Raven's Watch raven's watch

anyone is free to join <3 blackfell is probably going to try and form a pack here!

---

he is stiff.

along his pelt of black, there ripples sinew and tension new. where the north has taken from him, blackfell seeks to forget, and so he has taken what remains to him and fled.

away from the snow, from the cold. and though his coarse fur cries for it, he charters upwards the mountains of sunspire. at his side, the recovering @Morwenna. she who is all he has left.

their tether is not broken. and blackfell gathers her to him now, pressing his nose into the thick of her nape, inhaling her comforting scent.

@Gjalla's abandonment is still an aching wound in the both of their sides. and yet, blackfell forces any thought of the wintersong from his mind, his charred black heart bubbling with the beginnings of resentment.

yet here, atop this mount, blackfell stops. his head high, his crimson eyes draping over the expanse of territory in thought. overhead, the raven cries. he turns his head to the bird, and watches as he perches upon a nearby branch of pine.

more ravens sing.

---

she stood beside him like a shadow carved from the same stone, her white-dappled coat catching the high sun in fractured silver. the wind combed through her fur, but she did not bow her head; she had bowed enough in this life. even undone, even hollowed, she held herself like a dethroned queen surveying the remains of a kingdom that should have been hers.

gjalla’s absence gnawed at her ribs. the ache of her missing children lived deeper still—an agony with no wound to point to, only the absence of small bodies that once breathed against her belly. six moons old now. old enough to know her scent. old enough to miss her.

blackfell’s breath warmed the nape of her neck. her lashes lowered, not from shame—she had none left to spend—but from the sheer weight of being touched with something that was not cruelty.

her voice came quiet, controlled, the kind of quiet that carried farther than any shout.

you should not look at me so closely.

a statement, not a command— though it held the shape of one.

she turned her face toward him, winter-star eyes catching the red of his. grief and hunger, grief and want, braided too tightly to separate. the mountain light painted his black pelt in garnet fire, and for a breath she let herself lean into him, her flank brushing his with intent she did not name.

i am not whole, she murmured, the truth raw but steady, and yet you stand as if you would bear the weight of me.

a beat. the ravens screamed again, circling above them like a crown of wings.

---

he does not pull back.

not from her words, not from the way she tries to guard herself with them. blackfell has learned every angle of her grief, every way she turns from touch even while craving it, and he knows better than to mistake her warning for rejection.

his gaze stays steady on her. close, yes. closer than anyone else has earned in a long time.

when she says she is not whole, something in him moves; but it is small, quiet, almost nothing. a breath drawn deeper. a softening around the eyes. he hums gently to her, a deep rumbling that begins in his throat and bleeds past parting lips.

his head dips, muzzle touching just beneath her jaw with a tenderness.

i will look at you how i have always. he says to her, and then, tentatively, speaks to her in her own native tongue.

you are my queen. always. nothing has changed. and i will see the strength restored to you.

---

her breath caught—not in fear, but in something perilously close to surrender. no one had spoken to her in her mother-tongue since the night her kingdom burned. the sound of it on his lips was a ghost returned, a promise pulled from ash.

she did not pull back either.

instead she lifted her chin, granting him that nearness beneath her jaw, a place sacred enough that even sun eater had been denied it since the birth of her children.

blackfell… his name exhaled like a confession, like a wound brushed open.

her eyes closed for a heartbeat, lashes trembling—not fragile, never fragile, but struggling beneath the enormity of being seen. truly seen. not as a vessel. not as a weapon. not as a ruined thing.

a queen with no throne, she murmured, voice low and wintersoft. a mother with no children.

she opened her eyes again, their pale fire fixing on him, steady despite everything.

the gods would appear to be against us.

he huffs, a light, airy laugh.

a queen with no throne. a mother with no children. the gods would appear to be against us.

ironic, how he finds the sardonic, grim humor in that. calloused as the north that has raised him, there boils a belly laugh from the man. thick, a shivering rasp against her bared throat before he raises his head yet again.

then the gods have piss-poor aim. he lifts his head only slightly, enough to look at her fully, the red of his eyes softer than any other creature has ever witnessed. he takes her in,

a starving man.

you are still a queen, blackfell projects into the world, crown or no crown. makes no difference to me. his stalwart shoulders flex as he squares himself upon where they perch, and casts his eyes forwards, above the territory he has found for them to reside.

he seeks her eyes now, that winter-flame pale stare. if it is a mother you wish to be, then you’ll have them. ours, if that’s your choosing. or I will go back north and drag your stolen ones home myself.

he touches her nape with the softest breath. the gods may be against us, but blackfell crownore is not.

her breath left her in a slow, stunned hush at his words. no one had ever offered her such things without wanting to own her. no one had ever spoken of her children—of children—with that kind of certainty.

she lifted her gaze to him, winter-bright and unguarded for the first time in moons.

do not speak of children lightly, she murmured, voice low, steady. mine were taken because men believed i could be broken.

her flank pressed to his, accepting, a quiet claiming of space at his side.

but you… her muzzle brushed the line of his jaw, a whisper of warmth, you speak as though restoration is possible. as though what was stolen can be returned.

ours.

the word still echoed between them.

if you vow such things, she said softly, you bind yourself to me. to my rise… and to my fractures.

her forehead touched his, breath mingling with his.

find her. a plume, find my fa'liya. and then we can make more.

her warning does not push him back.

it roots him deeper.

children are no small thing to wolves like them. they are not promise, nor decoration. but blood, and legacy. the echo of a life carried forward. and their bloodline...

it could not end in ashes. not yet.

and so blackfell lowers his head until his brow rests against hers; a silent i hear you.

aye, he breathes, the word gritty as winter stone, i ken that loss is no small thing. i ken how men think. how they take. his flank presses to hers, matching her claim with one of his own, gentle but absolute.

her name for her daughter: fa’liya. it is rotten with sun eater's filth, festering like a days old wound. to it, his brows furrow, his lips grimace. and though he turns it over in his mind, lets it settle into him, he cannot help but feel sick.

disgusted.

i will go, blackfell's crown dips against her shoulder, my queen.

he would go with the knowing that when he returned, she would be stripped of that stinking name.

her gaze did not waver from his grimace, from the disgust that rippled openly through him at the name sun eater had branded upon her daughter.

fa’liya will not carry that name forever, she added, quieter, fiercer. not once she is back in my teeth.

she stepped closer, closing the last inches between them. her crown pressed to his once more. sovereign in her pleading nature.

then she lifted her chin, touched her nose to his muzzle, and— soft as she could muster— let her tongue meet his in a brief, intimate kiss. a blessing. a sending. a claim.

may the mountains part for you, she murmured against his lips, breath mingling with his. and may the gods choke on their own omens if they try to turn you from your path.

a final brush of her forehead to his.

return to me.