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It was something about the way he held the silence, without an expectation to fill it. It was something about the touch of his nose, up and down her forearm, like a metronome on repeat. It was something about the simplicity of his response, and the way he laid with her in the nursery, and the way he loved Tiberius, and the four babies that slept and slept and slept, and how the entire world seemed to smile and shine down upon them. How their world was built and entirely dedicated to them, as they didn't even know it.

Well, it broke the poor, tired woman.

Olive pressed her eyes closed, attempting to will the tears not to come, but she knew there was no use of it. Not only was she an inherently emotional woman, but she had been made exponentially more weepy the past several months and that was just the way of a woman's hormonal fluctuations. But did not everything seem to take on such sudden serious and intense gravity? In the face of so much of everything, was crying not a completely warranted response? That's what her cubs would do, when faced with something that felt insurmountable.

The fur on her cheeks became matted, and her breathing became hitched, and all for a moment she attempted to hide her visage behind a paw, which she had pulled back from his to use as a sort of visual shield; but she elected to dab at her eyes with the back of her wrist, wipe her nose, and then placed her sodden paw back where it had been. She wasn't sad, or angry, or stressed or anything. Why she was crying, was a mystery even to Olive.

It just was, and it felt good, and it felt good around him.

In a demure, yet confusing attempt to explain the current that had overtaken her, she found her words. "Not for simply anyone,” she corrected him, "only for the ones who came into my life, and never left.” A third of her life had been spend in these lands; these people had become her life. They formed packs and families together out of nothing. Olive felt utterly surrounded by beauty and love, and every which way, even in this tiny stifling nursery; a small microcosm of the world at large.

Certain that the puppies would wake, she felt no reason to stop herself. Still with tears freely flow, she moved her head forward, glancing closer into Kuhn's slate-grey eyes. "Only the ones who I see as good, in every way,” and she shifted forward to lick at the tips of his toes, the furthest she could reach.

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Still glowing in the priestess' company, the cat look slightly amused at the woman's sappy tears. Slowly cocking his head, the tiger returned a warm look, as the thick fur on his neck seemed to fluff up. Keeping contact with the otherworldly woman's eyes, the cat's soft smile was meant to be reassuring. Obviously she meant what she was saying, even thought the delivery may have been exaggerated.

Kuhn didn't speak yet, giving the woman some space to let out her thoughts. As the moments of silence hung, the striped beast watched as the mother's cheeks became matted and soaked with tears.

Her next string of words where surprisingly precise for someone who was just brought to tears. Olive was quick to shoot around the cat's emotional guard and re-personalize her statement. Not for anyone. The fact that he couldn't deny that he felt the same way made the cat panic just a bit. Once he had been feared, living alone, where nobody would help him. More importantly, nobody expected anything of him. But, now It couldn't be helped, there where others he cared about and other who would care for him. All at once he was aware of the burden, but somehow it was a burden that felt admittedly good to shoulder.

Clashing emotions clawed at the beast already, when the priest declared him to be a good person, he could only stare out blank. It was never something he would call himself. The self proclaimed 'good people', where often the most detestable souls.

Wrestling with himself, his tail lashed two and fro. He figured he was only helping because it made him feel good. "Im, no good person Olive...", Rumbled the cat, gently rubbing the bridge of his nose across the woman's wet cheek. Letting the moment hang, the cat relaxed into the sensation of Olive's affections, her licks brushing at his hidden claws below, his whiskers probing the contours of her cheek. The ochre fur of the cat's nose darkened as he continued to soak the tears from from the woman's features with a careful affection.

He knew she would have more say, though for the moment he was content to bask in silence, and continue in his almost rythmic gentle rubbing of the static between the short fur between their faces.
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Oh, what was the divine feminine when given the space and the structure to flow? It was like paint upon a canvas; or the feminine flow found in dance, with the masculine providing the dance floor. It was eternal potential, furthered by manifestation and reality. All metaphors, but here it played out in her seemingly endless tears. All she had needed, was the willing audience.

 

But even the fiercest of emotional waves could not toil on forever. Somewhere beneath the tiger's ministrations, the woman calmed, and her breath came to resemble something more normal. She even took a strange sort of solace in the fact that he had rebuffed her compliment, as it was generally understood by Olive that this was just something he did  — consistently downplay his own success and involvement in the various goings-on in the tundra, preferring to stay amorphous and anonymous when he was incredibly influential. 

The seraph gave a sniff, aware of how they shared the wetness of her tears. "You shouldn't say that about yourself," she muttered into him, her voice but a thin twist of a whisper. Let him continue this ruse of not seeing himself for who he was, and she would continue to combat it at every chance she got. However, she felt completely surrendered to the caresses of the firm bridge of his nose, and she could not summon the will. "I don't believe you, anyways." Her mouth parted, a soft pant flowing over her tongue. The nursery suddenly felt so hot; almost stifling.

She pulled back her head, regarded the cat with a soft glance, then she set her fine-boned chin down upon the earth between her paws.

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While sharing their gentle touch in the silence of the nursery, Kuhn knew that Olive would have an answer for his statement. Oh, how the 'good people' could do no wrong. How easy it was for someone to judge themselves by their intentions, and how hard it was to judge oneself by their outcomes. If one was to believe themselves good, they could do no wrong.

It wasn't so bad to have Olive label him as such, likewise he would label her the same. She was a good person, after all the life growing around her was evident. Flowers grown in a flawed world. Though, he would never call himself good.

Keeping his slow and rhythmic affections with the woman, all he did was humm at her response. It was nice to hear. But he was only following his nature, and with every passing day, more aware of his own flaws. How could he possibly call himself good.

Feeling the warm exhale of breath against his cheek the woman pulled herself away. Looking at her eye to eye for a moment, one of Kuhn's toothy grins spread across his face. Averting his gaze for a moment, he knew his wordless answer might frustrate the woman. Though he couldn't help but feel that his answer: let her in on a paradoxical unspoken secret.
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The tiger didn't respond to her, and for that, Olive was almost thankful. She would continue this play if he had wanted, but with their touches withdrawn, the woman was left with an awareness of how exhausted by all of the things that had occurred in this den, that day. In fact, it was all so very difficult for her to recall in that moment. The court didn't seem important, not as it had seemed just moments before. And Kuhn, he no longer had that presence that she felt she needed to react to. The woman had said what she needed to say, expressed what she needed to express, and asked of him what she required. He had met all of these needs in stride, at still remained at-ease on the floor of her nursery chambers.

Her stelliforous eyes blinked slowly, heavily, looking upward at him from under her delicate browbone. "Forgive me Kuhn, I am so very tired." she uttered, her chin rocking against the ground as she did so. Turning her cheek to the side, she laid it upon the earth. Then, the woman shifted her shoulders so that she was fully laying on her side, all but one of the many fur rugs that lined the floor of her den. "You may stay if you wish," she suggested idly, wondering if he would take such an invitation. There weren't many exciting things about attending to newborns day in and day out, but one's propensity towards taking midday naps was certainly one of them.

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It wasn't difficult to let the silence linger with Olive, the woman had a natural ease about her that didn't demand much from him.  Her natural ease about things was contagious, seeming putting the others in her circles in a better state. The cat, with all his stubbornness in reflecting others, still felt like no exception.

So when the woman mentioned that she was tired, the cat was already back on his feet.   Not wanting to overstay his welcome, he couldn't decide if he wanted to rest here or somewhere else before returning to Northfall. It was warm in here and the finely cared for rugs did look comfortable, maybe it couldn't hurt to take some hospitality.

"Ill let you get some sleep...  but I will take you up on that. ", he replied taking a corner of the cave for himself, rotating around much like a canine before settling into place.  Closing his eyes, he waited a moment before taking one last glance at the priestess before attempting to put himself to sleep.
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