Sleepy Fox Hollow Where I thought I knew it all before I knew what love was

There was no pack in Ankyra Sound and no pack at Swiftcurrent Creek, leaving Wylla afloat without a moor. She wasn't sure whether to feel aimless or relieved as she chose a direction—south—and wandered.

What would she have done if Grimnismal still stood? If Swiftcurrent Creek prevailed? Truth be told, Wylla wasn't sure what she'd been looking for when she went to the coast or to the river. It wasn't like she had any desire to return to either of those places. She wouldn't deny that it would've been good to see Lycaon again, or Constantine, or any number of wolves she'd once known and left behind.

She slipped through the mountains through passes and along towpaths, no destination in mind—what now, indeed—only to stop abruptly before she could descend into a sprawling meadow. The hair on her back riffled with uncertainty, and not only because she could smell wolves here.

They were not strange wolves.

Son of a—

@Mahler ofc

parched, chastised, downtrodden — mahler surveyed the remains of his dwindling kingdom.
not a kingdom. he was not a king, not a regent, not a ruler, only a man who was weary beneath the armor he had never truly wanted to wear.
unambitious and content to be so, mahler had donned it all the same out of duty and love for stigmata. he suspected his silver brother would have done the same for him.
but the gargoyle was exhausted, jaded, and still recovering. furthermore, his lover had moved unexpectedly close, and he surveyed the beckoning season as a way of great strife rather than meekly seeding the entirety of the teekon.
mahler meandered.
a scent struck him harshly; he stood fast, pondering it. it was a saltpepper fragrance drifting from feminine hackles oh — oh. 
the man's heart began to thud; he plodded muzzle down in that direction, scarcely breathing. and soon the vision began to fill his lavender gaze; he rapidly blinked and drew up with a sharp chuff. 
"but —" and that was all mahler managed before his jaw wired shut with the shock of seeing the one person who had plagued him in life as marigold had after death.

—BITCH, Wylla hollered into the cool mountain air, because the last thing she'd expected was to run into him again.

(Nyx's scent went unnoticed, possibly because Wylla hadn't spent much time with the woman or possibly because she'd simply dashed her from her memory. The only thing Nyx had ever done wrong was bang her brother, which was kind of low on the offence scale in the grand scheme of things. Mahler had borne the brunt of Wylla's unwarranted ire about what happened at Grimnismal, so he remained fresh at the front of her mind, second only to Caiaphas).

She remembered just how she'd treated him the last time she'd seen him. She'd felt so justified in the moment, but with time and maturity came clarity. Wylla knew she'd been unfair. She knew she'd been a jerk. She could blame her hormones or new mother crankiness for that, but in reality she'd simply needed somewhere to stick her knife and Mahler had presented his breast for the task. She couldn't lash out at Caiaphas without her life being forfeit; Mahler had been the next best thing, and even now she couldn't admit that it had been hurt that drove her actions.

No more than she could swallow her pride enough to apologize for it.

Her heart thumped unsteadily in her breast as she made to move on, not wanting to have to face him after how they'd parted and all that time in between, but—shit, she'd waited too long. She should've known. His scent was too heavily entwined for him to just be a fringe-dwelling wolf, he was someone important to this pack, though Wylla couldn't guess the extent of it. Seeing his face was strange after all this time. She was struck at once by how haggard he looked, how different from the man who once haunted Grimnismal's shore and swam with her in the icy sea. Different, even, from the man she'd scorned in the thick of a childish tantrum.

Those eyes remained the same, however, the frosted lilac that obscured every innermost thought. She wondered, absurdly, if she had changed or if she remained the same in his eyes. Wylla doubted he viewed her with much warmth these days; she doubted the intervening months had changed much between them on his end.

She realized that her dark ears were back against her crown and she looked away, deferring to Mahler according to the station he surely held. It wasn't like she was trying to find him; she would have thought him gone with the wind, just like Grimnismal. Just like Swiftcurrent Creek. Yet here he was, enduring as he had back then, and another thought struck her, but was gone just as quickly. She could not apologize for mistreating him, for her stubborn vanity choked the words from her breath, so she went with an even worse alternative: a weakly delivered, all this time and the first thing you notice is my butt, nice.

her outburst surprised mahler; startling his staid features. and the subsequent words reverberated upon his memories of her, how fire-tongued and fierce and yes, in the end, cruel.
he had never blamed her for how she had regarded him during their last meet, preferring instead to believe that he had satisfied some requirement in her eyes, given himself a darker role as he had abandoned grimnismal.
still a thrumming bolt of vital energy. wylla's size had always belied the massive strength of her presence; the gargoyle had learned quickly not to underestimate her
but where was tiercel? he corrected the thought quickly: her daughter would by now be duckling no longer. but as his stoneflower gaze attended wylla, he could see no signs of ageing. it was as if she had never departed.
"i did not think i vould see you again, vylla," mahler uttered after another moment had tripped beyond its bearings. her name; it was at once both familiar and foreign, shaped upon his tongue aloud this time.
the situation did not seem to invite small talk; he noted the fallback of her ears, the way her body spoke to his rank. ironic, then, that they should meet again in a situation where he was leader — he had never forgotten their first meet.
"you are near to diaspora now. i am its general." feeling swiftly as though he were bragging before her, flaunting his rank, mahler masked this with a slight curve upon his lips. 
from where did you come? will you stay? 
there was nothing more to say, not now. mahler despised the sensation of discomfort that ambled through his tall figure as he waited for wylla to respond, to mock him, to tell him why she had truly come to the very threshold of his existence once more.

The tables had definitely turned; not only was Mahler an important wolf here, he was the general. The pointed way in which he stated it was enough to infer it was some kind of leader. Wylla, too, remembered their first meeting. Her tongue had been quicker then, and she had had the advantage over him. She couldn't make such wise-ass remarks here lest he call the dogs down on her head. That was a real shame. Mocking him might've made her feel slightly less awkward and out of place, even if it made her guilt grow.

There was one thing she really could not resist, and that was his accent. Wylla, she corrected in a grumble, as she had in the past, and it did ease a little of the weight of the guilt she couldn't bring herself to atone for. This time it was more about ribbing him than actually caring; it was simply how he spoke and it was endearing in a you're-not-someone-I-really-wanted-to-see-ever-again-but-I-missed-that-dumb-thing-you-do sort of way.

Yeah, well, she started after he had spoken, clearing her throat and making an effort to stand straighter and be more herself and less this meek creature she felt she was in front of him. What was it about guilt that made you feel so tiny? You weren't supposed to see me again. Thought you said you wouldn't come near me or whatever. She was on the borders of his pack, wrestling with the knowledge she had done him wrong, but couldn't help that ever-present need to mask her negative emotions with sarcasm and sass. It's exactly what she'd done the last time, too, and that had ended oh so well.

A quick glance at the meadow and she pronounced, you could do better. Couldn't possibly compliment his claim, his title, or give any indication she felt remorse for how things had ended. Nope, not her. What happened to Swiftcurrent Creek? she asked suddenly, feigning interest in the last thing they had in common if only to avoid the temptation to pick a fight once more, to drown their shared discomfort in something worse.

had it been anyone but wylla plucking along the heartstrings of his largest shame, mahler would have been put out, roused to ire. but it was her, and not only was it her, he had not yet recovered from the surprise of the little woman’s sudden appearance along the hollow’s edge.
”the vilds have changed much since you vere avay,” mahler explained, accent growing thicker as his consternation exceeded the  bounds of its own propriety. ”ve lived in the mountains first, but then they became ... unsafe.”
why did you come back? his spirit fair leapt with the question, but mahler was controlled even beneath the flinty tones that wylla offered. unsure if she was pleased to see him. perhaps she was only surprised, would rather escape their awkward conversing for a clime more palatable.
swiftcurrent. mahler had all but forgotten about it, for kavik ruled now, and he had not seen fit to make an alliance with the new ruler. not while stigmata had lived.
”constantine let the numbers dvindle down due to some tension between himself and his vife. i could not respect it, so i left. they vere still existent the last i knew of them.” 
did wylla ask because she truly wanted to know? aware he had fallen silent, his lilac stare searching the woman for some logic that would explain her presence here, he too straightened.
”i said that. but i alvays vanted to see you again, vy — wylla,” mahler admitted, correcting himself at the last. ”i simply vanted also to respect you,” and here the gargoyle’s voice trailed off, for his ramble had begun and he could only make things more strenuous by continuing his nonsense.

She could sense the tension beneath Mahler's deep voice as surely as he could see it in the drawn lines of her face. All it would take was one spark for either of them to ignite, and who knew what would be left in the ashes. As always, she was tempted to find out; picking fights was easier than facing hurt feelings and it was what Wylla excelled at most in life, sad as that was. I don't care about your mountains, she might have said just to enrage him, to coax him into lashing out like she believed he wanted to, but she didn't.

Her mouth grew more dry the longer he spoke and she didn't know why. Shame, probably. This man had never done anything wrong to her and yet she had condemned him with ease, but any thought of apology stuck in her throat. It was childish; in spite of maturing some in her time away, mostly thanks to raising the hellion that was Tiercel, some things simply never changed. Swallowing her pride was still too difficult for her, even to release the both of them from this discomfort.

No, she didn't care too much about what happened to Swiftcurrent Creek. He had her there. It was just something to distract from the elephant in the room. That was why when he said he had wanted to see her despite respecting her ruthless rejection of his presence, dread spread through her, followed hotly by an ashamed sort of indignation. Why? she blurted, drawing her brows together into a familiar stubborn knot that he might recognize as commonplace from their time in Grimnismal.

her features gathered into something altogether familiar; he remembered how despite her size and age, wylla and her fire had always made him quail. today was no exception, though it was not fear that climbed the base of his spine, but longing.
all at once she had swung the point of the matter directly toward his chest; mahler felt a shocked chuckle burbling inappropriately, and clapped a halt to that particular cauldron with a desperate swiftness.
knowing he could not sidestep her inquiry, feeling the tug of instinct whisper he could not tell wylla, and the sting of his pride that she should spring for the jugular of the matter so soon, mahler was silent a long breadth of moments, lavender eyes softening despite himself.
”because —”
he struggled as was unbecoming, unlike himself, laying together the words for a sentence he could barely speak
”— i did not realize i loved you until you left grimnismal,” mahler mumbled tightly, lilac expression at last falling from wylla’s fierce countenance to the ground between their paws.

There was impatience in her eyes and the slight frown she wore as Mahler visibly struggled with himself. The flash of lost composure across his lips and the downward cast of his eyes should've clued her in that he was about to say something really heavy, but in spite of all the signs, his proclamation still crashed through her with the efficacy of a wrecking ball.

Now it was Wylla's turn to barely stifle a derisive snort of laughter, because surely he was joking. Only a lunatic would say something like that just like that. But a quick scan of his features said otherwise, and a cold wash of realization and shock followed the observation. He was serious. Wh— she whispered, working her jaws soundlessly in an effort to get something out but god damnit the words just wouldn't come. It was difficult to strike her speechless, what with her neverending bag of vitriolic comments she could dip into, but he had well and truly done it.

Her yellow eyes darted between his pair of lavender ones, searching desperately for the joke in all this, and it showed in her flabbergasted expression. Slack-jawed didn't begin to describe it. It wasn't what she'd expected, and she realized it wasn't what she wanted to hear, because hell, that made her guilt completely insurmountable. This idiot had decided he loved her and followed her to Swiftcurrent Creek when he found her again and she had thrown him in the gutter. No amount of unapologetic pride could erase the knowledge that Wylla was 100% World's Biggest Jackass. And could she have loved him, if she hadn't turned him away like she had?

Who knows. Wylla had never been loved by a man or had a chance to reciprocate; Raptor was, and remained, simply a hate fuck.

She felt like she was sipping air through a straw and it took a great deal of fortitude (and idiocy, because this wasn't the time or place) for her to muster enough of it to weakly call back to their very first meeting: so you did want to sleep with me. Addressing what he'd just said outright was ... well, terrifying, and she preferred not to.

he had lifted his eyes long enough to watch the gradient of emotions flicker over wylla’s face, and if the air had somehow slowed, watched humour flare into place and pause.
it was his own turn to be absolutely shocked, appalled; he took a step back with a flush racing along his chest and a leery curl of his ruff. ”frau!” he uttered, forgetting completely the language in which they had been conversing a mad moment. "das würde ich niemals sagen!”
only then did he see that she was joking, and deflated as though he had been felled, chagrin painting itself into every facet of his being. and only then did he admit to himself that she had been correct. 
while he had been appalled at her suggestion that was the extent of his feeling for her, wylla was not altogether untruthful in her jest. and that was what had spurred mahler so. he was not a lecherous beast, and had seen fit to defend himself.
but now he had come back, now he had seen how wrong he had been, and marveled again at the passion he felt at the sensation that she might have thought ill of his affections.
that was the sum of being a man. even with his stoic nature, slow to wrath, mahler had not escaped the touch of masculinity stamped in his blood.
he looked quite seriously at her a moment, tension dropping from the hard lines of his face and a grudging sheen of amusement to take its place. ”you have alvays teased right to the very edge of humiliation, vylla,” he said solemnly, keeping her name as he felt it he must keep it.
”perhaps that is vhat i liked first. somevone villing to challenge me vhen no one vould dare.” she had seen then beyond the fierce beast and his deterring guard, to the space mahler let few travel.
a glint to his lilac eyes; he was quiet, watching her, watching wylla and waiting for her to react, for he had come to know she was incandescently unpredictable. and to know it was a great part of why he had never forgotten the ferocious litttle she-wolf. 

There: the outrage Wylla was expecting seemed to flare up in the heart of Mahler, and its brief flicker gave her enough strength to not flinch away. Wylla could reason away guilt if the other party was themselves roused to anger. Anger was an emotion she understood far better than shame and hurt and whatever this undignified feeling rising in her chest was.

So she stood taller as he spat words in a language she did not understand, with a little of that old challenging edge in her eyes. She could not stand toe-to-toe with the General on matters of the heart, for Wylla fled from her feelings and buried them in more negative displays, but in outrage she felt she could match him blow for blow. She wasn't sure what to feel and was desperate for anything less confusing than his abrupt confession to contend with.

He deflated in the end and the rage she hoped to meet head on did not come, and she was left feeling bereft of an outlet for her confused emotions. She blinked at him, stony as ever, removed from the demure thing she'd been just a moment before—after all, she was a little flattered down beneath all the bewilderment—and then sucked in a deep breath.

How, she ground out, dare you! She didn't even notice that he'd messed her name up with his silly accent again; she nurtured the flame in her chest, willing it to roar into an inferno that would consume this whole damned moment in time. Now she puffed up a little, looking every bit as affronted as she felt; it was better than the crushing guilt she was trying to keep down, anyway.

You can't just ... you can't! she spluttered, lashing her tail and tearing away from him to pace restlessly. You can't just stand there like that and say shit like that and talk about what I'm like as if nothing happened! You can't just say stuff like that!

You have to mean what you say, she thought, because she couldn't believe he wasn't cruelly fucking with her. She wouldn't believe him. How many times had she teased him to the point of humiliation, as he said? He must be trying to get her back now. You're supposed to hate me! she hissed, whirling with that old heat that had once chased him from her company all those months ago. For what she'd done. For what she hadn't done. She rounded on him with hackles flared and eyes blazing with a sharp demand: So say it! Tell me how you hate me and never want to see me again!

again a spitfire, but this time the conflagration continued grow. ”vhen you left, you took  home vith you!” he snapped back, body mirroring the own thorny lines of her figure. the step he had relinquished was taken; mahler snaked into her presence and thrust close his muzzle.
”AND I, VYLLA, AM AFFRONTED,” mahler raged in a booming clap of thunder, ”THAT AFTER ALL THIS TIME, YOU VOULD DARE ACCUSE ME OF LYING!” 
never in all his born days had he shouted so, for anything; mahler had risen to the fullest reserves of his height and deliberately loomed over vylla with his proud charcoal ruff thrown abristle.
he did not raise his plume, however. by the law of wolves he could force her to submit here, so close to his land. but mahler did not wish this! he wished to be be burned, continually, and so he encouraged the jagged flame of wylla, and her spate of wrath, and found himself confused, rejected, enthralled, and aggrieved all at once.
embarrassed now, mahler refused to let this show; he justified all that he had done with another lingering growl of frustration. 
”have i not alvays been direct? vhen i say something, i mean the vords. and so, vylla,” he went on, scorned by her but drawn back all the same, the edge of his voice an unforgiving whiplash, ”you can be assured that vhen i say that i love you, i mean it. i can say vhatever i vant, and that is vhat i choose to say? okay?” he ended, indignant, breathless, and closer to her own face than he had meant to be, closer than was natural by those selfsame laws.

Vhen you left, you took home vith you!

Mahler couldn't know how keen the edge of the knife he'd just thrust at her was. His booming voice snapped her back to reality but it was mostly the former that made her falter from him, the sharp edges of her walls crumbling for just an instant. It was a dual-edged sword that he pressed to her throat in that moment, for not only did it spear to the very heart of her wrongdoing against him, but also to the very reason Wylla was here in the first place.

He pressed his face into her personal space and she yearned for nothing more than to strike him, but a faint tremble cut through her instead while her eyes filled with sudden, unwanted tears. I am lost without you, she thought, and it was her dark, wild daughter who crossed her mind then; Tiercel, too, had taken Wylla's home when she left to travel the world, and it was that sense of loss that drove her back to these accursed wilds.

He would not miss or mistake the sheen in her eyes, not that close, and the embarrassment of letting her guard down for just one moment stoked the flames in Wylla to critical mass. Her lips peeled back in a snarl as she asked, mocking, so, what now, you want me to marry you or something?! We barely even knew each other, so you don't know what you're talking about!

And maybe, just maybe, there was a part of her that was hopelessly romantic; maybe there was another part who believed she was unworthy of being loved by anyone, much less this man whom she had scorned time and time again, yet met her with an admirable amount of patience. She didn't feel the same way, though now that the door was open, perhaps there could be something there ... but not while Wylla continued to surround her heart with thorns.

She growled in his face and whirled some distance away, blinking furiously against the tears in her eyes and trying to hastily compose herself enough to return to sarcastic barbs and hateful words; he did not want Mahler piercing further into her psyche than he already had.

in response; tears welled in wylla’s fiery glare, and in the next her fangs were bared again. an angered feline, arched and stonewalled again his words.
a leap to make him burn first with chagrin, then with desire; wylla stalked away and he did not follow, demanding control of himself as he pondered the surprise of what she had shouted.
marriage was not something he had considered since marigold, and now the notion was hopelessly out of reach. the earth was not the only thing that had shifted during her absence.
the gargoyle stole closer on tentative steps; he stood downcast and hangdog, shamed beyond all reasoning by his behavior. the sharp hit of her shoulders turned him away; mahler regarded the earth with a low sorrow.
”i vould never seek to cage you, vylla. i do not even ask that you reciprocate my feeling.” his somber gaze traveled over her stiff frame, charcoal ears folding back at the sight of her soul growing veiled once more.
the general straightened thus, a tense bow marking the overwhelming grief stirring within his own heart. ”i spoke out of turn, vylla. i vill go now.”
a sharp about-face, a hardness thinning his lips against their sudden tremble, against the own salt drumbeats at the back of his eyes. ”i vill not seek you out again. you have had ... you have been spared ... any more of my unfit company.”
mahler began to stride away now, refusing to let sadness overtake him: his legs were heavy, muzzle threatening to drag back down to earth. tired, tired. and now the chapter, surely, must close for the both of them.

GOOD! she wanted to shout at him; more than anything she wanted to engulf him in hell's fires and leave him a charred mess. World War Wylla had come to claim him and he would learn what feeding that fire could do to him.

She could not, because on the flip side, she wanted—no, needed—someone to care, and he was withdrawing his. Small wonder. Wylla burned everyone who ever attempted to come near her save those of her bloodline. Her defence mechanisms were fierce and unyielding, and it took a special sort of strength to wade through the inferno encasing her to reach the lost soul inside. With Tiercel gone, she needed a friend more than anything. Upon first seeing him she had thought maybe if she could get past the guilt, they could be friends. His proclamation had changed that, built her guilt into a typhoon that would swallow her, and now he meant to leave.

This grand proclamation of love he'd made, but he would give up on her just like that. She would not admit that her attitude was to blame for that. Fuck you, Mahler, she choked at last, plastering her dark ears down and leering at the ground between her white paws. How can you claim to love me and then leave me here so easily? And why was it so fucking hard to just be honest and open instead of incendiary? Why could she not stop her tongue from insult long enough to say "can we be friends instead of whatever this is"?

he found he could scarcely take two steps before he had paused again, rooted. a goodly part of him wished to storm off in self-righteousness, but a larger portion of mahler would not let her disappear from his sight again.
how could he move off now? she rebuffed him and he advanced; it had been their eternal dance, and the shadowpriest was finding within him an inability to leave wylla behind a second time.
and so he turned back, omitting finally his bruised feelings from the equation of whatever this was between them. too far to hear what she had mumbled, the general closed the spare gap between them and stood confused and crestfallen a long moment.
"forgive me. i —" voice cut away as he searched for the next possible thing he might say.
"i am too proud to stand before you, vylla. you have made me question each time if i vas entitled to my pride."
"and i never am. not even now," he murmured in tones that sought to softly right his wrong. it seemed unbecoming to say more; he was silent, lingering at her side a greyscale ghost with lavender eyes that quested for her own features.

Maybe it was her shame come to bear against her at last. Maybe it was the surprise and relief that she wouldn't be left alone here with these heavy thoughts and uncertain feelings. Whatever it may be, Mahler's return saw Wylla slumping her shoulders forward in defeat. When she was younger, a more hot-headed yearling, her ire was indefatigable. She could rail for hours on end and find something to snipe at in every response she got. Time had tempered that, too; now her rage was spent and she was left with a complex cocktail of confusing emotions instead.

Who knew for how long.

Why? she asked, muttering into her chest but hoping she would hear all the same. If he was not entitled to his pride then what made her feel like she was so entitled to hers? He was breaking through, though, whittling away the molten stonework she'd placed up against all intruders, if only because he had claimed to love her and she did not know how to process it on top of everything else she felt when it came to Mahler and her continued poor treatment of him. She couldn't turn her head to look at him; her eyes were still wet with unexpected tears from his unwitting reminder of Tiercel, and hot with shame besides. Why are you telling me this now? Why not—

When it mattered?

"because i must. because i am selfish. because i have held it for so long." any of those reasons, any more besides. mahler dropped finally to his haunches, unwilling and unable to tower longer.
"you disappeared from grimnismal. vhen i found you in sviftcurrent, you turned me avay. that is all right," he hastened to assure her. "perhaps i should not have followed but." tones trailed off helplessly.
a long silence followed, in which winter's breath burnt through this thick coat; he exhaled his breath in an long plume.
"because i did not realize it until you vhere gone for good." to speak to her now, he could hardly believe it; to be near; to have her scent in the frigid air — it was not something mahler had ever expected.

Much as she wanted to say something snippy in response, Wylla could understand Mahler's reasons. His initial ones, at least. It wasn't so different from why she searched for Tiercel now, stopping off in these wilds to chase nostalgia—hopeful that maybe her daughter had returned from whence she came to relive those days, too.

He did not know until it was too late to say it. If he had, where would he be now? Where would she be? Her daughter? That knowledge had had the potential to change everything, but hindsight was always 20/20, and now knowing he'd followed her out of an unrequited love, and that she'd spurned him in spite of his respect for her—the only wolf at the time who truly had respected her—was painful to swallow when the shock had worn off.

I was ... so angry, she mumbled, finally tilting her head to peer at him through one guarded yellow eye. She took the opportunity to sit as well, sagging under the smoldering remains of her outrage and shock. She threatened my life and none respected my authority there, not even my own sibling. I assumed when the pack remained that all had chosen her.

Who could blame them? It was unbelievable that anyone could respect Wylla. She'd been arrogant and combative and expected respect for having a fancy title rather than any merits she had, and little of that had changed. She thought she'd done everything for Grimnismal, and believed their disrespect was unwarranted and wrong. She'd pinned the blame on the only wolf foolish enough to come for her after the fact, needing somewhere to channel her pain.

She still believed all that, but wasn't as fervently furious. Grimnismal would have been too hard a land for her daughter and she knew it was for the best they'd left before Caiaphas could get her claws in Tiercel like she had Lycaon when they were born and before her daughter's life was the one threatened.

I didn't believe you, she admitted, swishing her tail uncomfortably. I thought you came to shame me more in favour of her. After my brother died, I couldn't handle more pain. I turned it on you.

It took more effort and strength than anything she'd ever done, but eventually she peeled her tongue from the roof of her mouth and said, almost inaudibly for the hot lance of humiliation it caused her, I'm ... sorry.

the tension leeched out of wylla; she too found a physical respite near him. mahler relaxed then — if she wished to strike, she could have done it at any time — and cupped his ears forward to listen.
in those few sentences she bared more than she had ever before, and he found himself wanting. in a few uttered syllables the woman had entrusted to him not only a hardship, but the sum of it.
so much she had suffered, the gargoyle knew. and still she found the strength now to persevere in spite of herself, to push forward through the thorns set at her own gate and whisper the low ghost of an apology to mahler.
he was pensive a long moment, for he saw that it surely had cost wylla a great deal to speak so plainly. she did not exist in a world of basic directness; hers was one of anger, and so she had brought his out as well.
was it possible, now, for them to put aside their resentment and enmity and exist as simply as those of their kind might live? the man’s heart ached with the want of it. to see her depart again would be agony, but to know they had resolved this between them would soothe the harshness. 
”i do not blame you. i vas sad and angry vhen you seemed to disappear from the vilds, but i understood vhy you left. at least a little.” a pause. ”i am sorry for your brother. i must have reminded you of many things.”
”i alvays hated her, vylla. i hated her family, her children. after you left i lived upon the edge of the pack. and then a bear came, and scattered us, and i did not stop for anything that followed.”
he wondered now if he might reach to her, but dared not; he trained himself into silence and regarded the sprawl of the hollow’s borders, returning his stony lilac stare to wylla presently.

Sometimes when she was alone and mired in her darker thoughts, Wylla wondered if fighting for Grimnismal would have changed anything. If she hadn't given it over to the sea witch so easily, maybe it would still stand. From the sounds of it, that was unlikely; and anyway, at the time she'd only wanted to end the wretched conversation. Remove from herself the responsibility of trying to be the head of a pack where two vile old wolves thought they could do whatever they pleased. Take it back some other time, perhaps, when she managed to slay one of their babes and show them how serious she was.

It had been Lycaon and Nyx, in the end, who drove her to leave outright.

Well, you should blame me, she said, indignant as always, this time at having her apology brushed off. Mahler had every right to be sad and angry that she left without informing him, since he was the only one besides Ingram who'd really treated her like the leader she fancied she was. He had every right to hate her and she was still waiting for the other shoe to drop; no one could be this forgiving and be real. Some part of him surely held it against her and it was only a matter of time, she thought, before it would come out, regardless how he thought he felt about it. So she didn't want her apology brushed aside or the blame taken from her shoulders; being blamed was the only thing that might appease the roiling of her selfish guilty conscience. I deserve it. My leaving was a necessity but I shouldn't have turned my anger over it on you. I didn't know.

Now she did snort a solemn laugh into the air, mirthless and unsure. Revealing this and prying an apology from her lips hadn't made her any less ashamed or any less uncomfortable. What now? she asked, tilting back her head to breathe a brief plume into the cold mountain air.

to blame was to hold a grudge, and mahler could no easier do that with wylla than he could mistreat one of his own. she had paid a heavy penance for the sin she thought she had committed against him; he saw no purpose in dredging up the wilt of yesteryear.
”your only wrongdoing vas that i could not forget you,” and here the gargoyle’s eyes glinted with a briefly amused light, own perhaps altogether inappropriate for the moment. it shone a heartbeat before he pulled it into obscurity, pondering the question posed by wylla.
”i forgave you. i forgive you now,” he went on, grasping time before he answered such a weighted thing. if the she-wolf could only exonerate herself, maybe there would be some relief for the pair.
it was the same that takiyok had spoken — was this how the winterwhite felt? suspended between the waking world and one of love? — and for once he had no answer.
takiyok brought to mine beautiful, fey andraste, brought to mind bold lovely nyx and careful ketzia, bemused sarah, fierce queen hydra. another face looming; he would not name her in his heart yet, but lastly ruenna.
she had been the first to restore some portion of his affections after wylla, but she had gone off indefinitely. and now the sharp woman who had begun all his longing sat with mahler now, and asked after their stolen future.
”i suppose that depends 
 on vhat you vish to happen,” he murmured slowly, ponderously.

What she wished to happen? When had Wylla ever known what she wanted? She could think back to dozens, nay, hundreds of instances where she thought she knew what she wanted only for the opposite to be more alluring. She wanted to erase Mahler's feelings from her mind, and at the same time, intrigue was already working its talons into her. To what lengths would she go to determine if he meant it for real, and to what lengths would he to prove it? It wasn't incorrect to say the promise of affection and attention alone was alluring to Wylla, regardless of never feeling that way about Mahler herself.

That was all assuming he even wanted to prove it, and she took for granted that he must. She could think of no reason for him to open that door otherwise; he could easily have lied and said anything else, but he chose to confess. She was also arrogant enough to know she was pretty awesome, so in spite of her doubt and shame and confusion, she took for granted that loving her then meant he still did now. And now that it was out in the open, she couldn't help dwelling on it, but it wasn't like she could (or would) outright say she was interested in seeing what came of it. How far would he pursue her now that she knew, and would she let him catch her if he did, or were his feelings destined to remain unrequited?

She'd sat still for too long, waited too long to respond. She shook her head wryly and shared, I came in search of my daughter. She is a wayfarer like her damned father before her, and with her went my home. So she supposed she knew how he felt, and was equally flattered and terrified to know he'd once considered her, alone, some sort of hearth for himself. I am lost without her, which wasn't something she would ever tell Tiercel herself, but for this one day she would allow Mahler these glimpses into her heart. Come the morrow she might be back to her usual guarded, thorny self, after all.

I hoped to find her at the coast or in the forest by the creek, but naturally, she was not there. So I search in hopes of seeing her again, making sure she's well, pain in my ass that she is. In the meantime ... Trailing off, Wylla stood and turned to face him, doing her best to keep all of the conflict and turmoil she felt on the inside from touching her fierce features. I don't know what I wish for. This was all unexpected and ... unwanted, but it wasn't strictly true now that the initial shock was gone. It made her egotistical. She wished many things at once, now, summed up with just a helpless shrug: To know you better, to take it all back, to know myself, to return to old days, to redo everything, to search far and wide for my child, to rest my weary paws somewhere that truly feels like home, if that even exists.

there was indeed a change in wylla: her spirit had aged. it was not a matter of appearance, for to his eye she remained the same brash huntress that had accepted him into the sea-pack so long ago.
tiercel. duckling. the only child mahler had ever wished was truly his in all ways. he had visited when wylla avoided him, spending long swathes of time with the daughter of the wolf who seemed to consider him an enemy.
but wylla had never forbidden it; mahler visited up until the day that he woke to find them both gone.
and now she had returned for the half-grown duckling who had run away from home, who had stolen that of her mother in the process. tiercel, prodigal dove. and mahler with his selfish declarations of love! how could he have been so arrogant?
”she vill return to you. you are far too undeniable for her to stay avay.” i wanted her to be mine, came the thought again, spurring shame into an ember of wakefulness within mahler. 
but she glowed before him; she had been transformed. he had not thought he would see her again, let alone from her lips hear the pain and emptiness of childless arms. 
no small wonder that wylla too was at a loss for where they might go from here. softly he looked upon her, admiring again the fact that he was able to do so, that she was bodily before him, before shaking himself from the reverie and blinking.
”vould you like to stay here for the night? not vith me,” mahler rushed to say, flushing beneath his dark fur. ”but you have traveled much and i vould ... i vant .. umm,” she made of him a little fool, stammering; mahler chuckled mirthlessly and glanced upon the earth.

Wylla wished she could be so sure. You don't know her, she protested, although she'd known Mahler visited with Tiercel when she was very little. She would never know that Mahler was the reason her daughter favoured purple flowers and had spoken with them specifically when she was young enough to still personify the world around her, though. Never red or yellow flowers; only purple. Her attitude bears a striking resemblance to a tornado and she has a stubborn streak ten miles wide.

Big words coming from her; it wasn't hard to imagine where Tiercel got all that from.

Mahler, of course, chose precisely that moment to strike Wylla dumb with his bald audacity once more. She blinked slowly, tensing a little at his forwardness and struggling again to keep shock from her features. He was very quick to tack on that he only meant to offer his land for her to sleep on and she unwound just a little. A safe place for the night was always welcome, and of course even forthcoming Mahler surely was not that brazen.

But Wylla was ever looking for the next weak point in others, and her scrutinous gaze narrowed. Do you still creep into others' sleeping quarters? she drawled, once again taking a jab at his presentation at her borders so long ago, when she mistook his offer of his strength to her pack as some sort of proposition. Then he tripped over his words and Wylla outright scowled, flicking her tail pensively back and forth. Clever though she was with piss and vinegar commentary, she hated guessing at what others meant when they trailed off like that.

Want what? was her impatient demand.