if he looks closely enough he can still see the blood. it flashes behind his eyes with every blink, as if it stained the backs of eyelids. rising to the surface of the silver is a lost boy, broken and unassuming, ragged and standing as if he is uncomfortable in his own skin. there is no powerful beast of damnation, here, but only a creature cast in to an endless void with no red thread to guide him home.

severed by his own teeth and claws, surely, or drenched so completely with blood it cannot serve its purpose.

stay with me... i need you...

mentally cringing from the recollection, the echo of admissions ringing through his mind as he drags a paw over long-dried moss. it crumbles beneath his touch, releasing near-black flacks of...

blood

the copper is weak, ancient, forgotten... more than enough to send him tumbling back, back, back. closing his eyes and seeing her limp before him, remembering the slip of his paws over her neck, the blood that had coated them so heavily. silver eyes (all but unseeing) falling to said paws, deaf to the noise as his claws scrape gouges in to the stone.

deaf, blind, dumb -- outside the raven's warnings can no longer reach him.

the cruelty of love,

She watches him with a disinterested expression.

She knew he was here before she even stepped inside, of course-- the ravens flocking just outside the waterfall is enough of a tell as any. There's a part of her-- a large part of her-- that wants to keep moving. Leave him to his business here, whatever it might be. Or whatever he's been doing these last few months. And yet, something pulls her in.

Nothing as crass as a red thread. Today, it's simple curiousity.

There is little surprise when she sees him hunched over, suffering. Pawing and clawing at the stone like if he tries hard enough he'll get somewhere. Her nose all but wrinkles as she watches @Draven suffer in silence-- suffer the consequence of his own action. She'd helped him here, once, and he'd all but clawd out her throat. She'd offered to shoulder his burden here, once, and he'd said no.

Draven, she says, voice loud in the rumble of echoing silence.

code by flea, art by rabbit ♥

heavy in the air the scent of blood is changed, turned from old to fresh. a claw (worn and aged) has cracked against the stone, torn to the quick, mixing the red of new in to that of old.

was it hers? his? His?

it doesn't matter. the smell is enough to jar him from his tumbling thoughts; her voice is more than that. grounding him, the stone beneath him turning solid, dragging his massive self from the inky pool that threatened to pull him under.

the cage door swings on one hinge, rusted and broken, but he is hardly free.

cracked and broken, no different than the claw ruined against the stone. how many years might a beast bear a burden without damage? without the weight changing blood and bone alike, bending and molding and altering permanently?.

he looks to her and there is a glimmer, a hint, beneath the dull sheen of his eyes and the hollow curves beneath them. "fao," an exhalation in to the oppressive silence, a grasp for a lifeline he had no right to cling to. a tug on a red thread long frayed, as if praying to find it made whole again.

"you're here," a whisper that is almost a question.

dare i trust my eyes, now?

@Faolán

the cruelty of love,

She almost does not notice the tinge of copper in the air.

It follows him around, and seemingly lives etched in the rockface here. A lingering memory of a day she'd much rather forget. The day her throat had been clawed out, the day her sisters' throats had been torn.... her mothers, her daughters... everyone and everything she has ever lost has been bathed in blood. And at the center of all of it, @Draven.

Wild-eyed and frantic, draven

Clinging on with desperate strength, draven.

For now, she answers, voice whisper-soft even against the quiet of the grotto. For how much longer...? That's as the real question. She could not keep doing this dance with him, not anymore. Not now that she had children to care for. He might have been freed from all responsibility but she was not, and she shouldered it with care. All the while he was here, desperately fighting a fight that's been raging for years and years and years. With no end in sight.

There'd been one, once.

But he'd rejected her, and thus, he had to live with the consequences.

And that is why he was here, bleeding all by himself, instead of tucked up warm in a familial den. To say she missed him would be a stretch-- it'd be a lie. But still, she is here-- even if she wears a frown and a wrinkled up nose. Perhaps finally seeing the eye of bjorn for what he truly was. Desperate, pathetic-- a man wallowing in his own sins. Ears tick forward, almost curious. what now, draven? why were they still here?

code by flea, art by rabbit ♥

for now

two simple words, both a blessing and a curse. washed with relief, first, if only to know his eyes did not deceive him -- how many times had they done so? how many dreams had turned to nightmare had turned to reality? -- followed fast by a hollow sort of realization.

for now, she had said, and the unspoken part widens the gulf between them while he scrambles desperately to bridge it. placing plank after plank and coming up short, all while ice-eyes curl eagerly around the curves of her face.

but not for long.

had she spoken again? no, no.. the whisper is darker, more malicious, and the rusted door succumbs to shadow as the hinges finally fail.

"i did not --" he stops, considers, weighs his words carefully. looks from her to the ground, to the old blood mixed with new, and begins again. "i never meant..." stuttering, struggling, as pathetic as she certainly deemed him to be.

"for any of it."

hollow, worthless, but something that edges on both admission and apology alike.

the broken boy crawls in to his door-less prison and begs to be free of this burden. pleas that fall on deaf ears, swallowed by empty shadows, echoed by a inky and fading laugh.

@Faolán

the cruelty of love,

He scrambles, a man pressed too close to a ledge-- fighting against gravity. Fighting against fate. which fight was harder? Which fight would @Draven win? Between them she smells only the penny-tinged scent of old blood and thinks she knows the answer. Maybe he doesn't, though; for all that he's been named the eye, he had always been awfully shortsighted.

and cruel, she adds tiredly, when his apology comes-- and it's just as frazzled as he is.

For what? Her voice is soft but not kind. Sharp, a pocket knife sheathed in butter-soft leather. for any of it, he says, but does he know what that means? Does he know what it entails? Does he know the hell he-- they-- put her through? Put all of them through? Oh, of course he knows. of course he knows.

But he'll never understand.

Dainty shoulders roll beneath plush fur, an idle motion easily waved away. The same care she treats his apology with. With so much to live for now, it's criminal to still live in the past. She'd bear the weight of his sins, and that of his brothers, for all the rest of her life. She is done cowering in their shadows, though. She'd offered to shoulder his burden once but never again-- here, now, he'll have to learn to live with the shackles he's made for himself.

It's over, draven. She says, voice still quiet against the grotto idyllic peace. It is no winter haven but surely some find peace here; she would never be one of them. A beat passes and then another, counting time by the fluttering of wings and the steady thrum of her heart. Measured and even, unaffected; the perfect picture of a stranger wearing his lovers face. An act, maybe-- but for his benefit, or for hers? Finally, she asks again, with words this time: what now?

code by flea, art by rabbit ♥

it was so much easier when He held him. easier when the memories were scattered, flashes of blood painted on the backs of his eyes. visions that haunted his dreams and stole away his sleep, leaving him a hollow shell -- still it was easier.

every life he had snuffed out, every scream he had swallowed, every tear he he torn from them -- priestess, sister, friend, lover -- draven had not forgotten. blurred and chaotic but there, always, haunting in a much different way, now.

"must i?" list every crime, every detail? she knew them as well as she knew him -- as well as she knew Him. his little wolf had been there from the start, from the early days when he had been only draven and not Bjorn.

(or had he dreamed that time? was it only a fantasy?)

it's over, she says, as if it is that easy. "is it?" would it ever be? empty cage with its rusted away door and yet he can still feel the inky caress of that dark voice, prying in to the shadows of his mind and reminding him of the choice he had made. "i fought Him. every day. every night. i did not sleep if only to fight him." once upon a time, but he had never been strong enough.

what now?

"i am not Him." it's not really an answer; not directly. but it is, in a sense, a plea. an ask for understanding, for acceptance, for the ability and desire to look away from the past and start anew. "not again. not ever."

do you -- can you -- still love me?

did you ever?

@Faolán