i have built you a shore with all my best words & still, the waves

there are times when she wears the coward's mein, shying from the great shimmering love of @Eira and fleeing well and away within their frore-hollow of sweeping skies and deep dark quiet. it is when she hides herself in this way that the nightingale pilgrims to her own dead and broken plinth and hopes that her faint-hearted flights are only because of the modest swell come to bloom finally her aching ribs. what she had wanted is what he had given her, so she could not fault the rose.

and then there are times like now — when she's crept back to him and he does not ( she prays ) find her some grasping and miserable creature. when he lets her rest in the crook of his arms, while her lone silver eye goes rabbitsoft and the jut of her thin, pallid places gentle into the welcoming nooks of him. it is here that the shawl of sotaherra is shrugged away, and she lets the pink of her nose whuffle with careful ways along the heavy jawline and proud chin; belly cradled against his heavy breast.

she does not tell him of the voices in her dream;
... not in this moment, anyways.

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^^After all that they had seen and experienced so recently, he still cannot quite claim the calm that seems to hover just beyond them. Cloudrest is its own sort of mystic haven, where far away wars and worries bring strife to others. Sure, there is no safety from trouble to be found; not when they had only just gotten home it felt like. Not when there was still healing to do for mental and physical wounds.

He knew that beyond the injuries to her body that Ria had suffered greatly. It is in the fact that her children's father is not here - that the illusive figure still haunts her when she looks upon her young brood. It is in those old dreams she can't shake, the ones that leave her distant from him at times, and all Eira can manage to do is be present. he doesn't try and prod her along in her feelings or her thoughts; his purpose isn't to push it is to comfort. She wound herself against him and he wrapped her close, a possessive arm pulling her against him in the quiet as she touched over him. The slight of her breathing almost tickles him, and he can't hide his chuckle before he moves his snout to kiss along her chest and down to the swell of her stomach.

Possessive, she is fire, life, vitality and all he can do is try and bury the smug reaches of him at the knowledge that he was the one she turns to.



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"our palantír is with us once more," trills timidly the nightingale, if only to hide the hitch in her throat that he now knew far too well of. "our people will not be blind again ...as far as–" tapering off a bit weakly when he migrates his kisses from her pale breast and instead to the tender ungive of her womb; her words lingering incomplete for several traitorous moments before she chips her bottom lip between the cusp of fangs and stares instead at the struggle of young shoots through the loam between her modest claws, "–as ...as far as when we must answer whatever the skies ask of us."

he still tugs her further into him all the same; her snowshoe paws come up to press against that deep chest, if only to serve as a last hasty save before he smothered her true and well. fire, perhaps – if ever there were flames so cold it burned. her eyes look into his glittering skyvault ones, suddenly a tad more hesitant, stout half-shorn ears flicking low and away, trying: "eira ...do you ...well, are you... will..." before her paws ease themselves from his heart-place and her tail crescents with uncertain quivers 'round the curve of narrow thighs. "will you ...will you stay?"

— with their two adults,
with their six yearlings,
and one leonine creature —

"i know that there are males who ...admire the pursuit of what has not been sought out," the fairylight continues, gleaming solemn and sweet, "i will not wish you ill if ...if they go unclaimed. if ...i know that, well ...well, how you came to come here with nothing but whispers in your ear. i know that you cannot replace those who you were born to, and if ...if any if this ..." she blinks furtively, fiercely, silver perching the sill of dark lashes. shudders through and through, the pink of her nose carding up the strong sculpted column of blushing neck; her words keeling into a weak whimper of his name.

"i will not keep you ...but i will give you leave."

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^^

For all of her worries, Eira could feel the sort of creeping sensation up her spine where she started to be more cagey - where she shied from what boxed her in. Eira was careful not to press too hard to not corner her, to make sure that what he was for her was available without being too pushy. Still, she worried, and all he could do at times was to be a distraction.

Her words came in short sorts of ways; there was no soft whisper of cherubs and poetic meanings there. She asked him if he would stay and his brows knit in confusion - hadn't he been? But there was a deeper meaning to it, and as all things, eventually it would come into its own and she would tell him. He glanced around as if there would be another who would be waiting to escort him away at her mere word but no one but them had ventured into Cloudrest and the corner of the world they claimed.

“Rakastettu” — Beloved He began as he touched his snout to her chin. She had been the place he had woken to, and continued to wake for, since his arrival here. “Missä sinä olet, siellä minun on tarkoitus olla.” — Where you are is where I am meant to be How could Eira assure her that he was not just an average man? That who he was was a man guided by the follies of his ancestors, that he was alive purely by a need to prove those others wrong? Eira had been taught for as early as he could remember how to behave and how to live.

He didn't shy away from his emotions, he didn't try and hide them down deep, he didn't try and control them like his father, or to cut them off like his grandfather had. Eira wanted to prove that to her. He let out a soft sounding sigh and pressed his forehead to hers. “Älä heitä minua ulos..” — Don't cast me out He could not command her and was not trying to - his tone was soft and full of pleas. You don't have to love me - but please, don't make me leave.
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his mottled nose went to her chin; making her look into eyes so blue and fierce and full of clear understanding until the tears trembled from her before the first word had even left the pale part of his lips. by the time his brow lies heartfelt against hers, her own have gone dumb; and when she masters herself again she speaks stuttery, slurred tundrian, "mutta en voi antaa sinulle mitä etsit," — but I cannot give you what you seek even as a shadow and thought; a dream. "en tiedä tietä takaisin siihen mikä olin. kuinka minä ...kuinka annoin sydämeni kansani puolesta. kuinka annoin ilman halua. ja sinä ...olisit valinnut hänet, eikö niin?" — not when I do not know the way back to what I was. how I ...how I gave my heart for my people. how i gave without want. and you ...you would have chosen her, wouldn't you? — and why wouldn't he? for once upon a time, she had been unendingly ardent; more often than not letting herself invite every strange pilgrim over threshold like so many sacred things. easier. better. soulmeld, not so severed; not as stilted she was now. "et voi pyytää jäämään, kun en ole ... siellä. tässä. kun tuo antaminen on ...pois ikuisesti minulta." — you cannot ask to remain when I am not ...there. here. when that giving is ...forever gone from me

he deserved more than a phantom;
so much more than the echo she was.

she shivers with misery and her own misgivings; even weighed down by the want and her wish he had given her, she gathers her paws beneath her in a clumsy attempt to rise; even if his arms are strong and he is big and he could hold her soundly to him if he so chose. ...but fear, old-new and nautical, spears itself sharply through the frantic beat of her heart then with a wild jut: "mitä jos en koskaan herää? entä jos jätän sinut myös aamulla?" — what if I will never wake? what if I leave you also in the morning? preylike was her petrified silver eye, rolling 'til the white of it glazed and gleamed.

breath huffing short and the hot hurried sting of unrivaled terror limning the flaring of her nose, the clutch of throat. she staggers away in a half-slump, mouthless; clawing deeply into loam and new spring growth as her womb went bruised by whelps kicking like spring hares. the madonna possessed by some mad charged thing, "jumala vie minut tästä," — jumala will take me from this scared, strident, "hän ottaa minut pois tästä enkä löydä sinua kaikkien tähtien tomun välistä. tiedän sen, miten tiedän että luuni palasivat siihen maailmaan ja miten tiedän kuinka rakkaani—" — he will take me from this and i will not find you between the dust of all the stars. i know it, the way i know my bones went back into that world and the way i know how my love— sobbing vehemently, now, with everything thus far unspoken to anyone on this earth at all,"—elämäni oli ollut rakkauteni ja hän heräsi vaimonsa kuolleena ja poissa. kuinka kansamme– maamme– syntymätön—" — —my life had been my love and he woke to his wife dead and gone. how our people– our lands– our unborn—

her paw goes to what grew there now;
will they be brought here as blind as she?

but she does not want to return to what had been so far beneath tuonela; grasping for an age, reaching eternally for the everything she had been summoned from — so she is inconsolable, ennervated. staring sightless all around at cloudrest unrecognizable and at the male who loves tirelessly her wretched creature.

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^^The urge that he had was to sweep her to him, hold her close, to drown every feeling she had until it was only them and the future that they were building. Frostchant was his as much as his natal home was, in the way that he was proud of it's growth and hold and the way that he longed to see it survive. There was also the matter of their young in her belly and the swell that he was coming so quickly to love. He could not cage her, though, even the most beautiful and gilded of cages was still a prison. A spirit like hers wasn't meant to be tamed - and he was not the type to lock his loved ones down. She had to experience the life she wanted to claim her for herself.

His role, the one he longed for and thrived in, was to be her support.

“Olet rohkea - ja arvostan sitä” — You are bold, and I cherish that, He began as evenly as he could. He would not dream of chastising her in her hurt, in her concern, not when she had survived so much in her days and past that he couldn't understand. “Älä luule tietäväsi mitä päässäni on, Lumihiutale.” — Do not think you know what is in my head, Snowflake. She pushed off from him and he stood swiftly, watching as she was overcome and it wasn't until her words had been ebbed into the gasping and cries and he couldn't help himself anymore. “Syvät hengitykset.” — Deep breaths. His soft tone was encouraging, his snout gently touching her shoulder before he pressed his head against her neck. He could hear the frantic pace of her heartbeat and her breathing, trying to guide her breathing with his own.

“Olemme tähtipöly, sinun ja minun,” — We are the stardust, yours and mine, . He said it softly, keeping his voice a low croon right for her ears and hers only. “sielumme ja heidän sielumme, syvällä teissä, me tulimme samoista paikoista ja palaamme samoihin paikkoihin, kun kaikki on sanottu ja tehty.” — - our souls and theirs, deep in you still, we came from the same places and we will return to the same places when it is all said and done. Eira wasn't as intrinsically religious as some he knew, but, what he felt wasn't just capped by the figureheads of his ancestors. What he felt was more. And he knew what he felt for her. “Tulen rakastamaan tarpeeksi meidän molempien puolesta. ” — I will love enough for the both of us. He promised softly. 

He would be there. As long as she needed of him, he would be there.

^^

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a thin warble of his name trickled from some low, choked nook in her throat;
lashes lain heavy with longing as her rose lulls her into enervated exhaustion. his calling lifts once more from her chords, but she bleary-dazed, and when the vestiges of what remains of her till delicate tearpaths down the half-unlovely tragedy of her face he seems so unreachable. even as he bids her to breathe; to let her lean into the cradle of his comfort and despair as she may. eira, eira — all she ached for rising, briared and bruising, working and welling up from some deep place within her that had fallen so far from her. forgotten. the loss of old and the growth of new; the chill damp not her despairing but perhaps only the inevitable rain of first spring. so much renewal, and so much he had resown into her already.

it is not the words she so horribly must give him that leaves her, but the gentle keening of her heart-cry as he returns her into his gleaming embrace.

he is too earnest in how he always welcomes her, and she is too eager, in the way she wends herself around him. nothing other than eira, eira on her lumine lips until they smear over his own; imprint long like nectar, going rubythroated beneath her hide and the wings of all her fallen heart ablur, afloat. her kisses pilgrim to his temple and it is there that she lets herself be consumed in worship for him; wordless, whispering valerian soulthings —

— until one of their children thumps at the cream breast held fast against her womb and brings her from him with a reluctant whimper; anguishing at being parted. a breath takes her farther from him
( too far already ) when she looks down, timid, hoarse:

"eräänä päivänä, se loppuu, ja tämä kevään unelma toteutuu," — one day, it will end, and this dream of spring will come true, silver eye starlike upon him until she reaches the pink of her nose to him, a honeysweet beg, bargain, "ja sinä päivänä olet minun ikuiseni." — and on that day, you will be my ever.

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^^Any whisper of his name was met with the softest of sounds from him. Normally a symphony from her lips, this wasn't the same; he understood that this was what she could manage to offer him when words were far far too much. Everything else seemed impossible right then and what he could offer her was a haven. He would guard her from the rest of the world as long as he could to bring her comforts - the things that she deserved so intently. Peace wrapped safe around her, a way that she could heal from the wounds the world had put upon her.

But her whimper and the way she recoiled made him worry, ears shifting forward to catch her words as they left her lips. Her kisses and soft words soothed the ache in him, the things that he didn't want to beg her for because he wanted it to be given freely. He never wanted to suggest to her that she had to give him anything. He would never make demands of her. But he longed - longed for the kind of partnership he'd seen in his parents, for the love of the nuclear family that he had known.

“Unelmien ei tarvitse loppua – ei niin kauan kuin haluamme niiden elävän.” — Dreams don't have to end - not for as long as we want them to live. He could promise her that much, because it was what they could make. “Meillä voi olla niitä asioita, meillä voi olla mitä haluamme.” — We can have those things, we can have anything we want.. What did she want - the stars themselves? The moon? The sun? He offered her a soft smile and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Kasvoin kauniissa perheessä. Sitä minä haluan heille, meille.” — I grew up in a beautiful family. That is what I want for them, for us. He wanted to build that with her.


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