Little Goat Mountain bewusstsein

Stupid Wylla. She should've caught that. If she engaged her ego then it was pretty obvious what he meant by it, but for once her ego had fled to somewhere deep inside her, cowed by the knowledge that he was far more experienced than her and feeling once more the dynamic shifting. She hated to feel like she was losing. Hated the feeling of being at a disadvantage, and yet in the intervening months, Mahler had surpassed her and now she was the one who felt inadequate to him. In light of that, her ego took a backseat.

He admitted it baldly and her stomach flip-flopped somewhere between flattery and dread. She could not even name the feeling if she tried. On the one hand she was tickled that his admission was real, that she inspired in him such feelings—being admired and wanted was an intoxicating thing, especially for an arrogant wolf like Wylla. On the other hand, she dreaded what it would do to him if he waited on her and nothing ever arose ... or if something did arise and she didn't know what to do with it. She dreaded what he might expect of her in his heart of hearts, and the disappointment it would cause if she could not give what he wished, and she feared what might happen if she wound up reciprocating and he chose another, because she truly didn't know what would come.

Thank god he changed the subject before she said something stupid just to fill the emptiness, because she was on the cusp of it. Oh, ummm, she stammered, glaring at the bone between her teeth as she inelegantly stumbled through her words. Hadn't thought of it. Getting through winter was her priority at the moment, that and locating her wayward daughter. Beyond that, she never knew what came next. Eat everything in sight, probably. Why, do you have any plans?

bittersweet to know that wylla had returned at the very moment mahler decided he must move forward, with his life, with the idea of children, with lovers for whom his heart could and would not sing.
but the shadowpriest was nothing if not determined; he would not be called a liar, or one who would renege upon plans laid after he has given up hope of seeing wylla again.
frustrating, quiet, to know she did not reciprocate. mahler did not feel entitled to wylla's romantic regard, but to know that even if he had been freed of constraints, there was no bridge forward —
fierce, the desire in his breast to kiss her, to trace finally the edge of her finely formed face, to know she existed alongside him now even as they moved dutifully toward more vacuous things.
mahler spun, tormented.
"preparing diaspora for vhatever comes next, be it a decision to follow the herds, or settle to bring about new life." interminable, the cycle — and all he wished was to stave it off for a while longer, each moment spent with wylla a desperate eternity.

It was time to head back. Wylla followed Mahler as he turned from the caves, pausing to readjust the bone in her mouth. She didn't know how many juveniles Diaspora housed, but surely they could find some use for the thing. If not them, then she would happily chew on it herself if no one else wanted it.

She was surprised to feel a surge of something without a name in her chest at the mention of life going on. Of course it went on. It went on even if you gave your all to stop it, and it went on in spite of your best efforts sometimes. Just because she had returned to the wilds and reunited with him and he had shared his feelings did not mean everything they had planned for themselves was thrown away. She would continue to search for Tiercel despite him, and he ... he would continue with his plan to seed the wilds despite her and the faintest possibility of progress, not that she was aware.

You'll have children in the spring? she wondered, perturbed that this should seem so unusual. With whom? He had no mate, so maybe he meant only to find someone when the season was on them. For her part, Wylla planned to hide in a hole in the ground until it passed.

misery crept over mahler like a veil; he kept it from his features and bid himself spend this last breadth of time with wylla before they parted ways to become general and soldier once more.
"i vent on a long journey last season to avoid children," he murmured vaguely, harshly attempting to tether himself even as the emptiness began to lap at the edges of his spirit, clouding him with a subtle resentment of how the situation had played itself.
"this year, i find myself in demand. my co-leader, diaspora's kapitän, has suggested ve raise a litter together."
a sudden snowfall, soft sideways flowing that nestled feathered flakes among his charcoal withers. "the leader of the nearby pack, courtfall," so very convoluted, "it vould be an alliance." a disservice to aurëwen not to mention what it was between them, but he had no word for it, and it would not benefit wylla to know.
"as for diaspora, i vant any children born here to be mine. the last time i allowed fathers to raise their own young, they abandoned us wholesale. it vill not happen again."
aware he had grown brusque, mahler searched for some way to relieve the tension, proffering a smile that flirted briefly with his eyes. "politics, ja?"

As Mahler revealed his plan, Wylla found herself growing cooler, more distant. He named one mother, then another, and finished with the claim that none in his pack would rear a litter that was not his. While all of this made sense and didn't really affect her, she couldn't help the breath of judgment that crawled up her throat: selfish, selfish, selfish!

Sure, she responded to his final statement. She disagreed; spreading oneself too thin was a good way to honour the terms of no alliance, and her suspicious mind went automatically to the what-ifs of such arrangements. What if the children he fathered on this Courtfall were taken from him and raised with no knowledge of him, as Caiaphas had once taken her pale brother? She could see only bad in it.

Her judgment was helped by how this all flew very much in the face of his confession, causing her to wonder, again, why he'd even said anything at all. She had no right to feel bothered by his plans, but she did all the same. Except, she mused, how can you possibly hope to be a good, attentive father to more than one litter? One is troublesome enough. You are a selfish man, Mahler!

in her voice was sarah's judgement, sarah's doubt that he could do correctly by the children he sought to father. and there was the barb of wylla's own tongue, the sting of her showing suddenly in his meticulously planned life to criticize how he would go about it long after she had left diaspora to run after tiercel.
the verdict passed was damning; mahler fell silent a long moment, trudging through the gathering snow with lavender eyes focused ahead.
"when stigmata died, he left behind seven scarcely grown children that i raised in his stead as i vas able. before that, i became midvife to diaspora, and i vhelped one of his own litters. i vas called avay to attend another birth, and then another."
jaw tensed somewhat despite himself. "i tended their mothers through the pregnancies, and even when those children left diaspora, i traveled to see that they vere safe. and they vere not mine."
another brief spate of silence as mahler grappled with what he assumed to be wylla's insinuation, when all the while it compounded his fear that he was making the wrong choice.
"it is easier, vylla," he ground quietly, "to enter into loveless contractual agreements than it ever vas letting myself consider being romantic. at least in this vay, somevone is satisfied vith their lot." bitterness to tinge the snowy air now: mahler settled himself into impassivity.

It wasn't her place. It wasn't her place! But ever had Wylla been a judgmental woman and quick to give her opinion, and she felt the wrongness of Mahler's plans on many levels all at once. The logical, the political and yes, the emotional—a quick and brief flash of indignation that he could be so selfish after daring to say things like no one has distracted me from you to her! What a hypocrite she was to scour his face with her yellow gaze as they walked, finding only fault in his decisions.

Easier for you, maybe, she snorted around the bone. Not easier for the kids. I had one child to raise and she was such a handful I fear she would have wanted for my attention if there had been more. Her father was mostly absent and I think she feels it. I felt my father's absence in my life. The former comment spoke not to Mahler's capabilities, but Wylla's lack thereof, but she had never been great at seeing her own flaws. Sometimes they were obvious, but usually, they weren't. The latter was a simple truth she believed in. Loveless contracts are convenient but you would do better having a single litter and making them proud to call you their father than having many whose children resent your inability to be a constant in their lives. There are other ways to make alliances.

Doing it with kids sounds selfish to me, she tacked on, almost welcoming the rebuttal she was certain would come. They'd had a nice time exploring the caves and she'd had fun playing twenty-one questions until it turned around and slashed the jugular of her ego, but as it always was with them, things were destined to flare sooner or later, and she was speaking on a subject she had no right to comment on.

wylla, love of his heart, scoured mahler so cleanly that his countenance was forced to close. as he had with andraste upon the cold and rocky earth, mahler retreated into himself as wylla assailed him with her unwarranted and unsolicited criticisms.
she had come to diaspora, shouted at him, teased him to the very marrow, and now she sought to tear down the flimsy justifications he had made for his ambitious planning.
the element of emotion had been removed from mahler's blueprints: he was able to think in terms of pure logic, and found himself aggravated as wylla placed back into his architecture the piece that had been deliberately missing.
she dared many things, and now the she-wolf dared to spoil for yet another confrontation, all the while rejecting the admission he had made and twisting her opinion of him.
and so mahler moved alongside wylla but grew distant, removed himself to a far-off place and let his features move into a torpid and aloof expression.
sequestered thus, he was free to remain without commentary upon her judgement of him, and when they had traveled far enough from the goat-peak to see the fringes of the hollow spreading sharply in the distance, mahler paused in his tracks and offered wylla a blank dip of his muzzle.
enough outbursts had been made today, and he was relieved to keep himself from another.
"it vas a pleasant outing, vylla," mahler offered in the sanitized, cordial tone he might suggest to an acquaintance. "i vill see you another time."
the general turned sharply then, heading off in an assured gait toward the communal lodging, and only when he was several paces away from wylla did a flicker of abject hurt flare to life in his lilac eyes.

She'd thought he would rise to the occasion of her judgment and scorch her with his authority and justification, them having been quite open with one another this day, but instead Mahler closed himself off. He said nothing else, leaving the silence to stretch long and uncomfortable between them. By the time his voice broke between them, Wylla's eyes were fixed in the distance, her lips tightened around the bone in her jaws. She'd only said what was in her heart regarding his choice—a choice that, if he was her father, she'd have resented him for. To say nothing of his chosen mates ...!

Her harsh criticism had nothing to do with how oddly slighted she felt, or at least that's what she told herself.

Mahler spoke clinically, without the warmth of friendship that had touched some of their exchange, and she blinked in response but said nothing. She'd gone too far. A chill washed through her to know it. He didn't stick around to say anything more and she wisely kept her mouth sealed from further commentary. Like the general he was, he marched off without another word and she watched him go, frozen in place until his dark form disappeared into the distant trees. Once he was well and truly gone, Wylla turned and went in another direction, bemused and ashamed of herself.