Emberwood We'll go to a place that is safe from greed, anger, and boredom

Forward dated to Rev's return from scouting! Not very long but idk dates today don't @ me. Some powerplay, let me know if it's not okay!

The morning after her unceremonious return to the Emberwood, Reverie rose early to catch breakfast for her daughters. She left them with Everett, a kiss to each of their little heads, and a firm reminder for them all to stay close to their uncle. Foxglove was particularly solemn in her promise.

It was afternoon by the time she called out for @Akavir, standing along the edges of the woods near Swiftcurrent Creek's borders. When he arrived, she greeted him with a wordless beckoning for him to follow. Enough time had passed now to show him what she had done weeks ago. And she still wasn't quite sure why she wanted to show him.

She could have left him to his ignorance. Should have, really, after what he'd said to her. But losing her father had only strengthened her resolve. She would give him this, and nothing more.

Reverie led him to a little clearing, an unassuming and easily overlooked spot where the sunlight broke through the canopy in broad shafts of pale gold. In the center, a little tree sapling stood no higher than a wolf's shoulder, supported for now by a thick branch wedged into the ground beside it. Frail as it was in its infancy, it was flourishing with a burst of delicate pale green leaves. One day it would stand as tall as the trees around it — long after the wolves who had known Moss were gone.

Finding a tree sapling hadn't been the most difficult feat in the lush forest. Uprooting it and replanting it had been another matter entirely. But it had survived the ordeal, somehow.

I buried Moss here. When - when I first found out. As much of her as I could.

She stepped back as she said it, half intending to leave him alone with the memorial. Their camp was far enough, and this was neutral ground. There was no reason for her to stay.

And she was certain neither of them wanted to share in this particular grief. It just felt right for him to know that this existed. He'd loved Moss, too.

Reverie beckoned to him—Akavir cast a sideways glance to Mae, questioning, but she could offer him little as to what her ‘adopted’ mother might have wanted with him. Nor did she seem entirely interested in attending with him—which drew a rather reluctant brooding from the swarthy man.

For one who was uncomfortable in his presence, she somehow managed to be within it quite often in the weeks prior. She set beneath his skin somehow—like walking on broken glass each time he saw her. A reminder of his failures—

—and there were so many of them.

When he came to their newly scented borders, his champagne gaze drifted over her—but there was nothing to be said, because she turned, beginning to weave her way without a word.

A clearing.

He looked around—stoic, but certainly aware. It was when she pointed out a sapling that she spoke, and Akavir found himself heavy with the weight of the words.

He stared at it—lost for a moment.

‘I loved her,' Reverie had cried to him when the news had reached him.

Oh, the things he had said to her. Things he had wanted to say when he had realized the depth of which Reverie had hurt Moss—yet still things he had said out of hurt and loss.

Reverie had buried her here. What she could gather.

An ear flicked back at the sound of her soft paw falls, stepping away from him, as if realizing he needed this moment alone.

He sank down, an exhale given—his head bowed. The sharp memory of her lost in the swamp… buried beneath the bracken and blood. So much blood… Kvarsheim’s blood. Cygnet’s blood. Wren’s, Mae’s…

His stomach clenched—his eyes focused upon the sapling… the intricate details of the leaf. The memory suppressing—the finality of Moss’s life.

“Gabh fois, a charaid,” he whispered to the memorial again, just as he had the night he had spent with her body.

And again. And again.

For a time she only left him there with his grief and the fragile promise of new life. This wasn't about their awkward attempts at finding some kind of stable ground to stand on when they spoke to one another. This was about Moss; this was about healing, one painful, salt-laden step at a time.

They were all healing from one hurt or another, Reverie had realized. And if she'd found a foothold to help along the way, if she'd created one through her own blood and tears, why not share it? Why not help, just a little?

...

Reverie returned some time later, carrying two delicate long-stemmed flowers. She offered one to Akavir, and kept the other for herself, pausing to regard the sapling solemnly for a moment before she placed the flower at its skinny base. She hoped that Moss knew, wherever she was now, that those who loved her had not forgotten her.

He lost the sense of time—maybe it had been minutes, maybe it had been hours. Delicately a flower was placed before him, and his gaze sharply lifted to study the gilded frame of the dancer who seemed to place the flower at the base of the sapling with a certain reverence.

He wanted to ask her why.

He wanted to ask her when.

But he knew why, if he could surpass his mulish attempt at guarding the heart of his deceased friend—for it no longer beat. And he could gather when.

Instead, he was quiet—introspective, perhaps. He slid slowly up—muscles tensing from yet another recent fight, a flinch. And then leaning forward, he would place the flower she gave him as well—if not less gracefully.

“Moss saved my life,” he shared quietly. It wasn’t really a story he had shared with many. “That’s how I met her.”

Reverie was quiet for a moment.

She saved my life, too, The confession was soft. And I left her, and I never looked back. Reverie swallowed those words and said instead, How did she save you?

Her gaze still lingered on the sapling. She couldn't help but remember what he'd said to her. I don't give a shit about your tears. It had hurt so much then, and it still did now, because — because maybe Akavir never cried, but Reverie cared about his hurts all the same. She cared. And she wished that she didn't.

He inhaled—he exhaled.

Reverie shared with him. It was a moment—and as his eyes lifted from the beginnings of a tree, he studied her. Soft words—her eyes fallen to the sapling. He shifted, his own paw reaching out to graze hers—perhaps the smallest effort, but should she accept it, he would lift his arm, beckoning her to a small hug and to settle against him.

A bridge to friendship, it seemed.

“I was drowning.” He paused, the corner of his lips quirking up, despite nothing about his words actually funny. “Literally. I was younger… and my daughter was missing. I went to search for her and I fell into some water… I was swept away. She pulled me from it.”

Reminiscent—longing not just for his friendship of Moss, but also her sister. His dead wife. “It was at the behest of her sister… But she did it. Her sister healed me, then… and I tried to return home to my family.”

His touch was unexpected, but not unwelcome; Reverie settled into the embrace with a certain hesitance born of habit, but she found it warm and inviting, safer than she'd expected to feel at Akavir's side. But she knew him, didn't she? At least enough to trust this, to trust that he meant this.

So she settled and she listened. In many ways it was nothing like her own experience with Moss. No one had needed to beckon the silent warrior to her side. She'd simply been there.

And she heard that word — tried. She wanted to ask. Yet she felt somewhat as if she'd only just earned her first security clearance level, and this was far beyond. So again she stifled what she truly wanted to say.

Her sister - Ruby, Reverie murmured, remembering. She told me a little about her. About how she had died. About how hard it was for her after - after Ruby died.

Quietly Reverie recounted Moss's words to her then, spoken to soothe Reverie's own grief for her lost sister. Maybe they would bring some measure of comfort to Akavir now.

She settled in—it was surreal, perhaps—but due. Maybe this was how it should have been in the beginning—had he been able to fully gain Lestan and Reverie’s trust.

“She told me about Ruby when she… found me at the Creek,” he offered, a furrow to his brow, a sideways glance given to the girl at his side. She was a stranger to him in so many ways—in so many ways, familiar.

“At least now they’re together. They were close.”

He didn’t know what he believed in—after death and the beyond. He could only focus on the now.

Surely, there was something, though. “Reverie… There are a lot of things about Moss’s death that I didn’t tell you about…”

At least now they're together.

She deserved a lot more than what you offered her.

Things about Moss’s death that I didn’t tell you...

A slow breath; eyes closed. She tensed against him for a moment, then relaxed. Her eyes flickered open again and found the sapling.

She couldn't do this. She was doing this. How was she doing this?

Letting him in like this, inviting it — but had this not been her goal all along? Reconciliation; peace. But she'd thought only of the relief of the aftermath then, and nothing of the discomfort of peeling away every thick callused layer of defense she'd built against him and letting the cool air touch the raw red places where he'd hurt her so terribly. And now there was more. Another thing to be hurt by, something else to forgive.

She took in another breath and told herself to trust him, to be soft with him and allow him the chance to be soft with her.

Will you tell me now?

Diminutive, against his form. He breathed again, eyes upon the sapling, just as hers were. Considering.

Could he trust her?

His head tilted, closer to her, uncertain.  Cygnet has been a close kept secret. The fall of the valley alliances something he had never had to speak of.

His words were slow, as if carefully selecting what he could trust her with. The reason we couldn't give Moss a proper burial... He frowned. He tasted the words on his tongue before speaking them.

She'd given birth, Reverie... she has a daughter.

And his grip on her tightened. His muzzle burying to the thick fur of her nape. Begging, silently, that she did not make him regret revealing this secret.

She has a daughter.

There was no time to truly feel the way the words lanced through her chest. A daughter. Moss had a daughter, a baby, a little girl left behind, and Akavir was holding her more tightly now, and she felt a little dizzy and a little breathless but he'd kept it from her, he'd —

In the end Reverie was always helpless to a warm touch. Even the depth of her hurt couldn't keep her from unraveling into the embrace, eyes shining with tears that did not fall until she'd buried her own muzzle in his fur. For a long time she only wept quietly, and said nothing.

He hadn't expected the shared words to bring teats to her but he only became aware of them as wetness accumulated upon his fur and skin--the burying of her muzzle  closer to him offering the final insight to a man so oblivious to the pain she felt.

He held her a moment, at a loss for words. And then: She's been a close hearted secret, Reverie he murmured against her ear. For her protection. But when Moss and her were discovered... a man from Kvarsheim attacked Mae and two other pack mates... It was...

He trailed off... How best to describe it? A cluster fuck. With injuries. And broken alliances.

The fall of the valley alliances. Of broken trust.

Slowly Reverie calmed herself as she listened to Akavir's soft explanation. After a time she pulled away slightly to wipe her tears away, abruptly feeling guilty for crying on him. Rather than apologize, she nodded in numb acceptance of all that he'd said. He'd only been trying to protect the girl. And he hadn't trusted her.

Was that really a surprise to her?

And this news of Kvarsheim —

Kvarsheim? But - She paused, sorting out the timeline in her own thoughts. Gunnar had been alive for that, surely. And that didn't make any sense at all. I don't - I don't understand. My father - Gunnar would never - never allow that. He - he wouldn't have, I mean. When he was - Alive. She swallowed and pressed her nose back into Akavir's dark fur.

How did it all end up - like this? Little more than a whisper, not truly meant to elicit a response.

‘My father would never—‘

But he did.

He had even come to their borders, demanding retribution.

His lips tightened—he spoke nothing. What good would it do to up end the memory of her father—a man who, in all other aspects of his dealings—had been fair and just?

Instead, he focused on her final question—how had it all ended up like this?

How had Ibis died? How had Jakoul disappeared? How had he not realized Kestrel had been treating Reverie against her will? How had Lestan distrusted him so much? How had Mae come to despise him? How had he fallen hopelessly for another she-wolf who would never see him the same?

How had the valley fallen so quickly, after building relationships for months? How had Mae lost her eyesight over such a trivial fight?

How did Moss end up as nothing but a terrible memory of bracken and blood?

How, how how…

“I don’t know, Reverie.” His voice was tight—his eyes were rapt on the sapling—and he could feel himself becoming untethered. “I really don’t know.”

She sought his gaze then, never breaking their contact completely but wanting to meet his eyes as she spoke her next words. She didn't miss the way his eyes were lingering on the sapling.

You're still family, you know, Reverie told him softly; a sentiment she'd been dancing around each time they'd seen one another recently, something she'd expressed over and over not in words but in small gestures. Still, it was important to speak it aloud. It was important that he really knew. To me, you are. And you always will be.

Whether they liked it or not, they were bound by their shared history. But maybe that didn't need to be such a painful truth. Not anymore.

She pulled away only so much—gaze searching his. The words she spoke were intimate—and it surprised him in that moment the confidence in which she spoke this—as if she did not hesitate to simply appease him.

To try to make him feel better.

The grief of Moss pulled at him, and he found his forehead reaching forward to press to hers, eyes closing. “Why, Reverie?”

Why did she even think that? After everything he had done? He might have tried to protect her, but how much of that had she known?