Qeya River tu el aire que respiro yo

set immediately after this thread!

jealousy is an ugly thing to feel.
and in that moment it ravaged wren, swam up her stomach and into her throat, leeched off of her heartbeat and the air in her lungs. anger could not quite describe it, nor could sadness, nor could numbness; it was everything and nothing all at once, and it was nauseating.
@Silvertongue was not far away from where she and akavir had just been, and it took little for wren to piece together the clues as to why. when her eyes land upon her wife, she feels a tear in her chest, a sundering; was she just paranoid? would she even be honest with her? what if, what if, what if;
she does not meet her with anger, instead with a shaky sigh as she settles down into a sit. she avoids her eyes as she says the simple phrase no spouse ever wants to hear: we need to talk.

"we do." silvertongue's gaze watched the nails of her own forepaw for a moment. buffing the dirt from their curves, her glassblue eyes flickered to those of wren, and she lifted her chin. "one of the men we chose this year knows we are here. he offered no danger. but he knows. he is a swiftcurrent wolf," silvertongue went on, her tone adopting a subtle archness as her eyes traveled now the little sprawl of wildflowers. "perhaps he followed akavir here." no anger either, to match; a question.

she is met with a different subject entirely. one of the donors, a swiftcurrent wolf; aware of their presence here, and with that his potential children. does he want anything to do with the kids? because i don't want him getting any ideas.
they were not his kids. nor — akavir's. yeah, about that, the prima sucks in a shaky breath. you heard that whole conversation, didn't you? everything he said to me? which brings me to my next question.
he said you two met up some time ago. that you talked, there was not accusation in her tone, only the vulnerability of a woman who could never compare no matter how hard she tried. the deep brown eyes glisten. i need you to be one hundred percent honest with me. was that all that happened? and why didn't you tell me about this?

silvertongue reached her paws to wren now, to cup one of her wife's hands between her own. "akavir and i closed a history that came before you." stark. direct. soft. their time together had nothing to do with wren, and as such she did not involve her wife. there was an argument to be made that silvertongue did not understand how to exist within a marriage, but that was unsaid for there were no words to illustrate it. "you and akavir did the same." only acceptance, only a searching for the same. one hundred percent honest; and she resisted it. "he was upset to know i was leaving," silvertongue offered, an honest glistening pearl in her palm. "i do feel for him, wren. but i left him behind." and then they had come here, then their children had been born, and that was the end, ready to be an actual finality until akavir had shown up on their new doorstep.

maybe you should trust your wife more. akavir's words ring in her ears and bounce off the brain that was now aflame. it was not that she did not trust her wife, or even did not trust akavir; it was something else, some mysterious third thing that even she did not understand.
she is quiet for a long note before she squeezes the dainty paw tangled with her own. you left him behind, she whispers, a crack in the once solid voice. and you came to me.
was that enough? enough to know that silvertongue felt for him, felt for crowfeather, and had chosen her in the end? because it was a choice; a choice to act, a choice to relinquish, a choice to sacrifice. a choice they had both made.
i'm sorry, she says softly. i don't even know what's gotten into me, i just-- i get scared.

a nod, solemn; lips dipping to feather upon the ankle she held cupped in the curl of her own paw. "i came back. and then we left, and then right after that we became mothers. there has been little time to think of anything else, or him, until he was here." yes. she had heard it all, but she wanted to know more, a curious, surprised searching within her. "it is all right to be frightened. but he cannot live between us, wren." she kissed the softness of one cheekbone and then the other, breathing below each eye; "do you love him still?" for that had not been apathy vibrating in the air between her wife and akavir.

and now wren softens, relief shown in the way her shoulders slump. i trust you.
perhaps there was no reason for her to lie, but still! anyone would react in such a way hearing news like that, especially in the manner it had been delivered. the glow of the crystalline gaze warms her enough to calm her, and so too do the kisses that linger upon her cheeks. i just wanted to make sure, is all, she says it more to reassure herself than anything. he won't live between us. he's outside of us both now, i suppose, right?
do you love him still, silvertongue asks, and wren feels a tight knot form in her throat. i don't... know if i ever did. not the way i love you. i mean, she pauses to laugh in the way one does when they are nervous. i cared about him, yeah, but-- i think i was only convincing myself that he was anything more to me. i liked how he made me feel.
the safety, the attention. and this was a pattern; she thinks of colt. of marcus.
but when i met you, she reaches to cup the beautiful face now, a tenderness to the touch. it was so different.

i trust you, and guilt sparkled as if it were a spread of nighttime stars glittering sharply inside her gut. "right." he has to be. he will be. there was no place for akavir here, and there could not be, and there would not be, and she — they would do their best to excise him, if need be. and still! she wondered, wondered in soft, foolish pastels for a wandering, flighty moment. her feelings for the man did not mirror those of wren; it had been a true and deep love, a stream marked by several razoring stones that at last cut them both into pieces. "it was different," silvertongue echoed back, not needing new words to say in return the way that love for wren had pierced her chest and mind and spirit so immediately, and so immensely. no man had done that for her before.

it was different.
i love you, silver, the dark lips find the space between the lovely eyes, the place they often rested between. i'll love you always. even if you love someone else, even if-- if that someone else was akavir, or crowfeather, or another woman. i'll love you if you hate me one day. i'd love you if this was our last day together, and i'll love you if we get a thousand more years.
you are my woman, my life, my reason for breathing, the tears make a return, rolling down the rounded cheeks. i love you even if you never love me half as much. i'd-- i'd hunt for you in every universe. i love you despite and because of everything. and i'd go through it all over again for the rest of eternity so long as it means i get to love you at the end of it.
vulnerable, raw, wren shrinks somewhat, hesitant only for a second before it falls away yet again, because vulnerability was not nearly so frightening anymore.

she deserved none of this passion, and by the end of it, silvertongue was trembling, slipping her paws upward gently to caress the tears from that much-beloved face. and how unfair it was! to find that her mouth could make no noise, her throat form no words; that she had wanted this over and over from crowfeather and had instead learned to live without it. and now to have it offered in such fierce sweetness — it was almost as if she underwent for a moment a small death of self. she did not comprehend what it was to be loved so very much, and so let the very noiseless vibrancy of her entire body straining forward in response speak for itself. "i loved you before the desert," was all she could at last say, her voice made tiny and resplendent in its own love as she brought them, the riverclan women, the qeya wives, together in a kiss tasting of salt and a deep, abiding sweetness.