Noctisardor Bypass I own that technology now.

Vhat is your problem? Anselm pressed of the den-mother, having waited until @Heda surfaced from the den for one of her nightly rounds to the cache. He'd sat there for some time trying to formulate his thoughts, trying to piece together the buckshot tapestry of his unraveled life.

He didn't understand, for one, why she would push them all away. And he was just bullish enough to want his hurt seen and addressed -- if not for an apology, at least to be heard; Heda could have saved him a world of heartache if she'd never asked him and Etienne to stay anyway.

There was another question that hung on his tongue unanswered, waiting for that delicate moment to take flight into the waking world -- but for now, he held it close, his nostrils flaring as he waited for the hard bite of her gaze and the clipped tone in her voice.

seeing anselm waiting for her and hearing the demand in his voice set heda on full edge. "can you, for one moment, piece things together yourself?" while her voice lacked the earlier vitriol, it was still hard, closed to him. what right did he have to demand anything of her, let alone a reaction?
six children. a father who might be violent. a downed sister. rivenwood cracking. and dinah was still gone. if she had been left alone to dream of the island, she might be able to surface with a musical answer. but in the absence of that, what exactly wasn't her problem.
this was what she had now.
more than once over the last six hours had heda considered spiriting her sons somewhere else. somewhere not here. leaving, effectively. 
anselm had caught her at an especially dismal time; eyes puffy from the weeping that overtook the dream and ruined her sleep. 
she just wanted a break. the golden gaze wanted to be harsher but she simply could not muster it. heda kept moving, however; anselm could keep along and ask his inane questions if he wanted. if this man had simply married her after so eagerly covering her fertile body, she would be docilely nursing her children in the hollow, at peace, at the peace she finally was coming to feel she deserved.

His breath caught in his throat. Despite the edge in her reply, Anselm saw something else — the dark stains of recent crying. 

He froze, and she swept right past him. Behind them he distantly made out the mewling of the cubs. A cold had settled into the air, and by the creek early spring peepers sounded their textbook chorus. 

What was there to piece together? They’d gotten rid of one asshole. She’d gained two men for the price of one; this was a good deal, was it not? Anselm tried but was at a loss. 

Heda was more than several strides away when he moved again. No, I can’t. He didn’t understand what there was to cry about. He had so many things he wanted to say - but the looks and coldness she’d given him these last two days chilled his sense of adventure completely. 

You lied to me! He called to her back, long strides carrying him towards her flank. You asked me to stay and then you act like you don’t vant me here — and you lied! How am I supposed to piece anything together vhen you tell me nothing.

He fell short of further words then, feeling his throat constrict with a storm of emotions he’d managed to keep lidded these last two weeks.

"i wanted you to stay for druid! hunt for druid! get medicine for druid. that's why i wanted you here. stop trying to take care of me, anselm."
her voice broke now; no, no, no more tears, please. he irritated her with what felt like entitlement but her anger was for herself, layers of rage meant only to bludgeon her own soul with regret.
"so now you know. you don't have to try and piece anything else together." heda stared down at the cache, too tired to even break the mounded earth. but she knew she would, for druid. her relief came when her eyes closed.
for now, she pulled them back to anselm, looking at his torn ears, the bright frustration in his golden eyes.
they both had the gilt-gaze, she noted numbly. it would be surprising if the boys didn't grow up to have it too.
a surprising rush of warmth pooled in her chest, followed by the drying sunstrike of remembering how anselm, his strong arms tight around her waist, refused —
lying? lied? heda sensed this was what he was talking about and did not address it, retreating into herself protectively. maybe he meant that she'd lied about wanting them there. surely he didn't care suddenly about impregnating her, refusing to marry her, and then telling her to take care of things. 
no. she lifted her chin. "druid needs you and etienne. she may not say it. she can't. she's — she's healing from more than what he did." heda tried to keep her voice steady. "i know you two and fiona have no ties to us. i assume etienne feels obligated to help." she studied anselm. "if you don't want to be here, if you want to go home, then go home. i mean that. no hard feelings. home is what you're willing to defend."
a sigh, whispering. her paws began their brief excavation of the cache. "and i'm not going to ask you to fight glaukos again." a silence fell then, punctuated only by soft clods of dirt being pulled from the earth, and then two sparrows, their feathers dragging in the pile.

For Druid? His expression wavered. But I did not —  sleep vith Druid. He fell short with a clap of his jaws.

Stop trying to take care of me, Anselm. How could she say that?

Heda stopped, staring down at the cache in a way that made Anselm wonder if she was unhinged. She closed her eyes, a long moment spreading its unsatisfying fingers between them.

Druid again. Anselm exhaled forcefully through flaring nostrils. Heda acted as if the lie wasn’t in the room with them — as if she’d conceived immaculately like the prized jezebel of her strange and inconsistent religion.

No hard feelings? How could she say that, too? His chest welled with plenty of hard feelings, all of which clawed at his heart. Ve vouldn’t be here if ve did not vant to help! How do you not see? You asked us to stay. Now you tell me you don’t care if I leave. Anselm repeated thickly, his voice capturing the hurt he tried to bury. Was he so disposable?

He wanted to be needed. He wanted for both of them — Druid and Heda — to see he was here for them, that he’d been hurt for them, that he’d fought for them and Etienne. Like Glaukos, Anselm’s version of reality felt attacked by the constant whittling coldness Heda emanated.

You — He gestured to her sides, that narrow body he’d once held with more conviction than anything. He couldn’t let it go.  You lied. You didn’t take care of them. An accusation he didn’t want to believe, but knew it must be true. And now you tell me you don’t care if I leave like it didn’t mean anything.  To stop trying to take care of you. His golden gaze simmered with hurt as she dragged two sodden sparrows from their interment. I thought I vas bad — but it is you.

anselm accused her of badness and heda's reaction was to gaze unseeingly down at the pair of birds she'd taken for her sister.
the condemnation hurt more than she felt was possible, especially from someone who had rejected her in the most base way possible and at the peak of her vulnerability. "you assumed i would just get rid of them." tones deadened. "you didn't want to be a father, so you left it all to me, and that's when it stopped being your decision what happened. i didn't lie, anselm. i protected them from someone so viciously mean he didn't even want to contemplate fatherhood."
heda didn't add her opinion of anselm as a father. he knew. she knew, and truly there was nothing to say. her eyes cut up from the sparrows. "you made it mean nothing. i asked you to take care of me and you said no."
leaden, weighted; why were they having this conversation? why was she spelling out for this irrational boy something he knew and didn't want to accept? she'd offered him the opportunity to possess her as a wife and now he blamed her for the outcome when he had refused. the tears were threatening again and finally she gave in; "i want my husband. i want my home, anselm. neither exist anymore." she closed her eyes in shame, feeling teardrops dew the ends of her lashes. "if you think i'm bad, then fine. okay. i don't have any reason to argue. but if you want to help, you really want to help, then make it so i don't have to leave that den again till the pups are weaned."
the pair of sparrows lay on the ground. slowly, as if she were in great pain, heda picked them up, still unable to look at anselm but lingering, ears cupped to show she still listened.

He wanted validation — instead, he got icewater to the face in the form of stark reality.

He’d made his own choices, same as Heda. But Anselm hated the bed made for him.

Vhy vouldn’t you get rid of them?! He half-whispered. He wasn’t fit to be a father. She already had children. What world would they be born into where they’d have to scratch out the saddest living between two partners who had more love for the dirt than one another?

Was he viciously mean for this brand of pragmatic mercy? He stepped back, visibly stunned by her assessment of his character.

You didn’t ask me to take care of you! You asked me to marry you. His words twisted with scarcely concealed irritation. He was always the bad guy, always the asshole, and he resented her for pointing it out no matter if it was true.

Heda spoke of her husband - of a past Anselm had no part of. He could not help but feel her life was worse for him in it. He looked away as he saw emotion overturn the iciness of her gaze, hot tears softening their hard angles.

You vould rather fuck a man that hurts his packmates than look at me. Anselm called to Heda’s retreating backside, digging the verbal knife in when Heda had almost offered a compromise.


She’d given him an olive branch, and he decided to set it on fire.

her spine stiffened when he spoke, when he called out to her crudely. to keep the upper hand, she needed to walk away. just go, she told herself. anselm did this because he had a fundamental need to have the last word.
but even as she thought, her body was moving in a crisp, tight turn; she flung the sparrows into the brush and stalked toward the man with the barely controlled fire of an anger that would not cease its burning.
"and you would rather fuck yourself, anselm, so go and do it." but there was a cruelty now, blistering the inside of her mouth, her gaze. he had the reaction he wanted. "it's so strange, i only ever knew one other man who had your accent. and he abandoned druid and i here. i wonder if you knew who he was too. i wonder if he did it again to a new family."
her eyes scorched into his, a challenge clear in them. their issues had never been about glaukos.

That would do it. Anselm’s harpoon landed a little too cleanly. Heda rounded upon him, eyes blazing as she threw the sorry pair of birds into the brush. 

He might have quailed for all her livid fire, if he had not withstood it once before. 

Anselm felt righteous, and so he set his jaw firm and held the burning of her incensed stare. At least if I fucked myself, I’d get some satisfaction out of it. He countered, the heat of the moment having him say horrible things he didn’t truly mean. In this instant, however, he felt a bitter sense of satisfaction. 

Vell, that has nothing to do vith me. Anselm shot back as Heda revealed she knew another man with an accent. He was so self assured, he didn’t even consider the possible connection. Vhat, you going to make fun of my accent now, Heda?

"you're right. maybe if i'd handled things alone, i wouldn't have had to be disappointed twice." they could bandy words all day about their liaison but heda no longer cared, latching to something beyond them both with the fixation of a bloodhound.
they stood before each other in a mutual glower. heda sensed that anselm was pleased in some way that she had not simply walked off. his harpoon bled between her shoulders, down into the stippled hackles.
"so what did mahler tell you, anselm? or did he just not say anything one day?" 
but now she was not considering another portion of things, another unsaid name; no, no, if anselm wished her to bleed, then bleed she would, right into his eyes.
it was a shot in the dark, and she held firm, her stare locked to his own. "is that why you need me to tell you i need you?"

If Anselm threw the harpoon, Heda threw the atlatl; it sunk deep into his skin with a soft gasp, his eyes widening as realization of the mortal blow sunk in. 

Had he known this?

The pieces came together in latticework symphony. Druid’s past woven with Heda’s and now, unthinkably — his own. 

The self-absorbed smirk fell from his face like stone upon stillwater. 

He said nothing of his father. It could not be true. But it was, and he knew it — for Heda only confirmed a missing piece Anselm suspected all along about Mahler and his predilection for departure. 

His lips curled back in a grimace to be so baldly portrayed as some needy, insecure monster. You don’t mean it. But the blow was done, an arterial fissure knocked loose. You know vhy I hate all religious freaks, Heda? You are all the same. His giltmarked stare laced with unsprung tears. You think you own the moral high ground, but you’re here in the dirt vith the rest of us. You just haven’t realized it yet. 

He released his shoulders with a hard exhale, wanting to be done with all of this. Despite the grenade he’d lobbed in heda’s court, he now deeply regretted his hand in it. 

It was too late for take back. Anselm made to move away, reeling from the bite of Heda’s words.

and heda lunged sideways to cut him off, knowing with a flash of bittersweet triumph that she had gained more than he. she ignored his words of hatred, reveling in the way that horrendous smirk dissolved from his mouth. "don't worry, anselm. i knew god put me in the dirt the moment you told me how insane it was what i wanted."
and he had. wasn't that also something they'd talked about?
god's cruelty.
god's lack of love.
while heda had not relinquished the idea of god nor his love despite all the blows taken, her zeal for the one who had once given her a sunshine life opened her to the maliciousness of her own pain, and she rained her blows after anselm. she did not need a scapegoat when he offered himself so willingly to this dance of hurt.
she leaned into it, embraced it; it was horrifically wonderful to feel something other than grinding fatigue, choked-down resentment, and sorrow.
heda caught fire before anselm's retreating eyes, a paladin who sought to avenge not god but herself.
"it was. it was him. i guess i don't have to ask you what it's like to watch someone who taught you and fed you and protected you just leave. i guess, anselm," her voice rising because she could not control it, "that i don't have to wonder why you don't hold anyone dear."
heda knew on some level that anselm's grave devotion to etienne was something more, and her teeth flashed with the remembered knowledge; did he want that assumption too?
"he taught me the same lesson, anselm, and do you know what i did? i made it work! i lived my life. i made something of myself. you don't see her anymore, and neither do i," the tears that might have fallen sundered to ash, "but i was more than you ever wanted to be."
heda might have come at him again; she braced, for they'd come to blows once and she almost wanted it anew; had not a singular cold thought drenched her flaming sword and stoked the golden eyes to a new fire;
oh, oh, no, please —
she thought of gideon;
"all this talk of fathers. i t-think i know your mother too," and she chuckled with a vast wide emptiness even as she sank that knife, she wished, directly into the place where anselm had issued a remark to her so shattering to her faith that she had willingly borne his teeth next.

Once, they’d been so close they came together in a serpent’s dance. Now their dance was one of tongues and flames, fangs just barely out of reach and waiting for their moment to sink into vital nerves. 

Anselm was cut off; his ears swung back as he showed his teeth. She was crazy, he decided — crazier than the last time he’d talked to her. 

And she was cruel, too. She felt around for the sore spots in his psyche and upon sensing the vulnerable patchwork, thrust her entire being through it — excavating every sense of him until all he felt left was a gaping hollow. 

Anselm wanted to shove her aside — but the image of a battered Druid stayed his hand. Vhat is vrong vith me not leaving, Heda? Do you vant me to leave you? He half-snarled, half-cried — Anselm would not be likened to his father. 

If Mahler had imparted upon Heda anything, it was his casual cruelty.

Anselm ignored the remark she was better than anything he’d imagined for himself — but the comment about him holding nothing dear he could not ignore.  You know that is untrue. Anselm’s muzzle contorted in lines of displeasure.

 The riposte he prepared fell short as Heda mentioned his mother. Anselm’s ears cupped forward with umbrage. Don’t. He snarled, feeling his fur stand on edge

what the world had dealt to heda, she gave back tenfold. an unhealed psyche put through the gamut of emotion and experience in just a few crushing months now reacting in hatred to the only being in the world who had thrust a pike into the one thing she had ever believed.
beneath his comment about god's inability had been a blighted acceptance that caracal was dead, long before heda had once seen fit to accept that. it had been the basis of her flashing teeth, lunging first to strike the truth from anselm's mouth.
she was indeed maddened by the idea that someone else in existence could hurt as much as she did; heda had become obsessed by its conception in a moment, wanting to decimate anselm and seeing all her justification in how he had treated her, on their first meeting, on their second, on any other occasion, until that final moment when she had thought she would be free of him and he had asked to assure she had ended the pregnancy.
he'd hurt her again, even after the rejection of a marriage, the scraps of her dignity torn away by his scathing tone, but she had waited, she had waited. she had not expected to see him again; she had buried all of this down below druid's needs and those of the pups. almost! almost god had let her forget it, until he had sent anselm after etienne.
after etienne, not her, not the possibility that what they had done might have been fruitful.
another abandonment of a man who heda had taught herself would protect her if she did this. the island and its bliss; every man wanted to be a husband. every woman wanted to be a wife.
and too late she had learned she was only a foolish girl in so many regards. her sons had begun to form before she came to this knowledge
this had never been about her, not once; anselm continued to insist upon it. leaving her! when he had done it to both heda and these children he claimed had been a lie. did he only want control over her? she'd offered it! did he only want her to bow her head and say 'i was wrong. i lied. they're yours.' so he could be vindicated? so he could walk away again?
infuriated that this man of all men could continue to hurt her even after she'd punished herself for the sin they'd committed, even after god had seen fit to punish her as well for choosing deception by taking her daughters away, heda braced, took aim, and let fly with a final spear she hoped would pierce a man's sense into his boy's brain.
no one had ever demanded that mahler be a father. he simply knew to do it. and that was all the nuance that she needed to command the same from his son.
"if your mother is wylla," heda grit, "then two of those pups are yours."

He stiffened for another volley. Go ahead, he thought — he would lay bare his chest for her next barrage, see which mark destroyed him. 

Instead, it was a simple spark that would be his ruination. He breathed in disbelief, his heart thudding against a ribcage so tight he felt his organs might escape. 

Two of those pups where his. His stomach twisted to have what he’d feared confirmed. It would be easier to walk away if these were Glaukos’s mistake; how was he to be a father? He was too young, too — was his life ending before it had ever truly begun?

His throat worked uncomfortably up and down. How do you know? How did she know his parents, or the parentage of her children, when she’d taken so easily to Glaukos as if their tryst meant nothing. 

Maybe it did mean nothing. Anselm was coming to terms slowly with the idea there was nothing profound about fucking besides the heartbreak.

was he so far in denial that he could not even think for a moment? heda's anger waned as his confusion blurred around them both. she began to feel immensely older than anselm, ageless, apparently, first in her understanding of what happened when you coupled with a woman, then how the timeline of pregnancy worked, then how perhaps your —
she was being unfair, but why should she recognize that? he had resented her from the beginning, through it all, directly after, directly before, and now, scintillating in shades of emotion — she pitched her voice low, only for his ears —
"wylla is my aunt."
nostrils flared; throat cleared; she could not afford to be devastated by this news, though later she would wonder in fierce silence to god if such a stain could ever be scrubbed from her soul, begging him in unsaid, unheard prayers to never allow ezra nor gideon to experience sorrow for the unknowing terrible thing she had done.
"you never liked me." her shoulders wilted in slow ebbing. "and i didn't expect you to like me. not even after we had to come to the mountains. i knew i was a burden to you, anselm. but i don't know why you chose me. and i don't know why i let you close, after all of it. i — maybe i thought you needed ... someone soft."
her voice was drained of rage, a vessel with a crack along the side;
seeking healing in trying to give it.
heda glanced at him now, finding she once more had to force her eyes up the side of his face. 
"maybe i sensed a safety in you that wasn't there."
her mind started to spin; she felt dizzy and inhaled deeply to keep her balance. "it's — it's better if everyone believes — something else. i didn't know when i — when glaukos — i didn't know. i just thought it was better that way. it meant you had no obligation and i didn't have to wonder if you were going to show up for them. now i'm glad i did."
she needed to get back to druid; she wanted to run away from anselm. from rivenwood, even; perhaps; she felt herself crumbling. "i love them. two boys. maybe you will too."
heda backed away on stiff legs and made to return to the den, verbal ability leaving her, tears filming her; head bowing as she faced more hours of prayer and the brutal backlash of regret for her leaping, horrible need to hurt anselm. it was her. it always had been.

No no no no no no —
Anselm’s eyes widened to their true height, gold ringed by shades of sharp fear. 

Revulsion. No. That cannot be. He pulled away instinctively, his lips curled in a grimace as if he’d tasted fruit so vile his tongue would never be rid of it. 

It could not be true; it was not true he was just like his father; like it was not true he’d always resented her. These untruths tore at his perception, fraying the edges of his mind with rising dismay. 

He nearly missed the insinuation he wasn’t someone safe. Anselm sucked through his teeth with protest. I am somevone safe. I didn’t resent you, he countered to a receding back, coming to terms with the harrowing realization that he’d done far worse than he knew.  The tears that rimmed his gaze hardened to crystals, cutting into him with the same clarity as diamondbacked disgust.

Vhat are their names? Anselm finally managed in a choked whisper, but at this point Heda had ducked back towards the den. 

If ever there was a hour Anselm truly hated himself, it was this. Nothing compared to the winterstorm of self loathing that raged in his sinking heart. 

He wished in that moment to simply absorb into the dirt he accused Heda of being part of - he was trash, and the filthy earth his denizen’s court. 

He belonged there more than she.