Dragoncrest Cliffs Break your fall

Wildfire limped back from the tree near the sound, muttering under her breath. She had decided to try climbing atop it, only to fall back and twist her ankle. She was pretty sure it wasn't broken or even sprained, just a little painful. Hopefully it would pass within a few hours. If not, she would have to seek out Portia and request something for pain and inflammation. Pondering this, the Bandrona crossed the borders and hastened toward the caves, eager to get out of the severe cold.

As soon as she stepped inside, she made a beeline toward @Thuringwethil, doing her best to downplay her sore foot. "Hey," she greeted, slipping her smudged muzzle beneath the Heda's snout and nipping at her chin before adding a lick to the corner of her mouth. "Can we," she asked, a noisy breath escaping her mid-sentence, "talk?" She had gone out to the tree to think and prepare herself for this conversation and Wildfire was, at long last, ready.

Thuringwethil had arrived to the wilds in the winter but she does not remember it being this harsh. She and Gyda had done well on the mountain and the gaining of followers they were to share together and here she stands, nearly a year later, and she can barely recognize the wolves she’s meant to protect and keep safe. It is still a mixture of her own and outsiders and she the only trace of Gyda left these days is Eske. Their legacy will grow in their daughter just as they will build their own in their own claim. In a few months, she’s certain she’ll hear from a messenger that they are well and settled but in the meantime she’s left to wonder and worry.

Caught in thought, Wildfire perks her head up when she hears the sound of another enter the cave. Without proper marking due to the weather, she feels often on edge about who enters their home. The worry someone not one of their own will find the secluded entrance, Thuringwethil has to ease her mind down as her mate approaches and snakes her nose beneath her chin. Her eyes close and she leans into the embrace but ever since the woman’s heat, things haven’t felt quite right. No matter how much she tries to ball up the worry and toss it away, her lack of emotional exploration really keeps her from knowing how to handle how she feels and is often reminded of such weakness.

Heda glances around the cavern to see it is mostly empty and those remaining. It takes a moment but she nods anyway. Uneasily, she opens her mouth to speak but her eyes travel off to see another and she turns further with a beckoning wave of her nose to lead Wildfire through the tunnel that opens up to the smaller cavern. Low tide has settled in but chunks of ice still wave in from the sea. Instead of speaking, Thuringwethil turns and gives the floor to the bandrona instead to let her lead the conversation better than she can.

Thuringwethil didn't say anything, though she led Wildfire away from the main cavern and into one of the offshoots. Wildfire felt her nerves jangling as the walls closed in around them, though she understood the need for privacy. Her heart was beating so fast that she could feel her entire frame shaking with it. That had more to do with the pending conversation than her claustrophobia.

They both knew she would be the first to speak, yet when the commander looked at her, Wildfire's mouth opened and nothing came out at first. She clapped it shut, took a few breaths, then tried again with a little more success. "I'm really sorry I ran off like that, especially after yelling at you for doing the same thing just a few weeks before. I'm a hypocrite." She had already apologized but it seemed like a good thing to repeat, not to mention a good launchpad for the rest of what she wanted to say.

"It hurt me so badly that you would make a decision like that for me and not with me. You didn't say anything until I called both of you; you blindsided me. And now..." She was shaking slightly. "Now we don't know when or even if I'll go into heat again." Wildfire's lips pursed as she swallowed thickly. Chances were the cycle would begin again within a few months, though it was never a guarantee.

"I suppose it's for the best for the reasons you mentioned at the time," she continued in a strained voice, "and because I'm not sure I want to try parenting with a partner who doesn't even treat me like a partner." She winced and looked submissively at her feet, aware that was pushing the boundaries and quite possibly even provoking a breakup. But even if the commander outranked her, some decisions—like raising a family—must be made together as equals... or not at all.

Wildfire takes a moment to speak but when she does, Thuringwethil keeps her ears forward and jaws shut despite the urge to speak over or interrupt. There's a feeling that sits in the pit of her stomach she can't properly identify being so new to her. The only thing she knows is something is wrong and she can only hope something Wildfire says will settle her nerves.

It is with Wildfire's final words that her ears slick back and pupils widen. She turns her head away to take a moment as she tries to process it without rising any sort of anger. She isn't even sure she can unclench her jaw enough to speak and when she finds her heart lodged in her throat, she releases a slow breath through her nose.

"I made the decision as your commander," she says with a pause, jaw ajar for the rest but her hesitation is apparent. She does not wish to shift blame but something is missing, some misunderstanding, but Thuringwethil doesn't know how to get there. "You called for the two of us before I could talk to you. I did not want to make that decision but if you had conceived and we could not handle them as a pack, I did not want to..." she stops again, the lump in her throat enlarging and she thinks she might choke. "I do not want to sacrifice our children."

Thuringwethil freezes, uncertain how it will be received, but she'd never been in this situation before, leaving her relatively clueless and scrounging up information to make it better. If Wildfire had not been her mate, killing her children if they could not sustain would not have been a problem but she's seen enough disappointment across her pretty face to know it would end horribly if it had come to that.

"I do not think you understand what I have done for you, because I love you. I have changed Drageda for you. This was not taught to me. This was beaten out of me. I have faced my own wolves with you by my side and I would not change it even though they do not agree or understand. I am lucky those that have come have not done more than they have because that could mean my death," she explains, her voice shaky and she feels a tremble shoot through her. "I am trying my best and if that is not enough for you—" she stops, hardening her gaze and trying to seal everything up once more as if she had mentors that could see through her. If they could see her now, what would they say?

The Bandrona pressed her lips together, listening carefully to her mate's rejoinder, similarly fighting with the urge to interrupt a time or two. Rather than formulating her own response right away, Wildfire forced herself to sit and process her words a moment, then carefully choose her own. Her chestnut eyes blinked absently at the walls—they were too close—before dropping again to her feet as she carefully began to speak, voice slow and shaky.

"When it comes to matters of our family, you can't be my commander or this isn't going to work." It was short, simple and brutally to the point. She felt her insides shriveling a little as she said the next part. "I'm sorry that it's been such a burden for you, Thur. I've asked too much without meaning to." A dry tongue came out to ineffectually wet equally dry lips. "Maybe love isn't enough to override tradition. Because this—" She gestured meaninglessly at those godforsaken walls. "—isn't good enough for me. I mean, I want to be your equal and I'm beginning to realize that just can't be, can it?"

The hope Wildfire might understand the gravity of her words shoot out the window. She does not understand Seageda and, by extension, Drageda. Perhaps she’d been wrong the whole time in letting outsiders in if her own mate does not understand. Thuringwethil lets a sigh loose from her lips and turns her head, looking out at the ocean as it continues to roll against the sand. It gives her a brief distraction when no words come to mind. When it comes to matters of Drageda, even without the help of an advisor, she mostly knows what to do, but this is far from something familiar.

“Maybe it is not,” she says. The words are heavy and thick and the last thing she expected to ever say. She has overridden tradition but Wildfire can't see it and perhaps there's no use to compromise when she can't turn the world around for a single woman. A flash of regret turns sour in the back of her mouth and she swallows the lump having taken up residence. Thuringwethil stiffens and turns to better face Wildfire with pain settled behind her gaze that flicker and hover downward.

Of course, part of Wildfire wanted and hoped for Thuringwethil to refute her. The Heda did not, however, instead agreeing with the Bandrona's assessment. Wildfire's mouth went even drier than before and she felt as if her stomach dropped out of her body. Her chest clinched and she sipped at the cold air as if her airway was no wider than a straw. She ran hot, then cold, then hot again.

She almost took back her words and begged for some sort of compromise. But her mate's four damning words rang in her ears and Wildfire just felt defeated. It was probably good to come to this realization before trying to start a family but all the pain and suffering she had gone through lately had really taken a toll on her. She didn't feel up to fighting for this, especially if it didn't seem like Thuringwethil would budge any further than she already had.

Now feeling as if her entire body had turned to gelatin, the Bandrona stood. Were they really going to both throw in the towel, just like that? Was it really over? Wildfire blinked, feeling horribly disoriented. She hadn't really prepared herself for this possibility and she locked up for a moment, unsure what to do. She felt a fresh wave of disbelief and dismay wash over her when she realized she might not just be losing her mate and her chance at a family—as if that wasn't already enough—but everything.

"Should I... go?" Wildfire barely managed to choke out the words. Summoning up strength she wasn't sure she had, she added, "I'll go to the caldera. I'll be safe there, with family," just because she still loved Thuringwethil and her first instinct was to put her at ease.

Thuringwethil’s stomach turns as Wildfire shifts, trying to scramble for something to say but when she does, her eyes glance upward. She clenches her jaw and fights the urge to fidget, wanting to say something else but the fizzle has long died off. She stares blankly at the girl for a moment longer as she tries to coordinate the words as the realizations open up. Had it been doomed from the start? A cold covers her deeper than winter can reach.

“That is not what I want,” she begins, almost surprised the words slipped out of her mouth, “but if your loyalty is only to me and not Drageda, then—”

She sucks in a breath, finding the air difficult to hold in her lungs longer than a few seconds. Everything she thought she might have is wiped away and her heart clenches, as if threatening to stop—there is no physical pain that compares to the punch through her ribcage and wrenching of her heart—and her eyes well up expectantly. Thuringwethil blinks a few times and finds somewhere else to stare as everything settles and weighs her down.

“A guard will go with you if that is what you want to do.”

Wildfire's eyes narrowed, mostly in confusion. Her lips moved but no words came out. "My loyalty?" she managed eventually, perplexity momentarily stalling her completely. Then she realized what the Heda meant and her heart skipped a few beats before plummeting back into her feet. "Oh." She grew still, blinking rapidly against the moisture building behind her own eyes.

"Would you really want me to stay here?" The words just tumbled out, backed by entirely authentic surprise. For some reason, the possibility of remaining in Drageda without being with Thuringwethil hadn't even occurred to her. They were pretty much one and the same in Wildfire's heart of hearts. "Do you know how painful that would be? For both of us?" She swallowed, pushing away flashbacks of Floki and Moonspear.

A long beat of silence passed before Wildfire spoke again. "Of course I'm loyal to Drageda." It came out a little defensively. "And I know what it means to walk away," she added with a gusty breath, wondering how she was managing stringing words together with her insides flipping and flopping so violently. "I'd do it to get out of your face, Thur," she continued almost woodenly, "so that you—so that we—can heal and move on. And not be constantly reminded of the love and life we lost."

Her head dropped as the lump in her throat finally stole her voice. "That is not what I want," Thuringwethil had said only a moment ago. Wildfire didn't want it either. But even if she had the strength to fight for it—and she really didn't—wouldn't it be a useless waste of time if the Heda's traditions were incompatible with Wildfire's vision for a family? This couldn't work without some sort of sacrifice and neither one of them should have to give up things so dear and important to them. It was all incredibly unfair.

She tries to listen to Wildfire as she speaks but she simply watches her lips move and every other word slips out. Had she considered what life here would be like if Wildfire stayed? She can hardly imagine her home without her in it and now she’s to pick up and move on as if it hadn’t happened.

Heal and move on?

Acid licks at her throat and she does everything she can to stay in place when she wants to back pedal and disappear. Fire warms her chest and she wants nothing more than to sink her teeth into something and tear it apart and she wonders if this is what they really meant when they repeated the mantra over and over. What will the others say when they find out? I told you so. Her stomach twists and she lowers her head.

After a moment, Thuringwethil finally turns to face Wildfire. She stares as if she has not heard a thing and fights the urge to let the swelling of tears spill over. A few blinks clear her eyes but not without soaking one cheek, threatening to freeze as the wind blows against the cliff-side and quietly, struggling to get her voice from cracking, “I don’t know how to do this.”

If she stayed here, not only would her dreams of being with Thuringwethil and raising a family with her die, she would most likely have to kiss her dream of children goodbye completely. Wildfire simply couldn't do that. Having a family meant everything to her. She'd thought it meant everything to the commander too. But her traditions meant more, for reasons which the Bandrona couldn't hope to truly understand. It pained her, savagely so at this moment, yet Wildfire knew how much all of it meant to her mate.

She (thought she) was prepared to make the call, no matter what the Heda said on the matter, when she looked up and saw the tears soaking the commander's cheek. The sight of them undid something in the Bandrona's breast. Without thinking, she reached up to touch her nose to the black wolf's cheekbone, almost in disbelief. It came away wet, cold and salty. She blinked, retreating a few inches, but unable to look away. Their eyes locked.

"Me neither," she said at long last, still unmoving and unblinking. "Thur..." she started, pain shivering in her voice. Wildfire didn't continue, at least for a few seconds. Then she said, "Why can't we be equals in this? Only this? I don't want you to set aside your traditions or make all kinds of sacrifices for me otherwise. I want you to be the commander and I will happily bow to you on every other matter. You know I don't want power. You know I respect you just as fiercely as I love you. I just want to feel like we're in this together. I want to raise our family together, as a team, like my parents raised m-me..."

And just like that, Wildfire burst into tears and buried her face against the Heda's neck.

When Wildfire steps forward, Thuringwethil pulls her nose away in reflex, brushing away her cold nose but not before she’d gotten too close. She turns away when she starts speaking again and everything in her tenses, leaving little room for movement until Wildfire bursts into her chest. Her mouth opens for a croak to escape and she puts her head down around the familiar curve of Wildfire’s neck. Somehow, Thuringwethil isn’t sure how they got here and she steps back from the embrace and twists her expression in confusion.

“I don’t understand,” she finally says, trying to see through the tears on her mates face. “I was never not in this with you. I want to give you the things you want but I cannot sacrifice Drageda for it and you have to understand that it is not easy for me.” Her eyes narrow, searching for something in her features that might make this any easier but it does not come outright. “If you had conceived and we could not support them…” she trails off, certain that her decision to prevent them instead of the alternative had been the right one. “My wolves from Seageda do not support this but they are here and they are loyal and to show them that this will work, the timing has to be right. I still have to be the commander even if I am your mate and that includes making decisions that you do not like but you have to trust me that I am doing the right thing for us.”

The commander stayed put for a moment, then moved away. Wildfire gulped, her whole body shuddering as tears streamed down her face, chilling and congealing into her red fur. She felt her gut lurch at the sting of rejection and made no attempt to scoot closer again, despite a desperate yearning to rebury her blotchy face in Thuringwethil's neck. She tried to quiet her wrenching sobs as the Heda spoke to her, tone firm but plaintive all at once, genuine confusion written all over her charcoal features.

Wildfire began shaking her head about halfway through her mate's speech, though not in dissent. It was directed at herself. The commander spoke logically and sensibly, whereas the Bandrona's stance was fueled by intuition and emotion. The muscles in her jaw jumped as Wildfire ground her teeth together, trying to stifle the cries that still rippled in her throat. It was difficult, especially with her parents' faces floating in her mind, but after a time, she managed to calm down and begin piecing her thoughts together again.

"I know you were just trying to do what's best for the pack and the pups we bring into it," she began mournfully, "but it's one thing to know something. Feelings are an entirely different matter..." Wildfire began shaking her head again. "I just want this so much, Thur, it's hard to think logically. I—I'm sorry. I just want a family with you so bad because I love you so damn much. And now I've—fucked it all up, I'm sure," she choked out, starting to cry again, silently this time, sure that there was no cleaning up the mess she'd made of everything.

The tone and demeanor change in Wildfire further confuses the commander and she knits her brows together as it goes wayward. Everything is pulled in one direction while the rest of her is in the opposite. It would be easy to step forward and take the girl in an embrace to soothe her but her legs stiffen instead. Their differences where they’ve been butting heads are announced and she heaves a long sigh. It had been a problem here and there since the beginning but they’ve come out on the other side, one way or the other, but they never seemed quite so large as this.

“I know you do and I didn’t want to take it away, nor did I think it was the last chance we’d get,” she says a little softer. If she’d known the new abundance of food they’d have to feed each other and begin a proper cache, it might have been a little different but having to worry about whether or not the cold or lack of safety might put them in jeopardy could have put them in a worse spot. Thuringwethil leans forward and one foot moves to take a step but she freezes, ears back, and slowly reforms her stance.

The commander looked understandably torn about embracing her or shoving her away. Wildfire's eyes blurred as the tears came faster and thicker. Why couldn't she reign in her emotions lately? Why couldn't she be more pragmatic, like Thuringwethil? She didn't deserve to be a mate or mother. She probably shouldn't even be a leader or part of Drageda. In this moment, she felt like an absolute mess and failure.

But instead of crying all over the place, the Bandrona made a conscientious effort to stiffen her lip. Face still smeared with frozen tears, she sat up a little straighter. Ignoring the wobbling at the corners of her mouth, she said, "I'm sorry, Thur. I've been a mess lately. I've let my emotions get out of control." She sniffed, then drew in a long, shaky breath. "Have I ruined everything?" Wildfire needed to know, even if she feared the answer. She needed to know if she could pick up these pieces and put them back together again or if the situation was as hopeless as it currently felt.

*pretends this isn't terrible*

Thuringwethil remains silent for a long moment, uncertain where either of them stand. She isn't entirely sure where the blame lays or where they can go from here. It takes a few seconds to even realize that this might repair them, sorting it out but Wildfire shifts the blame toward herself and she weakly smiles.

"No," she finally says but isn't even sure she believes it. It would be easy to blame the weather, collected all together in one place with everyone. "We can figure this out. Do you trust me?"

"We can figure this out. Do you trust me?"

Wildfire was so grateful to be given the benefit of the doubt that she nodded automatically and eagerly. She then slowed down and stilled when she realized that Thuringwethil had somehow boiled down the problem to its very deepest root: trust. She didn't have to like the commander's decrees but she should know that the Heda would only base her judgment calls off what she thought was best. In her blinding whirlwind of emotions, Wildfire had forgotten this. She supposed she should be grateful that at least one of them could be practical and pragmatic, even if it made it hard for them to see eye-to-eye sometimes.

"Yes," the Bandrona affirmed verbally, "I trust you and I trust that we can work this out too." Wildfire said nothing more, at least out loud. She just latched onto her mate, murmuring apologies and declarations of love under her breath.

Thuringwethil takes the girl into an embrace and licks the tender spot behind her ear. She gives her a little nudge of encouragement to lead her back to the cavern. “Let’s get out of the cold,” she says before she breaks away so they could both walk back in. They’d been out long enough the harsh of the winter had frozen her to the joints that made it difficult to walk smoothly back inside.