Shadow Mountain beyond the point of no return

set a few days after diaspora arrival -- no rush, love <3

I have to show you something, she told @Titmouse, and then away she went.

He hopefully would follow. Her paws were leaden as she began the trek up the mountain. Having been taken here unconscious, she did not know the exact location of her torment (nor did she really want to). No, it was enough to be upon the crag, to know that her youthful blood had once spattered these rocks.

Where the Void had opened up before her— or was it? She no longer followed the daedra, so the Void should be null and. . .well, you know. And yet, some emptiness had yawned as she swayed, blind with pain.

The evil that had taken place here was beyond explanation.

Mou was important to her, though, and so he must make the pilgrimage with her. No one would fully understand Maegi until they stood with her upon the slope of Shadow Mountain as she relived the moments that still plagued her nightmares. To watch her face, blank and agonized altogether.

She glanced over at him as she hobbled along, her own inexplicable fear sharp and odorous between them.

He had been on-edge ever since their arrival here, so when Maegi asked him to go somewhere with her, he obliged. More than that, he was happy to get away from the foreign smells and strange bodies; and she was leading him along the mountain range towards an area that didn't smell so strongly like Diaspora, immediately easing some of his nerves. He carried himself with a loftier air the further they got from the pack's claim; while Titmouse didn't have any issue with the people or the pack deep down, he disliked change and couldn't help but be cautious. Life had a way of blowing up around him if he wasn't careful.

Along the way Titmouse kept turning to observe the surroundings. Everything here looked the same; the mountainous terrain was heavily forested or balding and mottled in grey, even with the snow that fell around them. Moss clung to every surface and was frozen like a red carpet, dead and withered, crunching underfoot. While the young man knew some of Maegi's history he didn't know everything and his mind was elsewhere—so he did not see the connection of this mountainside to his beloved, although truthfully he didn't try to make any connections.

When he'd glimpse her face, he'd see it: pain, or rather, some kind of acute agony which lingered in the eyes. As she glanced back to him he tried to smile to her, but after the recent loss of their home... It didn't look or feel legitimate. He tried to close the distance and comfort her with a touch of his snout, but she was already moving again—reeking of fear, of all things. What was going on?

She returned his smile with one of her own, just as forced and wooden as the one she'd received. They were both faking happiness, it seemed; content in each other's presence, but the joy was gone. How could one feel good upon leaving home behind?

Maegi continued up the mountain, and then came to a stop at a clearing, a sheer face of rock rising up on one side. The exposed stone was cool beneath her paws, and the air was thinner—could it be. . .?

She had no way of knowing. There could be dozens such places like this here. But it resembled her prison, enough that her fear grew, gripping her bones like winter cold.

This is where I was taken as a child, Maegi said hollowly, looking at the sharp incline. She turned her ruined cheek to Mou, the exposed teeth glistening. Savage, ugly. This is where Skullchaser tore my face. This is the place I see in all of my nightmares.

No tears, no sadness. No anger or hatred. Just terror, a primal urge to flee. A sickening sensation of tumbling backward into the past.

This is where I was taken as a child... Outlined his beloved, her voice seemingly coming from nowhere; it didn't sound like her at all, and that was one of the main reasons his ears twisted at the sound of it. It was empty, almost as if it existed as a separate entity from the woman who utilized it. Fear was not commonplace for Maegi as far as Titmouse could discern, or remember. She was always very self-assured in her faith but since the ruination of their home and the dissolution of the pack something had changed—this he could understand because he felt that sense of loss and absence clearly. This is the place I see in all of my nightmares. She said, no longer looking down the ledge but shifting to stare at him, exposing the torn flesh of her cheek and exposed fangs.

He moved slowly to her. Raised his nose to press against her good cheek so softly, then the other. He wanted to take that fear away from her so badly but there was nothing he could do—nothing except be present and comfort her as best he could. If only he could perform some ritual to banish her traumas—but what would that do? If such a magic existed, would it not change her on a fundamental level? He sighs against her, licks her chin, draws back—an inch or two of space if she needs it—and looks around at the darkness, the void that lingers out of reach down the mountainside.

His touch was more of a comfort than she could ever convey. When he pulled away, it was as if someone had peeled off her pelt and left her naked to the winter wind. She pushed back into him, gently but insistently, lining herself up with his lanky frame and burying her face in the curve of his scarred neck.

He was broken, too. They both were—but alive, somehow. Alive enough that she could stand here in the shadow of her near-demise and tell the tale.

Maegi felt a warmth in her stomach, not unlike what she had felt when the daedra (pah!) had urged her to bear children. But this was less flash-fire, more like a hearth. More genuine. She recognized it for some kind of deep love, and why wouldn't she feel so for Mou? He'd left several times, but always returned.

Death or betrayal. He defied the binary.

She pressed a gentle kiss against his cheek, nose tracing the curve of his jaw. Felt the pulse there—and rejoiced! for he was alive, and he was hers.

They no longer had a home and the reality of that would slowly creep in, but for now Mou took comfort in the connection between them - they had survived, they had one-another and even without the dark woods, that connection kept them strong. When she folded against him he stood stalwart, then sickled his body around her, covetous of that physicality and that connection. He was here; he needed her to know that, to trust he would never leave no matter what.

That Maegi would bring him here, to this terrible place, back to this memory where she had been so brutalized, showed she trusted him. Their relationship had spanned the wilds; their love strengthened by each hardship shared, and she now shared this deep and dark aspect of herself. He sighed against her. He kissed at her cheek, her throat, and then stagnated with his head aligned against her, listening to the thrumming of her heart.

He could not speak, but, Mou tried to move his lips and convey to her: I love you.

She sighed softly at his touch, lifting her chin and baring her throat to him. He could kill her here and now, if he wished. But she knew he didn't. She trusted him with almost everything she had, and upon feeling the rhythm of those three words on his lips, catching the movements out of the corner of her eye. . .

I love you, Maegi whispered, and felt herself give up whatever wariness she still harbored for the broken man.

Now it was complete. Now they were complete.

We can make a home in the mountains, she went on, voice barely audible, muffled in his fur. It doesn't have to be Blackfeather, or the island. It never did. It can be anywhere we want, as long as we're together. She'd trade away a thousand Blackfeather Woods to forever hold onto this sense of security.

This place wasn't home to him yet, but by the sounds of it Maegi thought they could thrive here. He could trust in that. They did not need the woods, they did not even need the island where Undersea once housed them; they had one-another and that was enough, it always would be.

He felt the warmth of her body as they pressed together and moved to pull her closer, draping his chin over her shoulder - then her neck as he adjusted - and even that little movement made something flare within him. Mou felt it in the pit of his belly and it burned lower as the moment progressed. Thinking of them together forever had sparked something.

Mou didn't stay there long, though. It wasn't an entirely pleasant feeling. It made him think of the day when Maegi had begged for him before she bore her children - her worms. Had he ruined the moment with his spastic reaction? Maybe. Something dark swam in his gaze as he looked upon her, feeling the need in his body growing - and his heart began to race.

Upon feeling his chin upon her neck, she, too, began to feel something inscrutable—something she'd sensed before, though she couldn't pick out why. Perhaps she'd suppressed the day she'd seduced Mou on the daedra's orders; perhaps it was a source of shame.

But this wasn't.

She made a sound in her throat that was almost a purr, though it grew into a sigh as he pulled away. Do you feel it, too? Maegi asked, searching through the muddled emotions in his remaining eye. The lines of his face. She reached out, tentatively touching the scar upon his neck with the tip of her nose.

Do you feel it too..?

Yes, he thought. He felt something — and then she was moving in to touch at his throat, that rough scar that had long-ago healed, and he couldn't help but recoil. It didn't matter who neared his throat (friend, foe, lover..); the sensation of a tiny breath passing across the scar tissue there, so close to what was a near death, made him nervous and extinguished the embers inside of him.

Mou knew not to be afraid of Maegi. He trusted her wholly, he loved her so deeply, but the reaction was without focus - he had no control over his body as he drew away from her in that instance, and looked upon her apologetically after, fidgeting as he reclined to his haunches afterwards.

As he flinched, she did, too, pulling back to stare in alarm at him. I—sorry, she murmured, staring at his scar. She supposed she hadn't thought about him being sensitive about it after all this time; it had existed since before she'd known him. As had her scar.

Unless this was about something else—

Maegi looked at him querulously, approaching with slow, gentle steps. I'm sorry, she repeated, and sat next to him, at just enough distance that he might feel comfortable. She looked straight ahead, and then glanced at him, the ghost of a smile upon her lips. Thank you for coming here with me. It seems. . .much less scary, now that I'm not alone.

No matter what kind of awkwardness would bloom between the two of them today, it paled in comparison to the horrors she had once faced on this mountain.

He felt bad for pulling away. Once they were both settled again, he reached out and nibbled lightly at the base of her ear, and then watched her. The pause before her words made him nervous - not that he anticipated any backlash, but the quiet felt wrong. She thanked him; he smiled back, nodding, wishing he could do more than just sit silently beside her... but Mou had become accustomed to his silence, not understanding that with time came healing.

Maegi was on her way - she had faced the memory of this place, and he was here for her. If he could find a way to face his own demons he might try, but Mou knew his were more dangerous; he would never put Maegi at risk for his own sake. He could be present for her though. With this in mind he nosed at her cheek and pressed against her side with care, letting their warmth unite.