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Of all the odd and wonderful situations Chief has found herself in, not once in the three measly years since her inauguration could she have ever thought up something as bizarre as this… Wrapped in soft fur, leather and a pair of strong arms belonging to the only woman she had ever truly wanted to receive an embrace from.
Nestled in warmth that's shielding her against the gentle falling snow, the ominous glow of the crimson moon hung overhead should have made her already tense muscles tremble in fear and yet in the presence of Zoya who promises only security under her deliberate care, Chief thinks she's never felt safer. She should be glad that in this frozen little pocket of the world, she has someone familiar to ground herself onto. Yet even after all the fuss of getting used to being fine with the lack of an explanation for this spontaneously occurring rendezvous, and the entirely too intimate ceremony of being marked as a part of Zoya's pack, Chief remains hung up on the actual, truly mystical part of this entire encounter – Zoya's new ears.
When asked about it, the tundra's king refused to elaborate, explaining it away as some casual, totally not shocking development that Chief is just supposed to go along with. Unfortunately for Zoya, she's never been the type to just roll with any odd thing without thoroughly investigating first.
"May I touch them?" Zoya's lips curled and stretched into a sardonic grin, the fluffy white appendages flattening towards the back of her head in immediate insult. She stared at Chief for about as long as minute, somehow expecting her to back out on her request and being, predictably, let down.
"You're an audacious little thing as usual. I'm not some sort of pet, Chief. You'll get used to it, just ignore them."
She didn't ignore them… Couldn't, actually.
Not even when Zoya led them both out of under direct impact of the elements and into the sanctuary of a humble cabin nestled in between two icy peaks, surrounded with trees that draped their long shadows over the building’s frames. Chief stole glances every now and again, pretending to be subtle even when she could quite clearly see that Zoya was stifling back a terribly amused smile. It’s when they finally cross the threshold of the cabin’s front door does the ache wound up in her shoulders make themselves unbearable to ignore. Now in the absence of having to see the ring of baleful red suspended in the sky, Chief concedes on forgetting about it for a brief moment. However, between making herself comfortable next to the fire and shedding off her damp coat to let blood flow back under her skin, she’s reminded yet again of why she couldn’t take her eyes off of Zoya during the entire evening.
Ignore it, she says, as if it were that easy to turn a blind eye to the ticklish fluttering next to her cheek as Zoya bent down to rest her nose within the crook of her neck and sure, she's half certain that Zoya's probably saying something she should be paying close attention to... Tough luck, because not only is she horribly distracted, she can now almost perfectly see from the corner of her eye how the fur on translucent skin reflects the moonlight's divine glow. Well maintained, healthy and by the looks of it, probably, wonderfully silky to the touch too...
Long, rough fingers wrap around Chief's wrist halfway through her unconscious attempt at lifting her hand to touch Zoya's ears. Pressed against her back, Chief feels Zoya's chest heaving out a deep sigh of annoyance and feels it brushing intimately against the already warm skin on her throat. "Quit looking at the top of my head, my eyes are down here." Chief tilts her gaze downward to find Zoya's for all of 2 seconds before immediately going up again when her ears twitch. Zoya let out a huff of air as she sat back to glower down in admonishment, "Matter of fact you should just stare at my tits instead, that'd be less embarrassing."
Chief doesn't really think about it before twisting half of her entire torso and letting her eyes drop down to Zoya's chest obediently. Instantly, the latter's incredulous laughter fills the room.
"You haven't even been listening to me for the past 20 minutes, but when I give you the green light to be a pervert..."
"I was a little distracted." Comes Chief's immediate and pitiful excuse, her head shaking in an attempt to will away the flush creeping up her face as she forcefully, and regrettably, rips her sight away from gawking at Zoya without her fur collared coat.
"Typical of you to focus on the unnecessary details." Zoya clicks her tongue in disapproval, her shoulders still shaking in amusement. Pressing close once more, her voice drops to a deep murmur vibrating against Chief's back, "Didn't even hear me tell you that I've been looking forward to this–"
"Do you hear twice as loudly with both ears or is the quality of sound vastly different between the two appendages?"
A pause and another sigh that sounds a lot less patient. "...Chief, I said I miss…"
Chief grips one of the hands resting against her stomach tightly to keep Zoya from withdrawing, the sudden opportunity to satisfy her thirst for answers lighting up her stormy gray eyes. "Do you use both pairs to hear or can you just choose which one to use?"
Quicker than she expects it, Zoya peels herself away from Chief and shoves her back onto the collective nest of animal hide and feathers. An action that Chief doesn't take lying down, her reflexes acting in retribution as she pulls down the taller woman back into the bed with her. She braces herself just enough to anticipate Zoya falling after and onto her with an undignified “Umph”.
If her attention wasn't so zeroed in on trying to figure out the logistics of Zoya's second pair of ears, she might have felt a little more self conscious about it. Instead, Chief takes the opportunity to lock the wolf in place within her embrace, gripping her hands together behind Zoya that forces the tundra’s king into resorting to brace her arms onto the bedding just to keep herself upright - hovering over Chief's prone form.
Zoya grunts, not from the effort of keeping herself from falling back improperly onto Chief, but from trying not to let the proximity distract her too badly. "Remind me to be more responsible about the praises I generously hand out to you."
"You said you liked my audacity."
"To a reasonable extent, Chief." On reflex, Zoya stops her hand from wandering up her head once more, earning a disgruntled sound that was only shy of being petulant. "Focus, be good for me."
Warmth spreads across Chief's face the request - command? Her train of thought halts just briefly when she feels the soft press of lips against her knuckles. A good enough distraction that reminds her of how unjustly effective a few simple gestures were, especially coming from the sinner slowly grinning down at her in arrogant victory.
"I'm plenty focused on you at the very least. I'm just… shocked, is all. After all this time, “cute” was not an adjective I would have used to describe you."
Two seconds of teeth nipping playfully on her knuckles later and Chief begins recalling every expletive known to mankind post-nightfall. "That doesn’t have to change now just because I have these ears."
"Fine, but I still want to study them."
"Study…” Zoya parrots back sarcastically, shifting part of her weight a little more firmly over Chief’s head “You can touch me everywhere else but the ears"
"I'm doing that later anyway. Just five minutes."
The shock of a proposition being thrown at her face with such casualty was probably the final crack in Zoya's put together facade. At least, Chief would like to think so. Either way it works, as Zoya bursts out in exasperated laughter before finally surrendering to Chief's incessant requests. With a soft hum, she lowers her head onto Chief's chest, the soft tufts of fur from the delicate appendages tickling her nose as she relaxes, careful not to press down her entire weight onto her.
"Five minutes." Zoya murmurs, her voice warm and fonder than Chief ever remembers it ever being.
In the moments leading up to this, Chief truly hadn't expected to get this far, but wasn't that how ninety-five percent of her ventures went? Pushing past the sudden bout of hesitance, she reached out, gently pinching the warm appendages between her fingers, nimble hands running through the soft, short strands of silver fur. Akin to cupping a handful of freshly fallen snow, Zoya's fur fell between her digits delicately too. She followed its shape with quiet wonder, from the delicate, pointed tips and scratching lightly down to the base where Zoya's hair lay, overgrown and unkempt from the whipping of the snowfield’s winds.
She tries not to think too hard about how long Zoya’s hair had become since she had last seen her.
"Fluffy." Chief finds herself muttering distractedly, earning a rumbling, almost sleepy chuckle from the woman still laying on top of her.
Heat bloomed across Chief's cheeks unbidden, the sound sending her heart aflutter in a way that made it difficult to ignore. Feeling a sudden spike of bravery, she dips her one hand into Zoya's hair, scratching her scalp underneath with the blunt of her nails while the other remains tenderly rubbing her ear. Earning her a sizable reaction this time in the form of the tundra's king sighing out loudly, her eyes fluttering closed, angling it further into Chief's hands in a wordless demand to keep going.
Who was she to refuse her, really? If Chief were a stronger woman, she would have lifted her hands by now and told Zoya that the agreed upon five minutes she requested were up. However, Chief was neither strong nor immune to the sight of someone so usually guarded asking her for more pets.
So she indulged, resisting the upturn curve of her own lips as she continued caressing her head slowly, affectionately even. Guided by the nudge and turn of Zoya's head pushing against her palms, bringing attention to either of her ears the second she felt that the other one was being unjustly ignored.
Cute. She was acting so unbearably cute that Chief had to keep a conscious effort not to coo and aww at her.
Though perhaps, she admits, minutes later, that she'd got carried away. Entranced by the satisfied sighs and groans coming from Zoya's throat, Chief dropped her hands down the sides of her face, digits brushing innocently against the tips of Zoya’s human ears which felt curiously hot, hotter than even the hearth at the end of the room should have made her. Chief blinks just once before abruptly finding her wandering hand pulled overhead, the weight of Zoya’s arm pressing down onto her.
Cerulean eyes that remained obscured underneath the unruly curtain of silver drilled down onto her with an intensity that was so much more familiar than the adoration had been spoiled with. In a twisted sense, this look on Zoya brought more comfort to Chief. "Enjoying yourself?"
Chief wriggled her arm, more of a show of defiance than actual resistance. "Not as much as you were, it seems."
Zoya's lips curl, the pink that had long made its home across her cheeks and down her neck doing nothing to dull the blow to Chief's chest.
Wretched heart.
Zoya leans down, close enough for Chief to remember just how quickly her heart could beat, the ends of her hair tickling Chief’s cheek. Zoya eases her weight off the hand above her head, guiding dexterous fingers towards the hem of her collar around her neck and curling it underneath the fabric; the bobbing of Zoya's throat pressed intimately against her knuckles and the sliver of purple lines she remembers so personally. "So about that “later” you were talking about five minutes ago..."
Refusing to hesitate a second time, Chief tugs Zoya back down with her into the nest of wool and hide, reacquainting herself with the taste of home against her lips.