Firefly Glen [PHE] you don't know me liked you used to

Etienne's mouth tipped up into a smile after he cleaned the small scratch on the child's leg and they toddled off with a laugh and a snack.

He got to work cleaning up the area, the bright sun warming his shoulders, making his mask starker. He hummed a sea shanty under his breath and golden eyes would occasionally lift to look for @Skaigona or @Anselm or even @Gideon or @Ezra but they weren't coming. He knew.

The bridges for him to heda had been burnt and he could not forgive. And the children well that had not know him in the least.

So he pressed them out of his mind and continued to tidy his now vacant work station. Though he pulled a soft gasp when his paw hit the sharpened edges of a broken log. He pulled it back with a hiss. Small dots of crimson leaking from the pad.

He hurriedly tried to clean it. For such a small cut it bled.

Tags for reference. He's fine just a small prick

They were here for two days, ostensibly. Anselm drank in the commotion, immediately feeling overwhelmed by so many wolven bodies in such small square footage. 

It was unnatural. He could not see himself staying here long — but he held out hope that Ezra would be here, and Heda too — if only to reunite the brothers. 

His heart twisted as familiar song softly flooded the low hanging leaves burned by autumn’s splendor. He knew the voice, and he knew the body behind it — boy, did it set his soul on fire. 

So he ignored it for as long as he could, but like any sorry sailor lost to sea, Anselm was drawn to the sirensong, and at last his resolve broke and he tread close carefully. 

He saw Etienne bent over his own paw. He saw the dark specks of blood darkening his fist. An unwelcome tidal wave of emotions lodged itself against his throat and threatened to break his posture as he remembered the last time he’d touched Etienne — and the many threads of longing such a touch breathed to life in a body that up until then, had never known what was missing. 

Vhat happened? He cleared his throat, gaze solemn on the well of blood.

Etienne had been in his element since he had arrived. Small scrapes and cuts bruises. Small injuries. He worked them all. He gave advice. He spoke woth those who knew more. For the first time in a long time he was semi relaxed.

Where Anselm was like a sailor lost at sea. Etienne was a siren who would give up his song. Because he could never drag the man to the bottom of the sea.

Etienne nearly fell as his body gave an involuntarily shudder and scared him. Then it was as if it all fell like a million little pieces l.

o Bondye mwen. ou fè'm pè.

He chuckled. Sorry you scared me. Not'in' muc' jus' a cut. Dis log got me.

Etienne looked around and found some of the soft Reed fluff and slowly worked to clean up and cover his paw. A small strip of leaf and grass to keep it.

Did you be findin' dem? All good?

He looked to Anselm then. Taking in his face like a drowning man

kek.

though ezra keeps a weathered eye on the horizon for his father, or anyone that might see fit to chase him and his mother off; his worry remains on her. on stealing ( or at least, he thinks he's stealing ) good cuts of meat to offer her. he throws some birds in, too, in the hopes of taking suspicion off of him.

his breath catches in his throat, almost stumbling over himself as he catches a familiar scent tangled irrevocably with unfamiliar scents and makes a direct beeline for the source.

dad? it comes out choked as anselm and etienne come into view.

his chest constricts with a harsh, almost painful breath.

DAD!!! read a room?? ezra??? never.

dad ve've —

ve've been looking for you! and gideon! and — and i'm — emotions well up and choke ezra as he gallops nearer.

and i vas so scared you vere dead. that amadeo had killed you. ezra blubbers, voice pitched with emotion that reveals that despite that he was growing into his adult body he was still just a kid.

Etienne startled, turning and speaking the language Anselm had never bothered to learn. A pang of guilt rifled through him to hear — and feel — how he’d missed that strange and alien tongue. 

A log had done this? Anselm’s tired gaze raked in the scene, trying — and failing — to find a way to show a shrivel of empathy for his hurt hunt-brother (and more), pride and dignity intact. He was about to answer Etienne’s question when —

Suddenly, a voice he knows through and through pierces the air. Anselm’s head whipped around instantly, his stomach and heart both simultaneously dropping and rising like stone hurled over a mountain. Ezra! His son!

Ezra! Anselm is gone from Etienne’s side in an instant, long limbs carrying him to his son where he reached and scooped him up and pulled him tightly to his chest in an embrace that threatened to never let him go. A half-sob threatened to expose how weak of a man he was; he lodged it deep in his throat. 

It is what Ezra said that caused him to set the boy down at length, brow furrowing in both confusion and a revived sense of hurt. No one — other than Etienne — from Rivenwood had cared for his side of the story. He’d lived with this seeming truth these last few months and felt despair in every molecule: he’d lost it all to a usurper, and no one seemed to have cared. 

But Ezra cared. Anselm could nearly cry. Amadeo had damn near killed him. He wasn’t whole, but things might be okay now. Gideon is vith me, Anselm choked out in a voice more unsteady than he’d like to admit. Oh, Ezra — He hugged him fiercely again. It vill be okay. I am so glad to have found you.

There is one question lingering in the air Anselm dare not utter, noting the glaring absence of  Heda behind her son.

Etienne out sort of he can be skipped he'll be in the background if you need him.

Truthfully Etienne should have left given them privacy, but he has own duties to attend too. A tightening in his chest when he Saw Ezra and knew he would take Anselm to Heda and he'd be away from him again.

Tears laced his eyes with wet, but he took a deep breath and pressed them back to where they lodged there at the center of his throat. This had been the goal, non? To reunite them all. He had done good no matter how it hurt.

He gave a decisive nod and once again removed himself from the equation. Padding over to the other side of the clearing to begin clean up there. A soft hum in his throat so he didn't cry. He would work quietly and let the family reunite.

ezra is wrapped in a hug that steals his breath away. he trembles with the miasma of emotions he is wrapped up into; swept away from shore by relief and joy. and though he doesn't mean for etienne to become one with the background, in the wake of being reunited with his father, ezra barely registers his presence.

it compounds and builds until it is released into a quiet sob into his father's neck before he is set back down. gideon is with him! gideon is safe! while ezra had always held onto the hope, he'd also been terribly afraid that they'd find one but not the other.

it takes him a moment to collect himself, to swallow down the crack of emotion in his throat.

mom is unvell from travel. tired. veak, ezra admits, left ear twitching as he considers things. in his mind, they would go with anselm back to where he was staying with gideon. to ezra, it is a no brainer. i do not know if she vill vant to go vith us or go back to rivenvood ... but i am going vith you.

he had already told his mother that he would not go back to rivenwood. not even if amadeo was gone from the woods. it held too many bad memories, and ezra looked now to the future ... whatever it may hold.

Gideon was awash in emotions -- and it was good he was preoccupied with wrestling his own, so he did not see how his weak father struggled to rein in his own choked senses.

He swallowed, expression growing fallow as Ezra continued. Part of growing was maturing -- and maturing was realizing it was so exhausting being petty. He wanted to say good, let your mother suffer -- but he knew this was neither kind nor healthy for his children, who deserved more than squabbling, bitter parents.

Maybe she realized she'd made a mistake. Anselm hoped so with a ferocity that stunned even him. Vhere is she? He finally asked, brushing past the key component that Ezra had mentioned he was coming with him. 

That would leave Heda alone -- but hadn't she wished that, all those days ago?