Herbalists' Cache like a dog with a bird at your door

@Gjalla

he had been found by the raven following his storming off from the terrible shouting of women. fucking insanity. women. women. they were insane! and now, he wants nothing more than to stalk, brood, and perhaps kill something—

but it is too late. raven's feathers go flying in time for gjalla's icy glare to be caught in blackfell's peripheral. the man is sullen, casting a sharp glare at her before he rises to his paws and begins to stomp off in the opposite direction. pretending as if he had not seen her!

she only follows him. much to his displeasure. finally, her husband stops—whirls around sharply, to pin ruby flaming gaze on her. and coldly: what!

there is no hesitation. no breath of silence between his demand and her fury.

“what?” she echoes, sharp and incredulous, like he’s lost his fucking mind. he may as well have. “what?”

she’s on him before he can think to turn away again, prowling as she closes the distance between them with a snap of her teeth, not to bite, but to make a point. to remind him who she is—who they are—and what the fuck he has done, too wrapped in his emotions.

"you humiliate yourself," she spits, her breath hot, her body thrumming with something she is not ready to name. "you humiliate us both," her words crack like a whip, raw and jagged, and the storm in her eyes is an unrelenting thing. the way he had spoken to her—how he had snapped at her in front of a stranger—it festers like a wound left to rot.

she could rip his fucking throat out for it. she is tempted—perhaps that would soothe the heat roaring through her body.

she doesn’t. she just steps closer, crowds into his space. he stinks of self-righteous anger, but she’s burning hotter, scorching of her own ire, her own fucking body betraying her at the worst possible moment. She clenches her jaw, suppressing the way it coils in her gut, forces herself to focus.

"you let drama from your adolescence shred your composure like a child throwing a tantrum," she hisses, venomous. "and then you had the audacity—the fucking gall—to speak to me like I was some common bitch?"

her voice is a low snarl, barely containing itself.

"is that what you think i am? your bitch?" she sneers, and this time, she does snap, her teeth clicking too close to his muzzle.

blackfell is still bristling, still seething, still riding the raw edge of his anger when she closes in on him. she moves fast—too fast for him to do anything but stand his ground, to feel the heat of her breath against his face, to feel her anger coil around him like a vice.

she does not even know what happened! is that what they were? was this to set the tone for the rest of their lives together?!

you humiliate yourself. you humiliate us both. and his breath quivers at her words, his eyes flickering about her face. she snaps teeth only a breaths away and his head reels backwards, he stands tall in the face of her wrath, stiff. staring at her with simmering disdain. he should not have spoken to her like that, not in front of svalla. he knows this. but she had stepped in, thrown herself between them, assumed! assumed!

blackfell does not like to be assumed!

she attacked me first, a voice that is cold like winter, frigid. he does not bare teeth at her, but that does not take away how he looks at her. eyes the burning inferno pits of hell. you do not even know what happened. you did not—

he stammers. his jaw clenches, eyes burning into hers, willing her to see.

you did not stand by me!

he cuts himself off, breathing heavy through his nose.

you are to be my wife, gjalla! this is our duty to one another. he spits, now moving, forcing himself into her space in turn. staring down at her past his scarred snout, feeling the anger of her breath whisper against his blocky snout. why do you question me? i have never questioned you. words unspoken. he had trusted her to stand with him, to trust him, and she had not. and that—more than svalla’s claws, more than her venom—was what had struck him deepest.

"because i had to be smart about it, you fucking idiot!"

her words crash over him like a breaking storm, furious and unrelenting, her lips peeling back over her fangs. "you think i should've just let you two tear into each other like mongrels in the dirt? or worse, help you maul her for no reason other than to stand by you?" 

a scoff, sharp and incredulous. "think, blackfell!" she hisses, pushing closer, her muzzle nearly brushing against his. "what the fuck was i supposed to do? let you rip each other apart and then explain to sun eater why there’s a dead woman on his doorstep?"

her rage is a living thing, sweltering in the heat pooling low in her belly, in the tightness of her chest. she hates how much her body betrays her, how her scent has begun to shift, thickening the air around them. it makes her even angrier that her body chooses now to ready itself.

"i did not question you. i asked you what happened, and you told me to piss off."

her eyes gleam, heavy with something deeper than anger, something like hurt. "whatever you were fighting about is not the problem," she snaps, breath hot against his face. "it is the fact that you think it appropriate to talk down to me in front of a stranger as if i am any less than you.”

he hears her, and the words sink in like ice through his veins.

you think i should’ve just let you two tear into each other?

think, blackfell!

it is the fact that you think it appropriate to talk down to me in front of a stranger as if i am any less than you.

something inside him snaps.

his snarl is akin to thunder, and his patience unravels at the seams. anger coils tight in his chest, not because she is wrong—but because she is a fucking hypocrite.

do you fucking hear yourself, woman? words bitten out between the clench of his teeth. that is exactly what you have done to me! first!

she had assumed. she had spoken to him as if he were a reckless fool, as if he had been picking fights like some thoughtless mongrel, as if he had no fucking reason to defend himself.

she had humiliated him, and she had done it first.

he laughs then, a bitter, sharp thing, devoid of humor. it is the only thing keeping him from doing something he will regret. from letting his temper win. because if he lets himself feel it too deeply—if he lets himself act—this will spiral into something neither of them will be able to walk away from. he takes a step back. then another. it is a forced retreat, but it is the only concession she will get.

if i am such an idiot, let me do us both a favor.

then he turns. without another word, without another glance. and if she calls after him, if she spits more fire, if she throws more venom, he does not stop. does not look back.

this was the first and final time she would ever fucking disrespect him.

exit blackfell

— “norse“ · common

good. let him fucking leave.

gjalla does not call after him. she does not snarl for his return, does not spit another word in his wake; only watches as he storms off, as he chooses to turn his back on her. on them.

her breath is ragged, seething, her body burning—too hot, too much.

"if i am such an idiot, let me do us both a favor."

it coils in her gut like a venomous thing, sinking deep, twisting like a knife. because he is right—because she had done it first. because she had assumed. but fuck, fuck, was she supposed to have just stood there? let him rip the woman apart and let the consequences come crashing down on them?

her head snaps away from his retreating form, lips curling over her fangs. fine. let him lick his wounds. let him sulk. she is too angry to follow. too furious to care.

the moment he is gone, the moment his scent begins to fade, the knife sinks deeper, and something ugly, of something aching spreads through her chest. she swallows it down, shoves it deep where he will never see it. let him go.