King Elk Forest of a boy ruled by the sun, burned by the things he could never touch

maybe @Delight ?! :D

The morning is frigid but Mato’s pelage thick and coarse for the winter keeps him well insulted. Unfortunately, thick fur can do nothing for the ice that has begun to settle in his heart. Mato moves through the five stages of grief at her continued disappearance: denial, anger, bargaining, a brief bought of depression that accompanied the unease he felt around it but now he has moved into the final stage: acceptance. It is cold and it feels cruel as he realizes that he accepts she is gone, that her return is unlikely. She returned previously but time continues to stretch and Mato knows that he cannot sit and pine for her. It’s not fair to him and it’s not fair to Tindómë when he’s spent a brief period considering going after her. Of leaving behind his kingdom in search of the wayward woman he had been hasty to give his heart to. Too hasty. He realizes his error now and knows that he has no choice but to let her go. In hindsight, Mato cannot claim that it truly surprises him. She came into his life like a violent storm: sudden and there before he even knew it happened and it only makes sense that she would leave it in the same way. Ironically, he is beyond his decision causing him pain. He’s grieved and nurtured the pain and like the earth he must heal. The natural disaster is over and now he is given the opportunity to rebuild.

Mato cannot necessarily claim that accepting that he is a bachelor once more brings him relief: it doesn’t; but it’s a step in the right direction he feels. It is what is best for him, what is best for Tindómë and he acknowledges this fact. He walks the borders slowly in the early morning sun that casts a golden glow over all it touches: pausing here and there to strengthen it in spots that smell a bit sparse to him.

330 words

*rubs my little hands together*

despite their recent influx of new blood, brienne's disappearance casts a pall over tindómë. delight stubbornly clings to the notion that she will return, although with each passing day it will be harder to forgive her, even as surely as he blames himself. he cannot help but think of their last conversation, how stilted it'd been. if he hadn't kept running off to the sweep to get away from the happy glow of the couple --

oh, speak of the devil. he still feels guilty that he was inadvertently rewarded for hiding from the morwinyon and his wife. sure, it did lead to jomyo and sunflower at the least, but if mato really knew why - it wouldn't end well, he doesn't think. he slows his steps, watching the silvery prince as he moves across the borders, his breath catching at the way the sun lights him gold. the nénar has long since accepted that his role is of the unrequited lover, but. but.

said mercutio shakes himself from his wondered daze. there is no happy glow to hide from (and again he feels guilt - of course his trips to the sweep diminished with bri's absence, there's nothing to be jealous of) and so he slips closer, announcing his presence with a soft chuff. his selfish feelings aside, he is worried about the morwinyon, though the prince has maintained his stately air without change. "hey," he says, seizing the opportunity before his courage deserts him, "how are you doing?"

Delight appears and Mato realizes that the wisp is just the wolf that he’s wanted to see — even though his grandfather might have been able to offer him advice on losing a mate. Not that Mato lost Bri. Not in that way …or well if he has he isn’t expressly aware of it. Still, it is a loss nevertheless; but in truth, Mato does not seek advice. He’s already worked through it himself. He merely seeks to move on from it now, to channel his energy and focus into the kingdom he’s built while it flourishes — though Mato suspects that it flourishes largely in part of Delight’s efforts. In which the empyrean will be eternally grateful to the wisp and ever able to properly express it. Expressing emotions isn’t exactly the starlit king’s forte. He’d rather avoid them, if at all possible. They are messy and they cloud judgement. Feelings are distractions and yet …yet Mato cannot make himself unfeeling. He can try but he will never succeed.

“I am fine.” Not well, not good. Fine. And he is. He has worked through and there is a sense of freedom in accepting what is. He cannot change it, does not know that his wayward love will ever return to him. He offers Delight an affectionate smile then, trying to find words to express how invaluable Delight is to him. He assumes that it is Bri they speak of and responds, “I’ve accepted that she’s gone, for whatever reason. Pining after her and wasting energy when it can be channeled towards Tindómë is not fair to the wolves beneath my rule.” It sounds cruel as it leaves his lips and he does not necessarily mean it so coldly but it’s how he feels and there is a certain relief in getting it off his chest. Mato has never seen the world as most others do. It is tragic but it is done and there is no going back from it. There is only moving forward. Sometimes, it takes natural disasters to give light to something new, something that would never have otherwise had the chance to be if that disaster hadn’t happened.

363 words

his answer is pretty much what delight expects, though he can't help the way he looks at him slightly doubtfully. there are plenty of moment where the nénar is grateful for morwinyon's seemingly oblivious nature - lord knows he's shown his hand plenty of times (enough that he wonders if bri could have known, if that was part of her departure as well) and yet mato has never seemed to pick up on anything untoward. but this is the other side of that, delight supposes, whether reticence or compartmentalization or just plain disconnect. 

delight's train of thought here is abruptly stalled by the prince's smile. he elaborates, the androgyne nods, his heart still stuttering in his chest. "maybe," he agrees, "but you can still feel it." the weight of her disappearance, of ... losing love. maybe mato really is over it - he doesn't think it is a cruel sentiment but he does worry about mato shutting off. "at least in the realm of us mere mortals," the androgyne adds a beat later, voice playful (unusual sounding coming from him but - hey, he's capable of upbeat humor too).

trash post is filler trash, lmao. xD

Mato is easily lost in the void of the beyond. Beyond his corporeal body, beyond the complexity or lack thereof of emotions. He has done it before and he fears slipping back into it. There was a bought of it during his time in Northstar Vale and he feels the void calling to him: to disconnect from the solid ground that holds him. He has obligations now: he is not free to lose himself in that vast and never-ending beyond again. There is no telling, if he did, if he would come back from it. The next time he might waste away to dust. “What use is letting the feeling fester?” Mato inquires, his words not capricious but merely curious. “It is done. It is time to move on. Maybe she will come back and maybe she won’t. I have to be pragmatic or else I will get lost. I may never get closure but I can’t let it consume me.” His salmon pink tongue draws across his jowls. Perhaps he is too pragmatic: but he doesn’t want to dwell, doesn’t want to linger. He’s thought about leaving, about searching for her but to what end? He has no idea where she has gone or why. It would do no good, give him no closure. “When one door closes, another opens up to us.”

Or perhaps he is simply destined to wander the halls looking for another door that will never come. He is young still and there is nothing to say that he won’t find love again but he isn’t going to look for it. “I’ve never been good at adequately expressing my feelings.” Most of the time they were ambiguous to Mato and he struggles with how to deal with them, how to interpret, how to express them. “Mere mortals?” Mato repeats with a soft, amused snort. He may bear a title of a great star, might narcissistically fancy himself as a king but that’s all it is: his fleeting and fickle narcissism. Mato worries abruptly that he is not grieving Brie's absence enough; perhaps he is more unfeeling than he initially thinks he is. It is relatively easy for him disassociate himself from the relationship he'd once had with her under the belief that she's never coming back. Yet, he doesn't spend long fretting over it. Everyone grieves differently, some spend longer upon it than others. He will always love Brienne but grieving and beating the 'why's' over the head over and over couldn't be healthy.

417 words

speaking with mato sometimes feel as if he were speaking to an ethereal being, an otherworldy creature sent to live amongst wolven kind. delight does not know if he agrees with morwinyon's sentiment but he can, at least, understand. "i don't think i ever told you this, but the pack i grew up with - there was a rock slide, destroyed the whole thing, everyone." the last person - the only person - he's told this story to was brienne, and he has to pause and swallow a lump in his throat. but talking about the story itself feels fine, doesn't bring back the old hurt it used to. "i mean, i got closure but - it hadn't been too long after that i first met you and -- well. a door opens. you're right." he finishes awkwardly. it is part of the reason why they - he - became so important to him in the first place. when delight was at his worst, mato saw something worth extending a hand toward.

he can't help but laugh a little, though he stops himself from saying i've noticed to mato's face. they're closer than he thought they'd ever be but he still idolizes the morwinyon too much to become too familiar. "i'm kidding," he says. "it's good if you aren't ... moping. i'd be," he adds, and looks briefly at the ground. moping is exactly what he'd been doing, albeit not for something lost but for something never to be gained.

Delight’s story is a sad one; and Mato’s umbra dipped ears flutter back against the curve of his skull unsure if it’s appropriate to give condolences or not. While Mato is not sorry that Delight has found his way to Tindómë, to him, he is sorry the circumstances in which it had initially came about. “That must have been terrible,” It reminds him, vaguely, of the poison that had taken to the waters of his natal pack. Mato had left them before that had happened to travel with Northstar Vale and luckily no one had perished from the incident but he can, at the very least, sympathize to an extent. “While I am sorry about the circumstances in which you arrive here I am not sorry that you’re here.” He winces for a moment, hoping that sounded more like he meant and not as callous as he fears it might have. Again, emotions have never been Mato’s strong suit and sometimes when expressing sentiment he’s harsher than he intends to be. “You’re invaluable to me Delight. I’m not sure what I would do without you.” And that’s the complete truth. Delight is one of the original founders still left: though Mato thinks now he and Delight are the only two left. Technically, Burke and Malice had come to be with them after the pack’s founding.

“I spent time …moping. For a long while I even considered leaving Tindómë to search for her,” He admits, salmon pink tongue drawing across his jowls. “it would have done no good, in the end. Whatever trail she’d left has been long gone and I would not even know where to start.” He draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a heavy exhale. “I would have never returned. I would have simply spent my life searching for her but never finding her.” That was no way to live a life, he thinks. Searching for what he knows he will never find and forsaking what he’s worked hard for, for it. Perhaps that is greedy and selfish of him but it's what he feels nevertheless.

353 words

he shrugs, looking away awkwardly. his dedication to tindómë, its history, its preservation -- these things definitely originate in the bodies buried under rock and snow but he is past the point of feeling raw about it. and it's a good thing he's looking away, too, because when mato says i'm not sure what i would do without you he nearly chokes, and there is no way the way his heart thumps in his throat isn't audible. 

it really really

isn't

fair.

he finally looks back over when mato admits to almost leaving. "i would've gone after you," the nénar admits, trying to play it off as a joke, "so it's a good thing you didn't or the whole place woulda collapsed." (it's a joke hidden in a very honest truth: if mato ever leaves delight will go with him. he would more tindómë on his way out but he would absolutely go with him.)

Mato’s apple green gaze rises from Delight as his umbra dipped ears flutter back as the other male admits he would have went after him would Mato have went through with his plans. There is a flutter to the druid’s heart, a feeling of something stuck in his throat and Mato swallows thickly as he contemplates that level of devotion. A sense of awareness settles over the empyrean then and there is a slight furrow of his brow as his gaze slides back to Delight. The wisp had spoken it with an attempt to make a joke out of it but Mato suspects that he is serious beneath the lighthearted tones in which he used. Mato does not repeat the question, does not require Delight to reiterate as Mato mulls it over. It leaves Mato with the consideration that he must mean a lot to Delight for the wisp to follow him to — probably — the ends of the earth because that is where Mato would have went, without a doubt. That point of consideration in this process had been Mato being selfish: to forsake his pack and all that are relying on him, looking to him for leadership for one, but it feels even more selfish now that he knows Delight would have went with him.

“I didn’t realize I mean so much to you.” Mato speaks softly, almost apologetically ( for no other reason than his own obliviousness ). He does not mean to capitalize upon anything that might embarrass Delight but the wisp had spoken it so brazenly and in a rare instance Mato grounds himself and gets his head out of clouds long enough to realize the power of Delight’s words and the affect they have on him.

293 words

*fucking dies*

ah hell, he's overplayed his hand and the conversation careens wildly out of his control. why had he admitted that? it's not as if he's worked especially hard to keep his feelings a secret besides not spending much time in the prince's company. brienne probably figured it out -- hell, anyone with eyes could probably figure it out. delight's been coasting on the fact that mato is utterly oblivious and he went and got too comfortable.

he doesn't know what to do with himself when mato speaks, doesn't know how to calm himself down, how to retreat back to the relative safety of their earlier conversation. it's -- it feels too dramatic but delight thinks, oh, the paradigm has shifted. 

"yeah, well," he says after a long moment, deadpan, "be gentle with me." his expression is deadly serious but there is an snarking edge to his voice, the only thing he can think of to salvage the conversation, to keep it from going deeper until delight accidently blurts the thing he is trying very desperately not even to think. it's a rough play - mato could take it seriously still - but it's the best he can do; there's no turning back from his inadvertent declaration.

Be gentle with me, Delight deadpans and Mato’s apple green gaze studies his expression finding that it is deadly serious. Mato takes it seriously even despite the snarkish edge behind it; and accordingly ponders if he can be gentle. Does he know how? Mato can be many things but also is aware that he can be a force of nature. He can be very many different faucets and not even realize which one he’s being, especially when he finds himself distracted; and sometimes he realizes it but cannot do anything to stop the progression of the path he’d inadvertently taken. He needs to focus on Tindómë; that was the whole point of deciding to draw a close to a book that he does not realize will be ripped back open just a few hours later. For the moment, he is focusing on moving forward. On sounds a bit too cruel even for Mato ( who can, undeniably be very cruel ). Brienne’s disappearance is a mystery that he does not suspect to ever solve and he thinks that no one really moves on from that: from not having closure.

Mato knows that Delight cares for him — not the full extent of how deeply the wisps’ feelings go — and he wants to be careful. He does not want to inadvertently hurt Delight and it’ll be a while before Mato is ready to commit to anything again but he’s willing to explore …to see where it leads. “I will try.” The empyrean offers the wisp in a low murmur of a promise. Delight’s words make Mato feel like he is seen as unbreakable but the druid knows that’s not true. Brienne’s disappearance broke him. It broke Mato that when he weighed the pros and cons that he could not simply leave behind everything he had here and all the wolves relying on him to find her. It was not an easy choice to make. He’s colder for it. He feels the chill of ice biting into his heart where fire of the sun once burned. Umbra ears flutter back against his skull as a heat creeps up Mato’s neck and cheeks unsure what to do and …where to go next so he lets the ball in Delight’s court. It is up to the wisp now.

388 words

ive been dying for days

he wonders if there was a way for him to stop this conversation before it was too late, before he'd put out into the world - not a confession but something close enough. something that changed the way the air fell between them. delight feels rooted to the spot, the moon-silver of his eyes tracing the outline of mato's expression, the seriousness with which he consider's the nénar's joke. 

of course it isn't really a joke, and delight doesn't think mato knows how to be gentle. he'd resigned himself already to looking from afar, to playing a supporting character in the morwinyon's cast without fuss. he is not lonely - he pines, but it is not unbearable and brienne had been his friend, too. but if she's not here - if mato keeps looking at him like that --

no, he can't let himself have even a glimmer of hope, here. it does not end well, he knows that already. there is no universe in which it can end well. (he has to tell himself that to make it okay).

he finally looks away when the prince speaks, the words settling in his chest burning-hot. he knew mato would take him seriously and he'd said it anyway. and now there is a promise between them that delight does not know the terms of yet. "... thank you," he mumbles, clearly flustered, the erratic thumping of his heart threatening to overwhelm him. oh. the paradigm has shifted. 

"i'll let you get back to - patrol," he manages, though he doesn't move for another long moment, feeling tender and opened and vulnerable. the moment passes and the androgyne lifts a paw as if pulling back into himself, throwing a searching look at mato one last time before, with as much normalcy as he can manage, fleeing.

Mato is not any more sure of what to make of any of this than his second in command is, but it’s there and now Mato is aware of it. Aware, to some extent, how Delight feels about him and he is aware that he harbors something unexplored for the wisp. This exploration will not be filled with exploding stars: will not be born in a massive explosion as it was with Brienne. Rather, this will be patient, a slow burn, un-rushed. It must be this way, Mato thinks, if only because he does not process emotions in the same way that others appear to and he likes to think his lesson is learned. Explosive, quick romances fizzled out and died just as quickly as they came to be. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that he perceives it like this. Yet, that does not change the fact that he does.

Mato does not attempt to draw Delight back, allowing the wisp to flee; and Mato does return to his patrol, his attention going raptly to the borders and refreshing them. He has already deduced he will not overthink and analyze this path and where it might lead. The druid’s never been afraid of the unknown, never actually been hesitant about making the leap. Mato sees no need to start being hesitant about anything now.