Greatwater Lake where there is neither sense of life or joys,

@Iliksis baby <3

relmyna was beside herself.
so much, indeed, that the morning found the she-wolf trotting out of the territory, the pronouncement of her flanks clearly visible, held in the bones of her thin frame. how had she not known? and why — why had she noticed too late? the evoker chastised herself for being so wrapped in the whispers of the rock that her self-perception had left her; in the small cave where she slept did relmyna leave the scrying-stone, ashamed at herself.
the great lake spread far before her not long after the wolfess departed blackfeather, and in the snows along its edge she moved, stumbling a bit as movement — 
they belong to blackfeather
to cicero
to sheogorath
stirred within her. relmyna clawed desperately at the cloying shadows of her mind and found futility in walking; she lay down alongside the wide expanse of freshwater and gazed balefully at the winter skies. it was too late to rid herself of what she and
there was another
cicero had done, the plausible outcome of their coupling. cicero, not sheogorath, had fathered whatever seed had taken hold within relmyna. and now he had gone, and the woods rang empty.
the evoker refused to consider the possibility that the small lives she carried did not belong to the dark brother. she continued to hold herself prone against the snow, even as cold curled into her muscles.

despite his abrupt departure from blackfeather, he still haunted the region. he was tethered by the enigmatic she-wolf he had met weeks prior -- inexplicably wrought into her life in a way he had neither shape nor a name for.

presently iliksis sought her company, and was surprised to find her trail hot and leaving the wood's vicinity. he trailed the light imprints in the snow until he came across her, curled like a lamb in the cold fold of the ground. he stood over her with his breath silenced, pale vapors rising from his half-parted jaws. there was something wrong with the vulnerable way she had succumbed to the ground; something overwrought about her features.

while he had noticed that niggling scent that lingered between her prints left in the snow, he had no name for it -- and until she rose from the ground, he would remain unaware of the filling that claimed her belly.

when the man arrived, relmyna was neither surprised nor shocked; he had developed some sort of affinity for her. it was not one relmyna had allowed herself to explore; the she-wolf would only admit to herself she was partial to his company. steam rose from his jaws; the evoker blinked almost placidly up into the twin yellow pools before she roused herself.
surely now he would see what dragged at her so; half-sitting in the snow, relmyna watched the sober creature closely, for the taut roundness of her belly was visible now, beyond the thicket of her thin forelegs, and without more close a peer, even the bright pink of her small teats had begun to show through the snowy fur there.

the small wraith stirred upright upon his arrival, a dusting of snow clinging to her lackluster fur. iliksis' gaze favored the shape of her slender limbs but his eyes halted at the thin fanning of her ribcage. were there ever any love or emotion spread across his needle-like muzzle it fell from the earth then; his dull gaze pulled from her exposed belly and raked up her chest to her eyes. a sourness seemed to temper his faded tourmaline irises, sitting like some sort of incubus behind his half-lidded gaze.

he blinked slowly and pulled closer to her crouched form. his shadow fell across her like a sinister spectre and he drew his muzzle across the flat of her cheek, a low grumble sounding from his throat. whether it was displeasure or longing, it was not outwardly apparent.

relmyna had not expected his presence, but the reaction of the hot-eyed demon at once both surprised and did not surprise the evoker. as his countenance shifted into a black mood, relmyna felt the primordial stirrings of base instinct rearing swiftly within her — her body cried that she fall defensive and protect the children she carried.
but instead the woman held fast as the darkness crept nearer, swallowing her small frame with his stygian shadow; relmyna realized, as he touched her with a gentleness not befitting who he was, that she was in no danger.
perhaps time and chance would find her wrong, but the evoker met her gaze with his own, and without fear. you will not harm me, came her silent missive, followed by the barest hint of a smile on her decimated lips.

she held under his cold touch, which came as no surprise to him. she had never faltered under his touch, and he expected no differently today. the grumblings working in his dry throat ceased and wordlessly the male pulled away on stiff limbs.

it did not occur to him the life that stirred in her belly was not his. it displeased him to see her indisposed, though he assumed when her barrel dropped and she delivered, that she would be so exhausted by her toils that would be easy to pluck her brood from her breasts and kill them.

after all, it was not life he wanted from her -- whether sired by him or in clandestine tryst with another. whether she knew or not it he had branded hers as his and nothing, be it motherhood or another, would take her from him.

he did not go far as he walked away -- in brooding silence the male lifted his narrow muzzle to the cold air and tested the wind.

the dybbuk drew away, and moved some steps aside — relmyna observed him with some faint neutrality trailing at the edges of her gaze. by all rights, she should bear nothing but hatred for him, and yet she did not. the lines of him were strong, his limbs hale; only the stench of wickedness that clung to the man's withers brought her pause, so heavily had it become ensconced as a living thing beneath his dark fur.
relmyna had considered that the fiend too might wear the title of sire to the brood she carried; she followed the line of his muzzle as he lifted it and considered what sort of father he might be. but there rose in her breast a warning — she must disallow herself such horrid and fanciful notions, born from the expanse of loneliness that had expanded in her chest these past weeks. 
hunger stirred — relmyna was annoyed to find that the hunger never abated — and she rose unsteadily, lapping at the snow to quell her thirst before scenting the air herself.

for a spell of time the wraith quit the pale evoker's company, having caught wind of quail that stirred in the shadowed bosk. last he looked upon relymna her form was hunched towards the ground and she crunched snow between her slim jaws.

he returned some time later and tracked her pawprints, the fruits of his effort clutched in his jaws. a quail, bloodied and disheveled of feather -- he presented it silently to the brooding mother, nudging its limp form along the ground before he once more turned and left, this time without returning.

relmyna did not have time to take a step before she realized the reaper had gone, melted into the edges of the woodland while she had not looked. ears swept to and fro, listening for his tread; the evoker settled her haunches against the snow. he would not have left; abruptness was his lot, but his regard for her appeared stronger than such.
she moved into the cover of tree-boles, searching for some protected space to rest, so great was her burden. and in time, all that the woman had assumed came to pass; relmyna was roused from her doze by the familar sound of his footfalls, and watched him with an inscrutable expression as he brought to her a feathered body. 
the wraith was gone almost as soon as he had come; the evoker watched him quit her company with some foreign sensation astir in her breast.