Jade Fern Grove just a young gun with a quick fuse

AW but maybe an @Silvertongue?

Night would come soon—the sun beginning to descend in the horizon, painting the grove in fiery orange and yellow. No doubt it would be a far more impressive sight in the warmer months—but for now, Akavir was content with the silence it offered.

He trailed outside his pack—tonight, no doubt, would not see him return. Perhaps tomorrow. For now, he simply sought stolen solitude, and, while his day had primarily been tracking a herd of deer, now the shadowrunner found himself at the base of a tall tree—a hare at his paws, his eyes staring out to the sky in contemplation.

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she was still inside it, pulsing inside the dome of heat and rosy aura that limned her in an appeal she no longer wanted. silvertongue could feel it ebbing now, and found it a relief that she had spent its beginning and its peak with crowfeather. her body still carried the peaceful pleasure of his touch, though her heart was made heavy by the appearance of germanicus. whether or not @Swordfish accompanied her, the star left the lands of riverclan behind to take a long sweet breath of the cold air beyond the hollow. it was here in the sunset gilding that she found akavir, handsome and contemplative. the coppery fragrance of blood spread around him. she dared not approach, only offering him a look from a distance, her face holding none of its usual flirtation.

Silverfish totally welcome to crash in at any point!! <3 <3 <3

While he was lost in quiet thought, it was the silver form of Silvertongue that came to view, now. She was radiant in the setting of the sun—her own features closed off in unceremonious discontent, and he found himself shifting his weight, put off far more by the lack of humor found upon her than the scent that clung to her and crept to his nostrils.


He dipped his head down, champagne gaze studying her intently. “Silvertongue,” he beckoned, his tone coaxing her, an invitation to join him by the tree as he gently nudged the hare toward her—a meal shared.

silvertongue's glassblue eyes passed over the offering and then returned to the now concerned countenance of the creek leader. twilight brought with it a lowering temperature; the wind moving across the frozen drifts curled her silverfur locks and reminded of her crowfeather's scent, wound into her pelt down to her skin. it was only with this new wisdom that she moved proudly and stiffly at last toward akavir, sitting down a formal distance away and hoping that this mingling of scents might provide a shield, not for her but for him. the nearness of the powerful man sent her body atingle once more. she ignored it, and did not take the meal, wrapping forepaws in her silken plume. "how is the creek, akavir?"

There was a man upon her pelt—Crowfeather—the recognition only from his one time meeting with the gentle man. A good man—and for that, he was pleased to know as he cast a sideways glance to the she-wolf. She moved as if in a daze, and once more, he ushered the hare to her—and gave pause at her words. “The creek is well. But how are you?”

With that, with closer inspection—she seemed such a shadow of her former self. He knew that feeling—knew it so very well, and he lifted an arm, an invitation for her to come closer—to seek his warmth and comfort should she need it. And with that: “I promise, I can keep my paws to myself, Silvertongue. Come, eat, and know you have a shoulder to rest. What’s wrong?”

for a long time she clung to the remnants of her pride, thinking on crowfeather's face and wondering when she had become so attached. she still did not need him to love her; she wished to be beside him. she wanted a hundred things! and she could sort none of them. at last she let out her breath and settled into the crook of his arm, this man she had once enjoyed in joy and lovely wintertime. "internal affairs," she joked weakly, running her paw across the hare's textured fur. "i am finding myself fickle. i cannot wait for this week to end."

What almost felt like begrudgingly she leant to him—whether she did not trust him in the ends of her heat, or she simply wished for alone time, she voiced neither, and at her weak joke, he gave a soft rumble of consideration, eyes drifting from studying her face, as if he could unlock whatever it was that ailed her, and instead looked to the grove before him—beautiful, no doubt, when it wasn’t doused in snow and buried.

“What’s fickle about that? Can’t imagine this is an easy time of the year…”

He allowed his words to trail off—maybe that was part of it. She simply sought some solace in the moment. “Hmm,” he rumbled again. “Did I ever tell you I have two daughters? I had a wife… a family.”

silvertongue shook her head, brightening a moment before slipping back into her distracted state. "tell me about them," she invited. the feel of his body moved her heart to a higher clip; she knew it would be so very easy to quiet them both with a kiss, to extend a further invitation to drive from her for a while all the thoughts now muddled in the corner of her mind.

“Arielle and Lilitu,” he murmured, considering them a moment, finding his eyes unable to seek her own soft features now. They were his best accomplishment and his worst failure—not by fault of their own. “I had a chance to reconnect with Lilitu recently, purely by chance…”

He paused, considering—would she think less of him? It was easy to determine the lissome woman beside him as just a she-wolf from another clan, but he did find himself enjoying her company—more than he cared to admit. “Life has a funny way of never turning out how you’d expect. I guess… she married some prince in some grand palace pack for political reasoning.” The storm that pressed on his features likely revealed exactly how he felt about that.

He hated it. Loathed it. “Which sounds exactly like the kind of thing that would happen at their birth pack, and what I had tried so hard to bring them away from… “ He snorted, finally looking to her—eyes beseeching as he wondered, just then—what she thought, as a woman—perhaps one he assumed was estranged from her own family. “She’s a grown woman, but I’m having a hard time not going to our old pack and asking them just what the hell kind of political gain they felt was important to trade my daughter for… and then I’m tempted to seek out this Akashingo and this so-called prince.” He paused—“but maybe that’s overreaching my importance, given we haven’t seen one another in over a year.”

arielle and lilitu. silvertongue was content to listen, until akavir began to speak of palaces and arranged marriages. a glissade of knowingness raced coldly along her spine. his eyes seemed to plead for some sort of revelation, a knowledge he did not have. but the star had nothing to offer him but a whetting of her gaze as he at last mentioned akashingo. "i know where it is, akavir." and her own stare asked that he not question how she had come by this knowledge. "she is a woman, but women have no standing there unless they are the queen."

Her words solemn—this side of her that he had never seen continuing, and as she spoke of Akashingo—noting she knew where it was—it was her final words that drew his spine stiff, his eyes to harden as he considered what this all meant. He flexed then, a light shifting of his stocky form, trying to regain control of the tension he felt, and brushing down, he pressed the crown of his head to her shoulder—solace in the warmth of the woman.

Too fast for his liking, though, he removed his touch—lest she consider he after only one thing, particularly when her scent was far more alluring than ever before. “Then it sounds like I need to pay a visit to Brecheliant for answers—and then to Akashingo.”

He gave a pause, gaze casting sideways to her, features otherwise stoical. “Can you tell me what political nature this place would use her for, as a bride?” He could barely hold back the growing agitation within his voice. “This was the life I had tried to keep them both from in their birth pack. I almost d—“ the words cut back from his lips, and he felt a rumbling in his chest. Would Ibis be rolling in her grave, now, with this news? Or, given her history with the Empire, was this something she believed acceptable for their daughters?

silvertongue felt the hungering in her rise as akavir narrowed their proximity for sliver of time. a small and breathless sound escaped her throat before she could stop it. and then she returned to herself. he went on to speak; she heard the growl lurking in the recesses of his chest and nodded once. "they are ruled by a pharaoh. he is the speaker for the gods and is seen as divine. he and his queen," silvertongue went on, turning her eyes toward akavir for a moment. "marriages are made for control. if he has a princess of brecheliant married inside akashingo to whomever he chooses, then he will press his right to their hunting grounds." and to her, but she did not add this.

Her scent teased at his nostrils—the promise he made her prominent in the air between them, and as the man’s hackles bristled to the news of this Akashingo and their customs, the little noise from the back of her throat struck a flame in him—one that seared as he made to temper it, his eyes struck by her for a moment before he cleared his throat, glancing quickly away. For he knew this woman intimately in ways that he would explore again and again if given the chance—but now was not the time, if even ever.

“Are you willing to share anything more of this Akashingo? Where I can find it? … More of this Pharaoh, and any weaknesses he might have?”

If he had to burn a palace to the ground for his daughter, he would.

He seethed as he considered—tongue darting between his lips, a growl reverberating once more in his chest. “It sounds like the place I had moved my family from the first time.” The irony of it all—that Lilitu had made her way back into the clutches of something he had strived to keep her from.

"help riverclan to fell an elk and i will take you to akashingo myself, akavir." her eyes burned with it; her gut roiled. she wanted to strike a blow at the roman, but not one that would also be dealt to the prince of shadows she so adored. "but now," and here with extreme reluctance did silvertongue draw away and up and half-circling, "now i must go. or else we will both be tempted."

Her eyes burned—there was a history with this Akashingo for her, and he wondered of it— but did not question it. Were it something she wished for him to know, she would share. Akavir was a quick fuse in many ways, but there was an air of patience to him, when it came to those he cared for—

—to think he would even allow himself to care for one outside of his pack. “An elk for the directions and information,” he agreed, personally giving her an out from having to visit the lands with him. “In a few weeks time.”

And—so she moved—the warmth she offered suddenly gone, and his side met with cold air. His gaze shot back to her sharply—traveling the curve of her, a rugged grin threatening at his lips. “You tempt me even outside of your time,” he rumbled, his own form lifting, muzzle drifting in her direction as if he wished to follow. He did.

He wouldn’t.

“I’ll see you soon,” he mused, eyes intent upon her, pushing aside his want to ask her so many more things—things he had simply no business knowing.

silvertongue wanted akavir to follow. it flamed high along her cheekbones and in her pupils, this truth. not to wait, not even to veil themselves, but fall upon each other right here. to give the spark of life a chance for two. but even as the star thought it she knew it could not be. she did not intend to be a mother, no matter what choice she had made this time. and a man of pride who already spoke of his family name, he would not understand her lack of investment in lineage. and so she smiled wanly, and turned away, hips curved and back straight as she returned at once to riverclan, pausing only once at the edge of far shadow to favor akavir with a last smoldering look before she melded into the long drifts and budding grass.