little birds who are the secrets of living

directly following this thread

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The pale sylph wove the familiar route to her prayer-grounds, her tail waving like a banner to ensure @Tiberius did not lose his way in the mountainous underbrush. The woods here were thick with greenery, made lush by the rains; the bounce in her own step was replicated in the earth's sodden soil, and Olive felt that no one would be able to doubt such a strange buoyancy if they could feel it beneath their own four feet. Perhaps it was only she who felt this way, so heady and tightly-tense that she might be unraveled by a single touch, or a single word —

but whenever she looked up and over her shoulder to glimpse at the Titan as he trailed behind her, the look upon his face easily told her she was not alone in this. Ever the twittering birds high above worked tirelessly to sing out their approval, and to even move in alignment with them, flitting through the bush eagerly and soaring through the sky to direct the wandering, wayward souls towards the bluffs that so often called to her.

The sound of rushing water grew louder and tickled the sensitive hairs within the pink of her ears; she skittered into a sprint, not to lose her trailing lover or from excitement of reaching their destination, but simply because she had to, in that moment. The sheerness of the cliff stole her breath from her chest, and the movement from her legs, and the sprite whirled around, caught between a miasma of emotions that threatened to oust every need she ever had to eat, drink or sleep. She didn't need those things anymore; she only needed Tiberius, and she needed his aegis and shelter, needed him like a ship needed sails in order to do anything truly meaningful. 

Looking at the inkdark man, there was no past — no Little Haven, no Frostchant, no Walrus — there was only future, as far as the eye could see, as if it were the expanse of land that yawned before them, sprawling infinitely outward. The woman invited him closer with the flick of her tail, and the acknowledgment of the emptiness at her side.

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He was never too far from Olive as she lead them to the place of choice and with each step his desire and yearning grew stronger. How he had managed to first even think of giving them privacy was beyond him yet he had and he was thankful for it. The land she brought him to had trees that seemed impossibly tall and sounds of rushing water that made him wonder how close they were to a waterfall. Despite how he kept the majority of his attention on his lady, Tiberius twisted his ears and flared his nose every so often to work past the sound and scent of Olive to ensure that no one was close to them.

When she would quicken her pace into a sprint, the titan would follow. He knew she did not desire to stray off from him yet it was something more primal in him that chased her, that ate up the distance her nimble legs would grow between them. So close, so so so close he was and yet so far from the touch of her. In his ears his heart would beat, pounding away as fire lit through his veins. He had never hungered for someone so much as he had Olive, even before the tempting scent had touched her yet this was almost a call to his inner being.

A cliff, he realised, had been her place of choice and his lips would smirk as he drew his hulking body to a stop after her, watching as she span to face him, looking breathless and beautiful all at once. There was never a time she didn't look beautiful. Tiberius didn't hesitate as she invited him closer, the growl vibrating through his chest as he stalked towards her with his tongue sweeping across the his lips and to her he went, pressing up against Olive's side with his own. "So beautiful," the titan rumbled as he brushed against her only to trail his teeth down her spine and towards the base of her tail. His claws pressed into the cliff and he grunted, painful and desiring all at once. His molten gaze drifted over to her as he would seek to nibble at her hip, ensuring she was not changing her mind before he went further.

Tiberius had been near breaking point back at Cloudrest and here he was hanging on with the smallest bit of thread that he had but he would need to hear her, to be completely sure. "Say it, Angel," tell him it was okay, tell him how much you want him. ^^

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They were finally there, in the destination she sought, far away from the eyes and the judgements of others. Olive knew well that this was a place that the Gods danced, just as certainly as the Gods danced within her now. The sylph had been long-convinced of Tiberius's godliness, and with these three factors so aligned, the incensed woman felt certain that these were the right conditions to conceive their progenies, who would be born as more holy and do more important work in the world than perhaps any creature had before.

Tiberius approached her with coaxing kisses, wheedling his way through the fur along her spine with the tips of his teeth; her tail quaked with tremors, and for all she had imagined this in the past several days, had she accounted for how viscerally she would be unable to wait for him? The caresses, and the words of adulation, they were the best part — but in this moment, it almost frustrated her that Tiberius dare ask for permission instead of reading her mind, and reading her body, and intuiting that she had been made to wait for him and she would not wait a single moment longer.

"There is so much that is on the horizon for us, my love..." Her tail fluttered as she pulled some of her attention away from the pit of her belly, so that she could produce sensible words to soothe his mind. "It's the path the Gods have laid before us." she spoke in a heaving sigh, her bridge of her nose tucked into the crook of his hip, her head against his waist, the thickness of his fur feeling like a most luxurious pillow to her feverish crown. "Now let us revel in it, together." In a feline-like manner, she pressed her tail against his neck, wrapping around him like a white feathered boa, encouraging the man ever-closer.

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If he knew what it was like to be drunk, he would say he was drunk on her. On her beauty, her soul, her heart, her smell – Olive enchanted his mind and invaded his senses. The titan wouldn’t complain, couldn’t complain, how could he? She encouraged him with her flowery words that had him groaning when her tail tucked tantalisingly along his neck. Tiberius fell into her as he grappled with his sanity, his tongue sweeping in adoring kisses along her spine before he would angle himself so that her tail slipped off of him and his chest bumped into her hind.

Tiberius encouraged her rump down so that he could still hold his weight off of her with his forepaws as he encroached on her personal space, seeking to cage her between his legs. “If it’s yer tha’ laid ‘fore me, I ain’t git no complaints,” Tiberius rumbled as he tried to tuck her beneath him, molten gaze vibrant with desire.

The titan would never have thought this possible for him. He hadn’t ever thought of someone in a way beyond thinking that maybe they looked nice, he hadn’t thought he was capable of loving someone so deeply, or at all. Sure he had loved Lana but that had not been romantic, sexual or otherworldly, not the way Olive brought alive those emotions within him. In the back of his mind he knew what could happen, he knew beneath his more primal instincts that they should have spoken first about it but he had agreed to be hers and she had agreed the same in return and Tiberius didn’t plan on stopping his love for her any time soon. (He didn’t think he could, in whatever fucked up world that doesn’t exist.)

Some time later he might think that he should have been better than this, better than his baser, drunken desires yet this was not the time. All he could think of was her, of how good she felt beneath him and how he was so close to his desired touch that he throbbed, almost painfully as he brushed himself against her. ^^

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In the seconds that passed when Tiberius groped and explored his way down her body, Olive had time to think. She pondered about Tiberius's voice, and wondered where he had been born to be gifted with such a splendid sound. The gravel of his words sounded as if they were formed in the back of his throat, whereas her own tingled upon the tip of her tongue — and she thought about how she owed her life to him, and how if Tiberius had never been placed in her path, her light would have been extinguished forever. She thought, for half a heart-beat, about benry and Archon, and she easily imagined that they would celebrate this union—

And when she finally did find herself, imprisoned in a cage of his own making, Olive readied herself for him, each electrifying thought falling silent; and when his ravishment did not come immediately, the incensed woman easily became desperate. Did he need to hear more lovely platitudes, and further understand how her heart beat only for him? Did the Titan need more cajoling, to get to the point of readiness that she had been simmering in for days, now? Whatever he needed, she sought to provide in abundance; so the woman leant her head back and stretched to pressed her cheek against him, exposing her cottony underthroat to the sky and through her nervousness and inner vibrato, she said

"Give me your seed," she begged him, her lips brushing the outermost furs of his charcoal ears "and I will give you children." For it was a woman's job to take all the seeds of the earth and germinate and nurture them? She could take a place of residence and made it a home; could turn a pack into a family; even mother nature turned true seeds into the most grandiose trees. This, as Olive saw it, was no different. "Do this and you & I will never be truly parted again." It was binding, in a soul-tie kind of way. To create new life with another was to perpetuated their relationship into eternity. It was the only solution to appease her desire to never be parted, yet the Gods' need for them to exist in two different bodies. "It is the... ultimate magic..." she breathed against him, knowing that Tiberius likely had no idea what she was talking about, but hopefully her beguiling tone and the wiggle of her body would convince him to play along.

"You are the Shiva; and I, the Shakti—" Olive grinned upwards, into the thick fur of his neck, wrapping her paw around the shin of his foreleg as as anchor, attempting to shimmy her hips against him. "Mark me as yours, forever." There, that should do it.

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If she had known how to work him before, he would call her an expert now. Her words appealed to the more primal side of him, the side that longed to see her belly swell with his children. Tiberius didn't know what it meant to be a father, his own dead long before he had been born and really, what had his own mother been for him? Little. Tiberius knew, somewhere deep in the crevice of his mind that if this happened, if her words became reality, that he would likely feel fear for one of the few times in his life yet... really, there was no one else he saw taking such a monumental dive with.

For him, it was only Olive.

In truth, little did he know what she meant with some of her words but in the end, it all fell in the back of his mind once she was done. He was done, his patience stretched thin and his desire for her too strong, when she told him to mark her as his, Tiberius could do nothing more than roll his hips forwards and hungrily take her. His leg was on fire from the curl of her paw, his groan low and rumbling as he grunted, "mine," into Olive's crown where he buried his face into the plush of her scruff. Tiberius would move, rhythm hungry as he clung to her and tried to display an effort not to lose entire control and crush her beneath him.

His nose flared and his stomach coiled, the scent of her, the feel of her too much. Tiberius could do nothing more almost whine as he groaned, teeth securing her scruff but not before he had kissed her, chest bumping against her as Tiberius gave in. He can into the sensation, the pull, the need to fulfil her wishes, her own demands. Tiberius felt the tension coil and burst, molten gaze vivid as he came undone. ^^

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Her mind melted away from thought and became full enrapt in sensation; no longer was she thinking about what act they were committing and why, as she felt from Tiberius that this was no longer something to debate. Clasped between his two front legs, she could not find where her body ended and his began, but she distinctly felt the product of their joining — there was a slowly-spreading warmth, and the rhymthic rocking, and the sensation of her shadowed lover licking and mouth the ruff of her shoulders, and all parts of him felt as divine as she remembered, and as divine as she had imagined.

There was one moment in particular, where Olive wondered quite salaciously if the Gods could seem them now, and see exactly how devoted she was to their path they had decided for her, and she felt nearly choked with gratitude, for the life the Gods had given her was just as beautiful as it was harrowing. "Oh..." She allowed her body to be controlled by him, her eye breath and convulsion controlled by the metronome of his own body; and when their lovemaking came to fruition, Olive made herself rigid and did what she could to support the massive titan's weight as he became lost within her, only to find himself once more.

A deep breath in; a deep breath out. Certainly, this was to be repeated many times, but for now, her thirst was sated. "Thank youuu," she crooned, still writhing beneath him, refusing to be inert even as his own movements began to still.

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“One o’these days, darlin’, yer gonn’ be tha end o’me,” the titan puffed as he kissed her spine as he drew himself off of her, releasing her from his hold as he shivered at the loss of her warmth. “Love yer, Angel,” Tiberius murmured against her as he withdrew completely, urging her with his nose to settle and rest, knowing their activities had likely knocked her as it had knocked him. Beside her he would settle, thick chest rising and falling as he came down from his high.


>> time skip <<

Tiberius was content to simply feel her next to him, engulfing himself in her touch and her scent though now, both their scents were mixed so heavily with each other that he was unsure where his began and her’s ended. The titan thought he preferred it that way, though perhaps that was something more territorial of him than he realised. With affection he drew his tongue along her cheek, “suppose yer migh’ wan’ them answers now, Angel,” he rumbled lowly against her, silvery brows furrowing.

He had plenty to tell her. ^^

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If only the throes of passionate love-making could last forever! But as the moments ticked onwards, their bodies and the energy between them cooled, and eventually Tiberius withdrew himself to lay with her in a manner that was as close as they could possibly be — any closer, and they would have to be inside one another again.

They breathed together and laid in silence, but Olive's mind was virile and alive, barely exhausted by the efforts. She was still hungry for more, despite her more primal urges being sated: more information, more context, more of his words, more him. The willow-woman leant back and poked her nose upward at the underside of his chin, draw her tongue against the soft of his bottom jaw in a way that was utterly submissive.

What had her man been up to these past weeks, and what path had brought him full-circle to save her once again (but this time, from herself)?

"My love, I already know a small part of it — I went to Tsukiishi," the sylph admitted, ivy eyes blinking up at him, eager to reveal the lengths she had gone to locate him (being somewhat proud of herself for it all, too) but unsure what his reaction would be. Hopefully, he did not expect her to be this soft, demure thing that never left home or took a risk. No, that would never be her, even if she was now pupped — but she didn't think that was Tiberius, either.

"I was shocked to see them gone."

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Being called my love was never going to get old, not for him, because even still after everything just hearing her say that to him made his cheeks blossom with warmth. "Oh yeah?" he rumbled once he learned that she had set off on her own little adventure, presumably to find him once he had taken much longer than anticipated to return to her. Tiberius leaned to give her ear a teasing nip, narrowing his molten gaze upon her with a playful glint. "Been busy, 'ave yer Angel?" Tiberius mused, attempting to stamp down on the worry of Walrus -- they'd not have come so far in land and it was unlikely Olive would have gone anywhere near the place of her capture.

He shifted as he gave her a short nod, "aye," the titan grunted, attempting to find the words. He struggled long before Olive and he was getting better yet sometimes he still fell short. "Were gone when I's got there," he informed her quietly, running his tongue along his blackened, marred lips. "Seems they 'ad a plan wit' Vanderfell ta ambush Kuhn and tha gre- Valmua once we were done comin' fer yer," they knew that they had been distracted because he had told Reiko of his plans to save Olive. In the end, he had inadvertently given away their position, or their plans. "I's 'ad ta find 'em, Angel. I's didn't know about tha ambush until I's found Reiko in Vanderfell. We..." he trailed off as he felt his shoulders tense and he furrowed his marred, silver brows as he cast his gaze off to the distance.

"Disagreed, me an' Reiko," Tiberius grew tightlipped as he recalled the last memory he had with the Iceling. Only, she wasn't Iceling anymore. She was Reiko, Empress of Shiroshika. "I's couldn't agree wit' 'er no more or... any of 'em an' she... ain't agree wit' me," he wouldn't go into the gritty parts of it, not right now, it just wasn't -- he didn't want to. "I ain't Shiroshika no more," he murmured to her, alerting her to his status of as a lone wolf. As a confused wolf, his placement in life floating about aimlessly as he battled with what had transpired. ^^

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Olive simpered when he did not chastise her for her wanderings, and instead reacted with curiosity and the sylph found this to be such an endearing quality that she felt the fire roar within her loins one more, but she managed to snuff them with out with a deep exhale, like the tide pulling out in the evening — and still allowed herself to indulge in the act of burying her face in the fur of his neck, utterly pleased and primped at every. single. moment. of. this. day. thus. far.

Reality, however, soon set in. The fine features of her face grew sallow as he explained to her the goings-on of the tundra , coloring in the facts she already knew with context that was difficult to bear. Her first thought was for Tiberius, and how the man had fared emotionally during such a solemn mission — how he had felt while he was being betrayed by the one wolf he respected above all others (well, not above Olive's own self, of course). Olive's second though, of course, was for the burnt-sienna duo that had come to save her, when she had experienced her own perils. The woman straightened out her posture, lifted her head high, and blinked out into the periphery.

"Kuhn and Valmua," she exclaimed, her brows knitted together, her gut threatening to breach her throat at such wretchedness. "Do they live on?" Her breaths came often but they weren't deep, and instead fluttered at the top of her ribcage. "Where is Shiroshika now?" The greyscale seraph shifted the side of her body so that she was facing him, and held his heavy gaze as he ushered forth his new reality. A repercussion of his disobedience, as Reiko probably saw it. Olive wondered what heinous things she had said to him, and what she might have tried to make him believe.

The woman tried to look deep into those goldenrod eyes and tried to see what feelings might lie beneath, and she tried to listen for his own truth that lay behind the facts his mouth said. Had this been an empowering experience for him, or had it cut him down? Gingerly, Olive placed a paw on his, and said with such quietude she barely heard herself "Those who yield power can do such horrifying things." Looking down at their overlapping paws, Olive lapsed into her own similar experience.

"When we first met, I was with a pack called Little Haven — where I met Benry and Archon, the latter of whom you will certainly become acquainted with soon —" The boy was traveling for now, but had promised to return, "The bosses had taken a prisoner, and was torturing her... She wasn't my friend or anything, but, still...." She nibbled on one of her pale lips, having found the situation to be the antithesis of the magic she tried to work in the world. "I could not follow someone of such moral standing, just as you could not." Even with these harsh realities and extreme differences in opinion, there was at least one silver lining: "You & I are the same."

With a small twist of a smile, she reached out to touch his nose with hers.

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He nodded, "aye. Wolf from a Pack called Elysium been 'ealin' 'em." Tiberius would confirm, settling her worry of their wellbeing. The titan nudged his nose to her feathery cheek, seeking to offer some silent comfort. Her question had him tightening his lips against his teeth, almost hesitant to tell but then he knew he was being ridiculous; why wouldn't he tell Olive?

"They callin' Vanderfells claim their 'ome righ' now, where they plan ta go after... I gots no idea," the titan would reveal in a rumble, thinking it was highly unlikely that the Pack would return to the Tundra to live out the rest of their days. Not if they didn't want to bump into Kuhn and Valmua, or if they didn't want a round 2. "South o'Tundra bu' not really, I guess," he frowned, "mountains." He hadn't been there long to paint her an image of the home they now called theirs, even temporary. 

The titan didn't move his paw away from Olive's as she laid it upon his, white meeting silver and automatically his molten gaze would drop to the delicate toes shrouded in fur. It was a touch of comfort, of being there with him and Tiberius didn't realise how much he appreciated such a touch until then. He could agree with her on that, power was a strange thing to wield yet sometimes... sometimes it could overtake them and blind their vision. His ears twitched but still did his eyes not lift as she began to speak, regaling him of the Pack she had been with when they had first met.

Torture. He frowned, he knew better than most that sometimes it was a need to be physical with someone, using ones strength and experience to beat them down yet the torture she seemed to speak of seemed... pointless. There was little he would not do to protect those he cared for but Tiberius acted with his honour. Something these wolves of Little Haven seemed to lack. Without honour, they were baseless. They were unevolved and at the very start of the lives of their ancestors -- and they had no place in the world Tiberius sought to protect.

It was a rare expression that would draw slowly upon his heavily marred features as she pressed her nose to his, the smile small and warm as he leaned his nose into her own with affection. "Yer somet' else, Angel," he all but whispered as he breathed her in, molten gaze lifting to look at those forest green depths that made him think of home. Not the place he was born, no, that had never been home -- but home was her, home was all the opportunities she had given him since they had met that fateful day on the icy river bank.

"Looks like we creatin' our own 'ome," he rumbled, "our own place ta be proud of. Ta live an' thrive." And with her, he would gladly do so. ^^

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It had been a long time since memories of Little Haven had surfaced, and the fact that they did now surprised the pale woman; hadn't she grown so much since then, and gotten so far away from those memories? As she mused upon the distant faces of Meissa and Flynn, Olive realized that she indeed was looking at her past with a new set of lenses: through the point of view of someone with a lot they had to lose, and a lot they still had to learn.

Tiberius too had renewed vigor in his eyes, the likes of which she had not seen before, not even when he had slain the great walrus —  for she was only a single, finite wolf, and here was his entire future on the line! In only the past few days his entire identity seemingly fell away; and he stepped into a new one without missing a beat, unafraid to take this leap with her (as it was something he was likely to do anyways, but now he had that undying, all-consuming raison d'être that everyone always craved). He was energetic, enlivened, as he talked about the packs that had committed crimes against him, very personally. The titan frowned, his consternation creasing his face; and Olive looked upon him with love-struck eyes, hoping that in their lifetime together, that he might never lose this quality.

She was a little bit drunk on him, and a lotta bit drunk on herself, and as he suggested they create their own future together, the rise and blush of her beating heart was enough to put a teenager to shame. Words didn't need to affirm her thoughts; her cascade of kisses did that for her. She leapt at him with such gusto that it was possible that she bowled him right over on his side (but perhaps not, he was so very strong and staunch), but no matter where he was, the woman would mercilessly place her tongue and lips and nose all over the silver-tipped fur around his face, crooning a sweet whine at what a significant moment this was for them.

After a moment she settled, but not entirely. Olive sighed, shoulders rolling, tongue poking out the side of her mouth and she panted. "Can it be true?" she asked rhetorically, laying her head atop of him. "Could I be so blessed as to create a home with you, and spend the rest of my days residing within your aegis?" She had only just laid down her head, but she picked it up again, looking into his own eyes with an expression that was a mixture of incredulity and contentedness. "Bearing your children and, oh..." she breathed heavily, "Giving us all those things we never knew we wanted, until now." It wasn't the calling for every woman, but it was certainly was for her, and it took meeting Tiberius for her to realize it. She had never wanted to build a family with anyone before.

But even now, as she possibly laid there atop her lover, not sure if the desires of their coupling would come to fruition, she felt the full weight of the responsibility. "Oh, my darling," she bemoaned with sudden gravity. "I cannot bring our pups into a world that is a candle lit at both ends; with a war looming on the seabord, and another battle already come to pass in the mountains..." If he had come across Vendrussel in his escapades, then she certainly knew about their strife. "We need to take control of our world, it is far too volatile." Certainly this is what Tiberius had meant, in more or less words; but Olive had learned that where he was strong momentum and action, she was words and rationale. "I know that nothing is ever assured, but we can do our damned best to know that our pups grow safe." Olive looked at him, something akin to fire in her eyes.

"You are what the North needs," she said, a dip in her voice adding import to the idea that it was only he who could do this. "You, guarding as far as the eye can see, from the dawn in the east, to the dusk in the west." It was a pretty mental picture, in the very least — at the most, it was the entire future of their new lineage.

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