she let herself succumb to grief.
constantine had gone with rowan, and she knew not who to trust with her heart any longer. she felt how very little she understood, now, and she felt like a great fool as she moved from donnelaith's borders when the rainfall began. the birds she had spoken to would hide her absence, her escape--she needed to get away, briefly, to breathe, to think, and in the storm to come she knew she had found refuge.
thunder roiled. her eyes cast heavenward.
help me,
she breathed to the heavens. father, help me. what should i do? i am lost, i am lost!
and the thunder split the heavens in two, and she threw her head upward and screamed for the loneliness that had at last taken hold of her. she was not immune to pain, but it had taken its time in touching her--
it tore her asunder.
did others think her unable to suffer? her breathing was labored as she looked down, down, down, to the blackness the cliff offered beyond its reach. empty promises, but so terribly beautiful in its mysterious infiniteness that reached for all time! deirdre turned from the cliff face and stalked along its jagged path instead, feeling herself crumble with the earth beneath her.
but she did not give into self-pity for her loneliness. she only let herself burn in her silence, burn, burn, burn to ashes--to be reborn from them, as the phoenix was. for she had heard in the howling winds a voice.
The inky titan had found Doe on the cliffs, crying toward the sea and some unknown force that had beckoned her closer to the edge. He had found that they often brought him the things that he needed most, and after his confrontation with the male who had allowed his child to race into his pack lands and had attempted to follow with little regard to the leviathan’s wishes, he felt as though it was a needed escape from the realities of what had happened.
Of course, the water had returned the child. He had anticipated that she would have been food for the sharks, but her golden figure had washed ashore and been discovered by his Atoll. The witch doctor was doing well in her tasks, and she always seemed to be around when Skellige needed it. The decision to have promoted her was a wise one and one that he did not have doubts against – not even in the slightest. Doe had continued to work hard and to prove herself an asset to the Blackrock. She was the reason that he had trailed back to the cliffs in search of answers or signs… perhaps even another gift.
It had been while he had trailed the edges of the treacherous drops that he heard the cry into the wind; a cry that brought back memories and caused the brute to cant his head to the side, bemused. The voice was familiar but he could not register what the words had been. His tall ears swiveled toward the sound of the pale woman’s voice and he trotted carefully, wondering if it was wise to have sought her in his current mood.
When his dark gaze found her figure, he breathed deeply and stepped forward to draw himself closer to her figure. As much as he had found himself irritated with the empty promises that had been made, Skellige still found himself curious as to why she would seek the cliffs. The closer that he became, the more he saw the distraught nature of her being. Deirdre was not well.
Picking his steps, the titan closed the distance on them and chuffed quietly before moving to allow his dark coat to brush against her side. His russet gaze sought her emerald one and he frowned to her, creasing his features downward. “What…” but his words trailed. “What are you doing out here?” he had wanted to ask, but also, that portion of him that still cared deeply for the witch of the wood was ticking away at different questions. “What is wrong?”
“What have you done to deserve this grief?”
deirdre's tail lashed behind her hocks in a rigid, set line that befit the rank she yearned to hold then. her head lifted as the wind howled, as she heard the words, heard them well. and o, she would heed them! but her sadness morphed to vexation at all that had transpired. a noise broke her transfixed stare at the path she traveled, and her tortured stare beheld the figure she did not know she had desired so to see. so strange, to feel such relief from seeing him. and as he moved alongside her and their furs meshed briefly, she was weightless for the moment.
his words brought her to, and deirdre looked to the path ahead. to stop moving was to let the demons that sought her catch her, and so she continued forward through the storm. she needed no shelter; the incliment weather was nothing she feared, but embraced. much is amiss, skellige,
she informed him. i have been wronged. donnelaith's place as a sanctuary has been besmirched by a wolf i would not think to do so. my fathers eyes have closed, and i see now that so too have many hearts.
she sucked in a breath, burdened. her tail lashed behind her. donnelaith is not what it once was. she did not wish to say it, to make a reality of it; but it had been done, had it not? i will undo these wrongs. i will right what has been corrupted. a bolt of lightning raced through the sky and her eyes flashed. still there was no trace of wickedness to be found upon her person--she sought no vengeance. she did not march on a warpath, but she followed the drumbeat of her heart. rise, rise, rise.
When the nymph turned to meet his gaze, he felt a peculiar stirring inside of her. It was almost as though she had aged into something else; the youthful thought of endless hope and good will had vanished momentarily and was replaced by something that was far more realistic. The ink-cloaked titan was not certain that he was capable of understanding the level of hurt that the Mayfair girl felt. She had been brought into the world with a particular ideal and it had been tarnished by the wolf that she trusted – the wolf her father had trusted. While he knew better than to expect kindness and peace to last within a pack, he did not want to see Deirdre in so much pain. Donnelaith was falling apart and she was stuck in the middle of it.
When the girl spoke, he drew his ears forward and listened. She did not wish to stay in one place for too long and so she continued moving along the cliffs. Skellige followed her, holding his head low against the battering of raindrops. She mentioned that the intended sanctuary of Donnelaith had been tarnished by the pale leader and he found a frown curling his dark lips downward. The woman had visited him and spoken of an alliance that he had wished to be forged with Deirdre… things rarely turned out as they were anticipated to.
“Aria,” he breathed the alpha’s name with a cold growl. “She is entitled, Deirdre… she walks the earth as if it owes her something. But she came to me to forge an alliance between our packs,” the brute explained to her with a distasteful glance. “You must take the place of this woman.” There could be no other way – if the wolf Aria intended to keep her position as leader of Donnelaith, Skellige could only think of the countless ways that his warring wolves would destroy her.
The pale witch had spoken so highly of the wolves of the wood. Skellige had imagined them all to be like the young Mayfair child, but it was an idealistic thought and an unrealistic one at that. What had frustrated him more than this was the meeting of Constantine; the dark wolf had been a light in Deirdre’s life, and all Skellige could see was a brute who doted on the bitch in charge. These words would not be spoke, though; they would remain as thoughts in his rage-filled mind.
deirdre listened to skellige, listened to him speak of the woman she had so loved, the woman who had given skellige a proper name in her mind. aria...
she nearly defended, but was given pause. she did not know what to think of aria for what she had done, as the deed was no small thing. rowan carried cubs within her, cubs that were of relation to the mayfair clan, and even if they had none at all, rowan was a woman in need! she had sent the female off with no certainty of her, or her childrens, fate. she had come to skellige, as deirdre had wished, and deirdre wondered if she wished for her to take rowan back to them if she would rescind the banishment from the woods.
she was a good wolf. i do not understand why she did what she did,
truly she did not. the rain continued to fall downward, and she did not flinch from it. i have never seen her as entitled; i trusted her, as my father had. no one would have anticipated this,
though how could they? did others ever let the dark side of them face the light of day? my other brother, casmir, said jealousy,
and she looked to skellige. if she had been jealous of rowan, what was to become of deirdre, the true, legitimate successor of donnelaith? daughter born of both its founders, the willow and taltos?
she heard him well, and she licked her chops. take the place. she had wished to lead alongside her, to be guided by aria... deirdre felt that perhaps it was aria whom needed the guide, now and then. donnelaith will be as it was again,
she prophecized in her witches voice, her tail curling over her hindquarters for a moment.
There was a strong distaste for the leader of Donnelaith that Skellige had no intention of hiding. The only piece of her that he could speak well on was that she had accepted his offer for a coalition without any fight and that she had held her tongue on the things that he was certain she’d wanted to say. The titan’s offer had been simple enough and did well to favor the wolves of the forest. He had been clear that his intention was to keep the pack as the peaceful and healer-centric land that it had been intended to be. If he caught wind of the pale woman attempting to turn her followers into warriors, the great inky titan would not be pleased. It was his duty to aid and lend his protection if they should need it, but if he had to watch as Deirdre’s dreams of her home pack were crushed… he would enact a very brutal war against the pale leader of the wood.
The leviathan listened as she spoke to him of the way that Aria had been. That she was once a good wolf and that her father had trusted her. His brows furrowed and he felt his tail bristle slightly at the thought of it. When she brought up the opinion of another brother, he cast a side-long glance in her direction and thought on the subject of jealousy. “Were your father and… Aria… mated?” he asked in a tone that suggested disgust. “I do not blame him for seeking love from another woman, if this was the case,” the brute then growled in reference to Lasher having left his final litter with Rowan. Skellige had not yet told Deirdre that the Mayfair witch who had been exiled from Donnelaith had found his borders… or how he had offered her a place among his ranks in hopes of making Deirdre happier.
The girl was intent on returning her home to the way it had been. Skellige knew that it mattered to her more than she could admit. “I will help you… as I have promised… in any way,” he remarked with a rumbling voice and he extended his muzzle to brush the cold ink of his nose against her pale cheek. For a moment, the wraith wondered if the girl’s affections for him had faded in the light of all of her familial drama.
deirdre was consumed by all that had been occurring, and pondering what it all might mean. but her father had spoken to her--she had heard him, clearly--and she was becoming at ease. she only wondered what her brother might think of it; he was not one, she understood, for the supernatural as she was. casmir was not, either--constantine and casmir thus far, however, had embraced her proclivity for it, and embraced her being a witch as well as they could in not understanding the powers she beheld. but they supported her, this she knew. they would see her ascend, too.
the question skellige asked was met with amusement on her own behalf; there was much deirdre did not know of the duo, but this she knew for certain. no--never. he had not taken another mate aside from my mother,
blue willow, the raven-haired beauty. others could only dream of being lasher's wife, even if he bestowed physical affection unto them. even rowan would be but his mistress--and to his very last breath, her fathers devotion, his true love, was for the woman. but as skellige spoke of love, deirdre's eyes cast sharply to skellige. i know he has loved no other but for my mother,
and in this she spoke truly. though she did not know the intimacy rowan and lasher had shared physically, his heart was held by the woman who had conceived her. if she were older, wiser, her belief would not be different. in others he sought comfort, and truly there was only one other he might have ever loved as her own mother, but the fur of that wolf was equally as pitch as her own mother, and this was not something deirdre would likely ever come to know.
deirdre looked over the ridge and thought over the sound of the rain. when skellige spoke next, she felt her heart raise to her throat. and when he moved to nose along her jawline, she felt her heart explode there, and her tongue feel quite heavy, and her cheeks caught fire. it was the strangest sensation she had ever endured, and she felt suddenly quite giddy and off-guard. her dominant demeanor seemed to relax entirely as she grinned a silly little grin, her head swinging toward him. she nearly lost her footing, too, but caught herself smoothly enough; the girl seemed to hesitate only a moment before returning the gesture, slowing her step to do so, very watchful, now, of him.
u get post 200 <33
The titan was not opposed to the idea of magic; he had lived his life in the light of the witch doctors and had known their blessings and their curses. Skellige knew very little of the world that they walked, but he knew it to be an important one. Though Deirdre was not a creature of the sea or a Cairn, she believed that she was in the possession of some kind of magic, and it was not his place to dispute this. The swarthy man was a beast of the physical world, but he could respect what was beyond his own capabilities.
The leviathan listened as she spoke of her father and his adoration for her mother. It had seemed as though he was not the type to take another mate, but that was not necessarily an oddity. On Warsaw, there had been many wolves who had moved on after their love had passed… and those who had clung to the idea of devotion and care. Skellige had never thought he would see himself truly caring for another creature in such a manner. He had known that he would take a mate in order to reproduce and continue the line of Cairn, but there had never been a thought of affection involved in the action. The dark titan knew that there was a part of him that had found care toward Deirdre. He had no concept of love and so he could not call it that, but there was a burning fire inside his gut in regard to the pale woman of the forest.
She paused and returned his gesture with a fluid motion. The graceful pressing of her nose into his jaw was a comfort. His dark gaze caught her movement as she nearly lost her footing on the edge of the cliffs, but he breathed softly as she corrected herself. In that moment, he could feel her eyes on him and he did not dare to look upon her for fear that he might utter something to offend the wolves of the wood. Aria had truly not left a good impression on him, and he had grown displeased with the idea of Donnelaith that had been planted in his mind and that their pale leader had destroyed.
A sigh passed through his dark lips. Skellige finally turned the dark russet of his vision on the pale woman who was to be his bride. They had more than a year before she would be able to produce children for him and he wondered if he could find the patience. “Would you ever come to the bay? To live? To stay… with me?” he asked her, already knowing the answer.
his question surprised her, and she looked to him in thoughtful silence for a moment. but she knew that to do so would be to run away from the problems at hand that donnelaith faced; she could not abandon her purpose, though the road was truly a difficult one, painful and lonely as it was. though she had constantine, she felt she no longer did; he had missed much in the life of his father, and perhaps their opinions differed too greatly for him to likely wish to see her rise any longer. but she lived and breathed for the mystic forest, loved and cared for it more than any bar her own father could. not once, not even as she was seduced by how lovely it would be to ignore the problems at hand, did she feel any desire at all to leave the forest.
she considered how best to respond. she did not think it appropriate to ask him the very same--for she was no queen, yet, and perhaps others would now see to it that she never would become one despite her undying devotion and work toward what her father had toiled over. the rain came in rivulets down her cheeks. i am perhaps the last one left to keep donnelaith from its own perdition,
she breathed. i can leave it no more than the oldest trees, rooted deep and true, can.
she looked downward, wondering if he would love her less for these roots of hers.
The response that was offered to him did little to soothe his irritation, but the wraith could have expected no less from the girl. She had been given a task to perform, and that was to keep her pack lands safe. The forest had been her father’s, and as much as he wished to pull her away to the sea – where she would be blessed and loved – he knew that she would resent him for it. It was a thin line that he walked between anger and understanding, but it had always been that way for the titan. Fury and reason were at constant war inside of his soul.
Instead of offering a response, Skellige found it would have been wisest for him to hold his tongue. It was not his place to tell the girl where she belonged. The wraith knew that it was a fool’s errand that she ran. If the pack wished to change, none of her sweet words of persuasion would stop them. The alpha that had met him on his borders had been a wolf that he had not wished to come across again. Aria was weak, and he wanted nothing to do with her. As long as Deirdre felt the need to keep up her crusade in the wood, the leviathan would be forced to remain beside her. He had vowed to protect the girl, and there was nothing that would change this.
Feeling the rain spatter along his neck and spine, the swarthy brute removed his gaze from her face and fixed it on the distant landscape. The sea would need to bless her if she was to remain in the wood. He would not have a mate who had not endured the touch of the ocean waves. It was a conversation for a later time, though – one that he could not bring up in her state. So he held fast to the silence he had adopted and continued their walk.