Hope so very often was nothing more than the most fickle of all of humankind's emotional deceptions; a proverbial mirage, a promising oasis, to the starved and delusional wanderer. It was spectacles to cast the world in shades of romantic crimson, to blind the wearer to the hideousness of their waiting reality. Isolt had always been a purveyor of the most innocent brand of hope, clinging to it with white-knuckled hands in the dregs of her most desperate hours... and nearly always emerging with nothing more than despair to fill the void that hope had so readily vacated. So it is hard to say, truly, whether it is foolishness or stubborn persistence that sees her reach with wavering fingers to grasp upon whatever scant amount of hope she may find in the current lees of her reality.

Her fingers rake with gentle insistence through the wealth of stripped fur that adorns the creatures back, acting of their own volition it would seem, for her mind knows this to be folly. But... she is not met with the gnashing of fangs or the thunderous rumble of his gurgling snarl. Only silence follows for a time, all else fading into the oblivion of their shared space, soundless but for the gurgle and pitiful whimpering of the man who has been released, flung into the street to scramble about in the sludge of his own life's blood. Whatever hopefulness might have lingered within her, though, flees hastily as the hulking beast turns his attention towards her, eerily glowing eyes seeming to peel away at each tender layer of flesh in a soundless undressing. The grotesque squelching of a tongue over lips shatters the illusion that she had somehow inadvertently placed upon herself... and her jaw sets into a firm line, her body growing rigid with newfound tension as the animal draws nigh. Isolt fears many things, this she could have never denied, and yet she refuses in some dark and unchartered part of herself to meet her end betwixt the jaws of some wayward stray in a filthy Southside alley.

However, no fangs come for her, nor does the loathsome growl that had seemed to rattle about the entire alley only moments before. Instead, there is only a caress that almost could have been considered playful... even gentle. For a time, a handful of long moments, the young woman simply allows her hand to rest upon the overlarge head of the beast at her side, somewhat enthralled and mildly terrified at the notion that this beast that had only moments before nearly savaged a man to his grave rests next to her... his tail thumping happily against the pavement as if the past were but a distant nightmare. Slowly and tentatively she allows her fingers to slide easily against the wealth of fur that adorns the creature's back, the smallest of smiles sewing itself into her features as she moves to walk on from whence she had come.

As they traverse the distance, relatively short now that Isolt has gained her bearings, the demure redhead eyes the beast that waltzes so subdued beside her. It is a peculiar thing, the calm that seems to embrace her with the fondness of a long-lost lover, and it is surely something that shall puzzle her for many hours to come. And as they walk, her hand rests against his shoulders, her slender fingers knotted gently into the ethereal stripped pelt; lingering for reasons she cannot fathom even for herself. She makes short work of the stairs that lead to the apartment she shares with Harley, willing enough to allow her would-be savor to continuing his aimless roaming... willing enough to allow tonight to be naught but a strange enigma amidst her otherwise quite beautifully structured existence. That is... until the soft simpering whine of the beast meets her back, the young woman lingering at her door for a drawing moment before she turns, a simplistically wholesome smile perched upon her ruby lips. "Alright... you can come in on two conditions. One... you get a bath. And two... you be nice to Seth." Carefully she opens the door, the warm glow of her home cast out into the darkness that lay beyond... hoping once more that she will not regret what she does.