Staying a little vague but I figured a follow up would be safe for these two since they've made their exit <3 as always let me know if the pp isn't okay!!
She'd brought
@Silvertongue to the
cave she had once discovered at the edge of the territory. Andromache was gentle with her, glancing anxiously over her shoulder every so often for Nikolaos's return. He was the one who would know how to treat this wound.
But the princess hated to feel helpless, and so she tried to recall some of what he had told her when she had suffered her own bite. She found the plant he'd brought to her and tore it haphazardly from the ground. When she returned, there was a new tension in her shoulders.
My guardsman knows more about this,
She told the woman apologetically.
But if you eat this, it should help.
she had not asked a name. she had not given her own. anonymously they had traveled, anonymously she had been deposited here in this dome of rock scarcely recognized as cave, not seeing its beautiful offerings. but then again, silvertongue was not in her mind, and clutched her sickened arm close, streaks of angry flesh announcing its progression toward fetid. she ate the plant slowly, reacting neither to texture nor bitterness; silvertongue lay curled on the ground after, awake enough to stare beyond the mouth of the cave, but not moved to words.
She was silent; the picture of a woman broken, and Andromache could only think that it should not be this way. This was the legacy of Myros, staring baldly at her even with so many miles and so much ruin between them. The princess settled nearby, not touching but almost close enough.
You'll be safe here,
She said after a time, aware in this moment of her shortcomings. Andromache was not a creature of intimacy, and this woman was all but a stranger to her, her name only known through a conversation that the princess should never have witnessed. But she would not call her that.
My name is ruined.
Whatever you wish, only name it. This valley - it is a place for women. No man will impose himself on you here, or any of us,
But the words were soft, slowly spoken; Andromache did not expect her to comprehend. It was only meant to soothe, to fill the time with reassurance while they waited for Nikolaos.
She did not allow herself to believe that the woman may die under her care.
wren's words had not left her mind. it was all true: she was running. they had tried. wren was still there. wren waited. somehow that pierced most of all, the idea that the woman she loved was going to look out at the horizon each day. silvertongue wished again that the desert had taken her; they would grieve, but not like this. the concept of salvaging what had happened was so insurmountable that silvertongue focused on what the other was saying, speaking of men and women in that heavy accent. "i will go home when i am ready. if i live." and the glassblue eyes were heavy with the notion that she did not want such years.
Andromache tried to soothe her, but Silvertongue was somewhere far away; somewhere unreachable. At her words, the princess paused, eyes searching her for a long moment. They were strangers to one another. Whatever walls had been put up, Andromache felt she would not be able to scale them.
Is that what you want?
She asked finally, wondering now if she had truly delivered the woman from anything at all. Perhaps she'd only delayed the inevitable; perhaps Silvertongue was already doomed to whatever misery plagued her. That Andromache cared at all was a mystery even to her; was she taken with the woman's beauty? With the prospect of becoming her savior? Or was it more than that?
Andromache watched her as if she might find the answer in the dullness of her grief-stricken eyes.
"to live?" silvertongue asked with a moment of the self that was wry, sardonic, teasing in her love. the emptied eyes moved to the woman, nameless but far less than stranger by now. "if i wanted to live i would not have come here." strange, to taste resentment and not have it lodged to any particular pillar. she tucked her swollen foreleg close, grunting as she attempted to straighten the stiffened toes on that limb. "to go home; to what?" would crowfeather always be there? she envisioned the peace of riverclan and found that she very much longed for the cool shadows, for him. but the memory of akavir and wren, here, to witness yet another of her abject failures — "i do not know what i want. i thought i would die, but i was saved. i cannot think about living and yet i breathe." caught; tethered; something like a smile floated across her bittered face, one that faded into the sudden shimmer of hot tears; "i loved them. i destroyed them. her. wren."
Her lips tightened. You destroyed nothing,
Andromache countered, unsettled by the notion. A fire may start with a single tree, but it was not the tree that burned the forest. And fire is not the end. Rather, an opportunity to begin anew.
But you should know what it is you want before you plant the seeds, or it will only burn again. Stay a time. Heal. Look to your future,
She reached out with one paw across the space between them, not touching but offering touch. Your past won't follow you here. Speak to Euryalos. I believe he knows more than most men about starting over.
The liberator in her wanted nothing more than to urge the woman to stay. But that was not the path to healing. It had to be her decision. Only hers.
silvertongue stared at the outstretched paw. "there is nothing a man could understand about this," she said in grating tone that did not want the stranger to be correct. and yet she was, this accented woman who spoke in poetry and said truths that silvertongue's heart longed fiercely to hear. the riverclan wolf lay down now, turning her back, and she did not speak again for the remainder of that hour. she was at their mercy, but she did not have to engage their conversation.