As much as the budding rauna longed to satiate the the wanderlust tugging insistently at her pale spirit, she was able to quell it long enough to make her rounds, buzzing with good-byes and receiving, she hoped, well-wishes and a safe return.

Heart careening and soul fit to soar, she’d momentarily dispersed from Tux’s side, as the two of them needed to make their own personal preparations. Currently, she took respite at the edges of the cliffs, snowy ruff rising with anticipation of what was to come. For once, it wasn’t the stars that comforted her—but instead the swell and fall of the sea; and with it came some sudden, hopeful flare that this could be a means to prove her worth.

She didn’t know; but she knew there was a certain cheka she wanted to find before she departed—had wanted to find him the moment she’d heard from her patients that the war had ended. Averting her contemplation of the shores, she continued her trek along the crags, hoping to see him somewhere along the precipices.

“Dragâ,” she responded in foreign kind, approaching him the last few steps. Usually, she treated everyone the same, no matter sex or rank: a little dazzled and most certainly no filter with what she had to say. But, with him... she didn’t know what it was, but thoughts of Tux and gone for a week blipped from her mind the moment she met Verx’s gaze. With him, time seemed to slow into something heady and sweet. Frankly, at this moment, her own eyes fixing on him inscrutable, she didn’t care to know—not yet. 

The insistent hold on her heart came knocking at her breast as she looked him over, not so much as to inspect as to shyly appreciate him. Hearing him tease cause a faint quirk of her lips; which, unknown to her, had started to become more frequent than it’d ever been. “Hardly,” even though she tilted her head at his wounds, the crease deepening between her brows despite the banter. “I hope you don’t harry Rose so much, getting yourself so hurt. She’s been a lovely mentor to me; try not to wear her down while I’m away.”

Eyes gleaming, creasing impishly as she added dismissively, ”You wouldn’t want to be treated with salt instead of poultice, would you?”

Her eyes tracked the movement of his stretch, her words a bit half-distracted, ”Tux is taking me to go on an excursion with him,” lashes fluttering before she looked back into his face. Of course. That’s what she’d looked for him about. To say goodbye.

Her eyes flickered down to her paws, thinking her coltish legs looked rather decent from this angle; suddenly feeling... she didn’t know how. The way she’d felt in the hollow, she supposed. But so much more demure.

Clearing her throat softly, and not quite meeting his sea-like eyes this time, ”I, ahm, w-wanted to see you before I left. I should be back by ze end of ze week.” Her feathery tail flicked self-consciously between her hocks, head lowering a tad. After a moment, her prattling began, ”I mean, being heda’s guard and all, you’ll most certainly be busy. Of course you’ll be busy—you’re busy right now, aren’t you?” Of course, she wasn’t as deprived of sleep this time, but...

”South, to ze mountains she said, hurriedly adding, ”Well, to Silvertip, I believe.” Unable to simply stand, she followed his gaze to the sound before edging closer to him. Trying and failing to support the casual tone of his. ”It’s been so long since I’ve been among them.”

Lowering her head in acquiescence to his position — just in case — and tail trailing her hocks, she warily, but gently, pressed her neck under and alongside his own, tall enough that her shoulder pressed into his winter-worn chest. She fought her own urge to lean into him; to melt into him as she had that night. But she couldn’t help her lashes fluttering closed as she murmured, ”Go to ze apothecary again while I’m away, dragâ. You’re hurting,” Her voice again lilting, with a dulcet, quiet edge to it; and then, a soft smile within, “I want you walking properly by ze time I return.”

Of course, not the words she’d wanted to say or even expected to leave her mouth—to joke that he wouldn’t miss her. Not that she wanted to be missed. Obviously. But how else to show she was glad he’d made it through? How could she say something logical, reasonable, when his presence made her brim under her own winter coat?

Only a week. Only a day later, she might be pestering Tux to turn back, giving some off-handed and meager excuse for trekking back. Carefully, she pressed herself a bit further against him, hesitantly nuzzling and avoiding where he was tender; tried to chart the feel of him into her.

To her, Verx was one who didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard—it was a perfect note of low and silky to cut through the crash of the waves he focused on. Someday, perhaps she would finally adjust and adore the coast, and it would be enough for her. But not today. Not until she found Vonnaruil, and understood what her purpose in this world was. And even then...

His prickly words made her catch her tongue and the smile that came with it, and then they drew from each other; it was with reluctance and the scent of him more than anything that made her movements slow. Still feeling the weight of him on her, making it just a tad hard for her to breathe, chest fluttering.

And then he spoke again, a question this time. Still trying to come back to her senses, she saw his inquisitive, crooked smile; heard his little stumble of the word. The brana just about turned into an incoherent, blushing echo of the scrap of wolf she was then. ”W-well,” clearing her throat again, raising her chin to look up at him, ”Dragâ means ‘darling’, because that’s what y-you are.”

Close, too close; but her heart stamped at the thrill of unknown, of danger, as to how he’d react. His scent was something sinful, but it wasn’t any different from other Drakru. She wanted to lose herself in the dark of him; so like the void between stars, aching for him to envelop her.

Fute.

Unable to look into his eyes any longer and her insides thrumming uncontrollably, she suddenly whirled to her paws. Tried to shimmy, innocently, on by him on feverish loins, shoulder brushing his side—as if making to run for it.

The sound of his mirth did something to her heart, and his words were making her feel.... A way that made her come up short, a bit breathless, as he rushed to greet her escape like a great shadow. For a moment, she wavered back and forth, pretty head cocked inquisitively, demurely at him while her scent said another. The glint of intent in his alluring gaze—whatever it may have been for—clasped at her throat, her heart, her belly. Lower. 

She heard the Trigedasleng as he neared, hoarse and terse, and willed herself to not wilt then and there; the only thing that kept her from doing so was to blurt, ”What does ‘boknolau’ mean?” Stumbling over it entirely, absolutely annihilating the word compared to his effortless purr of it. She’d already heard what it meant from Tux, but she wanted to hear it from Verx’s own mouth—ached for his voice.

Fute. Fute.

But then his heart-stopping smile diminished, and his next words were serious, solemn, and her own became an ivory mirror of it, frenzy out of mind—at the moment. The guardian spoke of all things horrid beyond Drageda’s borders, despite her fellow rauna’s brawn. Aure peered back up into his enigmatic gaze before looking to the shores, and then back again. ”I would care for him as if he had been born of my blood, meu cheka.” She sidled closer, the graceful curve of her jaw clenching as she did, ”To be thought of brave flatters me. Yet... I cannot protect him from ze terrors of ze world.”

Her eyes flickered down, suddenly far-away and into a different memory. ”But I will do everything in my power to lessen what harm does happen—if anything should. Small I may be, but he will have ze protection of my body.” Finally, she looked up into his face again, but did not raise her head; yet her eyes shone with a lunar flare so searing and star-bright that it burned cold.

The passage of time slowed to a crawl then, dripping molasses into the thick and warm air that they now shared.

The brana had gone completely still, in breath and body, lashes fluttering heavy and low on pallid cheekbones, as if she were being lulled to repose all over again. In all her life, nobody had ever touched her scars or been so close to them; not without her permission. Not even Vonnaruil.

One moment, his broad shoulders had been set in such a way, that told the base part of her, that he wanted to devour her where she stood. The next, it was like he wanted to burn his touch into her skin in a way where she could never forget it, even if she tried. She bit into her lower lip at it, a smoldering, suffusing warmth brushing down her porcelain spine and into her hips.

Eyes that had become hazed and longing now fluttered closed, letting herself lean into the touch, into his spirit. Her voice felt small, cracking with just the hint of a keen — (and an inkling of something more intimate) — ”O, meu dragâ...”

Aure reveled in him the way he did with her; and she was able to lose herself in the rapture of him and the blackness that he was between the cosmos she endlessly sought. ”Of course. Of course I will,” her voice staggering between plea and promise. She pressed closer, murmuring incoherent and foreign, before finally drawing away with a low, yearning groan.

Before he could move for her, she stepped—more like stumbled a bit—away, pupils blown wide and slight notch in her brow, her steps clumsy and half-acknowledged. The look in her eyes profound and arduous and utterly under whatever enchantment he’d sorcelled her under. Looked at him as if he were an entirely new universe she meant to chart. Her voice soft, almost dumb-struck, star-struck, Verx-struck, ”La revedere, dragul meu,” not quite remembering she was supposed to meet Tux very, very soon and knowing she could spare no more to stay.