Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me.

Night fell quietly over Vanderfell while the celebrations continued, and Quicksilver was ready for the festivities to end. The day had been long and there had been a wonderful turnout for Ira and Hieronymous - they were happy, and that was most important. Despite this, he could not ignore the undeniable ache within him to look across the guests and see the one who held his heart so enraptured by another.

A beautiful day. A beautiful, tragic day.

The silverwhite stole away alone when the opportunity arose, when he thought the wedding guests too occupied to notice, and he padded carefully along a narrow trail between the rocks. His intention was to recollect himself, to simply breathe again, free himself from the strain that Reiko's proximity pressed on him. He just needed a few moments to get his shit together before he would return to the reception with a feigned smile on his face to mask the enormity of pain that raged behind it.

Fireflies danced over the swaying grasses of a small clearing he found himself in, and Quicksilver exhaled a shaky sigh as he sank to his haunches at the centre of it. His eyes were glassy with the threat of emotion and he blinked, muzzle raised toward a quarter moon that looked back at him amid a navy blanket of twinkling stars.


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The celebration was beautiful and Reiko was glad to be a part of it all. Food, festivities, games and chatter with wolves of all kind - it was a wonderful night to be a part of even if it was more for political reasons than just of friendship as the other Vanderfell wolves might have felt as they were at home here among the rocks.

With a cherry blossom tucked behind her ear - she would have to search for something new and fresh to replace it soon as it wilts over time. The Empress was careful to look her best for the event, a bath, perfumed with flowers from the garden back home, she even chewed on some herbs as she saw them to keep her breath from being horrendous while in the crowd of familiar faces and strangers. Rosemary, mint, parsley, whatever she found she would scoop up to chew a bit more.

On the search of a fresh flower to replace the one that was quickly wilting, she caught sight of the drained Quicksilver amongst the fireflies. With all the festivities and chatting with others, there was little time for her to talk to the silver coated man and make sure things were good after their last meeting. She didn't get to see him off after catching the illness from Tobias and when she returned... he was already gone. 
 
“Quicksilver-san! You seem well, I was worried when I returned from sickness and you were already gone.”

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He closed his eyes, inhaled deep the crisp air of the evening, and exhaled slowly. Easy, he mused, aimed to steady himself, and just as he was starting to get the hang of a suitable rhythm, the arrival from behind caught him off guard.

His name, spoken on the sing-song notes of a voice he'd so swiftly fallen head over heels for, made him visibly jump. Quicksilver swung his head to stare wide-eyed over his narrow shoulders and his heart skyrocketed, leaping nervously within its cage. His pale gaze took in the sight of her, radiant as ever - bright and beautiful, like moonlight.

“Reiko!” Quicksilver chirped, mind running wild with so many thoughts: did she follow me? Where is her partner? Why does she torment me!?

He smiled, a false expression as he struggled to keep from faltering, and he bowed his pallid muzzle respectfully to her. “Ira, she... you sent word to her, I thought... you wished for me to hurry home.”

Hope, then, oh how he dared to hope that she'd wanted him to stay.


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The way he acted gave little indication that he didn't want her around. That she was tormenting in some way or another. The way he spoke while in a sleep-induced state had her assuming that he was still holding onto something. Maybe not her, but something that he was confused about when he was in their medicine den.

She took his surprise as just her appearing uninvited, pure coincidence as she sought flowers and he so happened to be here as well. The dancing fireflies and scent of flowers was alluring as well, almost romantic if she saw him in that sense - surely there was someone else he had his eyes on as he spoke of them in earlier days. How was that going on she wondered anyway? 
 
“In a sense.” She admitted. “Ira was concerned and I cannot keep you with us when you have pledged loyalty to Vanderfell.” She smiled, hoping that the explanation was good enough to ease his worry. She didn't want him out of Shiroshika but at least have him home someday soon so the other worried parties would be comforted knowing he was okay. “You did not need to leave so soon however... how are you wounds?”

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He thought he saw her expression shift, and in the space that hung between them there hung... something. Tension? Discomfort? He didn't know, not really, but whatever his words had roused within the Empress only troubled him further.

He averted his gaze, guilty, having meant no offence or judgement for her choice to send word to Ira. Reiko was right: his leader had looked for him, actively - had worried for his whereabouts. But it was the way in which it'd all played out that'd hurt him, albeit unintentionally as he now knew. No one had told him of the snowflower's illness, not until after he'd returned to Vanderfell.

“I'm sorry,” he faced ahead of him, with her lingering at his back, and from his seated posture she would see clearly the healing marrings of his shoulders where a snow cat's claws had penetrated deep beneath the flesh. “I'm fine, I just... it's been a long day. I am glad you're doing better, too.”


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Still her thoughts lingered on what he said in the medicine den. Certain they were not to her, it still stuffed her heart full of something. A feeling she could not put a word to it, a name or her paw on it to make any sense of it. The thoughts were hard to push away but at least easier now with Tobias near by.
 
“I am certain it has been a long day! There is so much food, flowers, and guests.” It must have taken them all day to set everything up and send message to the other packs for their guests. As she spoke a few braver fireflies settled along her alabaster pelt, resting on the little woman as if they knew there would be no harm coming from her.

“Am I — interrupting you? I came in search of a flower to replace the wilting one. I can seek elsewhere if you desire some time alone.” Now that they had greeted one another, maybe he was fatigued and she was bombarding into his quiet time away from the crowd.

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He felt it, the absence of her at his side. He felt it each day that he roused and wished it to be so - porcelain and platinum, starlight and moonlight. Quicksilver wanted so badly to be braver, better, to be everything that she deserved and provide a beautiful life for her.

A flower, she said. That was all Reiko had trailed this way in search of. Not him.

Never him.

Something fierce tightened its grip around his heart, a painful reminder that he would never be good enough for her. And how could he be, if he'd done nothing to show her? Quicksilver squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deep to steady himself, and when he opened then again his attention was drawn to the brilliant blue flower that sprouted from the grasses right before him.

He stared at it, feeling more empty than ever, and canted a velvet ear backward as she offered to leave him be. “No,” he answered before he could even think - because the right answer here was yes, please leave. But he could not turn her away from him, had no desire in him to hurt her, so, “please, will you... sit? For a short while, with me?”

He reached for the delicate plant then, delicately traced the cornflower petals with the tip of his nose. Carefully, very carefully, he plucked it at the stem and looked with soft, sad encouragement over his marred shoulder as he presented it to her for her to see, “may I...?”

Oh, how he grasped desperately at the opportunity to be the one to replace that wilted flower by her ear with one picked just for her.


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While Noki screams behind the screen as she types, Reiko was absolutely oblivious to Quicksilver's thoughts - time and time again. She hurt him without realizing, with no way of knowing how to mend his broken heart without knowing the extent of his injuries as well of their invisible cracks to see. There were few remedies for a broken heart, none other than the nostrum of the wounded individual themselves. Some wounds were bound to heal while others scarred deeply - only he could decide which would be his.

As he steadied himself she prepared to leave, let the young man rest during all the festivities before returning to the crowd - and yet he beckoned her to stay. At least a little while longer. “Of course.” Gently the words tumbled from her pale lips as she sat on the patch of grass of which she stood on. Watching as he oh so carefully plucked a pretty little blue flower and approached.

He asked and she obliged with a turn of her head to offer the same ear - to replace the wilted pink flower with something that she hoped, and assumed, would match her eyes. “How does it look?” She trusted him to not only say the truth, but to pick something that would not clash with the rest of her. She lacked a pool of water to look at her reflection so she had to trust him as she gazed up at the tall man with blinding trust to his word and judgement as well a childish bright smile on her lips.

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He went to her quietly, sheepishly - a hesitance in his stride and ears splayed backward. While his heart longed to be close to hers, there was fear in allowing her proximity. Reiko's presence was welcomed, always, yet there was some niggling feeling in him that this was sure to be the last time.

You must make peace with your decision.

Ira's words echoed in his mind. He'd tried. With everything that he was, he had tried. And still, he could not.

Quicksilver settled in beside her, bumped the wilted pink flower from behind her ear with his nose, watched it fall to the ground at their paws, then tucked his own offering carefully into its place. He withdrew just enough to blink down into her smiling face, so painfully aware of the frantic beating of his wild heart.

She was radiant. Starlight glimmered in the vibrant sapphire of her eyes and fireflies dances around her, illuminating and highlighting each lovely feature. Quicksilver, half-lidded as he admired the snowflower with both affection and defeat in his pastel irises, attempted to smile.

“Perfect,” he crooned, tone soft, and he found himself unable avert his gaze. She needed no flowers or decorations to bring her true beauty to life, for she was easily the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He wanted to reach for her then as she beamed up at him, pepper a kiss to the dove's feathered brow, but his desire was inappropriate. He bit it back, swallowed.

Their friendship would not survive this, he knew, in that precise moment. He wanted her to be happy, vibrantly so, but... at his expense? Quicksilver was miserable and tormented - it was time to honest not only with she who held his broken heart, but with himself.

He dipped his muzzle to shyly, briefly touch his forehead to Reiko's cheek and at last softly mustered, too late, “I love you so very much, Reiko.”

And I hope you can forgive me for that.


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Perfect, it was a strange word to use but she would take it none the less. Reiko didn't think of herself in such a way, it would be pretty pompous of her to do so. It wouldn't be right for an Empress to have a head so big it would weigh her down as she walked after all. In fact, she never thought all that much of herself. To see her reflection all she saw were the faces of those of home all merged into one - they were all so similar now that she wandered away from them. Of course growing up in such a place made it easy to differentiate them and their little differences -

But it wasn't like out here where there were colours and patterns that she could have never dreamed of a wolf having! In comparison, she was boring. Plain. At least from what she saw. To be told she was "perfect" was simply strange when she thought the opposite.

And then her world shattered right there. Frozen on the spot as he leaned in to touch his forehead to her cheek, a gesture she would happily accept as her tail fluttered with glee behind. Thinking this was nothing but a friendly gesture - and then he spoke. Frozen limbs felt as though they were no longer a part of this world. Her heart grew dim in her chest as previous moments all ran through her head once more - every time they spoke.

Every little thing. 

“Quicksilver — I — ... I —” Her maw hung open as she tried to find the words, caught in her throat as they nearly strangled her voice to a mere whisper. “I... did not know.” She felt sorrow for him in this moment. “Had... Had you told me sooner —” She stopped, cutting herself off because what? Had he said something sooner what? Would things have been different? Would she have looked at him the way she does for Tobias? “I am... Terribly sorry.”

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There it was: the sound of rejection. It rang so uncomfortably in his ears that each of them splayed backward. And oh, how he felt it right at his core - spearing, unforgiving, crushing.

Quicksilver had expected it, the intensity as it swept over him, but nothing could've prepared him for the sharp pain that swiftly followed. His name, stammered on her lips, was enough to confirm that his soft confession would be unrequited, but Reiko did not pull away from him. The silverwhite chose to do so instead, to place distance between them for her benefit as well as his own. He withdrew quietly, horribly aware of the tearing in his soul to be so forced from that which it believed to belong.

"Had you told me sooner -"

In large part, he didn't think he had to, because if she felt nothing for him then there was nothing he could ever have said to make her. It was not his place to prompt affection from her with words, nor did he want it to feel forced. He could have, of course, but his own feelings had been muddied and uncertain - they'd needed nurturing. He'd tried so hard to, and his last attempt had awarded him the scars on his shoulders. More than that, he'd convinced himself that the dove was already wed, and the confusion surrounding that had thrown another obstacle in his way.

She had not chosen him, not ever, not enough to wait for him. That much was clear, and he deserved better than that.

Quicksilver did not dare look at Reiko. He gazed on over the swaying grasses, at the fireflies who continued to dance. The world went on despite the shattering of his tender heart: the moon continued to smile and the stars carried on twinkling. The snowflower, too, would go on. She would find herself in the embrace of a better suitor, forget the admission of a fool in love, and she would thrive while he would wither.

It wasn't fair, but when was life ever fair?

“As am I,” was all he could say to her apology, for emotion rose to constrict his throat as he stood with his back to her. The druid didn't want her to see the glimmer of tears that he attempted to bite back but dampened his lashes anyway, already outwith his control.


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The weight of what had happened all came crashing down on her as she realized what had happened. How hurt he must be - though she wasn't aware that he already thought she had a husband before this, to her, she had betrayed him with Tobias by completely being oblivious to the signs he must have thought were absolutely obvious.

Both of them avoided each other's gaze. She turned away afraid of hurting him any further. Fighting the desire to shed tears for him, but wouldn't that only add fuel to his anguish? To be pitied after having your heart ripped right out of your chest. Plush ears flattened as she pondered the moment, leaving the silence linger as if she too was mourning his unintentional loss.

After a moment of silence and distance brought back between them, she rose back up to her feet. Casting finally a grateful look to the young man for the flower of course before saying some final words. “I... hope one day you can forgive me.” A pause as she lingered a little while longer before taking a step away, toward the crowd once more by backing away from the saddened man. “Thank you — for the flower.” And with that, the Empress offered a nod in gratitude and a smile to hide her sorrow before turning away to return to the festivities.

Unaware that if she should linger or leave for his own good. Never had she prepared for such a moment like this and thought, perhaps, that leaving would be easier for him.

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