Broken Antler Fen redmist

whenever! <3

she was still vibrantly curious about the crimson man who bore such melancholy.
a morning of hunting in the fen had muddied teya, and she felt refreshed after long days of internal struggle. in her jaws now, half a small trout, the other consumed for breakfast.
she sought @Reyes out, toes shifting beneath the hardening muck along her willowy legs. it was the way of brecheliant, however, and it had never deterred the fishingwolf.

The fen left Reyes pining for the caldera all the more; it was a damp place, made worse by the depth of summer. 

He avoided the deeper areas where the water sprawled like a shattered mirror; there was no way for him to tell how deep the pools were. Besides, his mind was elsewhere.

Between patrols Reyes could be found perusing the edge of the claim closest to the caldera - as if he could see clearly across the many miles separating the two packs. In reality he was imagining his children playing in the grass without him.

Teya's arrival was easily missed, all things considered, until the scent of fresh water drew him out of his thoughts, and Reyes caught sight of the lithe girl with a shining gift between her teeth.

reyes was distracted, perhaps consumed by thoughts of towhee. teya set down and nudged her offering toward him, sauntering beyond the scarlet wolf to settle peacefully at his other side. "brecheliant not home for you yet."
and would it ever be, with his children in the caldera? part of the raven wanted him to be reunited with him and even the woman who was his mate, but another saw fit to keep him here. another hunter to protect their own young, another redhawk to be disconnected from the name and built up.
"maybe you need distraction." her eyes were upon him now, casual, assessing.

Teya came to sit nearby and Reyes watched her move, then adjusted himself so he was a little further from her, out of habit. Making room for someone of greater importance than himself; he was only resting, he would get back to work once he had gathered himself.

Except she did not come to check his work by the sight of the fish, and the offering she made. He sighed as he accepted the meal, careful to gather it to himself, and began to pick at it when Teya spoke again. 

A distraction would be nice, he murmured between bites, licking his lips as the last of the fish vanished in to his mouth. Reyes worked at it with his molars for a few seconds before swallowing. There was a distracted air about him even now.

What do you have in mind?

what a question! teya grinned despite her want to remain controlled; it was a sly and saucy smirk, one that left its good humour in her coolwater eyes. "when i first see you by river, i tell myself, 'i want this man.'"
tonguetip bathed lips as she watched him eat, and then politely teya pulled her gaze away. "then i learn what happen. maybe reyes only need friend, for now." teya's tail thumped twice against the ground, and then she was standing again, consumed by a restlessness as she looked out across the fen. "i teach you to hunt here. or —" a pause to gauge him, "maybe you teach me something you know."

Had he been paying greater attention to Teya, he might've choked on his meal. He was stunned by her admission all the same and sat there, suddenly distracted from thoughts of the caldera and Towhee, by what she was implying.

Her tail's thumping earned a flick of an ear. She stood up and Reyes felt his pulse filling his throat and blocking his ears, unsure of what she was about to do. Teya— he started, but held his tongue when she spoke of hunting, and felt the air grow heavy at the extended implications.

O h .

You—that's, we, uh, he really had no idea what to say to that. Nobody had ever made such a statement about him before. Well, no, that was a lie; he remembered a particularly deep, rasping voice claiming the same, many miles away.

It was enough to turn his stomach.

You know I'm with Towhee. But in the way he said her name, Reyes wasn't sure he believed it.

teya had meant to let him off the proverbial hook, and had truly intended her words to be allusion toward exchange of skills, two hunters out and about in the fen. but the reaction reyes provided her with was sweet indeed. "i know she mother of your children," teya answered lightly, facing the redfurred eun liath over the short inches of distance left between them.
there was no resolution in reyes, when he had said it. teya met his eyes, seeing the allure of his hesitance. "why should you suffer here too?" 
but she stepped back, indicating that she would press no further and speak no more on its face. "i mean, i teach hunt otter. you — spar?" clarification sought and given, though teya would not lie and say that she would temper her reaction if the crimson man should suddenly find himself responsive.

He couldn't read Teya. A part of Reyes was lost in the confusing feelings he held for his wife, ex, whatever - and the newly introduced concept that Teya might be receptive to something between them. He had never considered anyone else for himself. Granted, Reyes had never been given a choice until he'd fallen for her - perhaps that was why he was so staunchly loyal.

The conversation moved on and Reyes was still reeling a bit. If Teya had meant it as a joke, he hadn't found it humorous. If she had been serious, he didn't know what to do with the new information - flummoxed.

Nice of her to offer a life-raft in that confusing moment.

Hunting -- I'd prefer hunting. He hastily, messily, acquiesced.

Better to focus on another target rather than the slim cut of Teya's body, or the off-putting thought of what Reyes might do to her. He thought immediately of two things: how aggressively he had hurt his son, and how passionately he had so often taken hold of his wife.

they went on, reyes locked into his own mind, teya warming to the hunt. she stopped to show him the small tracks, the print of slender toes with long slim claws, the webbing between the mark of the digits. otter; the musk that hung around the trail.
the young raven threw herself entire into the hunting, keeping a sharp wall of ferality between herself and conscious thought. only when she paused again, indicating where the otter-path joined many others; only when she stopped once and looked upon into his austere crimson expression; a handsome monk;
did teya falter, slanting reyes a look that bid him only say one thing more.
"they go into water," she covered, flicking her tail into the warm air. "fishing." slim muzzle lifted, indicating the flooded forest beyond. "tangled in there. but easier to grab them."
prowling forward before she could catch his eye and betray herself again.

When she directed his eye to the dirt, he saw the prints. They were familiar. He hadn't known what sort of creature created them, but they frequented the beachfront territories and Reyes knew they were edible things, whatever they were. Long, sinuous, rat-smelling things that were able to swim better than most fish.

Oh yeah, I... I know them. He says softly, soon looking to where she has indicated of the forest. Off she goes, moving swiftly and without so much as a depression upon the earth. He follows after her with less finesse and is happy to give her space to work, while he catches up.

Maybe he can chase the creature and when it goes in to the water, she can do the swimming; provided the water isn't too deep, that is. Reyes isn't so fond of the deeper areas with heavy currents, and isn't sure what to expect (from the hunt, or from Teya at this point).

she did not know what to do —
she felt eventually that reyes would leave, for his mind still held his family in his head at all times.
and this caused her a certain sort of shifting low and deeply, something unknown and uncomfortable. she thrust it hastily into mental safekeeping, and brought herself back to present.
teya stepped into the water and cut directly into the current, sunwarmed by the summer heat, and soon she was secreted and half-shadowed among the sunken trunks.
a pathway of land alternately solid and half-submerged, and her gaze fell to reyes, waiting.

When they reached the embankment it was Teya who made the plunge first. Reyes wasn't sure if he wanted to go so far, to feel the water against his skin or any of that. Being wet wasn't the issue - and he certainly could swim if necessary - but the smell of it, the way the light turned to disjointed silver shafts as it permeated the water, it wasn't a beautiful sight to him; it brought a bad memory to the forefront he would rather ignore.

Besides, Teya looked agile in the water. She knew how to cut through the current and then use the pulse to move quickly in to position, shadowed and lurking. Reyes looked around for further signs of the target and saw a wet sluice of mud where the creature must have belly-flopped; when he approached this to give a cursory sniff, something moved further ahead and there came the plop of water moving. Or - something racing for the water, at any rate.

Reyes looked up but could not see the dark shape of the otter as it moved so fluidly along, not until he caught a wavy column of brown near the surface; the creature's head was down and it was moving rapidly with the current, to where Teya waited.

teya lurked in the dark water, reptilian and focused. there was movement; she still saw the crimson shoulders of the man ahead, and shivered with the intensity of her infatuation. but it would not do to forget herself now. the little raven applied herself to watching the ripples shimmering around the otter's head.
and then she struck. water churned, splashing in all directions. but soon the morass reddened, and teya surfaced, panting, vibrant, with the weakly struggling animal clasped in her slender jaws.

When blood bubbled to the surface of the water, Reyes was immediately nervous. He did not like the look of it; there came a flash of memory from a dark and distant moment in his life, spoiling any good feeling he had upon the moment of Teya's success.

He paced along the water's edge. When she surfaced, otter between her teeth, he saw instead the imagery of another time:

A broad-shouldered man grinning ruefully from the shallows, teeth red. Rather than an otter's supine shape gripped tightly by the neck, it was the soggy body of an old man, face-down. The dripping of water from Teya's pelt became the tittering, fear-laden whimpers of a girl trying not to cry; then, the laughter of men closing in around her.

It was all so fast, so sharp in Reyes' mind that he almost shouted out - No! - as he had then, in defense of the girl. Reyes dropped to his haunches on the fen while Teya carried the prize from the water, its struggles only adding to the confusing scene unfolding in his mind. He stared blankly at the red blooming in the water.

when teya had wrestled the otter to the bank and looked toward reyes, he seemed as though he was no longer present. the gleam of his eyes was fixed on the water. the stain slowly dissipated, and she looked toward where it had been.
the otter was left behind, out of reach of the fen.
she came up gingerly, but did not touch him.
"maybe you need sleep, not hunting," was the raven's soft, hesitant suggestion.

When he turned to look at Teya he briefly saw feat where her concern dwelled. The lines of her face shifted between the girl from the past and the woman in the present; but when she spoke he heard only Teya, and was drawn out of the temporary dissociation.

She mentioned sleep.

Looking at her rather than the dissipation of blood in the fen's waterway, he gradually nodded. Yeah...

And with her guiding, otter forgotten, Reyes found his way to a solid path from which he would seek shelter.