In Violarum's prior experience - and yes, Gunnhildr certainly had been some kind of experience - love turned to hate (and maim matches) very quickly. Though, he wasn't entirely sure he should have believed the peach woman all that time ago, given Fallon was quick to inform him he had been used.

He mulls it over, unknowing @Fallon wondered the same thing of him, as though they were connected in mind by some impossible wave-length. If only it had been that way days before, when Fallon was troubled and Violarum oblivious to it. Such was the way with life.

"I couldn't hate you even if I tried," oh. Thank goodness for that. Round ears fluttered weakly forward, their first movement since the happening - as though he were just a kitten with a flicker of hope. She mentions how she missed their former life; but Vio can't know if it were the simplicity before he became unsettled by Nero, or if she were referencing her life before Violarum all together.

He breathed inwards, vaguely shaken but more composed than moments before, and it was in that moment the slightest tilt of her snout would cause her face to catch the moonlight; her cheekbone tarnished by a ripple of scarring that wasn't there before. His brow raised vaguely, crimson gaze squinting as his mate apologized and seemed to calm. Subconsciously, her seated position and ease of temper rubs off on him, ushering him a singular stride closer. Closer to sanity, too.

"Ghyslaine is gone. It doesn't matter now," he forced a shrug, his shoulders stiff and his heart still hurt - it was part truth and part lie. He did care, how could he not? But as with everything Violarum, he would find a way to accept it - because obsession was not in his nature. "Who hurt you? I hope they look worse," rather, he certainly assumed they did.

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"Don't do that," she responds tiredly, resisting the temptation to be up in arms once more as @Violarum skims over all that has transpired in her absence. "Don't shut me out. I want you to be open with me," Fallon asks of her husband knowing full well that he was not the type to describe his feelings or thoughts with great emotion or details. "What happened?" the Lorien Noble presses once more, hoping to get more from the Frei.

He notices her fresh scars now, squinting suspiciously at them and asking for information. "Some random brute. Doesn't matter now," the Salem woman responds, tongue-in-cheek, pausing for a moment to gauge Vio's reaction before revealing more information. "I was down by the Swamp and got jumped by this strange, patchy guy. I didn't get a chance to retaliate," the Lorien woman admits, gaze cast down to the ground.

She was yet to look at her own reflection since the incident, afraid of what she might see staring right back at her. "Hendrix saw the whole thing." A pang of guilt strikes within her heart as she recalls the look on her son's face as he stared at her face, freshly disfigured and lacerated by her opponent. "I've been looking for him," she adds as an afterthought, seeking revenge for the next time she might encounter him.

Fallon wouldn't openly admit it but the attack has made her wary -- jumpy even. She could no longer quite trust the shadows as she once had. It feels... nice to get the matter off her chest. For weeks now, it has simply brewed within -- swirling and festering at her insides.

In their previous encounter, as well as this one, @Fallon made it clear she had no time for Violarum's dislike of the pale Nero; that her stance on the matter was steadfast, unapproving of his interest in their relationship. So, when she presses for more, there is a pensive purse to his lips and a wide-eyed gawk; quite literally feeling baited.

He held a silence during her explanation, still not particularly willing to delve into the entire truth of he and Ghyslaine's argument - he had shared most of it already anyway. If Fallon was slipping away because he had been so tied up in the fact Ghys had married a man of drama and loaded threats, then he didn't think it was wise to keep talking to her about it. And yet, what good would their togetherness be, if they could not be honest?

"Miroslav?" he asked, tying 'patchy' to the mischievous sorts that once roamed the desert. Still, as chaotic as they were, he hadn't met one who attacked out of fun. Amaryllis would always be home to the dark and the dangerous. "You'll find him," because he knew where Fallon's talents were strongest, and he knew she would have her revenge. An eye for an eye after all, blood isn't free.

Hendrix's presence upon the scene is not a matter of concern. Their children would grow up well exposed of the real world, and know how to hold their own. That much was sure. Of course, there came a natural bristle of frustration that a man should harm his wife, and yet Vio is well aware of her capability - and no doubt certain that she would prefer to unravel her own justice, than seek assistance from her husband like a distressed damsel.

Yet, he remembers well how Fallon flew into battle with Gunnhildr.

Eventually he relents, vaguely unleashing the words he had held hostage; deciding any avoidance of her further rage was both exhausting and unrealistic. "I told Ghyslaine I didn't like Nero. I won't have him threatening Olive. He has no place here," there was no debate to it, Violarum would not change his mind. "She was so... Ghys," he shook his head, muscles tensing along his jawline, so blinded - and stubborn. He wanted to unleash his every thought, but he resists - barely, not wanting his wife to storm off too.

"She wouldn't stay without him. She thinks she owes him, 'cause he left his stupid family behind," and it was stupid - the Sigrun, the Rike - they all were. "I told her to get him out before I killed him. I was angry," no shit sherlock. Though Violarum was not predisposed to murderous thoughts, he certainly would like to sink in some teeth and claws. At least he was nice enough to resist such urges when the guy was barely feet away, right?

Brownie points for that, please?

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He doesn't divulge what has transpired between himself and Ghyslaine, Fallon feeling every bit the outsider as @Violarum simply stares. Was this her fault? Had she gone about this the wrong way? Would he have listened to her if she'd said what she needed to say softer? Would he have even understood the gravity with which she felt these emotions?

A tumultuous barrage of doubts and questions jostling for position in her brain. As he asks if her attacker was a Miroslav, she simply shrugs her slender shoulders. She knew the Oasis had swapped paws some time ago but didn't know much more than that.

She feels a sharp sting as her husband throws an encouraging word in her direction, and not quake with the same anger that she had seen when she had first entered the cache. But this time, it doesn't eventuate into anger -- it simply dissolves into a sadness that she buries. Fallon does not know her husband's reasoning -- she is all but left to think that he did not deem it as important.

Finally, the full story comes to light -- it depicts one of misunderstanding and words that couldn't be taken back. He is frustrated that his best friend cannot see the same things that he sees. As the Salem woman had predicted, Ghyslaine had chosen her husband.

"I know you're angry but saying such things will only push her further away," Fallon offers her own observation, certain that it will fall onto deaf ears. "If we still lived in the Mire and Alaric told you that I would have to leave, would you let me leave on my own?" she attempts to show Vio how Ghys might have felt, though truthfully unsure of what his answer might be.

"To be a good King, you need to be able to see both sides, even when you're seeing red." A pause then as she offers her own advice, what with the damage already having been done, "Give her time. I'm sure this will all blow over if you allow it to." Meaning, don't go murdering Nero if he wanted to have his best friend back.

"I know you're angry but saying such things will only push her further away," he slumps a little at her words, heading them off with a vague 'humph' under his breath. Unfortunately Violarum was almost entirely transparent, and not being himself or acting with particular self-control was mostly impossible. He didn't want to be a wise and all-knowing King, he just wanted to be strong, happy - and have his family close.

Why did it need to be so complicated?

"But it's just Alaric," he whined, as though dismissing the wheaten King's relevence. Alaric was his friend, as he was Ghyslaine's, but it wasn't quite the same closeness. It wasn't hard for Vio to leave Alaric in pursuit of his own throne, because it had always been the plan. This was not planned. Ghys was meant to stay forever.

With a hefty sigh his eyes shifted from the moonlit plains, back to his wife's face; not finding her scars to detract anything from her usual beauty. They told of her ferocity, her fire, reminded him how he had so underestimated the opposite sex before he had fallen in love with her. She was as much a warrior as he, though her motives were far more calculated.

"Okay," he concluded upon her final suggestion, returning finally to his more malleable and accepting norm - though no less short his typical pout, as though he were a teenager just trying to get out of serious talk. "Let's go for a walk?" he asked her, wanting to move his legs to clear his mind, but mostly hoping that @Fallon would feel less caged on the opposite side of the borders.

-- exit

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He doesn't quite understand the purpose of the hypothetical that she has posed and though disappointed, it does not hurt as much considering Fallon had already managed her expectations. She contemplates continuing to try to explain it to @Violarum but decides that this will not be productive.

Inwardly, she is glad when her husband suggests a walk for that was something that she had been wanting to do. In this very moment, she wanted to escape -- to run far as her lungs and her legs would allow.

Perhaps only then would she be able to sleep, drawn into rest by pure exhaustion. This seemed far nicer than laying awake in her own thoughts.

The Salem woman shakes her head in reply, beginning to pick her way out of the cache and into the light drizzle that has set over Amaryllis. "Let's run," she proposes to him instead, wanting to feel the burn in her chest and in her limbs to eliminate the stinging that she felt in her heart.

If he doesn't follow, Fallon would continue on her way regardless. Without pause, the grey figurine enters into a steady jog, a smooth gait that takes her towards the outskirts of the pride lands.

Exit Fallon?