Swiftcurrent Creek turquoise

muskrat had made her densite on a mossy cliff beneath a lone, sunken tree. waves of her determined plume had cleared the cobwebbing and old leaves dried now to powder; she had dirtied herself three nights in a row to excavate a simple, large room. on one side the swamp panther piled the few hides she had kept from her work, and the other was bare dirt, lit by a tiny aperture dug out where the ground thinned beneath the upper roots.

the skull she had been given by arric in thanks for their hunt had been carefully hung over the small entrypoint, in the longer moss that flourished there.

bones lined the path up the cliff, and it was in her frequent climbs that she found her leg had all but healed.

all muskrat missed was the sluggish lap of swampwater around her dwelling, and found she could not sleep well without it. on such nights, she felt landlocked, angry, as she did this afternoon. she dragged a fish along the bone-path and slung it to one side, muttering. nothing held her here besides her own honor, and it was a righteous flare in muskrat all the time.

Pale eyes studied the skull—strung upon the entrance of a cave and drawing thoughtful consideration from the ebony Mayfair. A lazy sweep of his gaze would also reveal bones—lined as if enticing a path—and Akavir could not figure out if this was meant as a statement of welcome, or of warning.

Mae was off for the moment—Arlette and Arric busy with their new brood. Viinturuth came and went as usual—Pukei… he did not know.

The glimpse of golden fur stirred him to move forward, beginning to trail the length of bones, though his eyes remained upon her—still a mystery to him, even now.

sharpbladed shoulders were turned toward akavir when he stepped up the trapdoor bones of her path.

"tuta runa." muskrat did not shift; she continued her smooth fileting of the fish and set it aside, muscles playing along her back in the half light. "arlette is well?" she had not dared to go near the densite; she was omega despite the kindness of the plantwolf and mountainman.

motherhood had never been a wish belonging to muskrat. she wanted to know that the other had come through it all the same.

His eyes caught the sun glancing from her bronze-kissed fur—golden eyes staring at him as she continued the task she set before herself. An ear flickered at the nickname—his own far paler eyes resting upon the scar traced upon her muzzle for a moment.

“There was a moment,” he offered quietly—not for gossip, but because it had truly scared him. “But Arlette is now the mother to four.”

He was quiet a moment—gaze drifting back to the den she had staked claim upon—had decorated.

Had begun to make a home of.

“You sought out Mae?” His voice was soft—more-so than usual. A cant of his head, and he shifted his weight, shoulders rolling back in a light stretch. Regardless of her answer—he continued: “You seem to have settled here… Your time of repayment is over.” A pause—wondering now her intentions with this news he now bestowed. “You can join the regular ranks of the creek, if you wish it.”

If you intend to stay.

it was then that muskrat did move to face akavir, her bold eyes touched by a woman's worry for another. a moment of reassurance followed, and she nodded.

"i find mae. she ask i fight her." for what reason, she did not know, but she meant to heed the commands of those ranked higher.

and now akavir offered that too. muskrat flicked her eyes over the skull and the bone-path, then to his own powerful limbs and the face that regarded her quietly.

she had not decided if she would stay, because she had found nothing to ease the pain of cloud singer nor the hatred for gorseberry that kept her awake more and more. but then again, she had been a crippled servant all this time. he offered a chance for a true story to unfold.

and she would be a fool not to take it. "all right." was this a betrayal of what she knew?

Tags just for reference.

“Sounds like Mae,” he noted, ears sliding back to his skull in quiet thought of his daughter. She had a lot to be angry about. As scarred as she was on the outside, it was her internal wounds he truly worried over. But at least the attempt had been made by the woman before him… Just as he had asked.

Akavir had grown accustom to keeping most at arms length—trials and errors of life had proven this necessity.

He hadn’t just kept Muskrat at arms length though—he kept her at a valley’s length—guarded. She had proven herself loyal—had proven herself an asset, even.

He considered this quietly, swallowing the growing lump in his throat for the moment. “@Nanou is gone. @Arric will be busy tending to his new pups, and helping Arlette after the birth complications.”

If either Beta knew his current intention, it was likely they would have stomped him flat. For now, they remained distracted. “I plan to still pay Bearclaw Valley a visit with @Viinturuth about the man who hurt Mae. I would like you to come.”

His gaze pointedly drifted in the direction of her ankle—concern knitting his brows together. “But I don’t want you to do anything that will hurt yourself further.”

these moments had changed much. muskrat now had the right to visit arric and arlette, and though she meant to remain distant, food and care would be brought.

and now, a war walk.

her eyes flashed at this, glinting like citrus stones. she wanted to offer herself alone, a rogue to invade, but that would compromise much between camps if akavir wanted to use words first.

she had not known nanou. and now it did not much matter. a nod attended his words. "i ready when you are."

a purpose. she wanted to fight again, to raid. these months she had been denied a taste, and now it seemed as if her reward was to have a plate filled. "i will be careful."

He could have offered orders during their travels to—but somehow—this was for her ears. Viinturuth would agree with him, this he knew—but it was imperative she understood this. “If there’s trouble… a fight,” he began, eyes rapt upon her, his tongue sweeping over his lip. “I want you to leave and report back here to Arric.”

Glaukos had blinded his daughter and apparently knocked another woman by barely lifting a limb—he was a large man with a temper, it seemed.

And with the Bearclaw wolves being fresh in their claim and mostly unknown… he wasn’t sure what would unfold before them.

“Do not join a fight.” Do not hurt yourself more. “Come back to protect the creek.”

there was resistance in her, if only because akavir did not know what she had done and the things she had accomplished far from his creek. and perhaps this far from the swamp, these things no longer mattered.

no. they always would, muskrat decided, fighting the urge to touch the scar on her face again. opting instead for a quick nod, she lifted a paw toward the gleaming fish half wrapped in large wet leaves. "hungry, tuta runa?"

it was already his to take and to have, but muskrat enjoyed the sensation of offering meat here in her own tiny hovel. and she liked more the concept of this war walk, hoping to properly hunt this man. "i go to arric if fighting starts."

His gaze followed the direction of her paw—eyes landing upon the fish she had been working on when he had first interrupted her. He disliked the idea of accepting her food—he wanted to be a provider… not provided for. And yet most of the food caught was taken straight to Arlette—would continue to be so, for now she was nursing four larger pups, given the beastly size of their father.

With a quiet inclination of his muzzle, he swept down to his haunches, studying the fish before looking to her. “Why the leaves?”

Just one puzzle piece in the hundreds this she-wolf presented to him—and yet he felt it an easy question… and perhaps a bit of insight to the life and culture she had allegedly left behind.

"keep fresh for travel. or just to keep." the sunflower eyes regarded him with a guarded expression. was he unused to war? to battle? his scars said he had seen it, at one time, but his mien was not that of a warrior. they lived to die and saw dying as an act of life. akavir was not this — was he?

"you raid, night man?" muskrat asked after some moments. she knew he did not and felt that no wolf here understood what the swamp panthers had done, how they had gotten their name.

more than that, raiding was the right way to live. it kept a warrior sharp and bloodlines strong.

To keep the fish—foreign concept to the man who held little regard for the morsels. Fish had always been consumed within hours of their capture from him—and his gaze drifted to study the art in which she had wrapped them—the work and mind behind it.

Before he could comment, Muskrat questioned him—drawing his gaze back to her, his brow furrowing in contemplation. “There is little honor in raiding others for their hard earned work,” he chose, his words to the point. To raid an enemy land was one thing—to raid for the sake of doing so?

It was the life of a thief.

“You raid often?”

"many, many times. go on first raid when ah — have four turns of the moon." they began their life young, and in her reminiscing muskrat did not take offense at akavir's words.

"raids done back and forth, for different things. sometimes they only for fun. no one hurt. nothing taken. then that tribe raid us. to walk through enemy camp with no wound; it is how we prove warriors."

"but many times raids have blood. shouting. everything taken. maybe a man of one camp hurts a woman of another. her family demand that the man given to them, but his leaders say no. her brothers and sisters come back to their home, form war party, and put down entire camp that did not give justice."

her eyes were sharp. "there is honor in that, night man." her scar seemed to throb once, a reminder of the swamp panthers, and then muskrat pushed the fish toward akavir and fell silent. "where is mother to mae?"

There is honor in defending your family and loved ones, he agreed. To inflict it upon others and in turn draw it back? He fell to silence for now... wondering if her tribe had men who had wronged women.

A fish passed to him, he nosed at it. The leaf unwrapping, teeth grazing to break the delicacy in half. The fish given back on the leaf--an offer to choose half should she wish.

The question of Mae's mother stirred memory. Jakoul--sharp boned. Proud of her children. 

And then... Gone, he replied. She left before they were fully weaned. Mae has a lot to be angry about, he noted.

It was hard to miss the bitterness his daughter presented to the world. He only hoped it was fixable, one day.

"and you, akavir?" muskrat asked with a blank directness. taking the proffered fish, she chewed with gusto, remembering when she had pulled this very spread of scales from the water.

mae's mother had left. this would bring rage to any child. what did it do to the heart of a man?

her mind moved in waves of sorrow for a moment, cloud singer's handsome, grinning face emblazoned upon the center of her mind. what would have happened had she married him? he had not been a part of the warrior's society; he had been a healer, and his touch indeed evoked the green places inside muskrat.

she slammed shut her thoughts upon cloud singer, flicking bones from the edge of the little grassy hillcliff on which they sat beneath the dry tree.

She questioned if he had much to be angry about--contemplative, he studied her.

Something shrouded over her own countenance, but he couldn't say what. A memory, perhaps. Her own past. 

Jakoul and I were not together in that sense, he offered--though her question was open enough that it didn't truly answer her.

I'm sure we all have something to be angry about, he murmured, eyes turning down before he chewed quietly on a bite of the fish. I have a dead wife, four children somewhere in this world hating life, and a blind one here, also hating life.

He paused. Unrequited love. The inability to find trust in so many, as it had been shattered countless times.

I'm also recently divorced, I suppose. But given everything that happened... it's come as more of a relief. His words cooler now, another bite of fish, his eyes now drifting upward to her.

he gave. he gave, in a deluge of words she had never expected to hear from a man previously regarded, however briefly, as a captor.

jakoul was the name of mae's mother, but they had not been married. a dead wife. a wife who had left him. five children, and one blinded. he described them also all as eaten by loathing, which muskrat wondered was a reflection of his own mind.

his eyes found her own. she held them. "my heart broken, once. he is dead. i am here." voice eloquent despite her grasp of the language, she sent her shoulders backward in a loose stretch that suggested apathy.

yet her eyes did not.

and she was not ready to say the rest, and fiercely fought against the notion of sharing it with another. "but even before, i know i was warrior first, then woman. do not want it. you, tuta runa, you see why we raid. to be — alive."

to feel the serenity of a life lived and the adrenaline of success rather than pass the years haunted by dead wives. "to marry not for us all. other things to be."

Muskrat was young—now her own beloved gone. Ibis—the unnamed man. Gone.

It seemed entirely unfair, and he took another bite, realizing in that moment, he did not remember what Ibis’ favorite meal had been. As much as he tried to think upon it—recollection did not come. The shine of her eyes—the curl of her smile. Even worse, the stormcloud of her frown.

‘I have a son,’ she had told him—his fight to return to her and their girls. Her new family in his absence.

“To raid is to feel alive? Or is it to mask your loneliness in an attempt to prove self worth?”

His question was spoken softly then—he did not aim to mar her feelings, nor her culture. But he could not see it—and yet, refusing Eshe children… and now, he had laid with how many this year?

He lost count.

Who was he to judge the purpose of another’s life, when he couldn’t even find his own. “Sorry. That was uncalled for,” he offered, swallowing the fish—feeling as if it stuck in his throat, now.

his arrow struck. muskrat's smile hardened, though it did not fall. "we both lonely, akavir. but i know who i am." cloud singer did not define her, not in life, not in death. she had been a warrior before him and was one now. her bed had never been as empty as it was now.

but she had loved only him, and the horrible scars upon the surface of her heart ached in such ways that she knew her mind must focus elsewhere.

muskrat rose in a smooth motion. "you not know. if you did, no such words." her voice did not carry any anger for what he had said. "i sleep now, be ready for night watch. more fish to eat if hungry." akavir was welcome to muse as long as he wished at the clearing before the bone path, while muskrat turned for the earthen underground and her pile of hides, pausing once to pass a paw over the deerskull.

Ash in his mouth—that’s what the fish felt like. The sharpness of her features and smile and the fluid motion of her slender form rising, excusing herself.

She began her ascent to her den—the skull catching his eyes. If he were a smart man, he would let it lie here—the man who kept most at arms length. It was a necessity—but she did not understand that, and like a poisoned dart, he was up, following her, pressing himself forward to partially block her path, eyes beseeching her own.

It was not his place to insult her, nor his desire.

“I do not fight to feel alive, little panther. I fight to protect those I love, because as the years pass, you begin to watch them die. You watch them fall victim to needless attacks—like Mae had been. And each time, a piece of you will fall away with them. Over and over. And one day, there will be nothing left to you.”

His jaw tenses—stubbornly, he remains in her path.

her eyes traced the scars upon his face as he spoke, the life lived. far more years than her own, though without the confidence that muskrat would have expected from a man of his status.

handsome. broken. hurt. he warned her and she laughed mirthlessly up at him, a single barbed exhale. "maybe it that way for you. not for me." each piece of strength she consumed from defeating another quenched her spirit. he did not understand it for he had not seen it. warriors lived a life entirely separate from that of their clan, and it was on her tongue to suggest he do the same for the next years of his life. "i have no one to watch die."

who was akavir to speak as if he knew her? he did not, and her heart was kindled to turn him aside. there were not enough words yet in her command to explain the nuance of the raid, what it meant, what it stood for among her people.

now she closed to the night man, and only waited for him to step aside.

The challenging stare she gave him as she laughed at his words—insisting this was not to happen to her. And yet the dark shadow that had crossed her fierce countenance before when she spoke of a love gone—he knew better.

The seed of grief had been planted—she would force it away. She could laugh, she could fight. Hone her skill. But he knew…

Youth and pride often went hand in hand—and as she laughed at him, his own smile grew—darker than hers, a slow nod given as he took a step back from her, back down the trail in which she had lined with bones—now, he knew, another farce in which she meant to prove her ferocity. “Then why are you still here?”

If she cared that no one here died—why, then, did she stay?

He took his leave with that—the coming of summer air thicker in this moment than most.

muskrat remained for the same reason akavir did, she believed: this was all either of them had.

sensitive to his chill, she watched him go before she at last ducked beneath the pelts and sank into her pelts with a warm grunt.

he passed from her mind, and she returned to the bed of warm moss in that far place, turning in her dreams to see cloud singer there.

his beauty took her breath; his perfect mouth spoke.

then why are you still here?

muskrat came awake in a cold heat and did not return to sleep.