A few hours later...

Sorrow, heartache, hope, love.
Evening had drawn across her sculpted shoulders like a cloak, a disguise for tear-stained cheeks of vibrant blue. Wearied paws carried her tender, aching soul home. The crunch of earth beneath delicate toes suggested a threat of frost. A new season to bear down upon them, the world ever shifting, ever changing. If only she could keep her grip tight enough, long enough, to hold it still. To breathe and feel at peace at last.

Emotional exhaustion had taken its price, robbing her heart of so much and leaving her almost void of any feeling. Almost. The temptation to fall into the dark and solitary embrace of her den loomed large. But she resists, tipping her nose away from the darkness, turning the blaze of her sapphire gaze toward the earthen home of her King. But she is stilled in place, unable to traverse the space between. Unwilling to disturb his children, unwilling to demand of him the answers that she may not be prepared to hear.

But she must. If not now, then what had it all been for?

She cannot imagine what he supposes happened away from his eye. What outcome he expects awaits him on the morn. Sláine had acted from her heart, knowing well that she might face sunrise alone and heartbroken. It was a risk. There had been no word, no promises between them that held his heart to hers. But the hope of him is what has burned through her, ruined her for anyone else. She had not needed to hear it then. But she needed it now. Or to know. At least to know.

Lips part, lilting voice rising softly into the dark evening. Calling the few feet to him, to draw him out if he lurked within his hollow. Sláine hovered in front of her home, nerves of longing and hope pulsing through her body.

I would burn everything for your touch.

@Alaric

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

this world is dying in our arms

How much more could he handle? Loss after loss blended together until he could barely discern one from the other, coming so quickly that it almost seemed a cruel joke now. Alaric barely had time to breathe, settling in to some new skewed version of normal, before he faced some new life-altering disaster. The latest left him feeling entirely out of sorts. Not only because Slaine was one constant in his tumultuous life (and now he imagined that he would lose her, too) but because he had truly valued the friendship he had with Ronin. Alaric had grieved him in his own way, coming to terms with the fact that he would not return after many long talks with his widowed wife. His return should have been a celebration -- instead it brought pain. For him, yes, but just as likely for Slaine and Ronin too. Assuming Slaine had told him the truth, and assuming they felt any sorrow at leaving the Mire (which is what Alaric pictured happening). How could she possibly choose him, after all? Alaric had not even confessed his love to her (and was not likely to do so for a time, if he ever managed to face it himself) and Ronin was.... good. Strong and steady and dependable and loyal; he was everything that Slaine deserved to have. By all rights he had been wallowing in the depths of their den, thankful that his children were sleeping (or off on their own late night adventures, the older ones) so that he need not hide. When she calls he hesitates, a wash of fear rooting him in his place as his mind resists going out to what will surely be another loss. When has he ever denied her? Of course he eventually emerges, and the drawn lines of his face are a crystal clear indication of just how intensely he feels. Alaric tries to hide it, to lift a shield and draw a weapon -- "come to say goodbye?" As if he were trying to hurt her for hurting him. Bastard..

code // art

The darkness is where they have lived, living and breathing eachother's bodies before the dawn emerges and all is then as it ever was. She had been party to it, instigator, collaborator. But now she senses that it should have been the first sign. That he might not want her, not really, and not wish others to know. She knows her worth to him as friend and co parent, but did his heart really reach beyond that? She imagined she had seen something behind the shock of Ronin's arrival. But what if that was just fantasy she had played out?

If the tables were reversed, would he have chosen her?

"Come to say goodbye?" Words were drawn like a sword and the doubt within festered. Is that what he desired? Was she now an embarrassment? An affair to be shaken off? Brow lifted, tilting her wet marked face up to observe the tired looking monarch as he ascended from his resting place.

"Nae." She replied, lips forming words hushed and low. Though there was no one else to hear them now. Her eyes catch the faint glimmer of moonlight as she beholds her King. Body pulsing, anticipating, terrified. "I hae come tae see if ye want me still."

She gulps, swallowing down the deep pain of the interaction before this. "I hae told him tha' I love ye, @Alaric. My heart, my body, is yers. If ye still desire me."

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

this world is dying in our arms

Alaric stood in turmoil, holding his words like weapons, sliding an all too familiar mask in to place. Practiced and poised, acting as if his world was not crumbling around him. So much did he expect her to leave that he barely listened to what she said, the words scratching only the surface of his mind. Until.. My heart, my body, is yers. This is what finally trickles in, and the mask cracks just a little. A hairline fracture, showing the faintest glimmer of surprise. Beyond that lives hope, buried so deeply that even were the mask to split in half it might not show. It lived, still, beneath his own unwillingness to acknowledge his feelings, beneath his his knowing that to give his love was to sign a death warrant. It was better if she left. Ronin was good and just and kind, all of the things that Alaric was not. He was deserving of the woman who stood before him, marked by tears and weighted by her own emotions. "Ye... what?" The shock pulls her own accent from between his lips as the behemoth blinked at her, muscles tensed and half ready to fling him in her direction and smother her with his affections. He does not move, though, frozen to his spot until she confirmed what she had said. As his mind catches up with all that she had said, processing the words that had been spoken, he can only think to ask -- "why?" Why me..

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A kiss, a moment of undiluted happiness or outright rejection and scorn. Whatever she had expected to draw out from beneath the concrete mask of her lover, it had not been disbelief. The low thrum of excitement and building terror that had sang through her body quickly dissipated, replaced by a sudden ache that spasmed in her gut. Glistening eyes widened in surprise at the questions that had stammered forth from his lips.
What?
"Why?" She repeated, blue muzzle tilting her skull at an angle, uncertainty clouding her expression. Only days before, she had bared her soul to him, unveiling the deepest longings held within her injured heart. Those sentiments still stood, though undoubtedly had been thoroughly tested by Ronin's return. "I didnae lie when I said I was yers."

The queen took a single step toward him, desperate to reduce the canyon that lay between them but unwilling to cross it entirely alone. Her mouth tipped upward slightly so that she could continue to meet his gaze, lips parted, begging to be kissed. Hoping to find something within his features, a sign, a look. She is unashamed of her love; it does not make her weak to open herself thus. "Ronin hae meant so much tae me. Ye ken (know) this." She continued, tail lancing out to one side. Her impatience for his reluctance to confront her with his feelings (or lack of), growing. "But my love is deeper, here." Her pale blue nose gestured to him, and then to her.

"If ye love me. Please tell me. Or wrench yer hold of me free." Before Ronin's return, she may have been happy enough to live in the small crevices in @Alaric's heart that he would permit her. It would have been all and everything that she had. But today was different. Today she had turned away a man she still loved in hopes for something even more consuming. She could no longer settle for the scraps of Alaric's shattered heart.

It was everything, or nothing at all.

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

this world is dying in our arms

There is confusion clear on his features, a disbelief that rises even against her words of reassurance. Oh he knew she loved him, but more than Ronin? More than the one she had initial turned him down for? More than loyalty and safety and security? More? It is unfathomable to him, no matter how his heart squeezes at the very thought. "I know you said it," he finally manages, though his words are slow and his voice barely more than a murmur, "but that was... before..." Before the love of her life had waltzed back in to the Mire with the most impeccable timing. "I..." He cannot help but step towards her, closing the gulf between them bit by bit. Alaric cannot bring himself to cross it entirely, no matter how he wants to. No matter how his mind screams at him to take her then and there and remind her that Yes, she is his. His eyes are wide, his expression unreadable. Too many emotions flicker there to settle on just one, but when he speaks again he only just whispers and there is a ring of brutal honesty in his voice -- "I am afraid, Slaine. I... I can't lose you..." Would she see, then? Would she understand? How much he had lost... how many he had buried....

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@Alaric's body inched closer, only a step yet her lungs inhaled sharply with expectation. Lips trembled in their readiness, eager and hungry to be bruised by his own. Wanting, needing him to lay down his claim.
Hesitation seemed to rule him as maddeningly, he does not close the gap. Irritated, she barely refrained from frowning at his pale, torn features. Softened marginally seconds later by the admission of his fear, blue ears push away from him, bodice shook with desire and frustration.
"Lose me?" Her whiskers twitched, lips pursing momentarily. "I hae been here Alaric. I hae stayed when all others hae gone from us. I am nae lost or dead. I am far stronger than ye allow." He underestimated her and it was a blow that he saw her so weak, so fragile, when she had never been any of those things. "I see ye. I ken (know) who ye are. Good and bad. Everything between." Had anyone ever known him so well? Accepted him so readily, in all his guises?
Impatient paws took another step, and then another, exposing the suppleness of her lithe body as she swayed snakelike toward him. Close enough now that she might herself reach out to kiss him, though she does not. "If ye want me. Then take me." She purred, lifting her mouth to inches from his jaw. "Say ye love me and I will be yers, in body and heart. I will be yer wife all o' yer days."
Her eyes strayed briefly down to his talons in a half smile. "And I will nae quiver in the depths of your dark soul."

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

this world is dying in our arms

When she argues with him he knows she does not understand. And how could she? It was a ridiculous notion, really, and for a second he feels shamed that he could even consider such a silly thing as a curse. Curses were for those who believed in more than this mortal life, weren't they? "Every one I've loved has died. Every single one. Within months... or days..." Erna had lived a little longer since his admission, at least, but Aidoneus? Long enough to give him the family he ached for only to have it snatched away again. And Arsynia had not even had his love, only his promise. So what could keep her safe? "I could not protect them, not one of them..." His throat tightens with the familiar grip of grief, and his gaze dances away from hers as she steps closer, closer. Slaine presses in to all those raw and broken places, but this is no fairytale. Alaric is not magically healed by her love, nor by her admissions. He does not bend to her wishes and sweep her off her paws in to a happily ever after. Instead he looks back at her and his expression is pained, his emotions more clearly exposed than ever before. "I want you so badly it hurts," he admits, his voice a ragged whisper, "but loving me is deadly, Slaine. Loving me... it kills." Can't she see? Even as he says the damned 'but' he steps closer to her, close enough that his fur brushes against hers and he aches to fall in to it. Aches so much that he reaches without thinking, curling a forepaw around one of her own, grounding him in her presence..

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It is not in her to beg and the hope that had danced across her speckled features began to wilt. The horror of that snaking feeling that tells her that she has thought so much more of the relationship between them than it seemed there was.
Her breathing grew harder, more painful with each heartbroken exhalation, soul prickling with the tears that would no longer be allowed to reach the soft expression filled eyes that did not waiver from the green gaze of her King.

Slaine had lived through his losses, as witness and helpless to the incredible pain that he endured as each new love vanished from his grasp. In her own growing feelings for him, those strong shoulders of hers had bolstered him and his family up and supported him even in the midst of her own terrible and lonely grief. Alaric did not have the monopoly on grief, but he had far more support and love and devotion from those around him than Slaine had ever had in her life. Especially when five of the six children born from her devoted body had perished needlessly.

Shame burned hot in her cheeks that he had not even been able to look at her as she approached, trying her best to convince him that her love was worthwhile. It would never erase what had come before, for either of them, but perhaps it would be something all of its own. Beautiful in the steadiness of its strength and respect, a love born from the deepest of friendships.

But the queen does not speak these words, her voice slipping away into quietness for a time as she felt the power of his words wash over her, rippling through her and bringing the slow, gentle realization that he does not wish her to die. An imagined curse hangs above him, ready to land heavy upon any that should linger too near. It's a surprise to her that he should be so superstitious. And Slaine was absolutely not, she knew that his losses were not of his own making. Just unfortunate coincidence.

His injured expression looks to her once again and she finds herself stilled in the spot, fine hairs all at a quiver.
"I want you so badly it hurts...but loving me is deadly, Slaine. Loving me... it kills."
Her ears pressed back against her skull as sympathy and love consumed her, flooding forward to blur out every other emotion that had stirred within her before then. He did care for her. Perhaps even loved her enough to not take the risk. Yet he is there then, throwing all of her thoughts into instant disarray as his chest comes to press needily into her own and she felt his paw upon hers.
Her mouth edged toward his, so easily falling into the familiar warmth of him. But she hesitates, finding some last speck of strength from her empty well. "Neither o' our hearts are whole. And I ken ye fear what might happen tae me if we step beyond what we are even if I dae nae fear it one bit." Her eyes, which had slipped to his lips, rose to meet his green stare. "If ye cannae find it in ye tae try again. I understand. But I dae love ye @Alaric, regardless o' what we are ... I will never nae(not) be yer friend." They had always been friends, and her shoulders would always be there to hold him up.

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

this world is dying in our arms

Alaric had always been a simple creature. Born in a world where you fought for power and lost it when you grew too weak or too old, where love was a fairytale and children were all that truly mattered. A place where they were murdered if you lost that power, so you fought tooth and nail to hold on to it. Superstitions were something he would have mocked, before. He would have rolled his eyes and scoffed and told anybody who listened that they were mad for thinking of things like curses. Now, though he can see the hurt he causes, he cannot just... give in. After so much loss, blow after blow, how can he simply accept that all is fine and dandy? Every time he had thought himself content, settled in to whatever version of 'happily ever after' he deserved, death came knocking. And Slaine? Slaine deserved better than that. She deserved a long and fruitful life, with children that lived and thrived and a love that was loyal. "You say you're not afraid, Slaine," his head dips, his voice a whisper as he seeks to press his forehead against hers, "but I am." He had said it once but he says it again, now, as if he might make her see. "But... I am selfish... I want you, even if I'm afraid you'll die if I claim you." It hurts to think of losing her, but to spend a life without her? Alaric had lost too much, and he could not take another hit..

code // art