Sleepy Fox Hollow [m] nomajoka

1k <3

the change was subtle. it stole over widow in a span of days, presenting as an odd warmth she only ignores as she applied herself to ava's well-being. soon. soon she hoped her daughter would be able to walk and travel again. they would go back to the bypass and never leave.
the change, responding to enough fat and meat, enough sleep, less stress — it at last took hold of heda one evening as she inched quietly through the faewood, looking for rabbits or birds.
it came up on her with such breathlessness that heda leant against a tree; "no, no, no, god. why?" she hissed in staccato bursts before roseate glow lifted her up and her head turned toward the mountains around her, toward noctisardor — heda knew the call was in her, crying out, but stood still and stiff for she knew not what to do.

Anselm came down from the high pines to the scent of sweetmusk simmering in the hollow. 

His fur bladed in irritation. First, the daughter made his home her medical camp — bringing with her more mouths and needs. Now, her band of itinerants set camp around his home, imparting their scents thickly among his own. 

In a brisk trot Anselm made towards the widow — a surge of jealousy sending choking fumes to his heart. He planned to drive her from the hollow until her heat subsided; the bitter thought of her luring Etienne too hurtful to even entertain.

she should leave, heda thought, returning to herself and the unfortunate state of her body. but if she left, could she trust them to take care of ava? would they think she'd abandoned her girls?
no. heda wouldn't leave; she thought madly, trying to imagine a place in the hollow where she could secret herself —
the heavy, aggressive stride of anselm shut her eyes in dread and anger. the widow turned when he came upon her, squaring hips against the ground and wrapping her plume around pale flanks, tightly, tightly.
her eyes asked what he would do.

Each step closer to the widow brought him closer to the enveloping smoke of her season. Anselm’s instincts told him this scent-signal would compromise the hollow. It would bring in courting males — and their borders were already so flagrantly and rudely violated. 

He came upon her and she whirled her hind end to the ground, her tail wrapped tightly around her haunches as if he would disabuse her. The bile and contempt that singed his tongue wilted, but his gaze remained hard. 

In such close proximity, it took all of Anselm’s power to ignore the stirring of his nature. 

You vill bring unvanted attention to us. You risk us all. Anselm snarled, as if she controlled the whims of nature and was to blame for it. Make it stop.

a choking half-laugh left her mouth on the heels of anselm's ridiculous demand. "you're just a boy. you don't understand this lasts for a week and there's nothing i can do about it," heda hissed, ears pinning as her eyes filled with a thousand emotions —!
she wanted caracal, she wanted the bypass. she wanted this to go away as quickly as anselm seemed to think it could happen.
but it wouldn't. heda wiped her mouth with a crooked forehead-ankle and glared at him. "what do you want me to do?"

A veek?! Now it was Anselm’s time to choke out a disbelieving laugh, its edges furrowed by something darker. Fear, perhaps. Fear that she would wedge her way between he and Etienne, fear that the seaborn would find her embrace softer and kinder, fear that he would find he preferred the willowing pluck of her body to the coarse and blocky hardness of Anselm’s own —

A bolus of animus sat unhappily in Anselm’s throat as he stared down the woman who was by all measures his better. He could not have her here — and yet, the longer the plumes of her resonating body lingered, the more a conflicting instinct rose to life and demanded her to himself.

Anselm took a step forward, gaze taking in the widow; the soft return of fat to her flank, the improved condition of her pelt. She was a siren — she would be irresistible to the one thing Anselm held in higher regard than anything else. And how could he truly fault Etienne for answering nature’s imperative? He could scarcely ignore the call himself.  

You vill not touch him. Anselm meted out, a bite to his voice that just scarcely betrayed his insecurity.

And yet, as much as Anselm wished to sink his teeth in the widow and chase her ruthlessly from the hollow, budding instinct stayed his fangs.

He took one more step, measured despite the surge of adrenaline that now commanded him.

him? who? heda tried to think of who anselm might mean with his possessive scour. there were no other men here save john and etienne, and she was certain he did not mean the gentle sweetharbor man.
she watched him come closer, heard the territoriality in his voice; he meant etienne, surely. "i won't," the widow agreed weakly, though still he came closer and her body responded in traitorous want.
heda had lived enough for two lives, but she was still quite young. desire had not yet died in her, it had only been covered. and what had she told the other hollow woman? this was a call from god. be fruitful.
her mouth was dry. "i was a good wife before." heda stared up into his harsh sungold eyes. "i could be one again." has she been? had she? could she? the widow was tensing, wondering if he would strike her; but she saw no evidence of that and more that he had closed the distance between them.

A question lingered briefly in her gaze. Etienne. Anselm breathed the name into the slender space between them — almost as if giving life to his hidden thoughts were in itself a betrayal. 


Two conflicting urges warred inside Anselm. He was split between answering his biological imperative, or — what the pragmatic side of him insisted — driving her from the Hollow until her season had ended. To keep Etienne safe from her harlotry. To keep the Hollow safe from the prying urges of bachelors. 

In the end, Anselm found he wanted her for himself. The smoke signal of her scent blinded him and weaseled out his suppressed hunger. After all, he was a man — these things were his empire to control and command. It was his imperative to answer the siren call of a woman’s season, to keep her sequestered and to himself. 

He would tell himself anything to avoid acknowledging the truth. 

She’d been a good wife, once. She promised it again. In that moment words were not so important to Anselm, who felt a burgeoning throb along his midline. He lowered his head, taking deep draughts of the perfume around them. 

With limbs shaking, Anselm took the final step between them. He reached for her in a roughly wanting embrace, his fangs brushing along the side of her cheek where he had first left his mark upon her hide.

it was not what heda wanted.
she was not who anselm wanted.
when she and caracal had conceived their children, it had been in love, the first fumblings of a man and wife too young and hopeful to know the sundering that waited for them.
now it was barbarism, all of heda's conscious senses turned against it and resisting. yet these things were not what would control her for the next many days.
when anselm touched her, a breath raked the inside of her throat and she tensed, remembering the pain of his angered teeth. if this was a caress, it was its own sort.
heda let the last barriers crumple and crack, falling away into wormwood powder. their eyes met, and with her own she told him again that she would be good to him if he was good to her, if beneath his cruelty there was something else she could see.
the traditional side of heda didn't want to allow this without a firm commitment from anselm. the side of her religion mutilated by the silence of her lord asked why does it matter? 
she reached for him too, closing her gaze to trail her nose alongside the line of his neck, hesitantly; glancing up toward him from her still-seated place again to watch, to observe his response. and if it did not rebuke her, the widow would offer another.

Something unspeakable rippled through them both — they wanted terribly, but for something neither party could offer. 

He buried the last of his reticence in the sharp crook of the widow’s throat, breathing deep of the bloodpulse there as it simmered against his skin. 

Get down, He ordered as he caught her almost-obedient gaze, a growl of want thick in his throat. Where was the woman that had almost plucked his throat from his neck before? 

He angled his muzzle against her touch, moving around the slim points of her body. Even with a winter coat, he could see the outline of her spine as it rose like a thin mountain range from the cape of her flesh; here he traced her muzzle in shaky breaths, blood pounding as thoughts of both her body and Etienne’s flooded his mind. 

He stopped for a moment, searching along the thrumming of her body for her own consent. The last time he’d been in such distance it had been violent — while he was no tender man, and his handling of her presently was rough with brute desire, he waited for the press of her spine against his stomach and lower body, which now knotted with hard tension.

it was given in the way she adjusted in anticipation of his weight, ears swinging back to hear the grittiness in his tone, the fraying rein of control — where was the man who had used his teeth and blows to subdue her?
not quite gentle; heda gave her answer, heeding how anselm wanted her to group muscle and bone until she felt as if she were a waiting pyre and he the flame to light them both. 
god had taken everything from her and given it back piecemeal, and heda could hardly find gratitude in herself from day to day.
this was not love, she reminded the strident ache of her flesh attuned in response to his own, almost mirroring anselm; when he gave her the almost-intimacy of a kiss she had shut her eyes again. she could not pretend he was caracal, she would not dishonor her husband in that way.
but for a moment she was able to pretend that she was a new wife again, about to lie with her beloved for the first time, the images fed by the surprising intimacy of the hollow man.
a breathy, soft sound was the only one she could muster to encourage anselm, but it was there, audible among the cold billowing of the faewood trees.

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There the silent blessing came — in the soft sigh of her breath on the wind, in the way her body bent and molded beneath him. 

He pulled her close to his chest, his breath stirring the tufts along her ears. Anselm could not hold her gently in this moment — while she was pliable and the bouquet of her scent maddeningly inviting, she was not the body he wanted.  

And he was not the lover she deserved. 

With want’s desperate fingers he combed along the sheen of her fur, imbued by the warmth of her body and the hardness of her frame pressed against his stomach. 

Fueled by a stupefying sensation of lust, Anselm thrust his arms around the bend of her waist. 

His. His alone. For what seemed like a terrifying length of time, Anselm felt blindly —fumbling at last towards the soft unexplored landscape he’d yet to discover; a side to the widow he had never felt until now. 

Anselm lacked experience, and in turn his performance was more raw than tender. Yet when he was done he did not move from atop her, the rumbling snarls surprising even himself as he came out of his lustful stupor. 

Rather than feel fulfilled, Anselm felt spent and shameful. He had used her for his own sexual desires and he knew it; no gentle image of the widow stirred romantically in his mind as he held her tight to him; instead, he thought of the strength of Etienne’s knowing gaze, and wished — with some revulsion still clinging to him — it had been the seaborn beneath him in the snow.

"anselm."
her body thrummed with the remnants of a vague pleasure, one briefly felt but not truly experienced, not fulfilled. he had been rough and eager, the latter spurring her own investment in the act and the former sending such a contrast through the other side of her brain for how caracal had been with her.
her flanks stirred between the ironclad embrace of his arms, with breath, with a sigh. not with a sob; she would not let it be that. heda lay her cheek against the snow and watched cardinals darting beneath the evergreens, hoping for fallen pine fruits or a worm slumbering too near the frozen surface of the earth.
he was heavier than she, possessive; with some clinging emotion the widow wondered if he would want her again, if he understood what the end result of even this single time could be.
"anselm," heda said again, gaze searching upwards and back; soon they were parted and she made no move to distance herself from the hollow wolf. "tell me i'm your wife. i am, after this." she searched his face intensely. a new future had the possibility of beginning here, for them both. he needed only to accept it by committing.

Their bodies entwined, and yet Anselm’s mind was leagues away. He stirred as he felt her shift and pull, turning her gaze upon him with a burning question. 

Vhat? Anselm choked, still lustdrunk with listless energy. He moved abruptly, feeling cold wind stir where his fur had been warmed by her touch before. Vhat?! He repeated again, bracing his front limbs before him and pushing abruptly to a stand. 

You cannot be serious. Anselm, who had only ever known a bachelor life, could not marry the concept of pursuing his natural urges with a lifetime of shared intimacy and commitment. Staring down the barrel of his life’s future — with Etienne pushed to the sidelines — brought forth a desperate fight or flight instinct in him. No. That is insane. He growled, tail arcing above his hips.

why had she done this? why had she given in? "insane?" her gasp was strangled, cut off; her lips curled and she slowly stood to her feet, staring balefully into his face.
she wanted to force him, to say he simply must. heda saw an opportunity here, one to rebuild. never to replace the island, but to live. to even thrive, albeit physically — "it's insane that you m-marry someone after you sleep with them?" heda growled, though its impact was muted by the angry tears that suddenly stood out in her eyes.
she scrambled away from him, sick, horrified; she started to panic. maybe she should mention them, maybe — no. heda gazed at his brutishness, the jawline that would have been handsome were it not for his constant anger.
no. if, god forbid her moment of complete weakness, new life came of this, she did not want them raised here. not with him. not by him.
self-preservation dulled her nausea, and at last the thinbones of her sharp shoulders relaxed. "all right." heda wanted to lie down, to vomit.
softly she stepped past him, carefully; "make sure you wash yourself before you go back to etienne," the widow said without looking at anselm, refusing to process a single iota of what had happened.

What should have been a warm afterglow of content slipped from Anselm’s grasp like water downhill; now, he was only filled with dread.

He watched her in bewilderment as she rose, a dashing of tears darkening her already sorrowed eyes. Shame once more thrust its blade in between his ribs; once more, he was the perpetual author of misery in her life.

Vhat? Came his quiet echo, disbelief trailing into a sense of entrapment. You — you tricked me! He protested, feeling injustice rifle his fur. I— he knew the next thing he said was not patently true, but he said it anyway: You come here smelling like that and expect me to just — to valk away?

She had already turned away, but Anselm followed. He would not let her paint him as the evil person - even if he knew inside he was rotten. No! He strode ahead so that she might hold his gaze, even if she did not want to. You marry someone if you love them. Anselm knew very little things, but if this, his confidence was unshakeable.

You do not love me. It was more statement than accusation. A large part of Anselm would always be unlovable, and he knew this in his heart. Vhy — vhat kind of cruel god would make its subjects marry someone they did not love? How is that fair?

His heart sank when she spoke Etienne’s name. There was something about hearing it from someone else’s mouth that curdled Anselm’s blood and dropped his stomach. For this, he had no rejoinder — for he knew he’d betrayed more than just the widow that day.

it was not enough! why wasn't complete acceptance of his rejection enough! rage sparked in heda, coupling with the new instinctual crush of protective maternality over what was not yet even a spark and perhaps would not be. 
in her, the longer anselm spoke, heda worthlessly begged god that nothing come to pass of this sheer mistake. why was he standing in front of her? the widow's teeth longed to feel his skin yield once more, and she was silent until his face blanched with comprehension over what they'd done. what he had.
"forget what i said. you're right. we don't love each other. you're also right that my god is cruel." her mouth threatened to tremble; heda glanced off in the direction of noctisardor. 
"this was wrong." she cleared her throat, looked anselm directly in the eyes. "get away from me, for his sake. go bathe. i'll — we'll — be gone in the next couple of days. maybe tomorrow."
heda began to move again. she could just envision what a marriage might look like after he'd coldly denied her only a few moments ago. anselm would resent her even more than he already did, and this was not even considering how he would react to a pregnancy.
she had dinah and ava to consider first, before them and definitely before him. 
the crush of sorrow and loss in her breast was so deep she almost couldn't breathe.

Anselm was ill equipped to the tsunami of emotions that came next. He saw rage spark in the widow’s gaze, but rather than chase out the shade of hurt in her eyes, it only further served to illuminate it. 

His chest fell. While he was often a dick by every account, he did not enjoy hurting others — his selfishness had only further served to sever any meaningful bond they could share. 

Next came the sag of his shoulders and the fall of his arrogantly held tail. He would have preferred her fighting — anything besides the admission of defeat and disappointment that screamed its presence from every molecule of her body. 

She glanced in a direction unknown to him. Anselm sensed rather than knew that she was preparing to leave; when she spoke it aloud, Anselm’s jaw parted in discontent. Vhat — vhy? His gaze stirred to her flank, the body he’d seemingly been totally part of seconds before. He was not stupid. He knew women paid a bloodprice for allowing men inside them.  Vhy vould you do that? Do you think I am as cruel as your god? That I vould— He paused, a crack in his voice that turned to a tremor: kick you out to the cold like some petty boy??

Anselm’s throat worked in a distressed gasp. It hurt more than he anticipated to think the selfish urges of his dick would cause children their lives. Vhy vould you risk your daughters over this? Vas it so horrible you cannot look upon me again?

"what do you want, anselm!" she cried, rounding on him. "do you want etienne to find out? if you found me, then he knows too!" her sides were heaving; he ran the gamut of emotional expression and exhausted heda with how from moment to moment he seemed to shift. how he tried to use god, but he had no idea how god had destroyed heda.
she refused to follow the flick of his eyes toward her flanks, until something else filled her with ice. with cruelty. "we were fine before you. i can take care of them."
her eyes were golden voids smeared in silvershadow as she leant closer and closer to anselm in some toxic parody of a kiss; " are you going to share me with him, anselm? you don't want me touching him but look at you. maybe he would feel the same." 
she wanted anger, wanted a reaction; wanted to say that she'd dump the pups to come on his doorstep so he could raise them with etienne for all she cared, while deeply she did. "besides. we've imposed on you enough, don't you think? you can't wait for us to be gone. don't play like it's not true."

The widow leaned in — but for something that cut deeper than any kiss. 

He pulled away. The venom in her voice did not match the wounded doe from before — but he deserved this. 

He knew he deserved it. 

We were fine before you. You vere. But you vere not fine without him. The man that saved her daughter’s life — the man that stood between everything Anselm had been raised to know, and everything he now wanted. 

She pointed out his hypocrisy, and by god he earned every spate of venom lobbed his way. No! He did not want to share Etienne — no more than he wanted to admit he was a monster, that he was in denial of his true nature, that he was —

if he never admitted it, then there was hope it would never be true. 

Fine! Leave! Anselm exhaled through his nose, the salt-taste of something worse than suffering scouring his throat. 

Loneliness.

 Everything she said might be true, and the fear of this settled into his muscles and soured them. 

Leave like everyvone else does. But you vould be proving my point — to spite your daughters. 

He did not want to hurt Etienne anymore than he wanted to beg the widow to stay. His pride allowed neither as an option. I do not know vhat I vant. A deep unhappiness simmered in his voice. but I know if you leave, you pay a vorse price than being spurned by a man vho vill not marry you. It is not — Anselm struggled genuinely to be vulnerable despite the way she had just razed him open: it is not how I vas raised. I am bad, Heda! I make everyvone —

His voice rose to a hysterical pitch. I make everyvone leave. 

Is that vhat you vant for a husband, Heda? 

Is that vhat you vant your daughters to see, and for them to grow to expect from their own husbands? Tears rimmed his eyes as he finished, bringing his gaze to rest on the face of a woman who by all rights deserved to cut him down.

finally; he was splitting, a chrysallis allowing grief to unfurl wet wings on the stone of his heart. he insinuated she made this choice in ignorance of what it would cost her girls, not comprehending the depths of misery through which she had already put them and herself. 
if dinah ever knew that her mother had married within a year of her father's death to a man who had split her lip, terrorized her with cruel words, and then put children inside her: what sort of model might that be, for how to be treated? for how to love?
he was right about etienne; he had saved ava's life. she couldn't keep dragging them back and forth. yet this —!
but heda had not expected anselm's tears; she stood helplessly by until she was roused to go near him, to pull bits of greenery and ice from the pelt that had only just been so warm over her own. "god never gives you more than you can bear," the widow murmured in a sigh which questioned her own beliefs.
"you are stubborn and mean, anselm. but you choose to be those things. stop making that choice." voice resolute, heda pulling upon the preachering she had done so often on the island.
"i want to be married because now we have sinned in the eyes of god, and in yours too." i want them to have a father, was the unspoken part, for his emotion was now catching at her own gaze, her own throat; "who raised you to be like this?" and therein, another part; they knew nothing about one another, an additional and terrifying thought in the face of everything else.

She moved towards him to brush debris from his fur. The touch was meant as comforting, but Anselm withdrew as if she'd brandished fangs. He'd hurt her, she'd hurt him -- pari passu -- and now a growing malcontent wrestled in his stomach that had nothing to do with the token kindness she'd graciously shown him.

Her account of him was true. His actions were unkind and done deliberately so - and he knew this. He knew he did it to protect the thorny empire of his heart from hurt again.

God? Vhat god, Heda? He hissed, retracting the metaphorical arm which had been raised only moments before. He did not want to notch another hurt into her quiver; but how could she truly believe in anything other than what was right in front of her? He could not conceptualize what it must be like to believe so blindly. Your god is a jealous god. I have -- I have no god. He straightened, the warming of his flank faded now to something starkly cold. He felt naked in a way he'd never felt before - as if by bedding Heda, he'd become enlightened to all the small details of warmth missing in his life.

Who raised you like this? If it was an accusation, Anselm could not tell. No one. I just am. It was not their fault he'd turned out ugly and unlovable, cruel or mean. He knew, as much as he often reflected on the huge piece missing in his life without them, that they both loved him very much. Vho raised you to believe in a god that vould punish you for -- he wanted to say it, but it sounded so crude. For doing vhat comes naturally to us all?

they were glaciers in the thaw of spring, each cracking beneath its own weight with a great and thundering cry, a spate of pain welling up from black pools long buried.
"my god," heda replied, elaborating no further for it did not matter. "you talk about how cruel he is but he brought me here." fervency rose in her breast, a stirring of zealot fire she thought had been dead a long while.
"my father left when i was young. my mother had died. i didn't know the one who sired me. another woman nursed me and this man became father to me and to her daughters, who in turn became sisters to me." witch and druid and skaigona and worripa, all at the belly of sequoia.
so long ago. "that man taught me even the most solid home could just — disappear. that i needed to depend on something more than myself. i was so deeply, hatefully angry for such a long time."
until bartholomew.
"i learned to give it to god. sin is something we can't avoid. we can only try to do better." like marrying the woman you hated for so long so her kids didn't grow up bastards. but it was clear that any connection between them couldn't exist; anselm would not even tolerate her touching him, as if they had not just been connected so short a time ago.
and so the two only stared at one another, a painstakingly guarded space cut out between them. her breath rose like white smoke. "what are you going to do if i turn up pregnant?" finally she said it. "i won't live with your resentment, not any more of it. that's why it's best if i go. there's no hard talks to have or choices to make. someone told me about other packs in the area. id work hard to make sure we were taken in." he had seemed to care about this, and now she wanted to reassure him.

Her god. Anselm remained silent. He wanted to counter - to point out it was Etienne that brought her here, not the whims of some spectral agent. But why kick a dog while it was down?

But now she opened up to him in a different way. The widow of the ruinwood shared her body with him, and now she shared something perhaps more tender. Her past.

It was very different than his own. A line appeared against the rough cut of his jaw. A better person would have told her they were sorry to hear her life had been thrust with such hardship. Anselm was not that person.

She spoke of sin again. A word that carried with it a powerful fear, worse than the mention of God itself. She was so very afraid of it.

He felt the disconnect widen, because he did not believe chasing his primal want was a sin. Nor did he believe their union -- while fraught with a hunger neither would speak of again -- was contemptuous. But now she spoke of pregnancy, and children -- and fuck!

Panic set into Anselm, chilling the hard pound of his hot blood. Vhat, vhy vould you make them someone else's prob-- He paused, distraught in a different way than he had been before.

He thought the cornerstone of being a man was burying his urges into a woman. Now, Anselm was exposed to a different, altogether more difficult concept: standing by the consequences of his action.

Was it worth it, those short-lived moments of warm bliss? Would it be a fruitful thing, or was her womb a black garden the same as his heart?

How long before you know? He liked the idea of another wolf raising his children even less than he liked the idea of her being pregnant.

"children aren't a problem," heda defended, tears starting to sting the inside of her eyes at the realization of this reality. she let her breath escape into the wind, then swallowed. anselm's continued refusal to accept them into any sort of a relationship even as he was made to realize that conception was not divine — it shamed heda with the lowborn flush of a girl who has been charmed into a backwoods by a boy promising marriage;
but he hadn't, and a moment ago she had not either. still the scald of self-chastisement remained, an interwoven feeling that she had allowed herself to be ruined in some way, unfit for a better man who might see fit to marry a widow.
her heart raced; she tried to draw herself up as straight as she was able. "that won't matter if there's a way to fix it," and it relied upon another break from the reality she had always tried to cultivate for herself — anselm might think she meant an ending and yet she would never think of it.
if he felt responsible for them, he might press his connection to them.
if another man felt responsible, he —
heda was mortified to even consider it. but if it spared them such — connection — wouldn't he feel relief?
in the manner of a woman drawing a shawl around her shoulders, heda stepped off. "please leave me alone, anselm," she asked in a soft, tired plead; surely he saw her path moved toward ava and not the borders, even if she wanted to flee the hollow at once.