You're crying (How sweet the sound)

 His paths took him from Ichorwood, from his new queen. He roamed northward, eastward. Towards her home but not a direct path. Instead, his travels took him along the border of the mountains, where cold winds from the north swept southwards, grasping for whatever it might reach.

 There was a faint scent, familiar, upon his nose.

 He recalled the woman at the lake, how she had called for forming a court. She seemed... saddened. He wasn't sure how she had fared, knowing only that he had directed her here - to a vacant land between his own kingdom and that of his wife's family. Where, at least from what he recalled, there were no settlers. Only the wild, ripe for claiming.

 He slowed as he reached what appeared to be a border, a scent marker that indeed held traces of not just the woman who had called him tähtiherra — starlord but also of others. Men and women alike. Not many, but certainly more than a casual presence. Slate toes stopped his gait and he stood, gazing into the fog of the mountains. Was this her hollow? He lifted his head to call, a song that held no note of urgency but instead, of curiosity.

 Are you there?

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[narrow width=800]she harbors through the mornfog, hollowed out by the cold;
cannot tell if she yearns for autumn's haste, for its cradle, or despises the inevitable chill so quick to come in places like these ... or, if she were yet repulsed by the aimless that called her, compelled her to her southron borders and wished to feast upon her claim. but she goes, of course, and she must do away with the weariness that has often come to lie heavy upon her silver brow  —  that, and she is sotaherra. she will not whinge.

those she wished for would come in due time, she supposes.

his eyes, mulled and amberwarm, kill the unwelcome, wan things they come into contact with along their way over her own lumine face; and though hers is set with a thin-lipped edge and stern eye, the nightingale is gladdened by the presence of the moonking. wordlessly  ( for now )  she greets him with a low, biting grunt of some attempt at familiarity; all the while bumping her snout against the heavy shoulder, tail feathering in an absent-minded sway over thin hips. simply, finally:

"i am here."

why was he?[/narrow]

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 She arrived, as ghostly as ever. He watched her, pondering as she came. How could a wolf look so ethereal yet be made of flesh and bone? She moved and spoke as if miles apart though he could see her clear as day before him, her moonglow eyes matching his sunflare. Would she always be so majestic - would this aspect of her grow or wane as her court grew around her? A part of him wondered if she would seek children and he batted away the idea, knowing full well she would likely need a king beside her - below her? - and a king of her valley he could not be.

 Still, the movement of her snout against his fur made his pads tingle and he presently moved to brush his own gently against her shoulder in returned greeting. “Is this the vale you spoke to claim?” he asked, eyes tracing the trees that jutted about the fog. “If so, from appearances, it shall bear your court well.”

 There was no urgency in his tone or his poise, simple curiosity in his golden gaze. He waited, wondering what she might tell about the court she hoped to build. Would she be a just queen or would she rule with an iron fist? So airy her demeanor, he could still see the lean muscle beneath her pelt and the shine of teeth that would easily defend both herself and those that followed her.

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[narrow width=800]"yes  —  if a court should even come of it."

the words went to ash on a tongue made bitter by that which she could not discern; already, what little peace his mellow gesture had given her now drew itself inward to recede behind a brow heavy with a hindrance not of her own making  ( or, was it really, after all? )  and ivory face curtained through with chagrin; she became once more cold and clawed, riddled with a failure that she felt was perched upon what had only just begun.  "there are few who have taken to these lands, and even fewer who mean to run with me. out of the four, there are are two: they went by me like the wind, and have lingered too long without answer. or, one of them has given his, but i have seen nothing more of the other. but the fault is mine; they put themselves here without a care so ... easily."

it was with an embittered gnashing of teeth that the undómiel turned from the kindly moonking; all stiff legs and spine ridged with bristling moonshed fur in the face of he who was so providing to each undeserving part of her.

"this is a haven, halved and no more. but i know that if one calls themselves king and lord out of desperate favor, then they have no right to be so at all. i have forgotten what it is to walk that line of reign and reason."  remembers the way that all eyes thus far had looked upon her and found her  ( supposedly )  as nothing; she starts back the way she strode, discomfit, ripping at the giving earth underpaw.  "i do not ask for blind loyalty, nor for the brave to be made stupid; but i will not allow those who live here to do so to make a mockery of it all. i do not know if i am in the wrong for letting such breathing indecision stay here and stagnant. i do not know if i am in the right for wanting them from here. there is potential in both  —  but what am i to do, if neither chooses to see me decent? if they do not wish to work this land as one of my own?"

if she looked back, she was lost;
if she looked up, she would fall.

"i want nothing. i want everything. i want those who will remain their own. i want those who will not balk at challenging the judgment i cast. i want those who want me as sotaherra,"  worrying through her lip with abandon, knowing her own blood while the hot tears forged of fury threatened to rush from hauntcraft eyes but she would not let them, could not  —  so she snarls into the skies of cloudrest after all. wild-eyed, and snaps mightily, awfully.  "i am not irrational, and yet i cannot be the gentle thing that held court, where once the star of my dawn rose to see to my endless night. but he is not here, and i must be of his mind, and know —"

know that whatever he had seen in her had not entirely been buried with her bones.

there are souls, screaming beneath her skin;
kuunhekku shuts hard and close her eyes;
a red, thin trail of anguish down her chin.[/narrow]
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 Her words drifted his way eagerly, full of emotion and gnashing of teeth and fear. He listened to her rant, somber expression on his face and eyes softened with empathy. He, too, knew what it was like for wolves to linger without promise or offer of assistance. “They reject your authority and attempt to claim the land as their own?” he asked, wondering at it. It seemed Aerith was a queen without her kingdom, attempting to claim land that would not yield unless she held more paws and more bodies to protect it.

 He spoke again. “If they will not commit, they should find respite elsewhere.” There were other packs that might take them, if they even desired to be held within a pack.

 Perhaps, instead, they were deeming to make this valley their own. Would he return some day to find her ousted, with their marks upon these trees?

 Then, he was silent as she mourned, worried and snarling.

 “How can I help?” He could not offer himself in full - his loyalties lay elsewhere - but he wished to be of assistance in what way he could. Perhaps... perhaps she would need refuge some day. He wished to offer her that, even without directly stating it. Perhaps she needed to bear offspring, but with few followers would she be able to raise them? He did not wish for any child to go hungry or starve simply because they had not enough adult mouths to feed them, to hunt prey, and to defend them.

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[narrow width=800]how could he help, indeed? with the way the aforementioned pair had promptly forged into the very lands she sought to claim  –  had claimed, as she so adamantly declared  ( whether asked or no )  –  it wouldn't come as a surprise if they two took a liking to where they laid their heads and sent her from her mountains. it didn't mean that the thought sat well with her, though; snout crinkling in part because of her blood upon her tongue, which she dashed away with a swipe of her wrist to chin, smear left behind and all. only when what so often came to mind did so now again did she turn to him in reply:

"keep an eye on the world, if you are able, for my children."

whose eye was of no matter to her, whether it be his, or those who kept his company and he theirs. but without the little last-loves of her heart, she was unmoored; groundless, riddled, fraying at the edges and pirouetting on the delicious precipice of beckoning peril. unreminded of all that was above and below her that had not, try as tundrian gods might, made her into who she had yet to become. return to. without her sons and daughters, born out of a blue shadow and a wry thought of the only male she had ever truly, unendingly loved, she ... had begun to reckon that the edge of the abyss looked inviting. she had become bleary-eyed, wandering without a tether, without and echo to draw her to wherever home was. or wasn't. she didn't know.

she didn't know.

if the star-made male really wanted to help her, then he would find a cut in the world and bring her spirit to her old bones and let her haunt again the earth she had once reigned; the lilypond and that throne of bluegleam roots; the patrons and pilgrims and priestesses of the dark wood that the star of her dawn had once been of. her laugh is harsh, hot, short, and angry; aėrith knows that she can not ever return. can only be thankful for what her  ( his, really )  tundrian gods have given her in place of a father that would have, should have been theirs to know and call and that she should have  —

"eirlysï, asriel. asamir, aisling. ásný, aulis. mine, all,"  a shrike, drawing nearer to him once more, brow drawn low and dark and covetous.  "i have not found them. not yet. but if they have found joy wherever they have been found, or ... know a mother where they once have not, then, i ..."  then she would let them be. let them live, and know what it meant to make a home in the hearts of others.

even if they were truly all she had left, other than some court come-again dream; a place where they would be welcomed, always welcomed, if they did not think it right at her side.

a fool's dream, it seemed.[/narrow]
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 To keep an eye on the world, that was a monumental task to ask of a man she knew little of besides an outward empathy. He observed her calmly, thinking what children she might have conceived that may roam these lands. His head tilted deeply - an acceptance of this task. He would wait in silence, assuming not only that her silence would give way to answer but that she would go into some depth of why she believed her children to roam. While he held no children of his own thus far, he knew what it was like to desire to help and protect the youth.

 “I understand,” he said, although it was not from experience. “You wish for them to be happy, though you long for them.” He found himself slipping more into her way of speaking the longer he remained, the longer he shared words with this poor weeping queen.

 “I will put their names to memory to search for them for you,” he decided with a nod. “How old are they?” If ages even mattered. When he had seen his mother, she had looked as she had when he had lost her, years prior to waking in this land.

 Thought of mothers and children deep within him, he looked at her. Would she be satisfied if she were not to have her children returned to her? Would she roam the world forever to seek them out, to bring them to rise alongside her in her vale? “Will you seek to bring new life to your court when your season comes?” his voice was a low rumble, gentle despite its probing. While he did find attraction in her and her closeness, he would not pressure her to consider him as a potential source of assistance in that regard. Yet, there was a note of opening in the statement.

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[narrow width=800]"no."

the sotaherra rounds on the starmade with the thick mantle of silver unfurling in a fierce and wild way and at that moment she is a shrike once more; with growls ghosting from in the middle of her breast and clambering their ways up from between her lungs and out through unhinged jaws. not ever again would she let herself feel the strength of a male on her, over her, if it was not the dawn of her star.

she looks at him longer still, throat too thick;
and then a smile scorches across her lips.

"oh, now. what? you think that by losing yourself in me, peace will come to me while you do?"  her cackle is almost a crone's, and aėrith makes a forge of her fangs and spits her words out with the intent of making a point  —  in that giving, gracious heart of his.  "i have no need of a male who wishes to think his cock a remedy for my sorrows."

bitch of her, really; requesting he keep an eye on the horizon while she strikes down any notion of his claiming her womb. ...well, it would be, if she still said all she did but had not gone through that godsummons. and maybe it would always be, regardless of how it was looked at.

but it was more than that, though;
she was panicked, here, and it was plain, too plain to see even by the most oblivious. breaths hot and harsh, blown out through the flaring nose with ears pressed slick against a crown she knew was graceless. had always been. but she bares her teeth in a blasted, blind sneer  —  lurches away from the everything of crux with a shivering lash of her tail and white claws gouging the loam and thaw beneath them both.

she knows that it does not give her the right to speak to another in such a way but hopes that now he finds her ugly for she had never truly been anything but furious and condemning and full of so much fury at her arórelën's — dawnstar's tundrian gods that there are some days she cannot breathe and now the male before her is taking the brunt of this rare release.

storms brought to her eyes all the same and she whirls from him. stiff dismissal in each step that she makes herself take from him. her words are spitting, seething:  "my season will never return, but i will not have a male share in it. not ever again."

what if again her spirit was recalled just before it arrived, with her lostlings left to wander living but without her? how faraway would she be thrown on high?

it does not matter:
let him hate her.[/narrow]

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 He would not play dumb. His implication was seen and rejected thoroughly and he simply stood and watched, waiting for her temper tantrum to cease. She was clearly unhappy with even the hinted suggestion, though he had not meant in entirely that he would be the only one to possibly assist her in her goal. After all, she wished to make a strong nation... would bearing royal offspring not benefit that? He thought to Harper, his wife, who wished to have children with him but did not believe it possible. He had yet to learn of any true pregnancies and pups born in this world, so he wasn't even certain that it was possible - but he believed.

 “There are many men in the mountains, kings or scholars or warriors... - it was simply a question, not a proposition.” He knew his wife would be fine if it had been one, but he would not press the point.

 She spoke of her season never returning and he regarded her thoughtfully. She was young, younger than he, with youthful nerves still about her. Still, she was upset and he felt some guilt at having provoked it upon the already fragile temperament of the nightingale. She turned from him and stalked away and he watched in silence. If she would recognize herself and return, so be it, if not - he would continue on his path upwards into the snow.

 It was no good to be alone and he hoped that she would see that some day, even if wracked in grief now.

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[narrow width=800]and this was just an answer — she wanted to snarl exactly that over one of her sharp, lurching shoulders; that there was no exception was something that she might have once welcomed. but in the case of bearing children for ...for what she had sworn to never consider again, either for the strengthening of alliances, or ...her lips welded themselves shut in the end, too taken with gnashing and grinding her fangs against each other. she was a stubborn and savage thing more often than not, here; to tell him what she was sure he would never understand meant to garner more of the despicable sort of pity she could only detest. not that it was always so terrible, but ...it did not matter, either.

so her reasons and all the whys would remain untold; and she leaves the cloudrest with her insides twisting horribly at the prospect of yet another breaching past what weak borders had been set.

but she was not so broken, so delicate that his wondering was the way for her to make stronger her people. there were always other ways — and she marches out into the hinter with the intent to hunt this severity from her; put herself to use in one of the few ways left.

---

exit rip

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