Noctisardor Bypass teil vier

after quitting sequoia's company, and moping about in slug-bound dawnleaf for a time, mahler set out to find the silvered target of his love. no matter how foolish he had been in regards to her, now was not the moment for his weakness. 
the colors here were autumnal despite the summer, a wave of gold and apricot. mahler felt as though in this part of the gilded wood he should certainly be so happy. but he was not. he had found her scent. it traveled beyond the forest, toward the water.
the sun descended slowly as mahler stalled the trek toward where he thought her to be. the cool of the mud around the rivulet soothed him, and he followed its trajectory to the impossibly massive tree which reached farther than his eye. there the graf lingered, choosing to pause here and practice what he might say to wylla.
eventually the grassland around the giant slid into reeds and shoals, of fresh wet earth and the trilling of insects. waterfowl squawked and crooned upon the sun-smooth surface of the water. 
and upon a tapered stone, the sterling withers of @Wylla, followed by her strong back and curved hips. her attention was intent upon the feathered creatures.
mahler's breath and resolve left him. he only stopped to watch her in admiration.

Three females and one male in eclipse. To Wylla's untrained eye, all four mallards were indistinguishable, banded brown things with a stark blue band on their wings, but the male's bill was different than his partners. A more learned hunter would spot the difference, but Wylla did not. To her, they were all food. Who really cares what kind of duck it is, so long as it says "quack"?

The two largest females were the marks she had her eye on. It would take hours to collect both of them — if she managed to secure one with the first leap, the others would take flight and she would have to track them down again to attempt the second. That was okay, though. She'd given herself the entire afternoon to get this done.

Behind her was an admirer whose gaze went unnoticed. She was too trained upon her quarry — the largest duck, thick in the breast and long-necked. The most appropriate one, she felt. From her perch atop the rock, Wylla gave her rump a kittenish wiggle, testing her balance and limbering her muscles.

When all the ducks were faced away, she launched herself, closing the distance rapidly and leaping high into the air, just like her mother, to snatch her prey while it attempted to lift off. The landing was clumsy on account of her shoulder still being stiff even months later, and she ended up dropping the duck with a frustrated noise, but not before delivering a crushing blow to it.

mahler watched.
wylla moved with the assured grace of a forest cat. the gargoyle felt rather moved to see how her hips switched in such a way. he cursed himself for such weakness of the flesh, though mahler found it curious that so rarely was he compelled in this way any more. it had contributed to his feelings of an older nature.
but he found himself renewed, to watch wylla flash forward and arc smoothly against the fading sky, snatching the duck from the sky in a flurry.
its life was ended. he heard only a touch of the sound she had made, and then the graf was stepping forward.
yet he found he could not yet disturb this peace and her aptitude with his voice.

Wylla gave her smarting arm a good shake, then bent to pick the duck up by the neck. It wasn't the cleanest kill, but it would do. Turning, she was surprised to find Mahler there watching her, and promptly dropped the duck again with a gentle splash.

Admittedly, Wylla did not remember much about her altercation with Sequoia. She had been angry at him, after all. She fumed and avoided him for several days after the fact, but eventually, Wylla cooled off about his involvement with Rivenwood's pups and forgot about Sequoia entirely. He wasn't the actual father, and she couldn't rightly begrudge him for being involved when he had none of his own this year to tend to. No one to neglect, she supposed.

Nevertheless, she felt a pang of something small and resentful whenever she laid eyes on him. She was getting better at pushing it aside. Forgiveness was hard work for Wylla, whose life had been better defined by the grudges she held than the few friendships she'd made. But she was trying so damn hard to be better.

Wylla leveled a coyly suspicious look at him and said, that's pretty creepy, you know, before bending to retrieve the mallard again.

he thought of how she had accused him of wanting to sneak into her bed, during their time in grimnismal. over the years, it had become a joke between them, until now even her words held that tone.
and though mahler had come to confront her about sequoia and what had been said, he found that this did not come first to mind. it was only the memories now, of these years and their tribulations together.
caught in this somber reverie, mahler returned himself to present. he cleared his throat, turned his wandering eye firmly to the ground. "i vanted to come and talk to you about something."
he felt it was as good a beginning as any, but what he would say now evaded him.
for mahler did not know what he might speak first, and stood weighed down and waiting before wylla.

Wylla frowned. Mahler often had that stoic old man air about him, but he typically looked at her face and not the ground. It seemed sheepish or guilty in a way, and a hundred different assumptions, most of them negative, a few of them devastating, flew through her mind in those ticking seconds.

Well, it would stand to reason that in the typical absence of reciprocation, he might find another to pursue or fall out of love with her, which was the foremost of her assumptions. She supposed that was only fair considering she didn't know how she should feel about him anymore, but that didn't mean she wanted to hear about it.

Without a word, Wylla sloshed over to the rock and clambered back atop it. This was likely going to be uncomfortable enough without standing in the chilly water, if even one of her thoughts was correct. Stashing the duck to the side, she turned her eye upon him and said, oookay?

the moment, properly slaughtered. mahler watched as wylla returned to her pose. he drifted closer, to sit alongside the stone. "sequoia came to me. she says you vere upset vith her — over me — and swore in front of the children."
he hated this, he hated how it felt as though he had only come to scold her. mahler straightened himself, and sent his lilac gaze skimming to find her own. "so i felt as though i should come, and hear your anger myself. sequoia is not to blame for what has gone on between you and i."
he kept his tones trained, unwilling to let slip any inflection or another. and his eyes asked softly if she would speak to him, for he wished to hear the sum of what had so upset her.

Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. Wylla openly balked at Mahler. Who?

She had to actually wrack her brain to even recollect who Sequoia was. She couldn't recall anyone with that na— oh, right. The overreacting skank. Wylla truly did not remember saying anything unkind to or about Sequoia or her children. She couldn't recall even being upset with her, besides the part where she'd shielded her children like Wylla was some kind of monster — that part, she remembered quite well.

Obviously, she's exaggerating, Wylla scoffed. That was literal months ago, they couldn't even talk, and clearly it didn't have an effect on them. I've had perfectly good interactions with them since. If you counted intentionally frightening most of them, anyway. It was still an improvement over her treatment of Ciri and Elke. I watched the dancing lights with Druid the other night.

Him coming to, what, scold her for something that happened forever ago? That only served to fuel her belief that Sequoia was just a shit disturbing and manipulative twat trying to keep Mahler to herself. Why would she wait two months to bring it up if it was so heinous, besides needing to add some more drama in her otherwise unremarkable life?

I swear. It's how I speak. If I did it in front of kids, um, oops? Didn't mean to, she kind of riled me up by claiming you're their father. It must've just slipped out. I don't even remember what I said but I wasn't "upset" with her until she started acting like I was gonna beat her kids for no reason, and then I left, because that was insulting. She'd sworn in front of Phaedra and Thade a hundred times, and they were fine, minus the part where Thade was kidnapped and never quite settled afterward.

there it was. mahler did not know what had persuaded sequoia to say such a thing. and he was surprised anew to know that wylla had spent time with the aforementioned children. "you know that i am not their father," he said softly. 
her temper remained, and he was not sure if it might spill out again. "she said she has been avoiding you." the words were gentle. wylla would not care, mahler suspected. she might think it even agreeable.
his look fell then to where she had put the duck.
"you are somevone who ... has me in a vay no vone else does. and all of rivenvood knows it. she is raising four children alone."
"praimfaya's children," he reminded her in the next breath, hesitantly, and then a pause. "i vant her to see you as more here, more than anger, vylla. she deserves your respect, even if you vere not here for vhat rivenvood vas before."

Obviously, she heatedly retorted. Did you ever stop to wonder why I never brought it up, or ask why she would months after it happened? Could he not see, as she so clearly could, that Sequoia was the one at fault here? Wylla had been minding her own business, doing her very best impression of Elsa whenever she wanted to hold onto her anger, and now this?

Just another nail in the coffin to remind Wylla that the only wolves worth her time were her blood relatives. Good, she said, whisking her tail agitatedly. He couldn't have just told Sequoia to leave her the fuck alone, could he? I haven't been, because I don't care and didn't do anything to her. I was perfectly nice to her and her kids, but I'm allowed to have feelings when she jabs me in a sore spot. If she wants to avoid me for that, then good. So be it. I did nothing wrong. Clearly she does not know what you think I am to you, or else she does know and did it purposely. That seemed more and more likely by the minute.

Anyway, it wouldn't hurt her any if Sequoia hated her forever. She had allowed Nyx control over her feelings, but she had learned from that, too. Sequoia was even less than Nyx, and could do nothing to her. She narrowed her gaze on Mahler when he spoke again, and barely suppressed the urge to snort at him. She didn't need Sequoia's regard or respect, but she wasn't about to give it either. Raising four kids with the help of an entire pack was no feat.

So I should give respect but not be showed any in return? I didn't do a damn thing to her. I was being respectful and she literally treated me like a fucking monster because I said a bad word or whatever. Sounded about right, though. This was almost exactly like that whole conversation about Nyx, and that had gone much the same way.

mahler was tired.
he did not look at wylla as she began to razor him with her lashing words. he had not been there, and so he could not speak to what had happened. but he believed sequoia, and he believed wylla as well. "where did she not respect you?" he asked, but already inside the graf had thrown up his hands.
the unsaid words within started to burn inside their padlocked chest; 
but he too remembered nyx, and how it had started the beginning of the end, that discourse.
"perhaps you two could speak. again." the suggestion was forced, but he was not ready to release it. there were so very many details here that he could not hope to explain to wylla, not without —
mahler shook his muzzle as if to rid himself of a worrisome thought, and attempted to start anew;
"i need another leader in rivenvood. it falls to you or to sequoia. but this vone interaction has made it so that i dare not elevate you over vone another."
he did not detail how this had come to pass; her fierce sunspark stare knew it as well as he did.
"it is important to me that you do not feel alienated here. and that you do not make others feel that vay. there is no reason to avoid vone another. you share the same land. you cannot tell me that is how you vant to live, for alvays, vylla."
he closed his eyes. "laurel has been delivered of two children. they are not mine. i vill give them the same care as i have ever given children in diaspora. in sagtannet. and now here."
"laurel is — she is not herself. i — she may need a more pragmatic outlook than my own."

Are you serious? Between acting like an accidental swear is the same as a threat, when I am positive it wasn't directed at her or her kids, and then running crying to you about it instead of coming to me months after the fact when I'm just minding my own damn business, where DID she respect me? growled Wylla. It was like no matter what she said to him, he was determined to never listen! To never see her point of view. It seemed fated that every interaction between them would sour, because instead of ever standing up for her, he would always find some way to place the blame on her shoulders. Maybe that was easiest for him.

I'll make it simple for you, she said, rounding to grasp the duck and fling it at him. It was meant for him anyway, but he'd ruined any effort to do something nice for him. Now he could take it and shove it up his ass for all she cared.

I can't trust you to have my back, and that hasn't changed. I will never again waste my time leading a pack of wolves I can't even trust with someone who doesn't fight for me too. So, there, easy peasy, decision made. She charged past him, leaping from the rock, utterly finished with this whole exchange. She was not going to do this with him again. Then he brought up Laurel and she swung around with hackles raised. What, did he think she was gonna run off and hurt this other woman or something? Like she hadn't been making an immense effort to forgive him and quit holding on to everything?

I don't even know who that is, or why you think I care! They'd never met, and that was probably for the best. Wylla had met Sequoia with some vague hope for friendship, but that simply wasn't possible for her, and the one friend in the world she did have was throwing her under the bus. Again.

Do whatever you want! I don't fucking care anymore since it doesn't seem to matter anyway! She had left Nyx and her kids alone rather than harassing them and been blamed for ruining their lives. So she had tried interacting with these cubs, was riled up by the mother, and was now being blamed for alienation? The only one being alienated here was her, and he was making sure of it. Wylla was damned if she did, damned if she didn't, and too far gone to bother any longer.

the duck struck his shoulder. a puff of feathers spurted into the air, drifting down slowly around his hackles and now bowed head. its carcass rolled to the ground.
he was finally conquered, and he saw its writing swift and clearly as daybreak in the beauteous land of rivenwood. and mahler felt also that wylla was correct, that she had always been so. 
it was a terrible morass he had created. and now it threatened to mire them again. 
the sensation started in his heartstrings and worked its way like a vile poison to his throat.
"vylla, i am —"
"— i —"
choking on pride, stuttering upon the conception that it would be so cruel to say such now.
he turned to face to, to helplessly look at wylla, at the anger and the pain cutting from her.
and his own weakness.
and the worthless way his lilac stare paled and dimmed, and he felt the low and blackening fungus of that ugly creeping deep inside his blood.
it was fitting, after it all.

You what? she asked, exasperated back to where she had been upon the brink of Sagtannet's end. This time, she would not leave, not even if he told her to, because this time, she wasn't here for him. She could be reviled by every wolf in Rivenwood for all she cared, and she still would not leave, because she was here for her beautiful, clever, competent daughter, who deserved more than her mother's selfishness.

She had been here for him, too, but realized now she could not be. Not when he would do this to her again.

I have made every effort here! That was gonna be for us, y'know, I wanted to do something nice, maybe a little, I-I-I don't fucking know! Guess it doesn't matter now! She jabbed her sharp snout toward the duck, collapsed now on the ground, a mess of muddy feathers. It was worth nothing now, just like all the effort she'd made.

You can't for one second give me the benefit of the doubt. Not once. I don't know why I thought you ever would. So say whatever else you have to say, because you won't get another chance for a while. Wylla glowered at him. She made the decision that second, impromptu, that she would take Phaedra to the sea on a trip, take some time from here. That should give Mahler time to instate Sequoia anyway without Wylla underfoot, since she had no interest leading with him. Not again, not when he still viewed her this way. The outcome was obvious.

No saying whether her daughter would even agree to go. If she didn't, she'd go herself. She would return, but she couldn't stand the sight of him right now, allowing the claim of one hussy to turn him against her again.

again he bowed before her wrath. how could anyone look upon him and see greatness? how could he still hold respect from others when he had not earned it from wylla? he had come here to speak with her and scolded her instead. he had felt the change in the discourse and had not changed its path.
mahler was silent through her words, keeping his ears upstanding for all of them.
and beneath the blackness there opened a small and hushed door, one that glowed with heavensglow perhaps on the other side. 
and through it even came despair. the true strength of what he had wanted to be their family, departing.
mahler stared at wylla, sluggishly attempting to reinvent his sense of planning.
his sense of finality.
"i should not have come to you about se — about vhat vas said," the gargoyle offered, at the last changing the bitter offering for one salted. "for that i am sorry." too late, as always.
he could not stop her. he would not ask. he did not deserve to ask, to beg. she would see it written into every inch of him.
the cough stirred to a rattle in his throat, and the graf was forced to turn away in shame from her much-loved face, shoulders quaking with the force of it.

Wylla pursed her lips. She wasn't always the most perceptive, but even she knew that wasn't what he'd almost said. What was it about her that was so poisonous to him he could not be frank and open with her for even a second? Self-loathing, again, streaming down her throat on a bitter swallow.

But you did. She said it with the full force of a door slamming shut. She said it when his coughing fit had ended — yet another secret he kept from her, and so she thought nothing of it. She should have been concerned, and perhaps something like it flashed in her eye, but she could not put a stopper in her hurt to consider his just now. You did, and showed me, again, that it doesn't really matter what I try to do, because you will blame me every time. Not when it meant upsetting someone else. He had once asked how he could go on when everything he did caused someone to get hurt.

It seemed to Wylla, then, that he had chosen to make her the target of every hurt, to spare others at her expense, and it was so unfair. After all the work and self reflection she had tried to do since coming here, it speared straight through her. His apology fell flat. There was always an apology, and yet, it always happened again.

I am taking Phaedra to the sea. Delivered again with that same brusque note. Elevate Sequoia. I don't give a shit. Obviously you trust her more... More than you trust me, she thought, and felt her stomach curling with hurt. What was it going to take for him to see she was trying to be better, for him? What would it take for him to see that she was not some villain?! I am here for Phaedra, and I will not let anyone take that from me.

Let Sequoia try, if she was granted power and sought to abuse it. She would kill the bitch before she would be exiled from Rivenwood and Phaedra, and she would take more from Sequoia in the process if that transpired. She knew two of those children were her blood, and she knew she had more of a right to their guardianship than anyone here. Let her try, and reap what she had sown.

I will return with her. I hope by the time I do... She straightened her back, maintaining a steely gaze, then pivoted without finishing the thought. She didn't even know what she wanted to say. She wouldn't be apologizing to Sequoia, but nor would she be making any effort to avoid the woman, either. She'd tell her exactly what she thought the next time she saw her.

Brisk steps, but she would stop if he had anything more meaningful to say for himself. Wylla suspected that he did not — that was always how it was, and their brief openmess prior to this didn't seem like enough to make a difference to him, no matter how much of a difference it had made to her.

mahler discovered very humorlessly that he still did not understand what wylla wanted. not in language he could understand. she had told him over and again, he had begged her over and again, and now they stood here once more together.
he knew it to be his own failing, one he had made over and over, until it seemed as though he would never end its cycle. it began to appear to the gargoyle as though there were but a single way to do so, but he was not prepared now to think on that.
wylla was leaving.
her mention of phaedra sharpened his eyes with a hard hurt that only slightly dissipated when wylla said she would return. and yet he knew he had no right to feel an upset with her decision.
how ugly of the gargoyle to even consider revealing now what was happening.
wylla turned and began to step away.
he wanted to tell her he loved her, and the words would echo with nothing. but he would have said them.
mahler swallowed the metallic thrumming in his throat. if words came now, they might only come to show the crimson smeared upon his teeth.
it ended all the suppositions and wanting syllables coming together upon his tongue. mahler simply did not want wylla to know. and for that he had no reason, except that before she had seemed to find some comfort here, and he would have broken it with his announcement.
turning her to his own malady, as always.
and now it felt as though it would be a snare set for her departing feet; come back, come back — i will not forever exist.
when mahler looked up it was to stiffly rise and watch the tense line of her retreating back, swishing tongue over his jaws.
"i do not blame you. i do not trust sequoia more, and i hope that vhen you return, you find rivenvood more changed, vylla," the man said all the same, pitching his voice to carry before he moved off in the opposite direction, unwilling to speak again lest he leave another aspect in shambles.