Shadewood no space in your broken veins

Her sleep was fractured, fretful, waking in ruptures and calming herself enough to doze off again before spluttering awake as though she'd been jabbed with the rough edge of broken glass - it was a prickle that nipped at her spine, growing into the tearing of flesh, the sensation of his body pressed against her back and his weight holding her to the frozen earth, pushing into her--

--his teeth, piercing the skin of her neck,
blood rushing from her shoulder to the snow,
the burn of the scars.
his rasps and bubbling breaths, hot on her nape.
“You taste lovely,”
relentless. violent. disgusting. taken--

--gasps fled her lips, pushing herself immediately from the den's floor and steadying herself against the earthen walls. It was nothing more than a memory, a fraction of the past, but she could still hear the boogeyman's cracked words echoing in her skull and shivering through her legs. Her trembles led her quickly to the icy blast of the evening wind, but she did not stop at the entrance, pouring outside and vanishing into the shadows of the frigid darkness. She needed some time to breathe, and as much warmth as the den provided her with, she couldn't shake off Ithrik's touch there.

He was there. Watching the ivory struggle against her mental demons. Watching as she was crushed under some invisible weight. But he did not stir her, as being brought suddenly out of a nightmare was often more dangerous than simply letting yourself fight free of it. But for that, you had to let it take you. 

He heard her murmurs, and his heart seized with every whimper of it. Everything in him had suffered as she did, as he restrained himself from rousing her. If there was anything the Phantom wanted to do, it was comfort her. But he didn’t. And his reward was knowledge. 

In the misery of the night, the Ghost finally burst from the cesspool of corruption, and horror was written over her angelic face, and the calm Assassin took it all in. From the heat she had baked them in, to the strain of her attempting to keep as close to the floor of the wall as possible. The frosted jewels took it all, and after her heart had regulated, after her own gaze stopped running from corner to corner of the homely space they shared together, did his baritones  slide across their space.

And it was clear he wanted an answer.

“Who is he,”

”And where can I find him.”

The voice that followed was not a whisper, a quiet mutter to knock against her head and muse to her thoughts, or feed the paralysing terror of the boogeyman's hold, but regardless she stilled. A wave of bitter air shivered over her cheeks, and she let her heartbeat lead the silence, to speak of words she found empty on her tongue. The voice was not soft and gentle to soothe her, but perhaps that was not what she needed - his baritones were gruff, though, demanding to know who had stalked her mind and crept beneath her bed like a child's monster; if Gwen knew anything, it was that Ithrik himself was anything but that.

She let the silence sit there like fog, a hazy mist of quietude but void of the peace she normally felt in her king's presence - no doubt, she felt protected, but drowing. Suffocating under the remains of the broken nightmares. Her mouth felt dry.

"...I..." Was the only murmur of sound that fled her system, gaze pooling out to trail the distant stars. She tried again. "I... don't know."

And that was all she could offer him.

“Then there is no reason why he needs to be hurting you in any way. Mentally,” he concluded. “Or otherwise.” He was here- there was no one else. Whoever she had been harmed by, there was no one else to touch her. Other than their Family, there should be no one else on Gwen’s mind. A wave of possessiveness enthralled the Assassin as he felt something violent curl up inside his chest, constructing him almost painfully as he mentally replayed the things she cried in her sleep. He couldn’t let anything do this to her. No one had the right. Fucking no one.

“I’m not going anywhere, Gwen. And if you need to hide away, I will be there with you. This is our home, and no will harm you like that ever again.” 

He wanted to ask her atleast what did this monster look like, but as many variations that were in the wild, quite a few were apt to fit the description. Plus he couldn’t risk being caught by them before he got to them, as asking around for a particular wolf would end up being too noticeable.
 

She said nothing as he spoke, feeling the reverberation of his words on the wind, tumbling through her head - in perhaps foolish hope, she wondered if there was a way to simply rid herself of the curses that plagued her thoughts. Some wild secret she'd missed passed from tongue to tongue. But that's all it was: a hope, nothing more. Gwen knew it was useless to waste her time praying for such things - if there was any sort of answer, she'd have found it by now, wouldn't she?

Oceanic orbs of deep blue trailed behind, to take in the appearance of the shadowed assassin - perhaps her answer was standing only a few steps away. A breath of icy air was sucked sharply through her teeth, and she waded closer to him through the seething darkness, eyes closing and muzzle pressing into the black fur of his neck. She craved his touch, anything to wash away whatever the boogeyman had done so many moons ago; would the wrongness still linger for days to come? Would it dissipate entirely, or would it remain, like an unwanted scar? Oh, she bore real scars, too - she hid them under a thick pelage of white, and she did not intend to uncover them.

She would stay tucked beneath Cry's chin, wrap herself in the blanket he provided.

Cry sat completely still as she came to him, embracing him while he was incapable of moving. It hadn’t actually occurred to him that wise that he actually didn’t. He partially was convinced he’d be mad enough to either search for anyone who would’ve known of this incident, or whether he would just take his anger out on some unfortunate soul. 

But as she cuddled under him, all of his thought, his emotions, his passions, everything had disappeared. They simply dissipated as she snatched his space from him and tossed  away her own. As if she couldn’t help but care nothing about everything, and only focus on him, and what he could offer her. Cry closed his eyes as he folded his head over her own,  the maul of void fur encasing the ivory pearl in a cascade of midnight. He angled his body so that it might wrap around her own, snuggling the artic Queen in a comforter of the most pitch of blacks. Even his own tail bordered and held hers, pulling it closer to the warmer bodies. 

A deep breath left the frigid man as he held his Empress. And forsaking the most final of rules, Cry finally managed the words. 

“Gwen...I have to tell you something.”

She let a soft sigh slip from her lips, pooling into the air as a cloud of frost - she watched it dissolve into the ebony sky, then allowed her lids to drift shut again, thinking only of Cry.

The tempting lure of sleep teased, tempted, drifted over her petite form, and she found herself slipping away in the tender embrace, only to be called back by his voice - she didn't mind. She'd give anything just for him to keep talking, to ease her into the softness of dreams - she wanted to let the burden rest, to relieve her aching shoulders and put aside whatever griefs hung heavy above her head and simply give in to him. Give in to his warmth. 

But she didn't sleep yet, shifting her ears to hear him better - 

"I have to tell you something."

Her eyes fluttered open, but she did not remove herself from beneath his chin, simply gazing out past his figure into the blackness of the night. "...Mm?"

And

Cry felt her heart’s dance slow until his voice had brought her back to the world of consciousness. It was a sharp pang he felt bringing her back when it was clear she wanted to lose herself just this once.

But he had to get this off of his chest. 

“My name isn’t actually Cry, Gwen.” As if that hadn’t been obvious for years. Unless a parent was lunatic enough to name a kid such a depressing thing. “That was a code name given to me by The Nightmares as I was trained for secrecy and assassination. I’ve killed many under the name of Cry. But I’ve harmed none under my true birth name, a name I wanted to give to you.”

He slightly pulled himself free of her perfection to grasp her gaze in his own. He needed her to feel how much he was trusting her with this. Cry wasn’t very religious, but simply being with Gwen...it made him feel as though there was something worth living for. As if there was no need for him to drift; she was his anchor. Without her, there would be no Shadewood Keep. 

All of his love was conveyed in his gaze as he held her own cerulean diamonds with his pale blue topaz. 

“My real name is Raziel. Named after the angel of secrecy, an entity of mystery.” His last name however, he didn’t want to mention to her, as he had something important to inquire of her. 

“And...I want to marry you.”

She barely felt the cold, now.

It felt as though her heart was sparking, flames were rising and dancing to illuminate the darkness - she felt them creep through her belly and flicker through her chest, felt them licking even at the tips of her toes, listening to her king's words. There was anticipation, too, and for a moment the snowbird pulled herself from his embrace simply to peer at him, to wonder with a silent tongue what was on his mind. Eyes of dark cerulean were focused on him, and only on him - nothing else mattered. Not right now.

Only him.

Soft ivory draped her ears, and they shifted to hear him better, all senses honing in and waiting to listen to what he had to say - when it came, her chin inclined a fraction to the side, and she felt an odd jumble of emotions. It was as though she had given him a key; a key wrapped so tight in silk but protected with a box of steel, and as she opened it, secrets would pour out one by one. As though his book was defended by a ravenous, raging river, but she'd somehow found the stones to cross and reach it. "Raziel," it felt new in the air, unfamiliar, but somehow familiar all the same. And, with a blink of her gaze, she discovered that she liked the name... loved it, really. It suited him - the side she'd come to know and hold so dear.

"And...I want to marry you."

Her breath caught in her throat, taken aback by the suddeness of such a statement - but she found her heart swelled and beat faster, carried along by the luminescence of his eyes and the thrumming of his own heart as she leaned back into his embrace. Following the path that simply felt right. For a while she was rendered speechless, just listening to the whistle of a distant bird among the clouds, and watching as her breaths gasped into the air and then were sucked back in only a brief second later. Only then did she speak.

"...And I want to marry you, too. I've never been more certain of anything in my life."