Been searching for you my whole life.

Upon his arrival to @Reiko's medicine den, Quicksilver had tried and struggled to relax despite his plaguing exhaustion. His shoulders would scar heavily, he knew, the flesh contorted with hideous scar tissue that oozed, that thankfully he could not see. Only time would confirm wether or not the furs would grow back to hide them from the rest of the world.

When the snowflower presented something with the promise of restful sleep for him to consume, Quicksilver took it willingly. His slumber came deeply, for many long hours, aiding in providing a much-needed rest. Dreams swept him away to another world, a brighter one, and the smoky voice belonging to a pallid wolfess roused him with tender prompting.

Powder blue eyes cracked open, and his tongue felt dry as it swept between fangs in attempt to soothe his rugged lips. He thirsted, and his head swam, for he was still very much under the influence of Reiko's medicines. He blinked, aware of a dim light from beyond the threshold that he knew could only be that of the sun, but he was too groggy to turn away - so he simply closed his eyes again.


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With Quicksilver in their medicine den, Reiko was off to gather as much herbs as she could carry to keep up with the demand of the injured man. Thankfully she was already ahead of the game moons ago, drying and bringing them back to store away, but it seemed that she would now need to focus on certain herbs in order to replenish over time.

Slowly walking up to the hospital den, not wanting to interrupt the slumbering man by running in as she normally does - Reiko peeked around from the mouth of the den as she slid past the entrance and into the main area. Eyes silently watching over the sleeping Quicksilver before she placed the new bundle down with the rest of its kind. 

Remaining silent, trying not to touch him or wake the silver man up, she looked over his wounds from a distance to check out their progress... ti would be a while before he got better, but she hoped she could mend them before they became permanent on his skin. There was nothing terrible about scars, but she had no thought on what he thought of them himself...

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A presence entered the hollow, and Quicksilver - who'd begun to doze again - stirred at the feeling of being watched. Someone loomed over his laying form but he did not worry. This figure who'd stepped into his hospital chamber was not a threat to him.

With a low groan he stretched a hind limb, which had stiffened beneath him where it'd been for hours. Shifting his muzzle atop an outstretched elbow, he parted his jaws in a yawn before settling once more, pallid eyes slowly opening to take in the sight of the pale she-wolf before him.

“Heyyy,” the silverwhite drawled, voice hoarse, and as he rose his head to seek her face he felt it heavy. He swayed, and his surroundings blurred, but he found a pair of gentle eyes and blinked, breath hitching in recognition.

Soft eyes.
Motherly eyes.
Olive eyes.

He leaned away, desperate to get a better look at her, and appeared almost drunk in doing so. “I missed you so much,” he slurred, and emotion constricted his throat as he spoke, “every day...”


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As the man stirred Reiko stepped back, wanting to give him space so he may do whatever he thought was necessary to get comfortable - everything other than getting up and endangering his safety by wandering. Of which he didn't do. Quicksilver only looked around with drunken eyes, tired but rested and appearing without much pain to speak of despite being in a recovering state.

The calm features on the usually nervous and on edge silver man was a different side to him she hadn't seen before. She could see the charming features he held in those delicate masculine curves - Quicksilver was not traditionally manly, but more in a Prince Charming kind of way. It made her wonder why he was always so nervous for someone who could come off so charming in mere appearances alone.

Then he spoke, confusing the Empress with his words. Miss her? Tilting her head as if it would help to clarify it in any way. “Pardon?” She spoke softly in return, hoping he could clarify something for her before she would continue in a conversation with the man. In his state, she was worried of hurting his tender state.

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Her mouth moved; Quicksilver focused on her narrow muzzle, the shape of cheekbones he never should've forgotten, the delicate curve of her brow. This face had been everything to him once, long ago when he was just a boy. It belonged the one he'd loved most despite having three parents to turn to. Olive had carried him with her own body for all those weeks and held him to her in a way no one else could have - their bond was the greatest thing he'd ever experienced.

His mother's voice was like velvet, smoking to his willing ears. What he heard was not what the wolf's true form said, but words conjured in the delirious mind of a broken man.

I'm here, she assured, but did not approach - did not press her lips to his forehead in comfort, I never left.

She was beautiful. His heart, thrumming rapidly in his chest, soared to finally hear the voice he feared he might never remember. Tears pricked his pale eyes and he blinked, willed them away, but they glistened with emotion.

“I don't know what happened,” he whispered, stifling a sob, because there was no recollection of how they'dcome to be separated. Had she died? Had he died? Then why were they there, in that chamber, together? “I don't... remember.”


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None of this made sense and her heart was gripped with a certain fear for the silver man's wellbeing. Surely she hadn't given him a dangerous concoction of herbs that was now putting him in some drugged up delirium did she? No mistaken identities of herbs and berries that might have been something else more toxic? Nervously she swallowed the hard lump in her throat, hoping that this was all just fatigue bringing out a strange side of the man and not something she had done by mistake.

"Yes Ira, I have found Quicksilver, and I accidentally killed him with poisonous plants". A twitch in her lips gave way to a nervous, fearful smile. Trying to remain calm for his sake and yet internally she was running through the medicine she had given him and hoping to dear heavens it was all proper.

“Do you not remember getting injured?” The way he spoke, the pain in his voice - in his face, she wished to sooth it somehow. “You were away, attacked by a feline and found your way back.” Did he really forget his whole travel? What kind of amnesia did she give the young man?!

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The angel hovered over him, clearly concerned, as Quicksilver desperately tried to fight the sudden rise of emotion. He felt an indescribable pain, not joy, to look upon her; his pale eyes averted, fearful of what might follow as he stifled a sob that threatened to rack his delicate frame.

“I didn't mean to leave you,” he buried his muzzle between forelimbs, “I didn't... didn't want to.”

He could see clearly in his mind's eye then, the memory of it: trees falling all around him as the earth trembled beneath his feet, the endless wandering through the unknown with no sense of direction. He vividly recalled the loneliness, the aching, the longing. He remembered the countless times he'd called mournfully for the attention of his mothers, his brothers, the hope that they'd find him.

They never did.

Sundance, the floaty voice breathed, and he felt the skin of his cheeks flush hot. At last the floodgates broke and his breath hitched in a cry of despair, it wasn't your fault.

His body sagged with something akin to relief. Was it this that he'd waited his whole life to hear? Quicksilver peeked up past his alabaster paws with a watery pastel eye, and he tried and failed to pull himself upright. He whined, wanting to go to her, to press his brow to her throat and seek the comfort of her embrace; “I'm sorry.”


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The silver man continued. The hurt in his eyes and voice broke her heart, oh how she wished to help ease this pain, one the was beyond the reach of her medicine. “Of course not.” Hesitantly she wanted to cradle him, to soothe the shivering brought by the pain he felt internally. Fighting the urge to reach out, her paw planted itself just above the hospital den's ground.

But would it be appropriate for her to reach out? Would it make matters better or worse? Quicksilver was a kind, young, man but they barely knew one other other than the handful of times they spoke. He was quiet, shy and reserved, perhaps being touched wouldn't soothe him at all.

“It was not your fault. No one is furious.” he tried to go to her, and Reiko took this as an invitation. Brushing aside her previous hesitation and softly padding forward to put a paw on his shoulder, letting her tail drape across his back. Comfort that is what he needed now. The medicine would do its thing, but now it was all a matter of soothing his anxieties.

“Apologies are not necessary Quicksilver.” Brushing her toes gently across his pelt in a sort of "canine pet", she was careful to avoid her claws touching his skin and purely trying to ease his mind. Maybe once this was all over, she would seek out lavender and other relaxing scents to bring to him.

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She went to him and he sank against her, pastel eyes squeezed shut as he pushed his alabaster snout among the pale tresses of her throat. Too large in comparison to her, he found himself unable to fit snugly against the curve of her chest as he did when he'd been a child. Still, he tried, and attempted to make himself smaller by curling close to himself - to her.

“I love you,” the words came in a hushed exhale, words he'd wanted for so long to tell each of those parents he'd been so cruelly robbed of, “I never stopped. I never will.”

Her gestures, the softness of her touch, soothed the fevered druid until the trembling stopped. Quicksilver relished the moment, this brief time he had to share with his mother, for something in his bones tugged in reminder that this was only temporary.

He would make the most of it, he decided, but before his mind could conjure much else he was sound asleep once more.


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It was all so strange. Quicksilver never acted this way before and as he curled up into her for comfort, she felt her heart thus in her chest. Unknowing what it all meant, Reiko chalked it up to her lack of experience with men and just being easily flustered in situations such as these. It didn't help that he was also a handsome young man, her face burned as she tried to look away to soothe her nerves.

He needed comfort and that's what she was here to do. 

As he spoke again her face grew hot, uncomfortably so. The skin along her nose and ears grew red with a severe blush, all she could do was bite her lip softly - almost jealous as she was certain he wasn't speaking to her directly. He couldn't be. The way he was speaking it was to some kind of ghost. No names were uttered and he promptly fell asleep. Leaving the woman to ponder what had just happened, what to feel about it all.

Bitting back a whine, she wanted it to be to her. Desired it so. Yet she knew it couldn't be. Once Quicksilver was back asleep, she would wander out to the gardens to check on her herbs again - there Tobias would infect her with the cough. Sadly, there was no place or time she could clarify what had just happened with Quicksilver as the day she would return, he would be already gone.

And she, already in love with another. 

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