the denning instinct was not yet in the boy, but the demand for something untouched and new of their own drove him deep into the territory. while the others searched for his aunt, ancelin covered the wound of that hurt with his goals.
a surprise for
@Lilia.
through morning and afternoon he looked, resting to cool his body and to hunt before he was off again, painting each inch of redtail rise in the burn of his indigo eyes and the restless intention of his den-looking, almost fevered in intensity as he fought hard not to think of avicus and how she had been
the last.
She’d not fought for the prize, but felt that finding such a thing in the squelchy mud of the swamp was enough of a feat that she’d earned the right to take it.
She’d stepped on it and yowled. Normally, the swamp was soft underfoot, but when she pulled her paw free, the sharp, hooked claw came with it. It fell into the mud and at first, she wrinkled her nose and thought about pounding it back down into the murk where it couldn’t hurt her again. Then, she recognized what it was.
She spent over an hour cleaning it in fresh water, pulling the last bit of gristle and fur from the base of the joint, so that only bone and claw remained. Given the fact it was detached from any other remnants of skeleton, she guessed it’d been in the swamp for years, preserved there.
Now, it was a gift.
She carried it along with her, as she searched for Ancelin. His path wove this way and that, a bit of a nuisance when all she wanted to do was hunt him down! Eventually, she caught his scent on the wind and made a beeline through the trees, so she could intercept his winding path. She rumbled an affectionate greeting as she caught sight of him, the fur along the nape of her neck prickling in anticipation.
ancelin had been distracted by a red hawk wheeling across the burned place, searching for rodents. it was here she found him, and he pranced happily toward her, nipping at the bright ruff and wetting her with the droplets of water beaded upon his guard hairs.
lilia was carrying something; ancelin dropped back to raise an eyebrow, then stretched his hind legs. "was thinking we needed — something for us, you know." he'd meant it to be a surprise, but she was here now; why not look together?
She exhaled a soft but sudden breath against his cheek, grinning over the claw she carried as she noted the wetness of his fur. He must've been going through dewy undergrowth, maybe through a patch of ferns, she thought. He smelled wild and fresh, familiar and beloved. He stretched, and she eyed the curve of his flank, smirking lightly, feeling a twinge in her belly before she brought her shamelessly appreciative gaze back to his face.
A place for just them? Her smile widened and she blinked at him, like a cat expressing affection. She rumbled acceptance and nodded, before she moved forward to gently place the gift at his feet. Dark and curved, the black bear claw was blunted slightly at the tip, but still gleamed along its smooth edges. "We'll need a plathe to put our treasureth," She said. After all- she had hidden the blue shell in a place that she felt was secret to all but her- but having a den claimed as their would give her a proper place to put it, knowing that none would dare steal it from her. "I found thith, fuh you...Kinda made me figure, y'know- Lilia Bearclaw hath a nithe ring to it."
lilia bearclaw.
ancelin's eyes went wide and soft, an expression at direct odds with the scars relic had left. he stared at her, and then at the gift; he lowered his muzzle to explore the curve of the claw, its flanks holding the oiled sheen of good wear.
ancelin marveled in a low gasp, and then his indigo eyes were upon lilia again, studying her with a near-hungry intensity that burned that old natal valley in his pupils.
his.
his.
his paw covered the claw; he stepped closer until their breath mingled, his own smile catching at the end with something like the sense of being overcome.
"i think it does too. lilia and ancelin bearclaw."
She felt her heart flutter, and heat flooded from her cheeks, down her throat and deep into her underbelly. Now with a name to call her own, she felt even more secure. They shared a name, and they would share a home together. She felt certain (though it had never been discussed) that when Spring came, they would create a family together, and she would find herself rolling in validity for having accomplished all that she truly desired. While she mourned Avicus still, she sipped the first taste of what it was to become like her- a leader, with prospects.
She wanted to reward Ancelin for his favour, and for extending his name to hers. Juvenile instincts had poked their way intrusively into her life before, but now when she felt herself awakening, it felt right. He was her mate, and she had taken his name. Brushing her cheeks against his and combing her teeth through the fur at his jawline, she wished then to take from him and give to him the one thing they had yet to share together as newlyweds.
something changed between them, something thrumming with an electricity that ancelin wanted to capture. he felt it in the corners of his mouth, in his pelt, in his limbs; he sent his tongue drifting along her cheek and his teeth to her ears, first one, and then the other.
he preened through her hackles, and for the first time he understood the soft whines that augur offered his mate. ancelin felt the sound rising in his own throat, carried out in a muffled sigh against her ruff, a nip to her collarbone.
his eyes had darkened with want; ancelin steadied himself, stilling for a moment as he felt his heart race, racing inside the bone foresting of his ribcage.
his.
Lilia deferred to Augur, only, and in her heart, she still would bow down and rein in her own actions if she felt she was straying from what would have been Wealda's will as well. They steadied her course as lofty, billowing sails might direct a ship, harnessing her power and guiding it-
-but as for the wind, that was Ancelin. Tangible and yet impossible to fully describe, he was what gave her life and reason to move forward. He was the gale that drove the clouds away, capable of both cooling her ire and breathing life into her fire.
Drawn in like a feather on an updraft, she leaned against him and crooned a song meant only for him, the longing whistle the wind would make as it threaded a forest. She, his willing ship, ached for the only one she would ever fully surrender to.
perhaps a fade? <33
ancelin had wished always to possess; he had not tasted what it meant to belong also to someone else, someone who was the mountainous edge to the rolling of unsteady terrain which had always been the basis of his heart.
if he was wind, she was earth streaked with fire, a place for his pulse to settle and to find its security, but also with volcanic teeth would liliia rise. her fierceness in many ways was greater than his own, and he instinctively deferred to it even as he stood as her equal.
the sound in her throat was a primeval yearning that filled his mouth with the taste of ancient forests and the scent of her, wrapped in all his senses — ancelin responded with a rake of his teeth upward along her spine as he drew lilia to him and into that ageless sway of ship upon endless sea and long glittering night, something he had not known how to do until this very moment.
they were one another's own.
sure <3
The sensation within her, once so shameful and uninvited, now fuelled her and consumed her. She could see it in him too, and at last they were balanced in wanting something so primal from one another.
She cooed as she courted with him, lovers’ sounds she’d never uttered before. Her body was made ready and knowing without command, and like a bird setting off on its migration, she knew to allow this deep, burning desire to guide her.
In all other ways, the world stayed the same, but Lilia’s had begun to change. From Ancelin with every breath she drew confident and virile, wild and ambitious. She’d awakened; and was now ravenous.