Northstar Vale quälen

This ache within her ribs was not, she thinks, from where she now rouses;
cradled to slumber within the red and knotted arms of the upset trunk of a behemothic sequoia; the hollow of which made glimmering by some petrified masterpiece that the faerie queene has not now the will within her of studying its chorographies; of wondering how-ever she has first chanced upon a venue such as this. But in the haze of Cantatis' healing hurts and those she deigned not address, the elf had so dubbed the felled colossus Crownseat, and had let herself hang heavy amongst the furled and mosaic roots.

The euphoria of these eves;
they have left her worn and wistful in a way that is undeniably vexatious. An unsettlement;
Undómiel ushers the remnants of the golem's cruelness from her mem'ry with some long-suffering and somnolent press of lashes to cheek. He cannot reach her here.

And it should not be such a nuisance! Had she not flown her very people here for the promise of the filling of their empty bellies, come spring? For this, and for nothing more? To be far and from what-ever queensdevilry had seen fit to force them from that first Weald?

The stonewalled Andraste rose, spires of shoulders shivering with restlessness; and it was with faded features that she began to pick her way down root by root, step by step; half-staggering;
praying that all of this has come from the wellspring of her sullenness which wakefulness so inspires.

An ache in her wounded heart for leaving her pearl behind; but it was an issue she needed to attend immediately if they wanted to feel the spring’s warmth again. So she left, forced by their hunger, for else she would not have gone from the safety of their home; from her warm and loving embrace. It was not time to think such as this, for her mind needed to be clear for hunting whatever the heavens have left them.
 
Agana did not have the safety of a successful hunt; nor did she last time, and the time before, and even before that. For a few months now they danced on the edge of life and death, one paw always in the rift of their doom. She still tried, hoping this time she would be spared for her sins and given the chance to take something home.
 
The grey female was disturbed by a mysterious presence; a presence she had not felt since the meeting between the general and the silver. Golden gaze searched for her, to settle on the image of her descent from the heights. She did not dare speak, for she might be startled from her sudden appearance. So she chuffed closer to her, announcing her attendance to the scene.

Something beckons from the shadows and Andraste stumbles the remainder of the way, claws clutching into the new snows and the frigid loam beneath as she leaves the roots behind entirely; all in favor of shivering forth from her post with a frosted step and shorn features set into something remnant of sunknived incredulity as bleary halfsights alit upon that blasted argent hide and looked with aghast stupor into the imperious guise of—  "Agana."

There is a significance of rare indignance that leaves Undómiel as her natal companion presents herself; brow drawn and austere as ever.  "I have just awoken. Forgive me,"  and seeks it with a quieted cant of marred, misted head.  "I believed you to be another."  Sighing soft and slow, the stricken lifts her chin, all the better to look into those lamplight eyes with her own.  "Is there anything ze matter, Agana?"

“Andraste,” she replied, lowering her head as a greeting sign. Agana made a few steps forward, to be on line with her as they spoke. The last time they spoke one on one was before the vale, and she needed to adress an issue that occured lately.

“There is nothing to forgive,” silence, “Were you expecting someone? If yes, I shall take my leave,” perhaps she had more urgent matters to attend to than a mere chat between old companions.

“There is.. something I need to speak to you about,” she began, too official for her own liking. “The ground shakes no more, but I have been unable to find something to feed me and-“ silence. She shook her head, then continued, “The pack, properly. I do not know if I should travel further than the mountains, or search here but in more detail.” She almost exposed herself; this should never happen again. No, this will never happen again.

Declination, again!
there was everything to be forgiven, and yet the stricken was left somewhat ruffled even when the rainshrouded Quetehltë delved into her own enquiry  —  of the lack of good hunting to be had. Her words were met with a thin, pale quiver of smile from the fée herself; ever-humbled to know that her followers were endless in their endeavor to provide for the pack within the mountainsgem.  “Inasmuch I appreciate your expeditions from ze Court, I must caution that you not venture lonesome,”  coaxing Agana’s focus to the still-raw blemishing so novelly scripted about her features,  “for there is a lion that lurks amongst ze spires, and I would wish my wolves remain within ze Vale, at present,”  (including Undómiel herself)  “for there is still much to be found, ‘ere, and I am sure that greater game will reveal itself in due time.”

Otherwise ...
“And should we fell such flesh, ze terms of ze Diaspora are thus: to share in ze feasting of it, and with ze young we have fed first.”  Clementine, then, would be the first of the Court to sup  ...  should something be brought down to its knees in the near future;
“It is most of ze matter of an accord, of course,”  and where once Andraste might have blushed, beguiled by thought and impending telling  —  now, she could only turn hesitant halfsights from her frostbound bloodkith, and nip at the lower lip made old scar tissue. Vulnerable, void.

“Agana ... might we speak as cousins?”

short reply i'm sorry

Agana nodded, unaware of the news she had just received. A lion was present amongst them, that could harm them to the death. And she remembered about her recent adventure into the canyon, a trip close to death she had not realized until now. What if the lion had attacked her into the maze? She would be dead meat by now; raw and fresh, and no one would find her there, perhaps by the smell.

“I understand,” she nodded, yet her gut longed to travel, to explore new places, to meet others, but this was no longer possible; for now. And she stood there, quiet, like a scolded child, for being so foolish to think she would be safe outside the Vale’s walls.

“Of course, Andraste,” golden gaze fixed on her stricken self, “What is bothering you?”

ur good, me2 ;a;

"I am to birth ze General's whelps, and, yet,"
and yet  —  those wicked words that had again again again arrow'd into her unending heart and had put its beating to ruin the impassioned, promised undertones of the Lair; had Undómiel be studious of whether percisely or not she should refuse what-ever advances that might be had, come that season of strife, for she now so doubted that their meet would e'er be earlier than then. The fée is not at all sure that she wishes for his eyes to rest upon her, though all had ended what-ever soulmeld had for moons been fashioned between them.

It anguishes this lovely dust; and salt threatens to twine as tears from argent sights as Andraste peers into the depths of the chasm and feels not the rightness of forging it as before. Her heart's blood remained to leave her at the thought of him, and, yet  —  "And, yet, how ... how am I to give such, when ... when it weakens my resolve of becoming ze mother I should always be?"

So much that Andraste dreamt up in saying and yet could not; for already she had such privilege in the lending of her dear cousin's ear! It was not yet within her to abuse such a moment, with her wailing and withering. She would not dare.

It was unexpected, but also expected. Her assumptions were correct about the silver and the general. Her mind drifted to the moment she saw them, the moment the silver stuttered, the warmth in the general words and eyes when they laid upon the stricken. She did not know what happened after her departure, but, perhaps, this statement was part of their conversation.
 
Agana was not in the position to give such advice; and truly, she was not, for she was not a mother herself, and did not intend to. Golden gaze settled upon the stricken, her Undómiel, her lovely cousin. How could she know, when only now she felt her first form of emotional attraction? How could she know, when only now she touched the other for the first time?
 
But it never occurred to her, only now, that the stricken had known motherhood before, why was this any different? She decided to let it aside, for she was broken enough to be reminded of whatever mistakes have happened before Undómiel.
 
She stood, quiet and pensive, a heavy sigh leaving her throat; all she could make out was a simple “I do not know,” as her gaze turned away in shame.

She had not been seeking divination to all that she must be again laden with. In the name of her people and for the children that would bind her  (in some fashion)  to he who lie within her very blood ... she would do this thing. With Agana's uncertainty was some dimmed resignation that the heiress was all to familiar of. But, then—  
"Onónë?"

The looming argent had turned from little Undómiel the inscrutable lantergleam of her eyes; and here it was that the fée felt some tenative trepidation as to the alignments of one's family. Once upon a time, she had kept close to the wellness of her very soul the hanno that she had been held beneath prayerwaters with; and wonders if the absence of her own tar-emil and aranatar in the wake of her own treacherous turmoil is blamant of her own negligence in several moons past;
but their faces all have long since ebbed from the mem'ry of Andraste; faraway father and murmuring mother and boisterous brother; and can feel nothing nothing nothing within the unending chasm that has come to be cleaved throughout the vessel of her. The eye of her somber son! The voice of her daring daughter! The notes are faded and thin; straining; Moonspear was their mother, yes, yes—

So, regardless of the significant lack of upheaval over all that has been wrought upon her and all wrongdoing that she had once wrought upon her own then-brood in turn  —  Agana is here and hot with blood and fine flesh and is brimming with breath. It is all that the stricken can do to wonder aloud, gentled:  "I will not intrude upon your worries, lest you wish to speak of them."

I have sinned, my dear cousin, I have sinned. Oh, but what a good sin it was! How sweet it was, to feel her soft lips on hers, to have her in her arms. It bought a feeling of freedom in her, something she had not experienced before. Agana valued her freedom above all else, and now the feeling was, to some extent, linked to the image of her pearl; but she was no longer hers.
 
The way she pushed her away broke her. And she wanted to follow her, to scream after her, but it was all in vain. She remained speechless for the rest of the day, and did not return to the den. How wrong it was to believe it meant something to her but things were shaken to the core between them, and she thought, perhaps, the duck leaned in out of loneliness; or she thought it was her husband; maybe, just maybe, that intimate moment was… a mistake?
 
“Spune-mi, draga mea,” with a swift movement, golden gaze was once again on the silver before her. Her worries were many, and did not wish to add in to them. But with whom should she talk to, if not her family? “How can something so wrong feel so right?”

Too long had it been since she had spoken the second tongue of their uncharted peoples; and it felt as a life-age that Andraste was no longer sure of how to adequately answer her dearest cousin. How was it that something of one-sided untruths had felt so euphoric in those several past moons? So sure? She could not dare to assume that which Agana shambled through within her own life, but it did not sound as if both their plights  (what-ever they be)  were entirely dissimilar to another. Doubt; broke-hearts; unsurety, when there had only ever been such rightness to be felt;
so the silver remained quiet, even when faced with the lampglint of bloodkith eyes. As uncertain as this as she had now become so uncertain with the dealings of one's own heart;
and could only stay hushed, and press her pale ribs against the argent's in some conveyance of comfort that words could not comprehend.

I no longer know.