The way to the cliffs from her cove tended to wind her, leave her breathless. But what made her forge up the craggy trail regardless were words from what seemed like an eternity ago — ’Vonn, yes. I think I know the wolf you speak of.’ Her mind tugged at the memory gleefully, and all that Takiyok had said kept her company, kept her slim, slight body enduring as she continued her briney ascent.

As she crested the winter lips of the cliff, it wasn’t simply the climb, or Takiyok’s blessing that made made her heart thrum laboriously, tenderly. Breath flaring from a scrunched, bud-pink nose, she finally arched her neck to regard the endless, errant waves far below.

For a moment, the skayona allowed herself to linger there, encompassed by thought and emotion, before fervidly making her way towards the sequoian-cradled lake. Had her jaws not been full of herbs, she may have sent out a peal for him; her heart stuttering, her person weakening at the mere notion of seeing him.

And he was right there, enveloping her in the way she adored; caressing and holding himself against her the way that the night holds the stars. Her lungs, earth and air, filled to the brim of him, even as they parted, studying another fondly.

The more she came to truly know Verx, the more she was enthralled at the practicality of his mind. Where she herself was more often dazed and drifting, she couldn’t help but admire him — and those of like mind — who approached the world in a less surreal sense; with more necessity than she could ever hope to follow suite in. 

Aure didn’t think this wanting for him would ever end—not for simply his body, but for his mind, and... his heart. But as always, she was willing to learn, ”To adapt”, as she once stated. With him, in order to grow with him, it had become her necessity. What better way to start than answer him right away?

”Rhgh-ph—“ Well, she tried to, before she remembered the cache she held. Brows knitted and eyes creased as she giggled at herself, pinking, before finding a suitable place to set them down. Ears flickering sheepishly, she mused, ”I am... well, actually,” that foreign lilt even more-so, as if she were surprised at the prospect of not being ridden with sadness, for once.

”I thought I would remain... sorrowful for some time. But... I do not feel so forlorn, anymore.” Yet, a gentle smile came to her lips, blinking up into his face serenely, ”This couldn’t have happened if I’d never known you. I am... glad that it did. How have you been, dragul?”

An impish little tug of her lips was evident as he spoke of the violence that had occurred and the tone he took with it, ”Are you sure that it’s ‘only you’, iubit?” Humming softly, she drew nearer to him, pressing her pale flank along his side as she made to walk with him.

”I don’t mind ze conflict, I suppose. Despite how ze lot of you wear me thin, you keep me moving. Thinking. Having some shred of control over something in all of...this,” an aloof, thin shrug of her shoulders, some airy gesture of the war that’s since passed, skirmishes in between, and everything that was yet to come.

Aure allowed her pallid gaze to wander, pondering on how to come to know her cheka better... ”Have you always been in heda’s service, darling?” Despite the ardent gleam in her eyes, she quivered with curiosity, and it showed in the parting of her lips and the way she leaned to listen.

When he said her name—her true name—in that particular way, Verx made it miserably difficult for her to concentrate on his tumultuous tales. She weakly resisted the thrum of herself that answered his calling, low and longing. Instead, she clung to every single word that fell from those indolent lips with every ounce of constitution she could. ”If waging war is what calls to you... I will respect that, regardless. It isn’t hard to imagine ze appeal, I suppose—that feeling of triumph. Of victory. Of knowing you may protect and punish as you can. A thing of violent choreography, thalion nîn, but a dance nonetheless.” The wintry skayona thought, as she amended herself, that a familiar shadow had danced beneath the the waves of that sea-like gaze... but she couldn’t be sure, and nor would she intrude.

However, she did tip her head at the yearning in his tone, when he spoke of Trigeda, and then a bit less so when he brought up Drageda and heda. Same culture as the cliffs, but more... it was easy to picture him, melding with the ranks of the raw, brine-hewn warriors. And definitely not unwelcome. “I never would have guessed you are new, here, too. With how you present yourself, I’d have thought you to be with heda since... forever.” She smiled in return at him, still docile, ”There should be no one better to guard her. Ze faith you have for another is admirable,” and then fell quiet as it became her turn to contemplate her origins.

Tried to, as her thigh shivered at the faintest caress of his tail. She gave to him a mildly-chiding look from under heavy lashes. “Vercingetorix,” his name half-song, half-scold upon her tongue and leaving her in a shy breathe. She halted in place, lungs fluttering for air as every point on her skin flared with heat; as her chest constricted and her eyes went a bit bleary. With the stories he’d given her thus far, it wasn’t hard to imagine that he might have been some war-god, stormsent to earth to play at mortal for an eve.

All the same, she dared him to try something more, before her legs could tremble and give into weakeness. Aure fell into step once more, and hurried back into her thoughts. ”I come from ze north... very, very far north. To those who have lived alongside my haven, ze Teekons is our south; it is warm for us, you might say.” A pause, then, ”My brother and I were heirs, but it was more in ze sense of... presiding over our tenants, I suppose. Rhaesuial served as more of a neutral sanctuary than anything else—a place for congregations between ze rest of ze packs. We... were peaceful, and remained so, but... mm.” A soft sigh murmured from her lips. She would return to that mention of her own peace soon enough, but: ”We were... fragmented. Reclusive. We still gave travelers solace and safe passaged, but... Rhaesuial became hermetic, to some point, and Vonn and I'd needed to grow up early. Too early. But, then, how do you pick up ze threads of an old life?” Aure studied him once more, a shadow of her own flickering amidst her luminous eyes. 

If he wished to enter the labryinth of her mind, then she would not lead him astray... just as long as his frankness held her fast. Otherwise, she had no doubts that they would come to understanding another beyond longing and lust. ”What about you, and your childhood? Don’t tell me that you were drowned, too?” A quiet, wry laugh followed in the flare of dark humor; unusual, but not to her, despite how vulnerable it tended to make her.

"That, we may agree on. Until I came to ze cliffs, I'd never been to ze sea; only heard stories of those who settled there." Aure kept her steps steady with his own, as effortless as they weaved their conversation back and forth between another. "Some believed ze coastal packs to be barbarious. My... my queen-mother seemed to admire them, and spoke to me often of their crusades." And then he glanced away, continuing his own origin-tale, speaking of a rather humdrum upbringing. At this, Aure was unable to resist pressing a soft murmur into his scarred shoulder; if only to let him know she was there.

Her rabbit-soft muzzle flickered with quip at the mention of 'Your highness', and then once more at his remark of royalty. Drawing away, she peered into his face, timidly meeting the gleam in his eyes. "Usually, I'd have your tongue for calling me that. I am... not a Lady. Not anymore." The once-heiress' eyes followed his own once more, something quiet in her voice. "Of course... if you'd like to call me that, I'll allow it," she suddenly mused, a corner of a lip curling softly. "Unless bounkola is enough for you?" As always, she wouldn't realize until later on what her words may have sounded like.

Another fissure wracked her muzzle, but not so much in irritation as it was in taunt, and Aure looked at him with the same, indolent innocence from her first time with him. Began to feel the same way, too; bright gaze a bit bleary, lungs already aching for a bit more air. It took everything — everything — within her to not nip at his chin, his teeth, or at the tongue he'd brandished at her. But she couldn't refrain from rasping, a statement of ardent avarice, "And you know that tongue is mine, da, dragostea?"

Aure made to press herself against him, wanting her thigh to tremble beneath the mere caress of his tail once more -- but his next words of "Something else?" made her halt. Her pink nose was just shy of nudging his own, an intimate little gesture. Regardless, she held herself against him, not quite touching, but only so; and looked up into his eyes that had something so gentle in them as his voice had been. Felt his words whisper along her scarred cheekbones as, for the first time in a very long time, she didn't feel so... repulsive, so ashamed, of what had happened to her. Even as her argent gaze shuttered, flickering into the gloaming waters of her past:

"Dennan. When... while he... 'baptized' us. He was some shepherd, one who’d lost his own religion. Rhaesuial has none, but he...told us only to drink, and," Her ivory throat strained her soft voice, feeling a phantom of blood on her tongue and dark waters in her lungs; she murmured this to Verx, too, and how Dennan’d ended up ruining his “blessed offerings.” And then she told her beloved of how the false priest would end up drowning them; only bringing them above to do it all over again. “And Vonnaruil was dying, we both were— and- the s-singing— I-I tried to stop him, I...” Her words died in her throat, eyes unfocusing a bit with regret, and she withdrew from Verx’s comfortable darkness. ”I should have been able to stop him. Ce? W-why—?“ She'd been but a child, a bairn; they couldn’t be battle scars, right?

With most and this story, Aure kept herself as elusive as the stars she so incessantly charted. But Vercingetorix wasn't most; he was agonizing, and this was more than she’d shared with—trusted with—anyone before. And she couldn't help but return to him more muted than before, but she returned all the same. God, gods, she- she couldn't— with a quivery breath, she sculpted her pale brow back into his inky jawline, like a crescent moon settling into the night. Did this, even as if it felt as if her scars were being laid anew on her cheeks—but, no, it wasn’t red, and it wasn’t blood. It was a tear or two or three, not claws, that curved down her marred façade.

She couldn't resist him as much as she knew he couldn't resist her. Wilted into him, because even when Dennan had turned her into what she believed was frightful, she’s not afraid that Vercingetorix would be scared to cradle her. Needed him to, like the moon needs the night to billow down around it. How could she be, when they wanted to come to know another so much more intimately than lovemaking. Had known it from the moment she’d felt his looming presence in that evening apothecary; and something tender within her whispered 'even before then.'

"No," she bit out, the almost-same rage he was engulfed with evident in her hoarse voice. Lips trembling, salted eyes remained closed as she nestled into him. "When I-- we woke, we found out that he'd long been expelled from Rhaesuial's domain," lashes flit open, only to see silvered gloam enveloping her sight, "c-courtesy of my father, who promptly wanted him dead. As did my mother, even more-so."

Finally, after lingering for another moment, she drew away, sniffling and blinking tearfully up at him. "F-forgive me, Verx. It seems all I ever do is cry, lately..." Lost to a momentary creeping of fatigue and his eyes, she was unaware of the tender press of their noses against another, "I... I'll have to live with it until my last day. Live with this," a quirk of her narrow chin, a notch in muzzle at the scars. "It haunts me, and I don't doubt it doesn't haunt my brother. Before I lost him, he... he lost himself to his own shadows, I suppose, but hadn't become so reclusive as I had. Vonnaruil is quite my opposite."

Biting lips and ears flickering uncertainly, she then came to her senses and, suddenly timid, withdrew her muzzle from his own. Timid, despite having indulged in him in less affectionate ways. "If I had ze choice to... to kill him, I... feel as if Dennan would divide me regardless. Perhaps I'll never know whether revenge will bring my conscience peace. But," Her eyes nonetheless swept up to her cheka once more, sorrowful and soft, seeking for something in his own, "with you, I... it... peace of mind comes to me a little easier. Even if I do nothing but drown you in tears."

'And cannot know anything but you, when we're like this.'

Her feathery ears splayed back at this promise of blood; it was plain to see that she was hesitant to accept it. Not simply for her more peace-keeping nature, but because she didn’t want to bring the terror of her past to the cliffs. Or bring harm to Verx — should Dennan truly come to the Wilds. But that was warriors did, wasn’t it? Take the brunt of their clan’s assailants? Revel in it?

Aure continued to listen to his vow for her, and was overcome by a sense of... forgotten, hesitant regality. Something she’d never quite amounted to, back in the far north; and she’d only ever seen her mother anoint those that were pledged, or paid homage. So, after fidgeting for a heartbeat, the she-wolf lent over and pressed her nose into his scarred shoulder. Unusual how she always went for the parts of him she had healed—

Her response was both an acceptance of his promise, and some other, more tender supplication, ”As you wish.” Her eyes suddenly gleamed, but it was from some lulling, patient emotion that she didn’t want to name. Not yet. Regardless, she found herself curving, folding, melding herself back into his dark embrace with a porcelain shiver.

Lashes fluttering closed at his irresistibility, simply Verx, Aure only hoped he wouldn’t begin calling her Your Highness. Or worse — m’lady. ”I... leave for Diaspora, tomorrow morning. Please wait for me, dragul meu. Please...” Suddenly unable to speak, to ask him what? and ended on the next thing she wanted, needed: ”Please, say my name?”

Just like that, she was falling and aching for him all over again. But was it sudden; let alone inexplicable? No, it was always there, buried beneath the feelings of friendship, of lust; yet dragged out of the depths of her heart by this striking moment. (So, no, she wasn’t just whipped for that dick, if y’all were wondering.) Aure had never been romanced before — but it love, and she was so far gone it was more than anything as simple as “head over heels.”