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+--- Thread: Jade Fern Grove klagelied (/showthread.php?tid=45603)
klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
set for tomorrow morning 12/8 early but after dawn
through the darkness mahler had traveled. keeping noctisardor to his west, the gargoyle found himself in a glen of ferns kissed in frost as dawn began to loom. beyond that, a lake, and beyond that, the edge of swiftcurrent. he did not enjoy this place despite its familiarity.
but it offered a goodly degree of protection, and wearied, mahler lay himself down among the breaking leaves and nestled himself into the underdown, asleep quickly for a sleep punctuated by several interruptions.
the morning came. mahler woke just after the grey-gloom and its flurries of snow began. narrowed gaze as the gargoyle rose, stretching his ached limbs and cursing in a gruff tone the age of his body.
snow would not keep him. mahler paced through the muted greenery, knowing with another handful of hours he could be near to the sunspire if he kept to the path that had led them from sawtooth.
but it offered a goodly degree of protection, and wearied, mahler lay himself down among the breaking leaves and nestled himself into the underdown, asleep quickly for a sleep punctuated by several interruptions.
the morning came. mahler woke just after the grey-gloom and its flurries of snow began. narrowed gaze as the gargoyle rose, stretching his ached limbs and cursing in a gruff tone the age of his body.
snow would not keep him. mahler paced through the muted greenery, knowing with another handful of hours he could be near to the sunspire if he kept to the path that had led them from sawtooth.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
From Swiftcurrent Creek, Wylla continued to walk.
She walked into the night, battling through her weariness in favour of maintaining a steady pace, to keep quiet the voice inside her head. The more she walked, the more insistently it whispered to her. Maybe sleep would have been better than driving herself to the brink of exhaustion; the voice was louder now. Maybe she could have drowned it out in her dreams. Maybe she wouldn't have dreamt at all.
You are alone now. You have always been this way.
There was Stag, she reminded herself, blank-faced as she padded away from a lake she scarcely remembered going around. Stag would not leave her. She had left him behind in the lands they knew better than this, left him to worry after her while her composure shattered and she began to drown in her doubts and her insecurities. Maybe he was better off that way. Maybe if she just never returned...
You've damned him, too, to be alone like you.
Yes. She should have forced him to stay with Sagtannet. There was Stjornuati's offer, but would that be any more of a home to them than Swiftcurrent had once been to her? A place to lay her head, relative safety, but no hint of happiness to it. The practical side of her knew this was the best course. She had to go back. She had to deliver their decision.
In the summertime this place would be verdant and splendid, but Wylla did not see it, nor its potential, nor Mahler whose path she would soon intersect. She saw only the yawning void of her own hopelessness, the truth that she had been born to inherit nothing but unhappiness, and the consideration that she would never sleep dreamless again until she succumbed to the eternal slumber.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
somehow the farther that mahler walked from rivenwood, the lighter his heart became. it was not for detesting the place nor leadership; he had only wished to be alone with himself for many months.
having not decided whether or not he would inform nyx of the great changes in sagtannet, mahler thought now of the pleasant things he might bring his daughters. they would be taller now, less inclined towards puppyish ways. and he yearned to be in their presence again, viewing them against the backdrop of hydra's kingdom.
a breath;
light brushing him as mahler stepped into the thinning edge of the greenwood; the step of another; wylla, wylla he knew, swift and sudden and jarringly.
pain and relief and anger and desperation blooming chaotically in his stomach. at a crossroads with her, watching the morning provide golden paint for the edges of her pelt.
having not decided whether or not he would inform nyx of the great changes in sagtannet, mahler thought now of the pleasant things he might bring his daughters. they would be taller now, less inclined towards puppyish ways. and he yearned to be in their presence again, viewing them against the backdrop of hydra's kingdom.
a breath;
light brushing him as mahler stepped into the thinning edge of the greenwood; the step of another; wylla, wylla he knew, swift and sudden and jarringly.
pain and relief and anger and desperation blooming chaotically in his stomach. at a crossroads with her, watching the morning provide golden paint for the edges of her pelt.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
Footsteps. The knowledge of them came muddy to her mind, swimming laboriously from the darkness of her thoughts, brushing her consciousness long after Mahler had already drawn to a halt. Her steps slowed and her head came up, her single eye resting on him and not truly seeing him for some long beats. Just another stranger in the world, alone like her. Just another wanderer with no port of call.
No, this was not a stranger. Recognition bloomed slowly. It clawed desperately through the fog of her mind and her exhaustion and turned a floodlight on the deepening shadows of her despair, cutting through for just a moment. He was not supposed to be here. She'd deliberately wandered in the opposite direction of Nova Peak.
He'd come for her after all.
The truth would shatter her, so she clung to that desperate thought. He cared. He'd come after her. He hadn't let her leave without a shred of remorse. Maybe... But there was nothing left for her there. Her jaws pressed together in a tight line as her features folded with grief, but there were no tears to glimmer in her eyes this time. She had shed every last tear she could manage for him, and he had come for her, he had not left her to be alone. He cared. At long last, some proof of it.
She said nothing, only waited with bated breath.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
wylla seemed more feral somehow, more melded of the wind and of the field than she had been in sagtannet; something unchained in her gaze now, naked. and at once she appeared halfway carved of stone as he had been, one foot upon a gothic precipice and the other ensnared in the druidlike call of the wilderness.
frightening. damning. and he would have railed against himself to hear her soft inward crying, the relief blushing through wylla even as metallic claspings held he himself rooted to the cold ground.
snow eddying through the air, etching arcs around the curvature of her face, the edge of his jawline. blinking, words dying a quick death inside his mouth, each one he pulled up from his soul too vulnerable, too heartfelt, too cold, too imperfect.
and so he did not know how to answer the question in her gaze, fumbling his own downward with a tight blink before he faced her again. in the air of a captain folding arms behind his back, the gargoyle looked upon his soulshard.
"you look vell."
frightening. damning. and he would have railed against himself to hear her soft inward crying, the relief blushing through wylla even as metallic claspings held he himself rooted to the cold ground.
snow eddying through the air, etching arcs around the curvature of her face, the edge of his jawline. blinking, words dying a quick death inside his mouth, each one he pulled up from his soul too vulnerable, too heartfelt, too cold, too imperfect.
and so he did not know how to answer the question in her gaze, fumbling his own downward with a tight blink before he faced her again. in the air of a captain folding arms behind his back, the gargoyle looked upon his soulshard.
"you look vell."
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
It was folly to delve wholly into the misguided belief that Mahler was here because he was searching for her. Delirium. But she fell into it heart and soul, warmed finally, finally, that he put his pride and his territory and his politics behind him to look for her. There were any numbers of reasons he might be here, but she chose to think it was for her. She had to.
Her, for whom no one but a green-eyed yearling on the cusp of manhood cared, but Mahler had come. That was all that mattered.
If she was in her right mind, his overly formal and detached words would have rankled. She had never looked or felt worse than she did now. It was an insult to say otherwise. If she was in her right mind, she would have been offended by the indifference she sensed in his tone, the male ego bludgeoning her yet again, as it always had.
Instead, her cracked psyche took over. She heard I missed you. She let her paws pull her forward, relieved that at the end of everything, he chose to come looking for her. He wouldn't let her be alone. He loved her. He loved her.
Maybe he would spot some hint of her manic state and the heartsickness in her eye before she let her eyelids press together and abruptly butted her cheek to his shoulder and breathed, with more desperate relief than she thought it was possible to feel,
you came after me.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
tension filling his every artery as wylla floated close, an abrupt airiness buoying her step. a sharp intake of breath as she reached for him — and he was submerged in the acrid flame of his love for her, darksmoke and oiled. wylla burned him with the nudge of her small crown.
for a long moment the gargoyle quailed — he wanted to sweep her small body closer, assure himself of the breath that kept her existence as the hopeful star in his night,
he could not help himself; he,
turned very subtly the flat of his muzzle against her head and there;
mahler found a fragrance he thought only blindly was unfamiliar; she smelled of the wildwood and the open air and the stoneways and otherness. and through the miasma the shadowpriest decided, erroneously or no, in that sharp gutting moment it was man he caught upon her withers, and with a sudden harsh motion he stumbled backwards from the sickly sweet longing in his heartstrings.
wylla no longer held familiarity, and so the promise of her new choice surely was the only option —
jealousy choking him, and he recalled only a moment before when wylla's stare had glinted empty. mahler gazed down at her with new eyes, stared off over her head as composure eventually retrained itself to his figure. "for vhat do you need me now, vylla?" voice hoarse, strained.
for a long moment the gargoyle quailed — he wanted to sweep her small body closer, assure himself of the breath that kept her existence as the hopeful star in his night,
he could not help himself; he,
turned very subtly the flat of his muzzle against her head and there;
mahler found a fragrance he thought only blindly was unfamiliar; she smelled of the wildwood and the open air and the stoneways and otherness. and through the miasma the shadowpriest decided, erroneously or no, in that sharp gutting moment it was man he caught upon her withers, and with a sudden harsh motion he stumbled backwards from the sickly sweet longing in his heartstrings.
wylla no longer held familiarity, and so the promise of her new choice surely was the only option —
jealousy choking him, and he recalled only a moment before when wylla's stare had glinted empty. mahler gazed down at her with new eyes, stared off over her head as composure eventually retrained itself to his figure. "for vhat do you need me now, vylla?" voice hoarse, strained.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
Her blighted mind spun words to life that never left Mahler's lips. She thought she heard him say he would go to the ends of the earth to find her, that she was his one and only, that he regretted all that had soured between them. She imagined that he had left Sagtannet, sickened by their rejection of her, and never looked back. It comforted her to know she was important enough to him to do so; she would have done the same for him.
Inexplicable desire ignited in her chest, bid her to reach toward his throat, to press her mouth against the pulsing side of his neck, give in to a sensation they had not shared since—
And maybe then things could—
And—
Then he was pulling away from her as if she had burned him, or as if she disgusted him. At no point had she ever given him a reason to think she could move on from him so quickly—or ever—she did not suspect it was worry of another that drove him away from her. The voice in her head, a keening cry:
He does not want you. He does not love you. He did not come for you.
Why, then? He asked a question. What did she want from him? Hadn't he come looking for her? Hope and relief froze and cracked in every corner of her soul. Her voice was desperate, confused, pleading.
What...?
So far fallen from who she was before, now a forsaken and withered thing, sliced open anew before him.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
why did she act so? mahler fought for the steadying hand of control upon himself, nostrils flaring. where had she met this one? from where had she come? why was she here? he supposed the last was unfair. her children resided at rivenwood. it was only natural that she should come for them.
but mahler looked at her again, at the way her mouth formed the sound he had not heard from her before. all at once she seemed quite reduced, lost, off in a manner that the shadowpriest could not pinpoint. lips twitching; stag had been about her as well, and this relieved him somewhat. but where was the young traveller now? had they become separated?
the magma of anger clawing under the heavy rock cover of mahler; how dare she come here how dare she — and his body ached for her own, he could not keep himself from the temptation wylla's gentle touch had wrought in him.
and for this he hated himself more than before, weakness urging he reach for her, forget the bite of —
his heart, broken to see her so, and worry mounting at the vulnerability wylla had never once displayed. "it does not matter," the man mumbled, turning his stoneflower stare aside as a thousand questions screamed into the void of his assumptions.
but mahler looked at her again, at the way her mouth formed the sound he had not heard from her before. all at once she seemed quite reduced, lost, off in a manner that the shadowpriest could not pinpoint. lips twitching; stag had been about her as well, and this relieved him somewhat. but where was the young traveller now? had they become separated?
the magma of anger clawing under the heavy rock cover of mahler; how dare she come here how dare she — and his body ached for her own, he could not keep himself from the temptation wylla's gentle touch had wrought in him.
and for this he hated himself more than before, weakness urging he reach for her, forget the bite of —
his heart, broken to see her so, and worry mounting at the vulnerability wylla had never once displayed. "it does not matter," the man mumbled, turning his stoneflower stare aside as a thousand questions screamed into the void of his assumptions.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
A fragment of herself, sharp-edged and piercing, flashed in her delirious gaze. She couldn't understand. What reason for Mahler to search for her, as she fervently believed, still in the dark entirely about Sagtannet's relocation, if only to reject her when he found her? She wondered despairingly if this was the sum of her worth, that someone she loved in spite of the roaring chasm that pain fashioned between them would seek her only to amplify the hurt.
Not because he cared.
His words didn't make sense to her. She could not glean his meaning, his reticence, the taut way he held himself. Was that anger she sensed? She didn't understand—he was the one who had stood aside while the pack dismantled her authority among them. He had no right to the anger. A memory, something from long, long ago, something almost forgotten:
And i looked for you.
And i found you.
But not this time? There was no barbed wire fortress to guard Wylla's heart now. It was broken down and decrepit and protected nothing. All the vulnerability she had ever felt in her life, laid bare.
Mahler,she begged, his name twisting sourly in her mouth. It hurt her so to be this weak, but a flicker of hope snuffed out was a surer weapon than any sword. He loved her. Didn't he?
Please.Something Phaedra taught her, looming through the gossamer of her shattered mind. Her tongue tripped on the words. They were clumsy and said poorly, but understandable, she hoped.
Sie furzen im schlaf.
I love you she fervently thought, employing those words in his tongue that Phaedra had cruelly told her meant the same, unaware of her daughter's humiliating trick. Do not leave me.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 07, 2020
something about the way her legs held up her small body in the strengthening glow of morning. all of wylla detailed, but the serenity of her lines broken by the pleading in her voice. surely she had never asked so —! he did not understand;
please
"vylla, are you" coming home? have you —
and still mahler knew what he had scented wended into her fur, and it flew in the face of the timid barren creature she had somehow become.
he breathed, focused upon it; he was headlong and waning quickly in his abiliities to keep from embracing her again.
and then the guttural, garbled sound of his own words. at first mahler had only a blink, and then he cleared his throat, tears jabbing at the innards of his gaze. unsure that he had ever heard wylla speak in such a way before, he at last went to her again on stiff legs that attempted not to tremble, searching past the muzzy light in her sunflower eyes. it was such a crude, self-same thing to say, the sort of phrase she might use when rolling over to him in the morning.
mahler was consumed by the want to lie next to her again.
"tell me you vere coming back, vylla. please." an echo, swallowed.
please
"vylla, are you" coming home? have you —
and still mahler knew what he had scented wended into her fur, and it flew in the face of the timid barren creature she had somehow become.
he breathed, focused upon it; he was headlong and waning quickly in his abiliities to keep from embracing her again.
and then the guttural, garbled sound of his own words. at first mahler had only a blink, and then he cleared his throat, tears jabbing at the innards of his gaze. unsure that he had ever heard wylla speak in such a way before, he at last went to her again on stiff legs that attempted not to tremble, searching past the muzzy light in her sunflower eyes. it was such a crude, self-same thing to say, the sort of phrase she might use when rolling over to him in the morning.
mahler was consumed by the want to lie next to her again.
"tell me you vere coming back, vylla. please." an echo, swallowed.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 07, 2020
She was lucky; she would never know the true meaning of the words she said to him, only the thawing effect it had on him. She had to assume she'd said exactly what she meant to. Frayed pieces of her soul reached for him when he stepped toward her. All the past offenses, grievances held against him, gone in a moment.
She went to him and pressed her face into his broad chest, fearing that he would pull away again. Knowing that her heart could not take rejection again now that it beat plainly for his eyes to see. She should not have gone without sleep. She was not thinking clearly.
But even if she was, this was perhaps the first time they had connected in a more meaningful way than prideful politics since the conception of their cubs. She could not regret this, even in spite of the thorns that clapped dreadful around her throat when she shook her head against his fur.
I can't,she whispered hoarsely. The pack had spoken. He had let them. He— but it didn't matter. Something pulsed in her chest, a desperate plea spoken before she could contain it:
come away with me. You, Phaedra, Thade... Come with me. We can go, we can start over.We don't need them.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 08, 2020
mahler felt a muscle jump along his jawline as wylla spoke. the temptation was great — for a harsh moment it felt as though the shadowpriest must give in.
she abandoned sagtannet, came the embittered whispering of a mind gone to instinctual seed. this close, despite how dearly he had craved her nearness, mahler was choked by the lack of himself in her aura, how reclaimed by the land she had become.
expanding beyond domesticity into something else. you left, the hateful voice pulsed again. ragged and irrational, it formed a stumbling block behind which the gargoyle found himself trapped.
wylla limned in anguish and begging, he turning to a glacial slice. why would she ask him to uproot again, after all these weeks? why did she not hold his goals as important, accept how he had created stability from nothing?
annoyance butting bruised against the sound of their breath mingling, her voice muffled as mahler wrapped his body around her own snall frame. "taikon is no longer vith the pack," he assured, thinking that if he could reduce what had happened to the singular moment of failure, his own inability to act, wylla might understand there was a better hope in the bracken wood.
mahler could not leave. too many depended upon him now for leadership, and again gorge rising; she had abandoned him to it, then come back to draw him away.
aiming to shove the ugly, cloying concept into a lockbox, mahler traced along wylla's cheek, scarcely still believing she stood with him beneath the cool arc of winterlight.
heart racing as he hoped, beyond reality, that the verlorene liebe of his sole heart might understand, might at last know.
she abandoned sagtannet, came the embittered whispering of a mind gone to instinctual seed. this close, despite how dearly he had craved her nearness, mahler was choked by the lack of himself in her aura, how reclaimed by the land she had become.
expanding beyond domesticity into something else. you left, the hateful voice pulsed again. ragged and irrational, it formed a stumbling block behind which the gargoyle found himself trapped.
wylla limned in anguish and begging, he turning to a glacial slice. why would she ask him to uproot again, after all these weeks? why did she not hold his goals as important, accept how he had created stability from nothing?
annoyance butting bruised against the sound of their breath mingling, her voice muffled as mahler wrapped his body around her own snall frame. "taikon is no longer vith the pack," he assured, thinking that if he could reduce what had happened to the singular moment of failure, his own inability to act, wylla might understand there was a better hope in the bracken wood.
mahler could not leave. too many depended upon him now for leadership, and again gorge rising; she had abandoned him to it, then come back to draw him away.
aiming to shove the ugly, cloying concept into a lockbox, mahler traced along wylla's cheek, scarcely still believing she stood with him beneath the cool arc of winterlight.
heart racing as he hoped, beyond reality, that the verlorene liebe of his sole heart might understand, might at last know.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 08, 2020
But there wasn't. Not for her.
Once she led Grimnismal, proud of her role, but glutted with youthful arrogance. In hindsight, from the crumbling walls of a castle that used to shield her bare heart, she could understand why those wolves had not respected her authority. She had demanded it of them while doing nothing to earn it. In the end, it had been her arrogance that drove her from those shores, her need to be treated like she was Better without putting the work in to make it so.
Sagtannet was different, she felt. She'd still made the mistake of expecting respect rather than nurturing the bud of it in others—she saw that clearly now, now, now that fractures ran clean and cold through her mentality—but she had at least earned it there. She'd given children to the pack, ensured Star had a safe den to whelp in, nursed Astraeus when his mother abandoned him. She'd patrolled the borders in endless cycles. Sure, she'd taken poorly to various border-dwellers who didn't display appropriate etiquette on the borders, and she had been unkind to the orphan boy when it became clear he thought he could disrespect her, but all that was normal for her, driven not by arrogance, but the need for validation in her life. When the Saints came and they had to make a choice, she had helped to carry Calcifer and Marble. She had hunted for the caches even while doing double duty for Mahler, going hungry herself to ensure the well-being of all the others who could not hunt at the time.
Aside from her mistreatment of Nyx's children—another failing she saw more clearly now at her most vulnerable, though not enough to feel full guilt for it—and perhaps turning Wintersbane away, she had done her best as leader. As mother. Still the wolves had shown no trust in her when she asked them to rise up. Still her children had not wanted to be with her. It was not just Taikon, but Star's silence, Takiyok's cool logic as she stood with a newcomer over a wolf who had led the pack for nearly a year, the new female's questioning, Mahler's inaction. Only Stag. Only Stag.
Taikon is one wolf,said Wylla, foggy, adrift in some reminiscence.
It was all of them. My place, a farce. I thought you wanted the same thing? But then... You just watched.She visibly shrunk. Had he not wanted the cliffs unoccupied? But when she made the mistake of believing that Sagtannet would fight for that goal, he had let her fall from grace in front of all of them. Alone. Unsupported. A flash of anger, stifled by the warm brush of his muzzle. It was inconsequential now, but the rejection of her pack was not, would never be. It could not be undone.
I can't go back there. They didn't respect me as their leader or even trust me as their packmate. I have never been so humiliated... I can't live like that, Mahler. I can't feel so worthless anymore. It's killing me.And Stag. What an insult it would be to him to ask him to return to Sagtannet after he had been shown that his devotion was not returned in kind. They would both have died for their pack, and it was impossible to throw the veil back over the fact that they were alone in that feeling. Later she might feel ashamed for begging him despite the part he had played in it all. How weak and stupid of her.
Please,she breathed, not realizing at all how it must look for her to storm off and abandon him, only to plead with him to leave his post and strike up a new life elsewhere with her. She had been upset. She had been hurt. She'd reacted childishly, but the damage of that was done. If she had stayed, her authority would forever be false. More than anyone, Wylla thought he knew that being respected and valued was extremely important to her. It had been lacking in much of her life, and now it was lacking in Sagtannet, too. Surely he could not expect her to live that way. He had not soothed her then, only patronized her when she was reactive, and she had exploded. For the first time, she put it behind her, embraced a faint ember of hope that things could be better if he only came with her.
I can't go back, but... I want a life with you. Without all the bullshit between us. Fuck it all.Glitter in front of her eyes, a faint dream of a life that might be better, devoid of burdens and demands. Just them and their children. The hollow, perhaps. No more anger in her—just a desperate prayer that he wanted that, too, more than the shackles of leadership he wore. She drew back enough to look into his face.
I need you. Just you.
Everything was wrong without him, no matter how much hurt existed between them. Maybe that could be mended, but no matter what Mahler thought about her finding another lover, there was no one alive who could patch the hole it would carve in her heart to have to walk away from him forever—no desire in her for any other. That was crystalline to her now.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 08, 2020
in the most fantastical of his visions, mahler had never envisioned such barefaced sentiment from wylla. taikon was one wolf but takiyok had been — mahler, and subsequently sagtannet, had lost a great deal in tthe departure of the winterwhite.
the small circlet of her ribcage was swelling with more sound. "i did not vant to go to battle vith them. and in hesitating, i vent to battle vith you." mahler maintained that he could not have forced them into conflict, but properly handling the challenge would have mitigated that.
before them all he had stood inconsequential. perhaps after these weeks he understood that the wolves of diaspora and sagtannet and now rivenwood followed him. and he alone, for the present. had wylla ever been granted the grace of their full fealty?
run away with her? throw aside what had been built? the tension returning to his features. the hollow. sawtooth. nova. their yokes unequal. wylla saw the breadth of his commitment as willingness to forsake all on the word of love.
mind thinking upon star now, who had taken the loosened reins to hold in his absence. what cruelty now to reward her loyalty with his abandonment. the wolves that had followed him for days across the taiga — not necessary to wylla but because she had never been embraced by them she had not embraced them.
she would have him turn his back upon all else and take their children into the wilderness, give them a far harsher birthright than their lot so far. mahler saw only selfishness in it; he was pierced through by her plea all the same.
returning from shadows and roaming and yes, yes, the touch of another man — he knew it in the marrow of him and it etched ache on the plinths of him.
wylla had put herself into sagtannet and gained nothing back. she had put her efforts into the gargoyle himself, until the heavy wall of his limitations struck her truly and completely.
now she spoke of worthlessness, of an inner death, of how she could not come back; no, she could not return, but neither could he depart.
for all the brokenness of his soul to feel that this was last, to feel the warmth of her breath and hear the shattered sound of her voice — it moved mahler, but not the honorbound pillars by which he set his tenets.
"i hurt you greatly," bile and grief, "and i cannot continue to make choices only for myself." wylla did not need them. mahler did, and what was more, the structure of a pack life provided him with a settled feeling of security.
fear now, that if he took another step in the direction she wished him to go, he might not return to rivenwood; fear that if he embraced the heady, appealing nature of wylla's plead, he would somehow fail her again. that he would not be enough. that he would hesitate where she demanded action and take actions she had not sanctioned.
mahler could not fail her again, could not promise his commitment and then compromise it. could not put love before obligation. it was the sundering curse of him.
"do not ask me to leave the ones who stayed," mahler swallowed, clawing out a place for the words he felt he must say for the sake of them both. baleful agony filling his spirit. "not now." not when wylla had chosen to go and he had forced himself through the grappling hurt and the despair and the acceptance of her choice. once more a test from her; once more he was failing it, placing routine above the love he professed to have; and yet patrols and hunting and guardianship demanded far less a toll than love, and how much of a fool he had been to think he could rule in bliss alongside her, when she knew he was unable to uproot but asked it of him anyway, to abandon his post and run headlong into a future that he had no hope for any longer. love, then, the measure of his hardened heart — he would never have so intimate a companion again, had barred himself against the possibility, and now barred himself from inching into a world wylla beckoned for them, rooted by his own utter lack of trust in his own decisions when it came to her.
the small circlet of her ribcage was swelling with more sound. "i did not vant to go to battle vith them. and in hesitating, i vent to battle vith you." mahler maintained that he could not have forced them into conflict, but properly handling the challenge would have mitigated that.
before them all he had stood inconsequential. perhaps after these weeks he understood that the wolves of diaspora and sagtannet and now rivenwood followed him. and he alone, for the present. had wylla ever been granted the grace of their full fealty?
run away with her? throw aside what had been built? the tension returning to his features. the hollow. sawtooth. nova. their yokes unequal. wylla saw the breadth of his commitment as willingness to forsake all on the word of love.
mind thinking upon star now, who had taken the loosened reins to hold in his absence. what cruelty now to reward her loyalty with his abandonment. the wolves that had followed him for days across the taiga — not necessary to wylla but because she had never been embraced by them she had not embraced them.
she would have him turn his back upon all else and take their children into the wilderness, give them a far harsher birthright than their lot so far. mahler saw only selfishness in it; he was pierced through by her plea all the same.
returning from shadows and roaming and yes, yes, the touch of another man — he knew it in the marrow of him and it etched ache on the plinths of him.
wylla had put herself into sagtannet and gained nothing back. she had put her efforts into the gargoyle himself, until the heavy wall of his limitations struck her truly and completely.
now she spoke of worthlessness, of an inner death, of how she could not come back; no, she could not return, but neither could he depart.
for all the brokenness of his soul to feel that this was last, to feel the warmth of her breath and hear the shattered sound of her voice — it moved mahler, but not the honorbound pillars by which he set his tenets.
"i hurt you greatly," bile and grief, "and i cannot continue to make choices only for myself." wylla did not need them. mahler did, and what was more, the structure of a pack life provided him with a settled feeling of security.
fear now, that if he took another step in the direction she wished him to go, he might not return to rivenwood; fear that if he embraced the heady, appealing nature of wylla's plead, he would somehow fail her again. that he would not be enough. that he would hesitate where she demanded action and take actions she had not sanctioned.
mahler could not fail her again, could not promise his commitment and then compromise it. could not put love before obligation. it was the sundering curse of him.
"do not ask me to leave the ones who stayed," mahler swallowed, clawing out a place for the words he felt he must say for the sake of them both. baleful agony filling his spirit. "not now." not when wylla had chosen to go and he had forced himself through the grappling hurt and the despair and the acceptance of her choice. once more a test from her; once more he was failing it, placing routine above the love he professed to have; and yet patrols and hunting and guardianship demanded far less a toll than love, and how much of a fool he had been to think he could rule in bliss alongside her, when she knew he was unable to uproot but asked it of him anyway, to abandon his post and run headlong into a future that he had no hope for any longer. love, then, the measure of his hardened heart — he would never have so intimate a companion again, had barred himself against the possibility, and now barred himself from inching into a world wylla beckoned for them, rooted by his own utter lack of trust in his own decisions when it came to her.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 08, 2020
At the end of it all, he saw only that she had left—not the necessity of it, not the pain and humiliation of living among those who outright rejected her as their leader and would revile her for her mistake, not that she had given everything she could to him and to Sagtannet and received not even their trust in return—but that she had left, and was not worthy.
That was how Wylla took his decision, anyway. It crashed through the last remaining semblance of security she had, sent her out into the cold with not even a blanket to shield her naked soul. Molten anguish crashing through her veins, searing her from the inside out. Anger, quick to follow. Mahler, and Mahler alone, had been the reason she could not stay with Sagtannet. He had allowed the pack to tear down her authority and done nothing about it. He had not stood beside her in support of her role among them, whether he supported her wants or not, but allowed them to diminish her. Now, to return would be to be mocked for the rest of her days. In his voice now, she imagined relief: he would not have to deal with her anymore. His problem was gone. He could live his easy life with his easy decisions and forget all about she who had made things so difficult for him. He could relish in the attention of his children and tell himself that she deserved it.
Because she left. Because he let her.
The sour taste of bile in her mouth, to be rejected so handily. With him, her, Stag, Phaedra, and Thade—young adults now, not the little children they had once been, but capable young wolves—their life would have been just as easy. They were practically a pack unto themselves. She did not think Stag would forgive Sagtannet, but surely he would forgive the man he knew as a father? And if others chose to come, to follow Mahler, so long as they allowed her to live beyond her mistakes in a world of her own making, she could accept that. But he would not come. She mattered to him less than territory and titles and power and subordinates.
She pulled away. She had to. Fragments of herself were unraveling in the wake of her tearing heart and she had to pull away from him so he could not suck them into his gravity and she would lose them forever. She had sworn not to cry but her eyes filled with tears. He didn't need her. He didn't even want her. He didn't love her anymore. His life was easier and better without her and he would rather stand alone with Sagtannet, the wolves who followed him and him alone, than seek a future with her where they could be happy, together. If the rejection of her pack had made her feel worthless then the rejection of Mahler killed any self confidence that remained to her, ensuring she would never reclaim it.
I would...But there was no point saying it. Who cared what she would do for him? Mahler did not care for every sacrifice she had made for him along the way. Tiercel—her daughter, lost in the world, desecrated, left to watch her children die alone, because Wylla had stayed within Diaspora to raise children with Mahler and nurture a tiny spark of love instead of continuing her search. Her children, hurting, because Wylla had allowed it to continue. Her eye, lost, because she had foolishly followed him to the cliffs to fight for his wounds. Her pride, shriveled and discarded. She would not have hesitated to follow her heart—leadership was not something she needed, and she believed those who followed would understand the beckoning of the heart and would go on, but evidently, he needed it a lot more than he loved her. She laid her heart bare for him and he wanted none of it.
It was all or nothing for Mahler. She had two choices: to make a fool of herself returning to a pack that did not want her so he could continue his dream in spite of hers, or to walk away and lose everything she cared about. There was no world where he would meet her halfway.
They would understand,she weakly shuddered, not knowing if that was true. It was desperation. They could be happy. All of it made so much sense to her, they could ally with Sagtannet, maintain all he had built with friendship but start anew themselves, but he did not want a future with her. He was better without her. She'd been right: the more she gave, the less he wanted her, wasn't that how it went? Did he even miss her, or had he fallen out of love with her entirely? Was she was just another inconvenience for him and now that she was gone, he had all he truly wanted? Time with her perhaps confirming that for him. He could fuck every woman, have a dozen children each year, guilt free. What more could a man want? No wonder he did not want to come with her. And all she could do was back away and shake her head and clamp her shaking jaws over the sob she wanted to loose and channel all of her strength into keeping herself standing, because she could not let him bring her to her knees this way. Not again.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 08, 2020
wylla loved him so dearly, and mahler felt the sensation tear beneath his skin. he was undeserving, and yet she had come back
— for him and why eddying through his throat until the lavender thaw of his stare gave way to a pair of muted tears carving their dark furrows across his stricken countenance. she had left she had come back she had left again she had come back, over and over, and mahler found he could blame her for none of it. the dawngild frame of wylla, moving back and back and mahler following with a desperate step,
"it is not just for them i stay," he choked. "sagtannet vas for our children. i cannot tear it down and drag them into the vorld, vylla, not vhen they have suffered so much. and phaedra —" and now truly stumbling in his strife not to let a sob come to life, "vill never forgive me, and i - i," mouth gone dry, "how can i move forvard if in my vake i am alvays hurting somevone?"
run into the winter storms with their reticent, disaffected brood in tow, trying to undo the stamp of their own continued conflict from the children they had created together? how would thade understand? would astraeus come with them as his son? ciri and elke; if he went off at wylla's side, did he release his attempt at remaining their father?
mouth shutting hard upon anything that would come after; the sunspre beckoning his ageing bones to camp amid the stone before nightfall arrived.
but he could not move from his place; mahler wanted so desperately for her to stay wit him in this greencup of a world frozen vivid in its wait for spring, wanted to reside here with wylla until their callousness was sloughed away —
a painful swallow, eyes wet with bitter brine. she could not come back to the place he had built; her misery ascertained and he would not insult her with another request. but he could not leave, for he could not fathom choosing such a heavy blow for rivenwood, for the children who were not his but whose mother trusted him for shelter. for herself. for astraeus, where he might be. and for, perhaps at last, his moonspear daughters to come time by time and exist not in the shadow of dislike posed by the woman he loved.
"you come back and tell me of your need for me, of your love, and that you vant to come avay vith me," floodgates, "but you ignore that ve ruled two mountains as vone and it did not — ve did not succeed. vill you leave again, vylla? if i fail you again? i do not," voice shuddering into a whisper, "i cannot lose you again. it has been a torment that you are gone from me. in the day. i do not sleep. i do not eat. i vant only you, but i cannot abide by my vants. i cannot be ruled by my desires. i have a responsibility to sagtannet. it is more than me now. it is more than us."
— for him and why eddying through his throat until the lavender thaw of his stare gave way to a pair of muted tears carving their dark furrows across his stricken countenance. she had left she had come back she had left again she had come back, over and over, and mahler found he could blame her for none of it. the dawngild frame of wylla, moving back and back and mahler following with a desperate step,
"it is not just for them i stay," he choked. "sagtannet vas for our children. i cannot tear it down and drag them into the vorld, vylla, not vhen they have suffered so much. and phaedra —" and now truly stumbling in his strife not to let a sob come to life, "vill never forgive me, and i - i," mouth gone dry, "how can i move forvard if in my vake i am alvays hurting somevone?"
run into the winter storms with their reticent, disaffected brood in tow, trying to undo the stamp of their own continued conflict from the children they had created together? how would thade understand? would astraeus come with them as his son? ciri and elke; if he went off at wylla's side, did he release his attempt at remaining their father?
mouth shutting hard upon anything that would come after; the sunspre beckoning his ageing bones to camp amid the stone before nightfall arrived.
but he could not move from his place; mahler wanted so desperately for her to stay wit him in this greencup of a world frozen vivid in its wait for spring, wanted to reside here with wylla until their callousness was sloughed away —
a painful swallow, eyes wet with bitter brine. she could not come back to the place he had built; her misery ascertained and he would not insult her with another request. but he could not leave, for he could not fathom choosing such a heavy blow for rivenwood, for the children who were not his but whose mother trusted him for shelter. for herself. for astraeus, where he might be. and for, perhaps at last, his moonspear daughters to come time by time and exist not in the shadow of dislike posed by the woman he loved.
"you come back and tell me of your need for me, of your love, and that you vant to come avay vith me," floodgates, "but you ignore that ve ruled two mountains as vone and it did not — ve did not succeed. vill you leave again, vylla? if i fail you again? i do not," voice shuddering into a whisper, "i cannot lose you again. it has been a torment that you are gone from me. in the day. i do not sleep. i do not eat. i vant only you, but i cannot abide by my vants. i cannot be ruled by my desires. i have a responsibility to sagtannet. it is more than me now. it is more than us."
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 09, 2020
Our children. We. Us.
These were words that really had no place describing Sagtannet, both before and after the move. Wylla had never felt truly at home with her pack. She had never felt truly like her position meant much to anyone but her. And Stag, of course. He, of all of them, had always treated her like she was his leader, and in return she had treated him with more warmth and mentorship than the others. Maybe it was because she hadn't embraced them with unconditional kindness that they hadn't embraced her in return, but even if she wasn't as compassionate as Mahler, she had cared enough about them to work for them.
It was more than most could ask from the battered creature that was Wylla, whose life had never afforded her much regard from others, and what little she managed to carve out was always tainted in some way, with scorn or, in Mahler's case, with insignificance.
Sagtannet was for you and Wintersbane,she said, shaking her head still, taking another step back, mirroring the one he took toward her. How could he reject her and pursue her and continue telling her, in far too many words, that she didn't matter enough to him to take a leap of faith?
I was just... support. Even complete strangers who came to the border rarely ever treated me how they would treat you. Wintersbane came by once and showed me no respect whatsoever, like I was just keeping his place warm for him, and so...Would he be pissed off to know she had turned that man away? There was a reason she'd never told him. He would have overruled her decision if he knew, she thought—further testament to what she said next.
It was never ours. We never ruled anything as one. It was always yours. We had the same title but we weren't equals.Her title, a mere formality. Maybe to mark her connection with him? But she had never been his either, not truly.
But we could make something that is ours, truly ours.she went on, not knowing why she was even bothering to still plead with him. He'd already made it clear that his responsibility to Sagtannet was more important to him than making a life with someone he loved. The easy way out, because he would continue to keep everything that made his male ego croon while still being able to have children if he wanted to. He didn't need her. For anything.
I shouldn't have left you like I did. I needed support and I felt so undermined and hurt and embarrassed that even when they all left you just sort of scolded me. It doesn't make it right.Was this the first time she'd ever had an open conversation with Mahler? Now, when it probably made no difference?
It was the worst mistake I've ever made.But.
But I just— I-I can't keep being reviled by everyone else all the time and pretending it doesn't matter to me because it does, it hurts.She tripped over the sob that caught in her throat. She'd made her own bed when it came to Nyx, and she could live with that. But all of them? It was too much to feel like they all merely tolerated her and never had her back. She couldn't have put it behind her. Not again. Grimnismal had been bad enough, but being embarrassed in front of an entire pack of wolves that already treated her as less than... Wylla didn't have a lot of self respect, but she had a little more than that.
It doesn't matter now. Appoint another in your stead,she begged. Takiyok came to mind. Star, even. The woman was older but would be capable, could groom Marble or Calcifer to lead when they came of age, true blood of the mountain. Better yet, she could guide Thade or Phaedra into inheritance and her young could serve as advisors. Asra was younger and probably just as capable of leading a pack, especially if it was as a sort of proxy to Mahler while he checked in from afar.
We can continue to support Sagtannet as allies and work on us. We don't even have to lead, we could join up with others and just be together. Phaedra and Thade are almost adults, they can make their own choices. There's a pack on a ridge in the mountains, you can see the peak from there,she rushed on, blabbering now, almost mad with her own conviction that this was right, that this would work,
and we would be welcome there and we could visit as much as we want.Phaedra would never forgive him for Ciri and Elke, but Wylla was sure she would forgive him for this. She didn't think Phaedra held it against her for having to leave—she had promised to visit often. That would not change if Mahler went with her.
You don't have to hurt them. But eventually we... We have to choose what matters most to us, before we wake up someday and find that the lives we led were meaningless.
You matter most to me. I would not leave you again. But please don't make me choose between losing you and losing what little dignity I have to stay somewhere I am not wanted. I... I can be better to you, I can try harder, I can make amends for how I treated the others, or I can try.Bargaining, desperation mounting. He would know who she meant.
Just... meet me in the middle.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 10, 2020
her pleading reduced him to shale; it turned him inside and out, wound his gut into a wizened state, brought anger and pain and ich möchte mit dir kommen leaping to his tongue. mahler crushed it against the edge of a canine as he turned his head sharply away from her pleading; lilac ripping from the honeygold that their phaedra had inherited.
and pride, oh, that horrid lurking devil. wylla had nothing, sundered to ash beneath the continual lashing of mahler's arrogance. and though he did not see it as such, and perhaps would never evolve beyond his manly constraints, pride rose again. it choked him, spread through him like gall that wylla would suggest he should leave his post and the wolves who had given him their loyalty, and go to live as a subordinate in another locale.
and though some tragically logical part of him was aware that his focus should be upon her pain, it drove him apart from wylla another spare inch. mahler, faltering to seize back that space with a breath and his gaze returned to the beseeching grasp of the only one who had ever laid him so bare. a breath drawn from some secondary place and his ego ebbing into shame again.
and though the gargoyle wanted to twist his shoulders against the truth of it, his tongue was held. he had set her beside him and not wintersbane; she led alongside the more united front he and the northerner had presented.
vulnerability in the sunlit tears tracing upon her face. far beyond her shoulder the daub of shadows marking the sunspire he had once ruled with stigmata. hardness limning his muzzle as he considered that all things somehow came back to the death of the ironstar. mahler had never respected another ruler after that. and so her position, compromised.
the malice of his subconscious revealed swiftly sickened mahler. lips thinning into a dour line. how had he convinced such a wild, proud woman to give up the sum of herself for what amounted, ultimately, to nothing? he was stricken by himself; he saw the hopelessness and the anguish tangled in a black ectasy upon her face, and knowing he
— had destroyed wylla;
rot turned lichen across the inward span of his tissues.
the pride now, dissolving into self-loathing;
and the things left unmentioned in her well-painted diagram of how he and she might move forward into the world;
"elke. ciri. astraeus." his lavender eyes searched her own. "do my other children have a place in this kingdom, vylla? or do you vant to create a bubble around the two of us that at last ignores the mistake you felt i made?" dustbowl tonguetip and dread turning his blood to icewater;
for that was the sum of it;
his love, compromised. her position, compromised. his fealty to their children, compromised. wylla wished him to put down rivenwood where the pair of them stood silhouetted by morninglight, in the fel-green grove, and with it everything else.
the pack upon the mountain — what did this place hold for her if he did not come?
"i vould never expect you to stay vhere you felt so miserable, vylla." deshalb bin ich dir nicht gefolgt.
"and i do not need you to make amends," voice fracturing,
you matter most to me
the cry for him to answer in kind;
"you have a dream of me i do not know how to match."
and pride, oh, that horrid lurking devil. wylla had nothing, sundered to ash beneath the continual lashing of mahler's arrogance. and though he did not see it as such, and perhaps would never evolve beyond his manly constraints, pride rose again. it choked him, spread through him like gall that wylla would suggest he should leave his post and the wolves who had given him their loyalty, and go to live as a subordinate in another locale.
and though some tragically logical part of him was aware that his focus should be upon her pain, it drove him apart from wylla another spare inch. mahler, faltering to seize back that space with a breath and his gaze returned to the beseeching grasp of the only one who had ever laid him so bare. a breath drawn from some secondary place and his ego ebbing into shame again.
and though the gargoyle wanted to twist his shoulders against the truth of it, his tongue was held. he had set her beside him and not wintersbane; she led alongside the more united front he and the northerner had presented.
vulnerability in the sunlit tears tracing upon her face. far beyond her shoulder the daub of shadows marking the sunspire he had once ruled with stigmata. hardness limning his muzzle as he considered that all things somehow came back to the death of the ironstar. mahler had never respected another ruler after that. and so her position, compromised.
the malice of his subconscious revealed swiftly sickened mahler. lips thinning into a dour line. how had he convinced such a wild, proud woman to give up the sum of herself for what amounted, ultimately, to nothing? he was stricken by himself; he saw the hopelessness and the anguish tangled in a black ectasy upon her face, and knowing he
— had destroyed wylla;
rot turned lichen across the inward span of his tissues.
the pride now, dissolving into self-loathing;
and the things left unmentioned in her well-painted diagram of how he and she might move forward into the world;
"elke. ciri. astraeus." his lavender eyes searched her own. "do my other children have a place in this kingdom, vylla? or do you vant to create a bubble around the two of us that at last ignores the mistake you felt i made?" dustbowl tonguetip and dread turning his blood to icewater;
for that was the sum of it;
his love, compromised. her position, compromised. his fealty to their children, compromised. wylla wished him to put down rivenwood where the pair of them stood silhouetted by morninglight, in the fel-green grove, and with it everything else.
the pack upon the mountain — what did this place hold for her if he did not come?
"i vould never expect you to stay vhere you felt so miserable, vylla." deshalb bin ich dir nicht gefolgt.
"and i do not need you to make amends," voice fracturing,
you matter most to me
the cry for him to answer in kind;
"you have a dream of me i do not know how to match."
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 16, 2020
For the span of several lengthened seconds, Wylla thought she had broken through. There wasn't any indication besides a yawning silence as Mahler mulled over the thoughts he caged within his skull, but she allowed herself the briefest moment of relief.
It was a mistake.
It was as if he hadn't heard what she said. For the first time, or at least the first she had acknowledged, Wylla wondered if he ever listened truly to what she had to say. There had been so many times where both of them had made assumptions of the other, but more times, she thought, where he simply did not understand what she was saying. Something cold began to rise in her gorge.
I just said...She trailed off, pulled a deep breath of the cold air, tried to stave off her indignation. No thought whatsoever for her. Only his children, and if she agreed that they were welcome, would that even sway him, or would it simply satisfy some male need to control everything with no thought for the others?
Nyx is not welcome in my life. Not ever again.On that, she would not budge. Wylla would sooner kill Nyx than tolerate a second more of her flippant disregard for her authority.
But I... I was unfair to Ciri and Elke. I know that. They are not her and they did not deserve to be treated poorly on account of it. I... I am not good at that.A niggling voice in her head, reminding her that they were Nyx's daughters, and likely carried Nyx's penchant for disrespect, and that having them around was no better than Nyx herself. That would not be tolerated. They didn't have to like her but they would have to treat her according to her station, however that looked. But Mahler would side with them, it whispered. He would hold her in further contempt if she reacted to a lack of respect. She chose to believe otherwise.
I could do better. With them. With Astraeus.She could offer acceptance instead of tolerance or indifference, so long as he respected that that was much as she could give him. They would never be treated like second children to her just because of Mahler, but she could do better than she had in the past. At least, she could try.
But he had to respect her boundaries on that. They existed for a reason. She clung to the hope even as he went on, and when he stated the last, she let out a soft breath.
You are someone who knew me briefly, and didn't see me for over a year, and had other women from which to choose,she said,
and still you told me you loved me. Only me. After all that time.What dream did he imagine she had of him? Only that that short breath of romanticism existed in him still, instead of the hungry, greedy creature she feared he had become, wanting only what he did not already have, and failing to cherish that which he did besides his pride.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 17, 2020
hearing the names of the children nyx had borne him come from wylla's mouth strained mahler in a new way, and comforted him in another. astraeus as well; linked into her promise for a life restarted. and so he let go the constraint he had placed upon himself, allowed in the next his mind to truly envision what light this world might fill itself with.
wylla and himself, and phaedra, and thade, and stag; the corewood of a tree that would hold a new strength for their solidarity. but who might hold rivenwood now? appoint another, she had said, and mind meandered over names —
mahler slammed shut the door of his imaginings, pulled the memory of her kiss seeking his flesh from where it beat hot and desirable beneath the edge of his heartstrings. his children must come before all else, for whatever missteps mahler had made, he would not repeat them with the offspring he had sired.
control then; rivenwood a pillar of it, something that had swiftly pieced itself together beneath his reign, and he alone. sagtannet rendered finally the death that should have been dealt when wintersbane disappeared from their range altogther. that then the moment that mahler had overlooked: the time in which he and wylla, beautiful proud wylla, might have first begun to lay the foundation for the empire she illustrated now.
blood copper in his mouth as fangtip scratched the inside of his cheek — the shadowpriest swallowed it back and looked at last into the full searching hold of her sunflower eyes. "the vays in vich i have tried to show you my love vere not enough. not the right thing," mahler struggled, attempting to articulate the threadbare ways in which his throat always unraveled in her presence; even now, clenching at his stomach and spilling icewater along the breadth of his shoulders, a hard cold lump of ice where wylla had once rested against his heart with trembling warmth.
"again, i —," the gargoyle grit out nonsensically; a doktor dropping his travelbag in a muddy street, clasp breaking and sending a dozen carefully folded strips of parchment scudding across the frozen street —
sagtannet is no more. but wylla would want his talk of love rather than land, and mahler could not help the urge of his imagination drawing him toward the small fierce woman with her heart laid bare again, emotion squeezing his throat until a whire breath struck the wintered air again.
"i love only you, vylla," mahler said softly, reverently. "that is unchanged. vhat has shifted," a pause as he closed his eyes, "is my ability to tear up roots vonce more. a fourth time," he churned, spinning slowly out into the starlight sea of his own crushed mind. "my love for you cannot exceed my obligation to leadership. not now. you vant me to make a choice now and i cannot. you vant me to say yes, i vill come avay vith you now — vylla! vhy can you not understand that all i am is all i can offer you now?"
a life, bound by duty and by land. a life without spontaneity — come back, come back. but she would not. "i vas not enough before. your dream is that somehow i am more than that now." and he hobbled himself, striking back upon the revolution of his own words, rebelling against the little dream she sought to engender in his breast, and quaking all the while for the heavy, desperate weight of love he felt vying in him against every word he had said.
wylla and himself, and phaedra, and thade, and stag; the corewood of a tree that would hold a new strength for their solidarity. but who might hold rivenwood now? appoint another, she had said, and mind meandered over names —
mahler slammed shut the door of his imaginings, pulled the memory of her kiss seeking his flesh from where it beat hot and desirable beneath the edge of his heartstrings. his children must come before all else, for whatever missteps mahler had made, he would not repeat them with the offspring he had sired.
control then; rivenwood a pillar of it, something that had swiftly pieced itself together beneath his reign, and he alone. sagtannet rendered finally the death that should have been dealt when wintersbane disappeared from their range altogther. that then the moment that mahler had overlooked: the time in which he and wylla, beautiful proud wylla, might have first begun to lay the foundation for the empire she illustrated now.
blood copper in his mouth as fangtip scratched the inside of his cheek — the shadowpriest swallowed it back and looked at last into the full searching hold of her sunflower eyes. "the vays in vich i have tried to show you my love vere not enough. not the right thing," mahler struggled, attempting to articulate the threadbare ways in which his throat always unraveled in her presence; even now, clenching at his stomach and spilling icewater along the breadth of his shoulders, a hard cold lump of ice where wylla had once rested against his heart with trembling warmth.
"again, i —," the gargoyle grit out nonsensically; a doktor dropping his travelbag in a muddy street, clasp breaking and sending a dozen carefully folded strips of parchment scudding across the frozen street —
sagtannet is no more. but wylla would want his talk of love rather than land, and mahler could not help the urge of his imagination drawing him toward the small fierce woman with her heart laid bare again, emotion squeezing his throat until a whire breath struck the wintered air again.
"i love only you, vylla," mahler said softly, reverently. "that is unchanged. vhat has shifted," a pause as he closed his eyes, "is my ability to tear up roots vonce more. a fourth time," he churned, spinning slowly out into the starlight sea of his own crushed mind. "my love for you cannot exceed my obligation to leadership. not now. you vant me to make a choice now and i cannot. you vant me to say yes, i vill come avay vith you now — vylla! vhy can you not understand that all i am is all i can offer you now?"
a life, bound by duty and by land. a life without spontaneity — come back, come back. but she would not. "i vas not enough before. your dream is that somehow i am more than that now." and he hobbled himself, striking back upon the revolution of his own words, rebelling against the little dream she sought to engender in his breast, and quaking all the while for the heavy, desperate weight of love he felt vying in him against every word he had said.
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 17, 2020
You did things I didn't ask for,she said, as gently as possible, wanting to avoid an argument and accusations,
and held me in contempt for it, and ignored everything I did ask.That was why the ways he tried to show his love were not enough. Maybe she had been too vague. Maybe she had hinged too much on his intelligence or his devotion to her and not been clear with her wants. She thought she was a simple enough woman to read, but the reality was that Wylla was incredibly complicated and damaged from a time before, and often there was no rhyme or reason to the things that set her off. Mahler would have had to navigate a proverbial minefield to understand what Wylla needed from him, but the man who told her he loved her after not seeing her for a year and some change seemed the sort who would try. This man he was now merely stood to the side and waited with hands clasped behind his back for her to come to him, as if he alone, with no effort, was worth it.
Dawning realization came with a death-knell; as the viper's voice inside her mind suspected, he had not asked about Ciri and Elke and Astraeus because he was truly considering her plea at all. He simply wanted her to give more and more while he gave none, and wanted her to speak aloud that she would do so, just so he could... what? Kick her while she was down? Again. And again. And again. They always came back to this.
Wylla's vulnerability, something rare to behold, began to slither back into the depths of her soul, replaced slowly over the course of his words with ice and steel. There was no anger, but he would likely be able to detect the moment she began to shut down to protect herself from his rejection. What desperate light entered her sole eye would flicker out and turn flat. Anger would come much later. Brokenness, now. She snapped the fraying ends of her sensibility back into her grasp, wrestled it back under her control, pulled it away from him.
You were enough,she breathed,
before.Now? Now he would not even give up a stone in the earth where everything had soured for a dream of togetherness. Maybe her mistake was thinking that opening herself up to a man who already loved her, thinking that if she ended up falling for him that it was a sure thing, would not bring her more immense pain than the rest of her life combined had. In no surer way could a man kill a woman's small, hidden dream in a thing like love than to promise it to her and then yank it away in the name of duty and obligation, as he had the entire time.
The words she spoke next came out rote, like she had rehearsed them a hundred times. She had at least repeated them to herself often enough, because of the great weight of blame she put upon herself for it. She didn't know why they suddenly leaked from her mouth now. She had not intended to ever tell him.
Tiercel found me.A quaver, a moment where she had to steady herself. What she didn't know was that everything Tiercel told her had happened even before the birth of Phaedra and Thade; the rawness of her daughter's pain and hatred had made it seem recent.
While I was here with you, she was raped. Her children died.Buried beneath a tree on the way to Keokuk Glade. She thought, absurdly, that she must now visit the grave, but that was too long a journey to make on the cusp of winter. The corner of Wylla's mouth twitched upward, flashing an unhinged and mournful smile. Her grandchildren.
She called me a whore. She hates me. For not saving her. A piece of me died that day.
It seems to me that I have sacrificed a lot,she said, again in a voice that was devoid of emotion and even accusation. A simple stated fact. Her body for his children. Her self esteem for his contract. Her confidence to support him as a co-leader who was never treated as such. Her eldest daughter.
It hurts that land and titles and children and contracts all mean more to you than loving me.He could still have all those things without her, of course. He could not put his love for her above his obligation to leadership, as he had never put his love for her above anything that he had wanted.
I'll go.There was nothing for either of them here, then. She could not return. He would not leave. And she could not bear to be in his presence any longer with the continued knowledge that love, to him, was an afterthought to put beneath everything else, when for her, it was a tiny flame on a candle she had guarded all her life in hopes that someday, she would find something grand. Something her mother had not had, something to give meaning to her life. An absurd desire to reach out and preen his fur and turn this last memory of Mahler into something passionate rather than painful seized her, but she stamped it down. That would solve nothing, and the red paint of passion would soon fade to pain regardless.
RE: klagelied - Mahler - December 17, 2020
you did not ask for them but you will not recognize them, and there was the crux of it. wylla saw little reason to do more than turn aside the things he had done but not for her. the events he had caused to shift were not things to which she could point as tangible evidence of his love;
and he, having belaboured himself into a beaten state, only heard that she would not see the worth of it
ignored everything i did ask
in his mind the mistranslations whirling into a maelstrom against which mahler valiantly fought. the allure of the beckoning hnd that gestured him closer and provided relief with the suggestion that he should sink deeper into his resentment. into the contempt wylla claimed he had felt for her.
strange that he did not recall contempt; stranger still that the heart he had broken time and again would still beat in any way for him. and his thoughts, circling back and back and back to the things she had not asked for: his daughters; he had taken them to moonspear himself. stag, not stopped, not proven as a father might. sagtannet crumbling as he threw taikon into the cold and bid takiyok follow if she so wished. binding star to him, binding the rest of rivenwood; a worthless split rock in a tangled icy forest, but something to which mahler might return again and again, instead of the fathomless unknown wylla painted with her wants.
not better, not preferable. consistent. constant. uncompromising. if in the bouldered forest mahler found himself in mistakes, they would be upon his head alone, not that of the one he loved. if he held a war-meet and they did not rise to his call, it would not be another compromised before the eyes of disrespect.
carving himself into the barest oaken whittle of a knifeblock;
and all for wylla to tell him that the things he had done with her in mind had not been worthwhile, for she had not asked after them. and that he had ignored the things she did wish;
and mahler with the fight gathered and then released, ebbing out of him as if he were moss pressed beneath stone. no, she had not asked for these things. and no, he ignored even now what she asked, for what she pleaded: for him to come away at once and prove his love in the way that only mattered to the goldling strands of her beautiful, fractured heart.
i will talk to star, he wanted to say, at last, at last bending beneath the pressure of a hope that could not die so long as wylla stood before him.
give me the winter to put rivenwood into order;
and the thought of spring looming with less agony when he thought of the sun;
yes, yes; come away with me, and mahler was ready in this moment to crack beneath the haunted host of her words and comply. come away. leave rivenwood and its inhabitants. give up the ghost.
you were enough before
a millstone that turned too slowly upon its axis, all the intelligence and cunning mahler possessed wasted beneath the grind of his cautious nature;
tiercel.
mahler blinked, ears cupping forward. the little child he had called entlein in swiftcurrent, the first child he had loved as his own since losing his own to the accursed fever. and he had loved tiercel for the simple fact that she was wylla's child; he had adored the woman even then, though he had not the words for it. tiercel received the same devotion in extension
but wylla was still speaking —
mahler's face suddenly grew very grave, lavender paling to nothing as he stared at wylla, as she lay before the terrible thing that tiercel had suffered, and bound him to its event in a single sentence
while i was here with you
first the enormous rage that swelled in him to know what the girl had suffered, to be attacked and then to lose children. and then the greatswell of pain that he too had not been there, that his love had not been enough of an offering to wylla so that she might not have left. he had reminded her of the pained coast; she had gone, and he had left and —
tiercel, and the winnowing away that surely shredded the mother's soul within wylla. horrifed, stricken silent, impassivity blanching from his scarred face to hear of the girl's hatred, and finally what had been given in the end.
while i was here with you
the roof of his mouth felt as if it was made from sand.
while i was here with you
wylla pronounced her leaving again, while mahler sank within himself to the proverbial ground, searching through rainwater for the shards of his voicebox and the echo of the words again again again again;
while she was here with him. while she stood before him now, returning to he who had exacted so great a cost from her.
i'll go — he would spare her the ignominy of a fumbled close, for there was nothing he could say after so great her heart-scar had been revealed. she should go; while i was here with you
land nor territories nor titles could ever be great enough to heal such;
more than loving me
he could not shake what she had said; that he had given her nothing while tiercel lay in stillbirth and wylla's name turned to poison upon the lips of her own daughter.
"sacrifice nothing more for me, vylla," came the gliding scratch of his throat, and then he was turning away, blindly toward moonspear in the distance, steps heavy and the line of his back stonewarped
while —
and he, having belaboured himself into a beaten state, only heard that she would not see the worth of it
ignored everything i did ask
in his mind the mistranslations whirling into a maelstrom against which mahler valiantly fought. the allure of the beckoning hnd that gestured him closer and provided relief with the suggestion that he should sink deeper into his resentment. into the contempt wylla claimed he had felt for her.
strange that he did not recall contempt; stranger still that the heart he had broken time and again would still beat in any way for him. and his thoughts, circling back and back and back to the things she had not asked for: his daughters; he had taken them to moonspear himself. stag, not stopped, not proven as a father might. sagtannet crumbling as he threw taikon into the cold and bid takiyok follow if she so wished. binding star to him, binding the rest of rivenwood; a worthless split rock in a tangled icy forest, but something to which mahler might return again and again, instead of the fathomless unknown wylla painted with her wants.
not better, not preferable. consistent. constant. uncompromising. if in the bouldered forest mahler found himself in mistakes, they would be upon his head alone, not that of the one he loved. if he held a war-meet and they did not rise to his call, it would not be another compromised before the eyes of disrespect.
carving himself into the barest oaken whittle of a knifeblock;
and all for wylla to tell him that the things he had done with her in mind had not been worthwhile, for she had not asked after them. and that he had ignored the things she did wish;
and mahler with the fight gathered and then released, ebbing out of him as if he were moss pressed beneath stone. no, she had not asked for these things. and no, he ignored even now what she asked, for what she pleaded: for him to come away at once and prove his love in the way that only mattered to the goldling strands of her beautiful, fractured heart.
i will talk to star, he wanted to say, at last, at last bending beneath the pressure of a hope that could not die so long as wylla stood before him.
give me the winter to put rivenwood into order;
and the thought of spring looming with less agony when he thought of the sun;
yes, yes; come away with me, and mahler was ready in this moment to crack beneath the haunted host of her words and comply. come away. leave rivenwood and its inhabitants. give up the ghost.
you were enough before
a millstone that turned too slowly upon its axis, all the intelligence and cunning mahler possessed wasted beneath the grind of his cautious nature;
tiercel.
mahler blinked, ears cupping forward. the little child he had called entlein in swiftcurrent, the first child he had loved as his own since losing his own to the accursed fever. and he had loved tiercel for the simple fact that she was wylla's child; he had adored the woman even then, though he had not the words for it. tiercel received the same devotion in extension
but wylla was still speaking —
mahler's face suddenly grew very grave, lavender paling to nothing as he stared at wylla, as she lay before the terrible thing that tiercel had suffered, and bound him to its event in a single sentence
while i was here with you
first the enormous rage that swelled in him to know what the girl had suffered, to be attacked and then to lose children. and then the greatswell of pain that he too had not been there, that his love had not been enough of an offering to wylla so that she might not have left. he had reminded her of the pained coast; she had gone, and he had left and —
tiercel, and the winnowing away that surely shredded the mother's soul within wylla. horrifed, stricken silent, impassivity blanching from his scarred face to hear of the girl's hatred, and finally what had been given in the end.
while i was here with you
the roof of his mouth felt as if it was made from sand.
while i was here with you
wylla pronounced her leaving again, while mahler sank within himself to the proverbial ground, searching through rainwater for the shards of his voicebox and the echo of the words again again again again;
while she was here with him. while she stood before him now, returning to he who had exacted so great a cost from her.
i'll go — he would spare her the ignominy of a fumbled close, for there was nothing he could say after so great her heart-scar had been revealed. she should go; while i was here with you
land nor territories nor titles could ever be great enough to heal such;
more than loving me
he could not shake what she had said; that he had given her nothing while tiercel lay in stillbirth and wylla's name turned to poison upon the lips of her own daughter.
"sacrifice nothing more for me, vylla," came the gliding scratch of his throat, and then he was turning away, blindly toward moonspear in the distance, steps heavy and the line of his back stonewarped
while —
RE: klagelied - Wylla - December 17, 2020
Mahler's voice was a pained rasp as he turned, a glacier in a wolf's skin, and made to leave. A frightful moment where she pulled after him, an apology on her tongue, which she clasped behind her teeth as she grounded her feet. The leap of metal on her tongue as she realized she had bit the tip of it. She hadn't felt it.
I won't,she whispered to herself, as much because it would break her to give more of herself to him as because she truly had nothing left to give. She sagged.
I can't.One day it might be Phaedra or Thade who hated her for not being there for them. She could not see the things he had done for her because they did not sing to her heart of hearts, and perhaps that made it as much her failing as his. She saw only what she had given and not received in kind.
One day it might be him.
She stood there a long time, snow blanketing her head and back, before she carved her paws from the earth with a creaky lurch and turned back toward the seaside. Finished, then. He knew the cost she had paid, and he turned away and bid her give no more because he would not give her a quarter, she imagined, and now Wylla knew that she would never be enough for him, nor anyone else, it seemed.
Not her father. Not Grimnismal. Not Tiercel or Phaedra or Thade, not Sagtannet. And not for he who loved her, the deepest strike of all. Blood bloomed from the cut and scalded her soul with loathing and anguish and unworthiness.
She doubted it would ever heal.