Redhawk Caldera redfall

the stars were overhead before teya returned to the small island.
presumably @Reyes had been here all day with @Sorana. she did not immediately go into the den. teya stood outside, dripping and wringing out her fur.
and bridget came to her mind.
the woman's face weighed on her heart. seeing reyes would only intensify the part of her spirit that belonged to him too.
she shut her eyes hard. in a moment she would turn to find him; in a moment she would ask if they could talk, the sort of line that starts a necessary conversation off badly.
sorana needed what was best. and that required teya to finally talk.

He had been with their daughter, watching her sleep in stages, or playing carefully with her when Sorana wished for it. Reyes was engrossed. He barely thought of anything, anyone, else.

Then the scent of Teya drifted by the den mouth and he perked up. Yawning widely over where Sorana was perched, Reyes didn't immediately extricate himself.

Once he had tucked her neatly in to the nest that Teya had built, he rose and moved for the open air. That was where he found her - his wife, beneath the stars and looking beautiful, but in a sad kind of way.

reyes shone beneath the deepening skies. "she asleep?" teya asked, not really needing an answer. he wouldn't be here if sorana was not cupped by slumber. she wanted the small talk, the moments before she —
"you really hurt me, reyes," teya said at last. "when i come to you and say i cannot do this. you were not there for me." she bit her lip. it hurt to extend like this, knowing at very least she might be forced to explain her vulnerability.
teya wanted to tell him about bridget. but it would only make things so much more awful to have that awkwardness when they were around each other.

Reyes nodded as he approached Teya and then sat down, feeling the gradual chilling of his body now that he was away from the warmth of the den.

For a few moments they sat in tense silence. Teya broke it first. What she said made Reyes frown; he wanted to refuse the guilt as it manifested in his heart but there was no way to do that.

Before or after you sent me away? He asked this knowing full well what she meant, but chose to be petulant. It clearly hurt her to talk about this, but it also hurt for Reyes to be reminded of what he had said, so he came out proverbially swinging.

teya had been wrong.
reyes did not force her to explain. instead he planted his proverbial fist right into the bruised center of her ego and her pain. for a long moment she could only stare at him, mouth agape.
painfully she collected herself. "why you think i send you away?" the raven asked, voice shaking and raw as exposed brain-matter. "you say you not want her. you say, 'can we get rid of them?'" how could he forget? "you tell me you not choose this. of course i send you away if you not want to be here, reyes."

He knew, of course he knew. The same way Reyes had suspected his relationship with Towhee was dying and his children would never really be his again - Teya had sent him away because of a rift he had torn between them. Still, it was different now.

I thought it was what you wanted too! You can't blame me. That's what it felt like. Teya must have hated him for the suggestion to abort and all of this tension and distance was because of that.

Did you come here to fight? To tell me off, kick me out? He would defend his place as Sorana's father for all it was worth - and she was everything. It was this mindset that tipped things towards their inevitable conclusion: an argument, a split, a loss. Reyes had to do better this time.

To some extent he knew he deserved whatever she dished out. It was Sorana's wellbeing that was of utmost importance now though, and Reyes was committed to her in a way that no one else could match. The look in his eye said as much.

the slap of his voice felt like a shout. it felt so loud that teya glanced sharply toward the den as if sorana would appear in the entrance, wakened by their quietly hissed argument.
"i came here," she began manfully, dissolving into tears that poured down her cheeks and dripped from her chin; a sob shook her shoulders, "because i fucking live here, reyes. i come here to talk to you. not fight." he was so defensive he couldn't even give her a chance to communicate.
she felt naked and caught in the windstorm of his harsh, escalating reactions.
teya bit the inside of her lip and felt the blood well. 
she stared hard toward the water, breathing and saying nothing else.

Was this how it would always be? Give his heart away, watch as his woman changed, or saw the truth within him, and toss him aside? It had happened before and Reyes believed it was happening again. He didn't want it to; but he couldn't apologize either. He couldn't let the blame fall on him every time.

And oh, she cried. It seemed their relationship was dissolving with her tears. He hated when she cried. What could he do? Stop? If it were that easy then the silence would be enough.

They were silent together (no, Teya sobbed, but he counted it the same). Reyes waited until she was a little more composed and then some - watching the water.

Biding his time.

Biting his tongue.

Thinking of Sorana, which soothed parts of his soul like a balm. Seeing Teya, and her quaking shoulders, and wishing things were different.

When he reached his limit his brows raised and he motioned as if to the water, but was staring blankly at the dark of it. Well, spoke the childish man, if you want to talk, talk.

what was she doing wrong? reyes had shut her down over caracal and now when she'd come to him bleeding from her spirit, finally mustering the courage to tell him how she felt — he did this.
her mate was right next to her and felt a thousand miles away. sobbing into the air while he did not so much move to comfort her chilled teya with something far beyond temperature.
he had gotten what he wanted. he had sorana now. and that was all he had desired, another child he might avoid messing up this time.
teya softly inhaled. the trails of moisture slowly dried on her cheeks. "i done talking." 
there was no point. reyes had the little child to dote on. oh that infuriated the raven when he had asked teya to end her in the womb. and then came the guilt of being so frustrated over that: was she really mad at reyes for reneging upon his original thought and coming around as a father? he easily could have left them both on his trip. 
her heart felt flayed and raw. teya turned and went into the den, pulling sorana against her so that the slumbering baby would lie between herself and reyes. she could not remember the last time she touched him and did not want to invite his own. sleep did not come. it would not arrive until she died to it for a little while, too exhausted to accept more of the fact that he had come back for whatever children were going to be born, and not for her at all.

In the end she had nothing to say. He waited, even when Teya moved to enter the den, but she didn't speak; she lay with Sorana and soon enough he followed, to sprawl at her opposite side. Sorana was wedged between them as the physical manifestation of what could've been love, once.

The more Reyes contemplated things the more he saw the truth of it: Sorana was the proof of his successful rebound after losing Towhee. She was his fresh start, yes, and once he might've identified her as proof he loved again, except that didn't fit within his perspective.

While Teya slowly slipped away to a dead sleep, he came to his own conclusion: it wasn't love; it wasn't ever love.

It had been desperation that drew him to Teya in the first place. Of course he had not desired anything beyond the satisfaction of his carnal desires in the beginning; that which Towhee had awakened in him, then revoked.

He knew he should feel terrible for thinking it. There should have been guilt, he thought. A brimming sense of self-loathing for how quickly he'd let things slip away. Instead he looked at Teya as she breathed evenly in the dark, and felt nothing.