Silver Creek cerulean

On silent paws the Queen slipped away from her guardian, from the watching eyes of her family. Moonlight struck a sickly pallor against the shadowed trunks of trees and their shining new leaves, but Thalassa's dark furs became one with the night as she stepped between them and vanished into the forest. The quiet rustling of life among the undergrowth never slowed beneath her feet. The woodland creatures went on as if she wasn't there at all.

A mouse flashed beneath her paws. A raccoon scrambled up a tree at the sight of her, little more than a masked shadow with beady eyes glinting in the dark. Her ears twitched to catch the sound of its prompt retreat as she passed. Nothing stopped her until she reached the forest's edge, where the creek cut a path toward the distant horizon.

Only then did she allow herself to picture his face, to let her mouth form soundlessly around his name. @Orestes. Her grief filled her throat like ancient blood, cold and thick and choking. Ancient blood bound by ancient curse, that the Raven Queen's joy should always turn to bitter poison on her tongue; that so long as she ruled, her people would always know peace as she never would.

A small sacrifice. Her mother's words always came to her in her grief. One for the sake of many. Thalassa turned her gaze skyward, seeking the eyes of the Gods in the glimmer of the stars above, but their light gave no warmth.

<333 for anticipation sake, he's not yet in travelling distance. I'll let you decide if his howl reaches her tonight! <3

Orestes chased their fleeting shadows.

Above him, white wings caught the the eyes of the moon: Boreas, as faithful to him as the north wind was to winter.

If only he could fly.

Weary legs carried him across the darkened doors. Days upon days. He had counted each one. Sun rise, sun fall; her voice. Sun rise, sun fall; her laughter. Sun rise, sun fall, her thoughts given light. Sun rise, sun fall; her limber arms around him. 

Her kingdom lay in ruins, but she lived.

If only more had listened.

Boreas, he called to his companion. The raven peered down with sharp, dark eyes, and circled on the wind on a spiral down, down, down -

Powers rise, powers fall, and powers rise again.

Let us stop and try again.

Talons sank into the thick fur along his shoulders. Orestes closed his eyes.

May my voice carry on the four winds until they find the corners of the earth. On my promise, may they find her.

Thalassa, he reached for her as he had every night since leaving the rubble of her fallen world. Boreas added his own rumbled repetition of her name.

And may they tell her I am coming.

The wind was sweet with scents of spring, yet it tasted stale to her; too much grief, thoughts spinning into rage and sorrow and back again, a lightning storm behind closed eyes. Thalassa went still.

Was it his voice in the wind, or only cruel hope spinning tales?

No way to know, yet she thought again that she might have some of the gift in her: Orestes lived. She knew he did, she knew, though she could not have said how. The faintest echo of a voice under the wind — it could have been anything, anything, but she knew. He was alive. And she didn't need any other reason.

Without a single glance back, the Queen leapt beyond the treeline and into the endless night. For the second time in her life she left her people behind. For him; always for him.

Thalassa lived.

But not here.

The echo returned empty from the watchmen of the night, and Orestes peered star ward. Did her eyes even trace the same pathways anymore?

Perhaps they were still running; though surely, they couldn't cover equal distance. They had too many variables - that simply came with having more wolves. But how much farther yet?

Boreas shifted, restless, as the eastern wind stirred from behind.

Orestes had never believed in things beyond what he could see. But somehow, the old prophet had known.

A roll of his shoulders, and Boreas took flight. He could have been the moon, for the pallid light of his wings. Up and up, regaining his post in the sky.

Somehow she had known, and it felt foolish to believe, but this much he held with the tethering faith of his earth borne paws:

Thalassa lived, and until he found her, he would never stop looking.

Lil time skip, we can continue here or in another thread if you want <3

Miles churned beneath her paws into memory, and the moonlight shifting overhead was Thalassa's only sense of the time that passed. She would have run a thousand miles if only to see him for a moment more, if only to tell him she loved him once and never again. His love was worth any loss, even when his absence threatened to shatter her into a thousand pieces.

Thalassa had never desired to be Queen. It was the sheer weight of it, knowing that she must remain ever vigilant, ever prepared to move mountains for the sake of her people. It was the gnawing self-doubt, the thoughts that kept her awake and wondering each night if she truly could — or if she would fail, and through her failure bring the end of the Corax wolves.

But with him at her side, she was not afraid; with him right next to her, she could move mountains. She could command the wind and the waves themselves. She could walk with head held high to her death, if only Orestes was at her side for it.

So it was not in spite of her people that she fled in pursuit of him, but in a way as much for their sake as her own. What good was a mad Queen? What good could she ever do sans the second half of her soul? None, she told herself, and ran on even as dawn brightened the sky.