Noctisardor Bypass Sitting here underneath the bridge

@Heda if u have time <3

It'd been a month since Etienne left, but Anselm told himself he wasn't counting. Every day, the blackened tendril that snared his heart grew a little stronger. Every other day, a new section blackened and rotted.

Anselm began to only think of the hurt. He forgot the good in Etienne - he focused on the abandonment. The coldness. Thinking this way kept the depression at bay, and gave him the fuel he needed to keep on going.

Eventually, Etienne didn't occupy his thoughts at all.

(So he told himself, anyway.)

Things in Rivenwood settled, but not in a way Anselm could call balanced. The kids were a handful. Almost too much. Anselm had lost weight hunting for them all. He'd also grown quieter -- something that many wouldn't have thought possible given his general reticence in speaking at all.

And Heda -- Anselm knew something was off-balance there, too. But he couldn't place it. It wasn't like they hated each other -- but each time he looked upon her, he got the image of a broken bird and him stepping on its wing. It was like each time they interacted, another silken line of their fragile spider-web connection broke.

After feeding Ezra and Gideon bits of a hare, Anselm made for the cold stream. The garden he'd managed with Etienne was overgrown now -- plants grew up haphazardly, choking each other out in their disarray. He ignored it, wading into the water and allowing the cold liquid to seep around him. Somewhere nearby, he thought he scented Druid or Heda -- but he wasn't really full of much energy today.

the clock.
it ticked more loudly now that the cubs were older, scampering through rivenwood and learning the places that her own mother had walked. there was reason entire, over and over, to be connected to this place, and yet she was not.
etienne had been gone for quite some time. truth be told, heda didn't think he would come back. it wasn't as if she wouldn't understand that, but every time her mind crept toward contemplating this intensity of feeling between he and anselm, she avoided it — her thoughts lurched away.
in more pleasantry, she considered amadeo with a little flush, a small private smile that faded as soon as she saw anselm.
she'd been gathering medicinal plants downstream when the little rush of muddy water announced his step. he was silent now, quieter even than before.
heda could not say she had missed his acerbic words.
setting her wet foliage aside in two soaked piles, she moved closer with a friendly light to her golden eyes, but said nothing. anselm was too easy to set off and heda wanted to enjoy the day.

For a while, Anselm just let the riverwater course through him. With a rare dip into his suppressed imagination, he wondered what it must be like to experience water for the first time. What it must be like to be Gideon or Ezra, and feel the cool trickle of water past their toes. To see the little water bugs dance, and the reeds shiver, and the frogs with their glittering smooth skin and strange otherworldly eyes watch on reproachfully -- how magical the world must seem to a child.

Somewhere along the way, the world had lost that sense of magic.

He knew he was grown now. It wasn't because he had experienced his first taste of lust, or had fathered children. It wasn't because he was responsible, or a dutiful tracker. It was because the world had worn away a part of him, the way water wears on stone.

His ear flicked back as he heard rustling from the bank. He looked back to see Heda, her expression warm but only tentatively so. Anselm couldn't name that emotion anymore than he could name the emotion seeing her inspired within him. It was complicated, and it often hurt.

He wanted to be vulnerable for once, to invite her into the water so that they might enjoy reprieve from the sun's beating. But all that croaked from his mouth was a sorry sound, half between a hello and a grunt. Anselm couldn't remark upon the weather. They were past the point of pleasantries and small talk. Now, he navigated a charnel's keep between the light of her golden eyes.

He cleared his throat and tried again. Hello, Heda.

heda didn't need anything from anselm. she'd told herself a thousand times those very words, even when they came choked with shame over how he had touched her, and how she had let him.
"hello, anselm."
she remembered the caress of amadeo's paw and felt certainly that such kindness could only come from that direction. and yet she dreaded.
penitent once more, reduced to the sackcloth that apparently her lord wished her to wear, the widow sat back beside anselm in the glorious honeyed light and closed her eyes.
in her voice, a hymn rose, nearer my god to thee, in a soprano she kept light as it scudded the top of buttercups and sent a pair of mourning doves to their coos.
not much, only the chorus itself; heda told herself she needed no reaction from anselm and so did not look for it, did not even glance to see if he had hated her singing; she took the moment for herself and experienced a gentle welling of peace.

Hello, Anselm. It was such a simple thing, but it jolted something alive in his heart. He looked to her quietly; she was perceiving him. There was something strangely gentle about using someone's name, though there was power to it too.

His spine softened. The riverwater began to slowly move him. Around him, Heda's lilting voice danced across the refracting waves. There was a vulnerability to that too; Anselm could not say he had sung for anyone. It required too much exposure of self, at great personal risk.

His eyes closed, opening only when the last of Heda's song trailed away. The water had moved him several inches downstream. Vho taught you to sing? Anselm wondered if that tender song had been sung for him -- or if it was something Heda needed to break the cold silence that lingered like a malaise between them sometimes.

she sat on the hot bank and wrapped her tail around her paws, watching anselm drift in the water. "no one taught me to sing," came the quietude of her voice, golden eyes pulling themselves from his wettened frame lest she linger too long on the slope of his shoulders.
"my mentor, bartholomew. he introduced me to god. and he taught me what a hymn was."
a single forepaw trailed through the grass at her feet.
"the singing came naturally."
heda wanted to say more, to keep talking, but she felt the tension lying coiled and dormant between them, and wanted to invoke that serpent no more than she wanted her foot bitten or leg cut off.

don't mind me >:D

andras was obsessed.
well, perhaps obsessed would not be a word he would use. infatuated, tittilated, entranced, enraptured; all of these were choice descriptions for the fondness the preacherman had begun to feel for heda, the white-cloaked spinster. it was rare that his heart burned for the company of one particular woman, least of all someone he would normally think of as unreachable — widowed, mother of ten, two of which being sacriligious bastards — but he ached for her day and night, this wonderful siren who cast him with her honey-dipped spell.
and he did not like that she had eyes for another.
he was not stupid. he saw anselm in the face of the one boy, gideon, he thought his name was; the downy dove-gray churning to the eerily similar greige which coated most of the frilly accented cur. but he did not ask of this, and did not tell.
instead, he merely approaches one day, the lovely lilt of heda's hymn drawing him in like a moth to a flame. his stride slows as soon as he sees anselm, feigning an expression of embarrassment, shyness. his lips part to speak, but he says nothing, waiting only for acknowledgment.

Light refracted off of the water, casting its glow to the trees above. Anselm studied their glinting bark, unwinding his tight grip around his reluctance to be perceived as kind: It’s pretty. 

Another figure moved by the bank, but Anselm did not yet see Amadeo. He was focused on the way the tree split halfway up its trunk - for the first time, Anselm noticed a pattern — the trunks combined bore the same width as the base of the tree. 

This was the second time in memory that Heda had mentioned Bartholomew; that Answlm could remember, anyway. He couldn’t help the prickle he felt, but he stowed it away. For Heda to talk about him all these years later… he must have meant a great deal to her.  Vhat happened to Bartholomew?

Now, he drew his gaze from the bough of the tree and saw Amadeo. An overall unpleasant sensation lingered in his gut to see the man, and the embarrassed countenance he wore. Anselm’s brief exposure of his tender side snapped hastily shut.

it's pretty.
her features reflected a surprise, then the burn of a blush; heda turned her head away, but for a moment her quiet pleasure in that was clear.
"he — just left, one day. never came back." heda might have gone on to explain that she felt such a departure abrupt, and surely the will of the god they now both shared. he had loved sweetharbor so. why wouldn't he have otherwise stayed?
but the moment was waylaid and transfixed; her expression filled with a shy warmth as she met his eyes with a poignant expression. "it's good to see you, amadeo. anselm and i were talking about sweetharbor."
and as heda's gaze found the slammed-shut countenance of her sons' father, she felt a wilting inside, a sort of shame, that he would never look at her with the same gentle thoughtfulness that amadeo seemed to hold.

he loved the way she spoke his name, loved to watch the syllables fall from her pale lips. one day, she will refer to him by his truth, and he fights the urge to smile at this passing thought.
i hope i am not... intruding on anything, he approaches with a slouch to his step, hobbling on his sore joints. anselm's gaze bores into him like a dull knife twisting into one's gut, and he revels in it. his spine will clean his teeth, his entrails will be hung from the branches of a golden willow; yes, yes.
sweetharbor, his tattered ears swivel forward. a fondness reaches for heda before it dissipates against the hard wall of anselm, the pussy who held her attention. he forces a smile. i would love to hear more of it, if you'll... allow.

As it turned out, Bartholomew had hoofed it. Anselm reflected on this news bitterly. Wasn’t that just the way?

He didn’t keep his gaze long on Amadeo after initially seeing him. His fur might have visibly prickled if it wasn’t for the weight of the water around him. Heda greeted the man with more warmth than Anselm felt, and when the man spoke Anselm made a point to answer his pleasantry with blunt directive. I hope I am not… intruding on anything. You are. 

Anselm rose from the river, pelt sodden as he made his way to the bank. He could not name the emotion that flared in his breast, but he recognized it was not a charitable one. To Heda, he gave the brief sweep of his golden gaze. Heda, Anselm said by way of strained goodbye, completely ignoring the man as he stalked out of the river to the opposite bank. He was in no mood to entertain Amadeo today - not his smarmy face or smarmy voice - and it turned his stomach to think of watching him cozy up to Heda. 

Anselm vigorously shook the water from his pelt and strode towards Sequoia’s site. Maybe watching the kids would help take his mind off of things, and remove the thorn under his skin that was the way Amadeo’a gaze crawled hungrily over the silvery angles of Heda’s willowy body.

it hurt. 
for a moment heda had enjoyed the surprise of something from anselm that was not warm, but not his usual dismissive coldness. for a moment there was hope in his statement that amadeo was indeed interrupting — something?
but then he was leaving, his tense departure a blow almost physical. why?
"anselm," she murmured, more of a hand halfway reaching toward a closed door than a true goodbye.
tears threatened, pressing against the back of her eyes; lashes fluttered with the effort and she cleared her throat before she turned back to amadeo.
"we were talking about my mentor there, you remember. the one who didn't baptize me." and try as she might, digging at the roots of her for some sunshine to throw into her words, she couldn't. "sweetharbor was the island that god gave to my husband and our children," heda murmured on, plucking herself from the sultry shore of the stream and falling into a meandering step that headed slowly back toward the rendezvous. "such a beautiful place. it lives inside my heart."
was anselm mad about etienne? surely he'd be back. or maybe he was angry at amadeo over something else? her mouth fell silent as her thoughts churned.

he could devour that boy right here and bathe his maiden in the scarlet that seeped from his swelling carcass.
andras is silent, appearing crestfallen for a long while as he watches anselm shift and turn away, leaving heda in his wake. do not waste your time on this bitch, he so fiercely wished to say; come to me and i will make you a real woman. but he does not. he could not. amadeo would not do such a thing.
i don't think he likes me very much, he says instead, a shy quality to the deep baritone. i don't really know why. he has treated me like this since i arrived here.
and then she speaks of sweetharbor, of her previous dalliances and the children that once fattened her belly, given to her by the man who was only bones now.
it sounds lovely, from what you have shared with me, he falls in line beside her, allowing his shoulder to brush against her in a silent plea for camaraderie, for comfort — tell me you feel the same, tell me you will be mine mine mine — i am sure you miss it very much. i miss the home that god had given me, too. but we are here for a reason, no? his smile is honeysuckle sweet, creeping up the edges of his graying muzzle. i choose to believe everything happens for a reason.

"anselm doesn't like anyone except for etienne," heda ventured quietly, glancing down at her paws in the trail as their shoulders touched and warmth spread in her chest.
completely unaware of amadeo's marauding thoughts, heda considered her own on him. his words were kind and often the exact sort she needed; he must have gathered much wisdom in his life.
"everything happens for a reason," heda murmured in gentle rejoin, glancing gently to amadeo and then setting her eyes ahead. "i have a patrol to finish and then i need to get back to the rendezvous," she said after a moment, wondering if he would like to come with her on at least the first errand, and finding it hard to ask.

etienne?
oh, dear god. he was one of those — homosexuals.
andras masks his disgust behind a sympathetic glint of his honeyed gaze, pushing out a small sigh. i see the way you look at him. to be honest with you, heda, i do not feel he is worth your time.
i've met many a man like him, even some women; i courted a few, before i met my wife. selfish. rude. cowardly. and, a breath, he has to want to change those things about himself. you cannot make him. and unless he does, any fleeting happiness he may bring you will only be flushed out by immense pain.
i would never do this to you.
he wished to hold her heart in his palms, feel the warm rhythm, only to squeeze it until it bursts. his. his. his.
a patrol, he is pulled from his thoughts by her beautiful eyes, the lovely countenance. she was inviting him, and he knew this, but the last thing she needed right now was more insistence, more aggression. do you desire company?

there was no reason not to believe amadeo. no true and lasting peace had been made between she and he; even the infrequent moments of time together were marked by a shifting tension that could take any form at any time.
it's pretty. what kinder thing had anselm ever said? and look how many months it had taken to even muster that, his children half-grown almost! 
"i don't think you're wrong, amadeo." a swallow bobbed her thin throat. "but he's the father of my sons. i feel — obligated to make it work with him, no matter that he — has made it clear he doesn't think the same of me."
some sense of being marred by this admission chafed at heda, and she pulled gently aside from the older man as if not to sully him, in some subconscious gesture. "i — i would like you to come with me. but i think what i need is to be alone, in prayer."
and supplication, for the nuanced sin of she and anselm. 
the smile heda offered did not reach her eyes; she dipped her head and all but fled amadeo now in a flurry of shame.
whatever tiny hope of a future she might have idly nursed fell away to ash. what heda deserved was anselm, his mercurial moods, his borderline loathing, it felt, the yoke of his resentment, and perhaps a life of that with him.

obligated! if it were any other circumstance, he would have agreed — but given the fact that she was a patron and he a roach, he could not endorse such a tragic match-up.
you have no such thing, he reaches for her shoulder, bumping his nose against the warm shade of her light. god does not want this for you. i do not want this for you. i do not think anyone does! and you should not want it for yourself, dear girl.
it sounds to me that he has used you. that he is irresponsible and careless. choose happiness, heda, for you and for your sons, he fights the blistering anger, though his face shifts to something — miffed, or perhaps dejected. there are better men out there. men who will give you love, unabashedly; men who will hold your hand in the love of god.
and now she turns from him, sunders herself. he wishes he could reach for her, encircle her between his jaws, and yet he refrains, standing like a fish out of water as he watches her leave.
god, he whispers through his teeth, help her.
bring her to me.