She probably should’ve stayed in the den and allowed her shoulder to heal, yet for her own sanity, Léonie had needed to leave. The dark imp had been tense ever since that Dieudonné cow had mangled her. She hated being limiter by her restricted movement, and that frustration had made her horribly restless. She had an easier time coping with the pain than she did with the confinement, so the decision to leave her nest came easy.

The journey, however, was not. The desert shadow could do little more than limp across the dunes, her mangled limb held up to keep her paw from dragging through the sand. She moved slowly, semi-crippled — yet stubborn, too. Léonie continued on with a pinched, pained look of annoyed determination. She would not be held back.

She was relieved though to finally reach a place where she could settle down: the Crimson Hideaway. Behind her, the sky had turned dark, but there was only static in the air, suggesting a dry thunderstorm was brewing in the horizon. It would at least give her something to watch while she gave her body a break.

Her shoulder twitching under the multitude of itchy scabs that covered it, Léonie dipped below a stony ledge and carefully, stiffly sank to the ground to rest.

@Thrain

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THRAIN

Where the great and almighty Jafar was forged of ghostly wonder within the return of his sanity, @Léonie was a fantasy. She, in her restless spirit and intricate barring that wandered feminine curves, seemed like something a man's mind could simply materialize out of desperation. Perhaps, born somewhere within masculine daydreams or cold winter nights spent alone.

Whilst his amnesia had shattered like a plane of fragile glass and fragments of his past had reformed in entirety, he could not shake the feeling of uncertainty. He had been engulfed by returning emotion and identity, stricken with desperation and a need to find her; first and foremost, her. Yet, the simple knowing that he had lost himself is enough to stir his roots, no matter how firmly grounded.

So, the whispers of her scent in the place where they had once curled together are at first assumed a splinter of his bandaged memory. And yet with every hurried inhalation of dry desert air, there comes the metallic tang of old blood and rusty visions - his mind flashing back to the day at the river, where as a yearling she lay unperturbed upon a fallen tree as her breast bled with the repercussions of their first adventure.

Now, she feels real. Through the scuff-marks in the sand as softness gives way to red stone, his mind cares not for the possibility of her rage, and he longs only to see her - to know she is more than an invention of his fantasies. So as Thrain closes in upon her hide-away, subconsciously knowing he would not find her until she deemed it so, he slows his gait but not his heart. It thumps, manically.

"I would never leave you," he mumbles into deep shadows of cliffs and ledges, lowering his stance to that of wounded apology; purple gaze their same mis-matched sincerity, and yet he has grown. His muscles echoed beneath the booming light, laden thick across his stretched skeleton and beneath the broadened ruffles of his ebony mane. Masculinity tamed only by regret.

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A deep rumble of thunder caused the charged air to quiver around Léonie, whose skin prickled in response. She inhaled, breathing in the scent of the oncoming storm. It was dark and gloomy, even ugly — much like her mood had been lately, all because their “holier than thou” enemies had decided to renew some rivalry. And yet somehow she and her family were the villains of the challenge for Andal Oasis, not the ones who’d come for them. It was ludicrous, but Léonie hoped if nothing else, she had managed to draw attention to their hypocrisy.

Her raw wound ached with the memory of the challenge, especially her own, causing her to wince. The pain deepened her resolve to seek revenge. Someday, she would, once she’d properly healed. For now, the imp was content to simply scheme while she watched the storm inch closer.

The wind changed course, and that was when it struck her: the heaviness of the storm, and the memory of @Thrain. Her selective perception had always been impressive, yet there in the desert, the lingering echo of his presence reverberated through her, shaking her to her core. She tensed, sucking in a startled gasp as his phantom essence manifested in her nose and sent her heart tumbling. Honestly, she would’ve rather been struck by lightning. It would’ve shocked her less.

It was the Hideaway, of course. Léonie knew where she was. She’d come by choice, and had successfully avoided thinking of the history the canyon held for her — until now.

Blinking away the tears that had sprung from her eyes in her moment of weakness, Léonie simultaneously fought the sudden, stupid lump in her throat, swallowing harshly. She spun her spotted ears back and clenched her teeth, hardening her heart — again.

And yet … his memory refused to be buried.

Nearly drowned by the thunder, she heard it: calloused paws on hard rock, then—

A voice — murmured, and yet deafening in her ears in its sincerity. He sounded so close, as if they’d not been separated by death.

He seemed … within reach …

Slowly, on trembling paws, Léonie uncurled from her hiding place. Spurred by her pounding heart, its once stony husk cracked, the dark imp emerged, limping into the open to face the ghost.

There was no ghost, though. The lion who stood before her was the one she’d loved and lost, and he was very, very much alive. He was no shadow, no hallucination of the mind.

He was, however, a fucking ASSHOLE.

“You— son— OF— !”

Before Léonie could finish, a hard, annoyed sob ripped from her throat and she collapsed back onto her haunches.

“YOU— YOU ASS— ” she cried out, chest heaving and shoulders trembling. A hot flood of tears poured from her hazel eyes as they tried glaring at the swirling blob of orange color in her view. “YOU— FUCK— !”

Pain be damned, Léonie pulled herself back onto all four paws, to hobble at the blob. “YOU— stupid— !” came her hiss, thick with raw emotion — yet as she reached him, seeking not to rip his head off and shove it up his ass but to rather crumble into him, what followed was a whimper of relief, a muffled and tearful “Fuck … ”

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THRAIN

There is no stagnancy in this silence; instead a warping air of electricity, snapping and crackling at his flesh as his pulse raced through his eardrums. The deep violet of his gaze flickers weakly through the dark shadows that are cast beneath a cloud-fighting sun, violet and indigo billowing like the tumbling storm overhead.

She unfurls, an untangling of soot from the tawny shadows; her nearness stirring his core, bringing sharp peaks to the once-sleekness of his bronze coat, bristling. Her face, a painful affiliation between frustration and disbelief; Thrain wants to pull his eyes from her emergence and return them to the sand in self-condemnation. He cannot. He is glued to her, as though his mind were barely his own.

Tension rolls across the light scars of his jaw, flexing muscle beneath masculine carvings. The emotion that pours from his lover is haunting, received in entirety; and it brings him up from his prior slump of shame, as if drumming itself into his chest and re-inflating him. He absorbs her rage and her anger as if it were his very return to existence, the return of blood to his dry veins.

Heavy gulps, shaky breaths, ears buried into thick sprouts of mane; but though the young male fights back the contagion of her sentiment, a lump in his throat, his expression is steadfast. Thrain shifts, thinking less, letting his instinct sweep him towards her wounded body, and as @Léonie walks to meet him he spares no consideration for potential assault.

Instead he rocks back, willing to take any blows, and seeks to encase her in a brutish embrace, as if he expected her to fight it - or thrash and squirm like she were his prisoner. His forearms taut behind her shoulders he sought to squash her into the thick of his mane and bow his throat across the gentle slopes of her forehead.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you."

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Overwhelmingly blinded by the tears she was powerless to hold back, Léonie limped onward to where she could see @Thrain in her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, sending more tears down her cheeks before she crushed into something wooly yet firm — muscle hidden by thick mane. Another sob shook her, followed by a hard sniff as she turned her face into that familiar embrace, to dry her eyes and nose in the inky tuft that surrounded her. Léonie inhaled his scent and heat and essence, her entire being shuddering with raw emotion and pressing closer in desperation. A paw reached out, claws extended to catch whatever skin they could and keep him from back away before she was ready to allow it. If she wanted to sob and soak his mane all evening with her tears and snot, he would just have to deal with it.

The touch of his paws around her rock her, but the feeling his chin and jaw skim across her forehead as she was tucked into his throat pulled her in before she could completely collapse. Hiccuping, the imp crumbled harder, haunches dropping to the rock with a thud. Her tail was quick to wrap itself around them, body language scared and uncertain, even as she rubbed her face against his neck and chest. Léonie was caught somewhere between relief and despair, steadied only by the warm, solid mass of muscle under her cheek and around her shoulders.

But a voice came from above and caught her ear, twisting it. He didn’t want to leave her — and yet he had. There must’ve been a damn good reason, as she still held into the belief that he’d never willingly leave her behind, yet his apologize nonetheless frustrated her.

Sniffing, she at last eased back, to seek out his gaze with her own — just not before wiping her face off on him again. Moving her weight into her rear, Léonie leaned away, revealing the pained, annoyed expression that his words had brought about. There was an expectant look too, an unspoken demand: start talking. She was listening and wanted to know the reason behind his disappearance, and if it fell short of something extraordinary, she’d see to it that he disappeared again.

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THRAIN

He'd have stayed there forever, entangled with her. Her warm flesh solidifies all the memories that had once been so wishy washy in his brain; setting them like carved stone in the very being of his existence. His grip is steadfast, holding her taut against his breast, honored to be her personal handkerchief.

He feels her unraveling and is reluctant to let her go, knowing that once they were apart, he would have to answer for his disappearance. It had felt like he had been gone for a lifetime, and if @Léonie hadn't been merely a boyish fantasy, he'd half expected her to be old or something.

Yet here she is, the very epitome of feminine youth and beauty; even with her swollen eyes and weeping accusation that bleeds guilt into his heart. Reluctantly he released her, his shoulders growing more taut as his mismatched gaze clings to the hazel swirls of her damp vision. He didn't even know where to start, what to say. The illness that had plagued him made him feel weak - made him scared it could some day come back, like a black spot on his brain that would never leave.

Shoulder-blades bunch up under his mane, muscled abdomen tense and curved beneath his spine. Thrain gulped, a shaky exhale, "The... landslide. It... got me." Explanation or not, he could not get back the time he had lost with her. "I forgot everything, I just walked and existed," the bronze lion felt as if every word were some kind of knife, as if his words would only make her hate him more and forgive him less. "I came back as soon as I remembered how..." purple gaze winced, wanting to trail to her toes, and yet too entangled in his own need for reprimand to feel sorry for himself.

"I'm sorry," but he knows it's no use, no apology can help the fuckery of the situation.

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The landslide, he explained, and Léonie winced at the memory. She sighed, her hazel eyes lowering to the ground. She could remember the scene with vivid clarity: the ground that had collapsed in numerous places, and bulged in others, uprooting trees as if they were nothing more than daisies. It’d made sense then that @Thrain had been crushed under the litter, especially when she’d never found any evidence to convince her otherwise. Somehow, he’d escaped — but not unscathed.

He’d forgotten her, which did not surprise her. Léonie could easily see how a bump to the head could knock the rocks in his head loose. She knew too that the sheer trauma could be enough to cloud his memory. She’d experienced her own when the mist had taken her. Eventually, he’d come to his senses, and had started the journey back to her, but her tail thumped its tuft on the ground. She sat there, visibly distressed and annoyed with the emotions that crashed through her: sadness, knowing how much time now separated them; frustration, for the same reason; and relief that he yet lived.

There was … some reemerging disbelief, too. She could feel herself reaching to grasp the truth before her, yet it slipped through her claws before she could fully accept it. Léonie had felt his heat, his strength — but after doing without for so long, it left her … conflicted. It was wonderful one moment, then somewhat strange the next. It was the shock, she was sure of it. It made her feel guilty though, and in turn, more annoyed.

“I thought you were dead,” she finally exhaled, not yet meeting his eyes again. @Thrain probably knew that, but she needed to say it. “I think everyone did.” His family might’ve held onto hope — she couldn’t say for sure, not when it came to his parents. She’d never met them, not even after Thrain’s disappearance.

A second slow, shaky sigh visibly drained her, making her shrink before him. “I … ” the dark imp began, wrinkles of distress etched across her forehead. “I thought you were dead,” she repeated, more quietly, and at last looked up, pleading eyes bright with fright.

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THRAIN

His very soul seemed to ache and shudder beneath the weight of @Léonie's distress; knowing the event that dragged them apart was partially his own fault - he had run towards it after all, too courageous, too wanting to be a hero. Not for a moment had he considered it would tear them apart - perhaps even forever.

“I thought you were dead,” she reveals. "I know," he muttered, inhaling the agony that bled from her pores. Anyone who knew Thrain at least half-way knew he wasn't an abandoner - anything but that. His ears only folded further deeper into the dark tresses of his mane, soot-spattered brow bunched with self-doubt and remorse.

Once, it had been Leonie, Scorpius and Sedona who had left - by choice. And yet it is incomparable; the young crew born of wandering spirit and carefree devotion to thrill. Not once had he truly worried. Thrain was not forged of the same essence; too firmly grounded, too strictly disciplined, too plain. His mind had let him down.

"I don't want you to forgive me, @Léonie," he says, thirsty for punishment, and he tries to inch that bit closer; to come to her again. If she does not shrink away, his bronze and ash forehead would seek to press against her own, to breathe her in, "But I want you to know I'll never leave you again."

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Forgiveness. He dared to mention it, as if it had even been a consideration in her mind. She shook her head, before he moved closer to press his into her own, grounding her. She sniffed hard, blinking away the fresh tears that stung at her eyes, the turmoil in her momentarily soothed. Darkness lingered in her heart like the storm on the horizon — distant, for now, yet ready to sweep in and overpower her. For now, she breathed in, taking Thrain’s scent deep into her core, trying to steady herself.

“I will actually, literally kill you if you do,” she sighed, finally. Fortunately, her voice was without anger or seriousness — rather, it was tired, not quite the playful tone she’d once teased him with. Léonie was drained. Between her recovery from the recent maim and the shock of @Thrain returning from the grave, the Miroslav was exhausted.

A rumble of thunder — much closer than those that had come before it — provided a good excuse to crawl away and hide. “Come on, you can keep telling me how sorry you are after we find shelter,” she suggested with the beginning of a worn smile.

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THRAIN

She does not shy from the firm thud of velvety foreheads, and for that he is thankful; relishing the warmth of her breath. Though the Casales prince were uneasy, torn, broken - much like the woman before him, her words bring about a gentle return to his own self. “I will actually, literally kill you if you do,” a promise he is sure of it, and it pushes his snout against the shorter bridge of @Léonie's muzzle; tugging a relieved smile at the dusty edges of his cheeks.

"Please," he begs of her death-sentence, playful yet sincere, seeking to sweep a charcoal nose across her cheek, his subconscious guiding his nostrils down her neck and to the wound that festered at her barred shoulder; warm breath prickling at scabby edges, his jaw tightening. He wants to know who hurt her, who deserves the wrath that had once faced Narsil the day she dared show her face a year after scathing his Mirsolav-princess. Yet, he cannot; because he feels he does not deserve to know, doe snot deserve to be angry, that the pain he had seen welling in her eyes only moments before far surpassed this fleshy injury.

Through her suggestion of shelter Thrain can not really bring himself to pull away; not wanting to move, lingering there with his breath by her shoulder and the feeling of his ear against her neck-ruffles. Afraid that when apart, he would have to lay witness to her wounded heart as it flashed behind her hazel eyes. So he nods, but he waits for her to leave him, willing to stand there and be her umbrella if she should so choose.

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