Sleepy Fox Hollow To the house in the pines where the road ends

a promise from wylla was nothing mahler trusted, but it was not a promise, was it? perceptive or perhaps paranoid, he eyed her somberly but said nothing more upon the subject of takiyok.
that was, until a spate of steam revealed wylla's honesty, and mahler gave the granite she-wolf a more searching look. despite whatever interior wants she harbored in her ferocious heart, the man could not help the nettle-like stinging of a new pain opening upon the gut of his soul.
she not only reciprocated nothing, diaspora would be the foothold for an ambitiousness that existence had never culled from wylla. unsurprised, truly; she had been his own regent once, mahler considered the implications of the betrayal she had forced him into with a single word.
allowing the woman to stay knowing her coveted position was already occupied by competent takiyok would lend intrigue to the desolate little court of diaspora, but challenged his loyalty to the winterwhite.
and if that ranking be her desire, what paused the woman from demanding the place of general as well? surely she had not returned to toy with mahler: surely there was no threat against the legacy of stigmata.
why would wylla share such things with him; her honesty took all forms but the one most pleasing to him, and he lapsed into a quietude for several steps.
"and vhy not first?"

She was oblivious to all the thoughts in his head, and good thing, too. After her vulnerability a moment ago, on top of opening up enough to even tell him of her remaining ambition, it would hurt her immeasurably to know that he was stung by her goals. Was it not the way of the wolf? Wylla believed it was, but she'd been raised on harsh ideals and lived a harsh life. She'd coveted the very same in Swiftcurrent Creek. The only difference was that she hadn't breathed a word of it to anyone but Tiercel's deaf ears, and she'd left when she realized how dearly it would likely cost her. This, too, could cost her, but she was ignorant of it.

His question struck her as strange, but fair. Why would I want your rank? she asked, wrinkling her nose as if appalled by the very idea. She understood why he asked. If she had the ambition to strive for second then why would she stop at that? The answer was much more complicated than she could put words to, rooted in their sexes first and foremost, but the simplest breakdown was that, I would stand beside you, Mahler, not against you. In due time. Not right this second.

it seemed he had not recovered from his recent time in courtfall; he had returned to diaspora somehow more jaded for it. mahler could appreciate wylla's opening, but the suspicion remained, and he resigned himself to allowing that a dissipation on its own time.
this was spurred along by the portrait she sketched in rough lines of she alongside him; mahler nearly faltered the next stride, but recovered with only a small sign of it. elation struck a chord in his heart; he spun through yearning and heartache and the faint whisper that he did not yet see as hope come to call upon his soul once more.
the pleasure her words had created in him was swiftly, nakedly apparent for a handful of moments, before his features arranged themselves into his usual silent shroud.
"i did not ever see myself as general," he admitted; mahler had expected stigmata to live a great age, and would have served happily as his brother's kapitän for each of those years.

Something about the changes in his features made themselves known, then, and Wylla was once again reminded that his love was not a trick, and she felt again the strange desire to run away. She curbed it, knowing now that it wasn't a sensation worth heeding. It was self destruction and nothing more, an automatic response to things that were too heavy for her immediate attention. He returned to normal just as quickly and so did she.

Wylla blinked when Mahler revealed he had never envisioned himself as the pack's leader, and that begged the question of how he got there to begin with. She didn't know Diaspora's story, only that the wolf before him was ambitious beyond compare. It was a trait Wylla could admire, obviously, and she wondered what had driven Mahler into the seat of a man like that.

Then why are you? she asked, with only the slightest hint of humorous challenge in her tone. She imagined he was decent at his job or someone would have taken it from him; now he merely had to prove it.

he rose to it, the strain of the past several days, months even, beginning to lessen somewhat in her presence. wylla dragged him across hill and vale, through the eddies and valleys and swift-moving current of her emotions; he could only clutch the side of the little raft and capitulate to the route she chose, the speed at which they moved.
with wylla, mahler was content to follow, and there lay the sum of it: he was not one to clamber ranks, to flaunt his own, to want for more than children, routine, safety; and she cut to the crux of it easily.
"vell, stigmata vas killed," mahler answered plainly, directly — anything else would be a disservice to the iron star's buried bones.
"i vould have been content to be at his side," the gargoyle went on, using her words from a moment ago as he enjoyed the ring of them, the smooth way the sounds fit together upon his tongue.
"but general; it has been challenging, and now i see vhat a burden he carried. i am hardly made for it." he spoke with the careful cadence of the truthful, stealing sideways glances at wylla before he had finished, and silenced himself for the time being.

Stigmata was killed. When it came to wolves leaving their packs, it was better than the alternative, which made the deceased General a more trustworthy wolf than she had been when she led a pack. The realization that Mahler was upholding the legacy of a man who was twice the leader Wylla had been made her want to find reasons to judge Stigmata, if only to make herself feel better (it wasn't about her, but she made it about her), but even she knew better than to disrespect the dead. Sorry to hear it, was what she offered in response.

As for Mahler, she agreed with him that standing at the side of another leader was a place that suited him better, but she would not be the wolf to depose him. Selfish as she may be, she could not be so ungrateful as to unseat him. Dare she say he was one of her only friends in the world; she would not damn them by doing such a thing. Besides, she no longer felt the appeal of being head bitch in charge.

Second bitch in charge was better. Being THE leader sucks, Wylla agreed, in more bald terms than Mahler likely would have ever put it. Her experience was quite different than his. Your pack seems well, though. You can't be fucking it up too badly. She jested, and stuck the tip of her tongue out at him lest he grow offended by it.

he was learning, albeit slowly, not to take every edge of wylla's tongue as a personal slight. she lived a life cushioned by sarcasm and sharp words; from what the woman wanted protection, he did not know, nor would he presume to understand.
unbidden, the harsh words mahler had exchanged with andraste spilled blackly into his awareness, and he held himself braced against that particular mind-door for the present. but even as the gargoyle mounted a defense against his own thoughts, he was searching around the edge of his current discourse with wylla, wondering how he might return to courtfall with his dignity intact but his apology forthcoming.
another time.
"i am tenacious," mahler answered, heliotrope stare warming to the joke she made. and here an undercurrent; mahler has been persistent in his love, though wylla might very well disbelieve him for all that the shadow knew.
"it does suck," the general agreed, the unfamiliar directness of the word sitting uneasily with him; he did not think that the term would be used again. "but i suppose there are benefits. and i am proud to be diaspora's head. i expect you felt the same. i hope that you did."
pausing to shake out his ruff, mahler stretched his tall body in a languid way and gave a single sway of his plume as his gaze settled gently upon wylla. "i keep caches of herbs through several territories. near to here is vone such. vould you care to accompany me to it?"

Tenacity. Mahler had that in spades. Losing his children to fever, escaping it himself, losing Grimnismal, losing her—that errant thought was nerve-wracking but she was learning to take it in stride. The nerves weren't necessarily a bad thing. It wasn't like he was creeping into her bed chambers ...

She stopped that thought when her heart jolted in her chest and banished it.

I didn't, she said honestly. I think you were the only wolf who ever treated me like a leader. It was more stressful than it was enjoyable. She'd been proud to see Grimnismal rise, proud to stand with her brothers in the land of their birth and know that it was theirs, but all the pleasure was taken out of it by subsequent events. In all that time the only wolf she could remember showing her any actual respect was Mahler. There were others but they were forgotten.

It was a weary memory now, and one she had no hope of repeating anytime soon, so she was glad to depart from the topic with the General's offer. Sure, said Wylla, who didn't know the first thing about herbs, but did know that ending things on a pleasant note sounded nice. I can help you carry them or whatever you need done.

displeased to hear that wylla had not been given the respect that was her due, mahler nevertheless was also satisfied to leave the talk of leadership behind. it enforced the boundaries between them more than he would have liked, reminded the man that he was general and she decurio. though, he mused, it was not a rank that wylla planned to occupy forever.
uncomfortable, he laid silent plans to meet with takiyok, so that they might debrief one another on goings-on and future goals.
"thank you, vylla," mahler murmured softly, setting their pace at a ground-eating gait that would carry them to the lower foothills and its spread of willow, here by a now-frozen stream he had tucked the little pharmacopoeia.
he was suddenly, blatantly compelled to ask the she-wolf if she wished children in the springtime. it was for once an innocuous thought; he desired to know by how much the headcount of his pack might increase.
mahler smothered such thought immediately, lengthened rangy stride with a teasing glance tossed to wylla as he pressed the potential of a race.

Wylla nodded and lapsed into silence as Mahler led the way to his herb stores. It occurred to her belatedly that she still wasn't completely comfortable in the quiet that stretched between them—words kept leaping to her tongue only to be swallowed won. She was bound and determined not to make another fight of things by saying something stupid just to fill the break in conversation, but it made her stomach swarm with anxiety to keep her mouth shut. It was the first time she realized it was Mahler himself and his opinions, not his confession from before, that was making her nervous now.

Luckily, Mahler broke it in his own way. Not with words, but actions, a language Wylla spoke far better. The draw of chasing after another of her kind was inescapable. The moment his steps grew longer, Wylla's did as well while a smirk unfurled across her muzzle. It wasn't so different from old times, when she'd challenged him to a sort of race in the ocean, and they'd both froze their asses off proving themselves.

Wylla was fast and wily in the sea but land was another matter. Her bounds were long, her leap exemplary, her body nimble as a reed, but she wasn't necessarily faster than anyone else because of it. Mahler could outpace her on familiar terrain no problem, she was sure of that. But she kicked herself into action and surged forward in the snow anyway, unable to stop a tinkling laugh from bursting through her lips as she raced to try to overtake him while leaving her cares behind.

Can fade or continue, I'm good with whatever!

fading here <3 we shall have another soon!

reminded too of the last time they had pitted themselves against one another, mahler was pleased to see that wylla had taken to the snow as a hare might; impressed with her graceful, compact leaping, he knew in the woman was a true competitor, one of the few who might meet his own abilities.
relief swelled in him that she was here now, that she abided in diaspora. despite the newness of the arrangement, some portion of mahler felt as though wylla had not been away for long. 
and so upon the sweet pealing of her laughter did mahler speed himself, tall body carried with a grace that belied his size. he leant into the wind; for once they were only a pair of impassioned charcoal sketches against the pale landscape.