Being vague because the meeting thread with Marina is ongoing. Tagging
@Sorana if you wanna cameo!
After escorting
@Bridget all the way back to the Caldera, Reyes felt compelled to check on
@Teya; at the same time, he wasn't thinking about her physical state or the timing of it all. He was refreshed after a job well done, a little hungry, and missing her something fierce. The chill that had recently descended upon their relationship hadn't been forgotten — but the important part, the pregnancy, had been forced from his mind.
He stopped by the central lake, figuring he'd catch Teya there fishing, and was surprised when he didn't. His trail led towards the Hobbit Hole next. As he stepped up to the doorway he caught the scent of something startlingly familiar —
milk.
Uhm... Teya?
He called out gruffly, hearing his voice echo faintly back to him from the den's interior.
bridget was back.
teya had scarcely processed that and now reyes was as well. of course he was back too; she had sent him to get bridget.
but the little violet was not sure she wanted him close. sorana was curled against her side. they had both been dozing and teya was seized with annoyance that his voice might wake the pup.
selfish. uncharitable. she grit her teeth and gently pulled away, slipping from the new room she had excavated and stepping along the churned earth until she stood before reyes.
her heart galloped faster when she saw him, but teya refused to relent no matter how much she suddenly wanted his touch. "how was journey?" she asked in a quiet monotone. her fur hung in tangles and all she could smell on herself was milk, but the coolwater eyes were watchful as ever.
When she came to the door she looked — well, sad, to be honest. Weighted in more ways than just the physical. Nervous, even. Maybe he was reading in to her posture a bit too much; Reyes hadn't seen Teya in at least a week, closer to two now — and she wasn't exactly radiating with love for him. She did appear radiant though. The longer he looked at her the more soothing her presence was to his eye.
Fine,
he answered, a bit too brusque for the moment. His expression became something unreadable, almost guilty. After a tense pause he adds, Bridget's home now.
Of course, he'd found traces of Bridget in the immediate vicinity and knew by now she'd come to visit Teya. It was a bit redundant to mention her aloud - but Reyes had to break that disquiet somehow.
seconds ticked by. reyes smelled of travel, of the sea. "i know. she come by." his words were only about bridget. teya stared at him, trying to recoup any sense of familiarity from the man who was her mate.
she fell silent. the mention of their returned packmember brought her to mind of that meeting, the press of the cardinal's body.
the sound of teya's own weeping.
the raven had thought surely she must be over with tears but now, swiftly and viciously, they threatened to come again. her throat ached and she looked skyward, trying to end the sting before it became wetness.
"did you speak with blackwater?" pack business. her role. teya bound herself rigidly to it.
Teya had already met with Bridget. He should have figured - her scent was here, and she'd probably come to be re-initiated in to Brecheliant by the reigning Raven. After admitting to as much Teya went quiet, and Reyes wasn't sure what else to speak about, until the topic of Blackwater came up again.
There was so much tension here. Reyes didn't know what to do about it, or the look that Teya gave the clouds over his head; it looked (to him) like Teya was trying her hardest to be civil in place of what she really wanted — to run him off, or maybe throw up. Reyes hadn't done the math yet and still thought she was pregnant, so, the ill look upon her face fit that scenario.
I met someone named Marina. Everything went as planned.
He gave a lethargic shrug of his shoulders and then froze in place, waiting for Teya to do something, or say something, or outright dismiss him - feeling in every possible way, unwanted where he stood.
Was he destined to receive the cold-shoulder treatment from everyone he tried to care about?
Skippable / PP freely!
Teya's absence went unnoticed for some time on account of Sorana's deep slumber.
As if his mind was tethered to her own, the moment Reyes lifted his shoulders in a shrug was the moment Sora snapped awake and found herself alone. She groped in the darkness a moment, searching — it was not unusual for Teya to pull away from her, so the little cub had already learned how to find her mama again when separated — but no warm contact was forthcoming.
When Teya was present, Sorana was a cherub, but when Teya went away... Well. Her protests started slowly and quietly, the soft sounds of a baby fussing in the dark, but when there was no response, it built into a keening and constant whine for warmth that could easily be heard from the outside.
she only wanted to grunt in response but that would do nothing for either of them, nothing at all. numbly she watched his red shoulders rise and wondered if he had found someone softer and less angry and younger, even, on his easily accepted flight from br —
fuck
sorana's cries reverberated inside her head at a thousand decibels. her headache returned, and her eyes stung with hot and incensed tears.
"well, i'm glad you're back, reyes," she said, voice garbled with the threat of crying. "you should come meet your daughter before you go anywhere else."
and she was turning away, back into the den, hoping he would follow, hoping he would not, stepping lightly and fuzzily back to sorana, back to curling around the babe, back to her trampled and darkened bed.
There was both a chill and a saltiness between them, he could sense it like he sensed the ocean during his travels, and for a moment longer the two lovers were separate continents with a massive sea between them. Teya flowed away from him and when she spoke, it was not a dismissal that followed, but a request of the opposite.
A small voice bubbled up from inside the den and became an insistent wail; Reyes recognized the sound of distress immediately, but the shock of knowing he had another daughter froze him in place a moment.
A daugh — they're here already?
His voice was almost too low to hear, and confounded, but Reyes moved through the den mouth and inside to the large atrium to seek her out.
It was immediately too dark to see. The transition from the searing daylight to the dimming of the Hobbit Hole with its dust motes and grassy lining took a second of adjustment; however, when Reyes saw the little ruddy body of the girl in her nest, everything else fell away.
He no longer felt the weariness of the long hike home, or the emotional distance from Teya, only awe, which he would recognize later as instant love.
What's her... what's her name?
her chin trembled. for some reason teya wanted to lie, as if there was some magick in sorana's name that couldn't belong to reyes. the way he was looking at the pup frustrated her. how could he have agreed they could not be parents, fucked off to nowhere, and then come back like this? teya decided once more to ignore that she had sent him.
her throat tightened.
"sorana," the raven said at last, pulling her tail aside and moving so that the girl could better be seen. "no others."
that she did not regret. her daughter was a good baby. teya did not know how she could have coped with more.
silently she watched reyes.
Sorana.
She was so small, like the others had been - smaller, maybe, given Teya's petite size that was likely passed down. It was hard to tell if she'd inherited the ginger of her mother's coat or Reyes' darkness, the reds and the blacks, but he liked the idea of her in red...
She's perfect,
the man murmured. There was guilt to his voice beneath the love that lingered there, and he could not meet Teya's gaze; he felt her eyes upon him and breathed a tense exhalation through his nose. Teya --
he didn't know what to say and was tongue-tied by a flurry of emotion.
I'm sorry was not a phrase Reyes was ready to voice. He should have said it. He should have been more available to Teya during her pregnancy, and he knew that. Even if it had been an accident — Sorana, she was a fresh start. She was Reyes' future.
Are we... going to be okay?
As if his daughter were a magic eight ball with all the answers.
yes, she wanted to promise. no, she wanted to say. she met his golden eyes with a steady look of her own and felt the raw blood of hurt boiling in her veins. and alongside it, alongside it was the sweet ivoried glow of love, love all for him, an adoration that beat for reyes as long as she breathed.
it was hard to watch reyes look at sorana with the sheer love that not even the little pup's own mother had managed to muster.
a lie would be easier. a lie would be like a millstone around her own throat, dragging her down forever into dark waters.
"we make it work," teya said finally, and her lips lifted into a thin, quick something that wished to be a smile.
on a whim she reached out to her mate, wondering if contact between them might remind her brain of their connection.
We make it work.
She moved in slow motion towards him, no doubt tired from her ordeal. Reyes didn't move to meet her but he didn't shrink away either; his focus was entirely devoted to Sorana.
He studied her tiny body. Those itty-bitty toes. That beautiful face; did she look more like Teya or like Reyes? Maybe he could see his mother reflected back to him too, or maybe his father.
Teya touched him and he finally looked at her instead. Upon Reyes' face was awe, because he was indeed awe-struck by the sight of his newest daughter, and it faltered for a second when Teya stole his attention away. But he leaned in to her next, breathed her in, and smiled.
Sorana deserved a happy family, and that's what Reyes would provide.