As morning lifted over the taiga and surrounding mountains, Saena rose from her night perch upon Mount Apikuni. She felt refreshed, and relieved of some of the pain of failing to retrieve her daughters from the talons of their wicked father. Laurel and Indra had made their choice, but it wasn't one made out of any sort of love or fondness, and that eased her broken heart a little. Not much. She thought of Laurel, how her daughter used herself like a bargaining chip, and her snout wrinkled once more, but it was sadness in her eyes as she dropped down a ledge and began picking her way back to the larger mountain range. She'd failed on more than one count, it seemed.

There was no use dwelling on that, though, and so she stuffed her emotions back down inside. As she forded the grassy gap between Mount Apikuni and the greater Sunspire range, she let go of her thoughts. By midday, when she arrived at last in the wooded vale where last she'd seen @Warbone, she was no longer thinking about Larksong Grotto or her daughters. She was thinking about Silver Creek, and how she'd made the decision to not return to it. She would take up residence elsewhere—here, maybe—and put away her bad memories and her anguish. She would await her daughters' forgiveness, for Saena felt certain that one day Reek would fail them and they might then seek her out, and live in the present, near to them, until then.

What possessed her to seek out the sizable brute from the lone mountain, she didn't know, but she found herself looking for him nonetheless. The chance that he was still around was low, but it didn't stop Saena from seeking his scent in the snowy grass, that she might successfully sniff him out wherever he had gone.

Warbone had not yet left the chambered vale, harbored on all sides by all manner of unpleasant foothill; not since descending here. Upon discovering that the scent of Ridge wolves had all but evaporated to the north, the tactician saw no need to travel further. He had chosen the Keep on strategy— secluded, barred by mountain and ravine, festering on one side with protective marsh and also touching territories bleeding with prey— and he was not surprised at all to know the wolves living there had survived the famine. The vale was just as opportunistic. He had known this before, but was not keen on settling where his pack might readily compete with another. Hubris said he could prevent that now.

Mine.

He smelled her first, but familiarity did not stop him from approaching her stiff-legged and tail flagging. It did, perhaps stave the show of his teeth and remembering the passion she had given him did as well produce a small wave of his burnished copper banner, but his one eye regarded her evenly. And his silently resounding stance read: come to me, or get out of my space.

The vale was no less picturesque for the dusting of snow. It would melt soon, Saena knew, and return the world to its autumnal splendor until a later and heavier snowfall, but she noted it approvingly as she walked. There were prey animals here, undisturbed thanks to the lack of wolfish presence in the area. She could smell them on every breeze. This would be a fine location to wait out the inevitable, or so Saena thought.

When she found Warbone, or more accurately when he found her, she was taken aback. His easy, wild and intimate behaviour from before was replaced by something akin to a general, and positively reeking of primal instinct. Saena's steps slowed, then stopped, as her ears wilted uncertainly on her head, but it lasted only a moment. The wave of his tail was inviting enough despite the level stare he pinned her with. She lacked one to wave back, but her uncertainty washed away, to be replaced by determination. After all, she was a leader. Intimidation was an obstacle to overcome, not to bow to.

She cropped up her red ears and matched his posture, at least as much as she could. She'd no intention of wresting control away from Warbone, nor any intention of giving up her own sense of it. It was a test, more than anything, something all wolves seemed to relish when it came to posturing. But she met him with a smile despite her coy defiance, and a quiet, "hello."

Slowly, quietly, the set to her body changed, and he watched in plaintive fascination as her muscles rolled and hardened before him, rather than withering to his will. Under different circumstances, this would have elicited a violent response from the reinvigorated male. He had lost his taste for diplomacy, and hers was an action to discipline, but it was what he preferred from her. More than anything else he wanted Saena to rise to the occasion, to burn into him and hollow out all facets of his identity that had nothing to do with her. He wanted focus and she drove him to it, for now he looked no where else, only upon her in a moment more critical than their first meeting. Because who she had met on the mountain top of Lone Star was not the same wolf standing before her now.

He stepped forward as she spoke, his lip curling as if to reply, but he could only hiss, a heavy sigh behind clenched teeth. Somewhere between joining Sleeping Dragon and founding Marauder's Keep, Warbone had become an unwitting orator, spewing his thoughts and feelings like a drainpipe, lashing his tongue before his teeth. It had been necessary while recruiting, he'd thought, but all those words had faded, and no promise said had been kept. He was done speaking to fill the space, and in that moment the bladed titan made a conscious decision to misuse his voice whenever he could get away with it.

He closed the space between them in a dour sort of trot, but when he was upon her, his dull eye became streaked with light, and his muzzle ungently sought to preen the ruff of her nape, wondering what she would allow him.

In all things, Saena was a speaker. She didn't tend to go to action without accompanying words. Rarely was her tongue still in her mouth, and her opinions were as venomous as her tone, more often than not. That would certainly never change, not even the wilds swept her up in physical arms and struck all notions and thoughts and self-awareness from her brain. She would always have something to say. But Warbone's silence drove her to remain quiet as well. Letting her body speak for her was invigorating, and kept all of the emotional crap off the table, which was exactly what she needed right now. It wouldn't last, perhaps being reserved for him and his strange tendencies, but it worked.

She readied herself for a poor reaction, but there was none. She could almost sense the quivering being behind his eye, maybe because she was the same, a wolf who felt a strong pull to be in charge. She'd held the mantle for more than half her life and it was impossible to give it up, even for an imposing and capable wolf. Her body spoke, the angle of her ears and the sharp tilt of her head, ours or no one's. The vale would belong to neither Saena nor Warbone, but to the both of them, lest she harass his claim evermore, or he hers. That was what she took from their silent conversation.

Saena stiffened as Warbone closed the distance between them, but even with his nearness, his enormity compared with her diminutive stature, she was unwavering. She was overly proud. He could've thrown her to the ground and taken his place as sole lead wolf, and there was nothing at all she could do about it. Truly, Saena maintained her proud stance only because he permitted it, and in acknowledgement of that—that Warbone was superior in this instance, even if she was too stupid proud to yield as a proper subordinate—she let her ears slide carefully back to regard him as he passed. But he didn't go far, and when she felt his teeth pinch into the fur of her nape, she held still, but her lips curled lightly as though she was unsure how to take his actions, and a gentle rumble took up residence in her throat, somewhere between a quiet purr and an uncertain warning.

But she didn't know if she truly wanted to ward Warbone off or if she was egging him. It was the strangest feeling.

Instinctively delighted by the commanding sound in her throat, he imitated it. But beyond the veil of his own threat, there was pleasure and curiosity; hiding in his voice both a willingness to accept her own stance on the matter, and a genuine desire to discover their true dynamic. He had not been willing to advance on her either sexually or violently at their initial meeting, having been driven by their talk to perceive her as an unattainable waif— a fleeting life lesson, meant to keep him breathing.

But here she was returned— solidified and demanding— riling his spirit and challenging him with more than her womanly wiles. He began to see her, for all her emotion and pride, to be his equal, his rival, and his destiny.

He might have remembered wanting this with The Commander. And with Octavia. And Rami. But no she-wolf so far had instilled in him a feeling beyond himself. While he had considered each of these women to be in his world, he saw very much the opposite in Saena. Warbone wanted nothing more than to devote his life to creating a save haven for the spirit that had lured him from a sad death up in the mountains.

The pitch of his growl changed in all this; his mouth refusing to retreat from her nape, fearless of her potential retaliation— the sound and feel of him deepening as he pressed into her— waiting to receive her teeth or her body beneath him.

Saena felt Warbone's change as much as she heard it, and responded in kind. Her ears slid further down the side of her head as the pitch of his growl morphed into something else, something that tugged on her baser self and made her stomach slide. She deferred to him in that moment. While she was doubtless destined to give Warbone a challenge whenever he sought one, and he was certain to challenge her as well, she felt as though they could strike a firm balance that would benefit them both. Whether violent or intimate, they could kindle each other, opposite and yet the same as they were.

Saena remembered Luke in that moment, absurdly, but the memory was fleeting. Warbone was nothing like Luke. While he was her kindred spirit and she saw in him much of herself, the drop of her stomach had nothing to do with his personality or his wiles, as it had when she'd abandoned her loyalty to Luke. As he pressed his snout more firmly into her neck, Saena responded to Warbone's strength and solidarity. Wolves with pretty personalities had never done anything for her, and it seemed past time to turn instead to their physicality, especially with loss leaving a place in her where need had taken up residence.

Coy and drunk on instinct as she was, Saena whirled quickly from Warbone's grasp, her growl intensifying for a moment, only to soften into something low and simmering. She went for the side of Warbone's neck, brandishing her teeth but to plant a gentle pinch upon it, while her body moved nearer to his in acceptance of whatever it was he was searching for, a fight or otherwise. A nip to inflame him further, to share with him the way the wild fuelled and intoxicated her in the wake of his savage approach, and to goad him, of course.

Saena danced away suddenly, sending the brute into a stiff, involuntary lurch in her direction as his instinct bid him to chase. Warbone pulled back, bullishly tossing his head as he fought the urge, single eye flashing as he saw her dart forward. Despite the spearing fashion of her body, there a non-malicious mania emblazoning her face like constellations, and (only in play) did he willingly toss away his face, a canidly coy motion, that gave her direct access to the broad folds of his neck.

A titanic sign of certainty. Trust.

He felt her teeth there, pinching without drawing blood; her proverbial signature upon his given contract— cementing his trust in her. His blood roared now, captured by the explicit knowledge that he could open his body up to her completely, and be without the fear that she might cripple him or otherwise seek to maim. A youthfulness in him swelled as Warbone snapped around like a serpent, snorting excitedly as he throwing out large paws to tag her with, attempting to buffet his abettor with feigned violence; seeking mildly to drive her into fleeing from him.

She hadn't expected the trusting turn of Warbone's head, and when she contacted his flesh, she was quick to let it go in honour of that trust. Her teeth grazed him lightly, a tease, and then he was writhing in her face. She couldn't contain a chuckle that bubbled up as his teeth clipped the air to either side of her face, and his ample paws rocked her around as easily as if she were pup. Compared to him, she was tiny, and it showed in how easily she gave to the slaps of his feet. The uncertain flame in her belly morphed into jolliness and she laughed jovially.

She endured his force for a moment, gnashing her teeth playfully inches from his nose and attempting to duck and weave around his larger limbs, but eventually Saena broke away to do exactly what Warbone wanted: she ran. It was what she wanted as well, she was surprised to find. Her bounds were high and frolicsome as she darted away from him, tempting him after her, hopeful still that he would chase her, and catch her, too.

Warbone jaw-sparred her every attempt to fend him away with her teeth, as fearless of her bite as she could expect to be of his. Her happy giggling touched him deeply, as it was a frivolous noise that by definition he thought he would never see in a fond light; but by some miracle, the sound of her laugh ravaged him, leaving him breathless and eager to cause her to make the sound more. The pied sylph dashed away from him, small and elusive, flaunting a rump he found was made rounder by the lack of a focalizing tail. He gave starved chase, his gait surprisingly light and stag-like for a wolf of his stature.

He shed his reptilian skin, abandoning his taciturn ways for a moment of naked intimacy shared for the first and only time with Saena. Warbone was typically content to allow his stoicism and physicality to draw in the women of his tastes, but from the start his relationship with her had been different. Soul-bearing. It felt natural now, to continue the precedent of being his purest self when he was alone with her.

She would turn every so often, coaxing him forward but just as quick to show herself the superior sprinter between them. He wouldn't catch her unless allowed; though it was not for lack of trying, as his single eye gleamed possessively after her, and his lascivious body followed in rambunctious courtship, begging her back to him.

To chase the wind was an exhilarating experience. It was what drove Saena to wander in her youth, and made her a scout. Yet she had never chased it as fervently as she did now, spurred by Warbone hot on her tail. She bounded through the valley, twisting and turning to allow him nearer only to dart away again. For a time, she led him on a chase through rolling hill and copse, splashing once across a pebbled brook that left her legs glistening. She was breathless with tinkling laughter, and her tongue lolled from her jaws as she gave herself over to the vale's allure.

The warden of the vale would catch her in time, however; she slowed her pace, just enough that Warbone might reach her, with a sly glance over a slim shoulder. She wanted to be caught. That was rare. She was a free beast through and through, and mostly had been since the day she struck out from the plateau to find her own fortune. She'd once allowed herself to be caught by another, but that had not been a real chase, and the outcome had not been worthy of who she would truly become. She wanted to be caught by Warbone, though, as much as she would want to catch him should the roles be reversed, because he encouraged her to be the wolf she should be.

So she rounded a tree, slowing enough that he might catch up to her should he wish to, and shot him a competitive smirk.

In that moment, inveigled by instinct and a great ardor, Warbone felt he could chase her forever. Chase her until the bones in his legs had long splintered through sheer exertion; until his heart had given out from exhaustion. He knew he would pursue her always, and defend her honor against all war and other suitors. Previously he'd been disillusioned, thinking that he could love no wolf and no place more than her could ever love the Keep... the willows. But they fled his thoughts now, clouded by this new haven, and the liberator that had drawn him here.

To him, she would always lead him to his sanctuary, and forever his wild spirit would insist he give chase.

Of her own volition she relented, curving herself just out of his view, as he came trotting to a stop. Tongue lolling, he followed eagerly, slower as he realized she had at last stopping running. "Mmm," he growled, ducking his head as his single eye set on her with ravenous intent. He had never felt inclined to mount a woman outside of her season, but the emotion had very clearly blossomed within him now, and its foreignness roused him further.

Warbone lifted his head, his expression alert— aware that she could bolt again at any moment— as he prowled closer, and lifted a broad forepaw to set experimentally upon the curve of his small monarch's rump.

The thunder of his paws announced him, and her burly warden swung around the tree in time to meet her. She met his singular eye momentarily, then coyly dipped her head with a yielding lift of her lips. Her body curved softly, part toward him and part away, playful and yet distinctly not. Their joint arousal, spurred partly by the run and partly by the savagery with which they interact, was clear not only in the glimmer of their eyes, but in the scent that surrounded them. Like lightning, a distinctly sharp and excited smell, and so it was no surprise to Saena when Warbone closed the distance. Her ears pulled downward and she whined softly, and when his paw touched her back, she molded to him readily.

Once, she had tangoed with Luke unexpectedly. It had been an experiment more than anything. This was experimental, too, in a way. To be so easily seduced by a wolf she both knew and didn't—for while she felt intimately connected to Warbone, they had truly only met twice—was a very new experience for Saena. It wasn't for love, that was certain, but the flame growing in her belly burned hotter than any she'd experienced. It likely had everything to do with what Warbone had awakened in her, though his rugged, war-torn brand of handsomeness was not lost on her, either.

She held still for Warbone, angling her back downward and assuming a posture of lordosis in order to accept his silent proposition. She would have preferred that he simply grasp her, for Saena had always appreciated a wolf who knew what he wanted, but she was also thankful he sought permission. Had she a tail, it would fan eagerly back and forth, but instead her stump merely twitched. She gazed back over her shoulder, her face still creased into an unmistakably accepting smile, and her eyes were half-lidded as warmth consumed her.

Warbone expected his paw to land on solid ground, for this moment to extend infinitely into another chase, for her to refuse him in the spirit of riling him further. But instead he found solid purchase against her back, surprised by the steady set of her hips and the absence of an effort to reprimand him. He realized in his small victory that it had come too soon. He immediately missed the chase, and the implicit thrill behind it, but his pleasure at being teased did not compare now to the offer she presented to him now. Her receptiveness to his touch was as surprising as it was exhilarating, and though she was not unused to how she made men feel in and out of season herself, it was a subject entirely new to the grizzled athlete.

His upper body lifted without hesitation, his member already exposed and stretching into wakefulness. He drew her powerfully into a position beneath him, maneuvering himself enthusiastically until his weight found a perfect niche along her spine, and his back curved to dagger her.

The event was not gentle and loving, but rather engorged by passion and potent energy, driving him firmly to connect with her, wanting to be closer than any amount of words could bring them. He snarled as he filled her, ecstasy branding his skin in a way that made him cry out and dive deeper in fervent search for the peak of this feeling. His pleasure became muffled as his teeth found purchase against her nape, tautly pulling on fur and skin as rough as he could with breaking it, and his hips reached a fever-pitch, thrusting himself forward in one last show of incredible force, as he released himself to her body.

Warbone grunted, panting, first slacking his jaw before loosening his limbs to withdraw his weight from her. As he dropped to the side, his delightful delirium ebbed the moment he realized he was stuck, with her bantam rump trapped neatly against the arch of his stomach. He only minded because it uncomfortably stretched his warboner; otherwise, he might have been quite complacent to have her trapped there, all pressed together, rubbing and throbbing, until he was ready to impale her over and over once more.

When their privates almost reluctantly relinquished each other, and some of the blood had returned to Warbone's brain, the massive wolf sighed deeply, his entire body heaving with the effort. The wolf flopped on his side with a happy groan, stretching so that his eye could find her expression. Jerking his muzzle, he motioned for her to join him. "I want to have you like that, like this, for the rest of my life," he murmured, his tongue seeking her affectionately.

Warbone wasted no time, for which a wildly incensed Saena was grateful. His limbs slipped around her waist and hooked over her thighs, preventing her from going anywhere if she decided to terminate early, and he swung his body around until he found himself a comfortable perch. The man was easily twice her weight or more, a significant difference from her lovers of the past, and it took several adjustments before she felt confident she could bear him at all. Her ankles nevertheless felt it, and she fleetingly thought that her legs were likely to be sore in the morning before Warbone tightened his arms around her and drew her flush against his muscled stomach. Her own belly plummeted in anticipation, and then all thoughts left her.

Her lips twisted into a silent snarl as Warbone made a sheath of her and pushed her sentient being out, and left her just an animal body, consumed by his. Saena's face contorted into writhing expressions of ecstasy as he drew her near and drove deep, a reckless plunge right into the heart of her. Warbone was not just heavier than any lover she'd had in the past, but more of many other things as well. She became excruciatingly aware of that fact when his teeth clipped into the fur at the nape of her neck, not unlike it had earlier and yet with far more savagery, and she hissed out an animal sound of pleasure when the entirety of her body spasmed at this new angle. There was pain, and there was far more pleasure, and she liked both equally well. As he rocked her with all his might, Warbone's strength nearly took Saena's feet out from under her, but she held fast to the earth for all she was worth, for fear of flying away should she slacken her paws.

She finished long before he did, teased into a twisted and hot knot inside that melted into swirling magma when his intensity increased. She was beginning to climb again by the time he reached his peak and she felt the familiar and yet wholly new swell of him, the beast inside her tensing and twitching, as he grunted and eventually relinquished her. Saena breathed heavily, twisting to crook herself awkwardly between his belly and his hind leg, to wait it out. It had been a long time, and the sweet ache was welcome, even as uncomfortable as it was. Every movement sent an electric shock through her sensitive core that made her quiver. Her limbs trembled with the effort of standing when he finally slipped away, and Saena could have collapsed right there had he not gestured to her.

She was new to fucking wolves she didn't know very well, even if she felt she knew Warbone better than maybe anyone ever had, and ordinarily may have slipped away to process it. Instead, she found her way into the neat tuck of his stomach where it met his chest, and she pressed in close, laying her warm snout across his shoulder while her body relaxed from its high. Her eyelids fluttered when he spoke, and her pale blue eyes sought his single stormy one as she tried to think of what to say. She wasn't very eloquent on the best of days. With a wry smile, she murmured, "it won't be easy," as though to promise the continued thrill of chasing one another, and then, quieter, implored, "tell me what the rest of your life looks like." For of course, especially in the hot afterglow of sex (but certainly after as well), Saena wanted nothing more than Warbone.

She was sleepy—gods, he'd made her sleepy—but she wanted to know. Things were certain to go differently than Warbone imagined, whatever that might be, but she was curious nonetheless what he saw in his future.

For a long while he lay in sweet reminiscence of moments just passed, his mind curling over details he had missed in the throes of passion. Warbone remembered her quaking, quivering body with the most fondness, feeling her in his mind as surely as he had felt her beneath him just minutes ago. His chest heaved in a contented sigh as she settled against him, the contour of her small frame fitting neatly into the curve of his body -- a piece of the puzzle finding its niche.

He felt her muzzle shift against his shoulder, and in feeling her gaze upon him, he angled his head so that he could meet her sleepy royal eyes. "Nothing worth having is ever easy," he murmured gently, his scarred face soft and amused in the afterglow of his unexpected pleasure. He wondered to himself why he had never taken a woman out of her season, but he suppose he had never had the impulse to; at least not as strongly, and certainly never to the point where he had proceeded. Saena would forever be special to him in this manner, able to rouse and rile him beyond what he presumed to be capable of.

He realized he was staring -- studying the contours of her face and every strand of hair there that wasn't white -- and silent in the time he should have been answering her question. Warbone's eye shifted to hers, settling there when he'd finally found a response for her hidden in the folds of her expression. "When we stood together up on that mountain, it did not occur  to me then that I was already looking at the rest of my life." He didn't say it, but his simplified answer was clear in his gaze: you.

Warbone wasn't a wolf of grand speculation, and he certainly didn't often do such daydreamy things as imagining his future; but with her, it was easy. It was right. "We will rise, this much I know, and there will be others to stand behind us. We shall never be lonely, lest we chose it, and  I see children especially. Lots of them. Sons and daughters, all in our likeness -- both strong, and beautiful..." 

He craned his large head so that his muzzle might brush against hers, and he kissed the side of her mouth, infinitely more tender than he had ever been.

A drowsy haze settled lightly over Saena's withers as her figure sunk further into Warbone's solid frame, but she remained alert enough that her ears perked and her eyes blinked whenever he spoke. A soft smile curled across her lips as she murmured, "too true," in agreement with his first statement. Nothing good was easy. Perhaps that meant Saena was blessed for the life she'd had thus far, where nothing had come easy beyond the first six months of it. No doubt it would get harder still, but for now, she felt as though nothing could ever be so hard again. She had Warbone to lean on, to keep her sturdy, should it happen.

She hadn't known on the mountaintop that Warbone was her destiny, either. She'd thought she was at the peak to plummet to her death, and never could have imagined the turn their tentative relationship would take here. When she entered the vale, she sought him only to share in joint leadership of it, or to oust him from it (or be ousted), if that proved to be necessary. In hindsight she'd been reckless to challenge him thus, but reckless was what Saena did best. She was glad she'd stood her ground. She was glad she'd not moved from his rough paw against her back.

Saena murmured a soft note of approval when Warbone spoke of rising and leading others, but her eyes widened at the talk of children. She'd not considered it, not yet. She'd told Indra and Laurel that she hadn't replaced them, and if she bore Warbone children, would that not be replacing them? Saena couldn't break her word to her daughters. And yet... and yet they had forsaken her so easily. Laurel had cast her aside when she didn't make empty promises, and Indra had fled the scene instead of choosing. Neither of them were deterred by their father having more children, or so it seemed to her. Why should she be held down by the fear that they would disapprove of her choices?

Screw them, thought Saena as she shed the last of herself in Warbone's embrace. She didn't live for the daughters who'd forsaken her. She lived for herself, and for her warden of the valley, and she knew that come winter and her time, she would unhesitatingly bear him a litter of strong and stubborn pups, and for every year after, until one or both of them returned to the earth to which they belonged. Indra and Laurel had chosen their path. They would not dictate hers.

"Sons and daughters," she murmured in approval, her eyes rising to meet his even as he brushed his lips over her muzzle, and received a tender lick in response. Love needn't factor into it; her instincts guided her here rather than her emotions, and her instincts chose Warbone. "Yes," she crooned, "Powerful, graceful, incredible children. Children of the vale, and wild of heart." The last word left her mouth in a lusty sigh as her eyes slid closed and she dozed. They would in time raise their children to be hunters and defenders and enforcers, masters of stealth and teamwork, and everything a wild wolf was meant to be. Saena could hardly wait to get started.