Moonspear you wouldn’t leave 'til we loved in the morning

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He reacted in very much the way she had imagined; the wastrel had imagined this moment time and time again since the night the sky opened and showed her the way. She willed this not to happen but knew it was inevitable if the lovers were really, truly ready to receive peace into their lives [which they asked for so fervently] — not in the way they had originally expected, with litters upon litters of cubs and many years spent sleeping at each other’s side, but perhaps for another reason. Perhaps the druid needed to understand the extremes of earth existence, and the certain sense of desperation that came from it, to fully pledge herself to the path of higher understanding. 

Ever since she was a pup herself, Olive believed herself to be a conscript of peace; a sort of soldier of tranquility.  Though it was something of a pompous title to give oneself, the pious life was not an easy one to abide by. A strict adherence to education was necessary as was a certain willingness to embrace the ugly parts of life. To confront one’s shortcomings and triumph over them.  Since she could remember, peace was a derivative of love. Where love was, peace followed — and thus, the druid went about life with love in her heart and the sun in her eyes.  But now she understood that, on the scale of love and hate, love was an imbalance. Peace did not occur when the scale tipped entirely one way or entirely the other way. Peace was equanimity — the space where there was no love and there was no hate. 

Peace was much larger a concept than her mind could ever hope to conceive, so she much listen carefully to the guidance of her betters. 

Dakarai snapped at her, his words hot and angry now. His voice yelled and his entire demeanor shook with grief. He looked her at her with sorrowful questioning but she could not bear to look at him. Her eyes shut tightly again and she turned a pale cheek to the knight who seethed with anger and betrayal at the hands of the one person who promised never to do so. Where Dakarai was loud, Olive was quiet and she dropped to the floor, covered her tearstained face with her paws and wept freely, yet gently, her body shuddering with dreadful breaths. Her mind berated her for causing Dakarai more pain — and this was certainly the worst of all they had experienced together, and it was not because of that fated hunt, Blackfeather Woods, Teaghlaigh or Sirius. It was because of her.

 “Yes.” she responded dolefully when Dakarai asked if their where their story ended, surprising even herself. She felt the need to explain further, but her heaving breaths made it difficult for anything more than one word answers. The lamb took one, two, three more breaths to steady herself and looked up at her husband with pained eyes. If only he knew, if only he understood that this was for the best, if only he understood the sacrifice they must make for the greater good of all those around them…  “How can we risk our son and our daughter? I could not bear it if they were taken just like, just like…” Sirius. The name came easily to her mind, but her mouth could not speak the words… but she didn’t need to. Dakarai knew.

“How could I risk you… just for the opportunity to have you?”

The woman wiped her with a thin forearm. “Our great capacity to love makes for a greater capacity to hurt,” she said tremulously. All she wanted was to hold him and promise him that everything would be okay in the wake of some tragedy [another tragedy was karma-bound to befall them, after all], but knew with each word she pushed him farther and farther away. “That’s the beauty of it…” For a moment, she wondered if they had the chance to do it all over again, knowing what they knew now and how it ended, would she do it? The answer was, unequivocally, yes.

“but that is also the danger. ”

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