ever do. Until, suddenly? She's not. Yue yelps with a sudden burst of delight/panic (two emotions that are very close to each other, believe you me!) and suddenly puts her entire butt into instantly learning the Wolf Backpedal only to learn this secret technique does not exist yet, and she winds up slamming extremely inelegantly into the shins and eventually the chest of Hyra. Wait, Hyra? Did she really make a circuit around the entire castle grounds?! She melts into a series of gentle scritches up and down her spine, and flops her head across her girlfriend's shoulder. And everywhere that Hyra's fingers find, her exhaustion seems to catch up. She mroofs, which as we've established is Not A Wolf Noise, and settles in for a long and well deserved rest, because surely there can't be more, right? She's earned a Forever Rest, because no part of her body will ever be capable of movement again, gosh gosh goshies. Except, apparently, her tail. Thump thump thump, wag wag! "That's my girl."