Sleepy Fox Hollow you did not break me

Expectation did not meet reality when the thinning form of the General fell into step beside her. Her eyes grazed over him, the faintest hint of a frown pulling at her slender features. Diaspora was stricken, certainly, but somehow, the virility of the male beside her had never seemed to falter until now, and the pale gold of the dove’s shoulder would brush gently to his. Before, during the initial grief of losing Stigmata, the sylph had embraced him with affection that had bordered to something more—something spurned by her eagerness to simply lose herself from the thoughts of the fallen warhound.

Touch still invoked her, and with a grace that came only from the confidence of a woman that had been prized for her appearance by many others before, the she-wolf boldly pressed her muzzle to the thick fur of his nape, ignoring the flare of rebellion that her dead mate would haunt her forever—and that the man at her side was friend and ally only.

She allowed the silence to continue to blanket them for a moment, considering her words before her smoky voice finally interrupted the quiet—her nostrils flaring as she pulled back from him, her paws loping along the hollow terrain. “We can’t stay here,” she asserted then, her eyes lifting to his own lilac stare. “Stigmata’s legacy rests with his children. Not this death trap of a mountain.”