Silvertip Mountain i like your eyes wide

He gave a gentle shrug of his shoulders to Cortland's opinion, smiling. "Yes, I suppose it does seem like that, a lot of the time," he murmured. "When I was younger, I used to think nothing would compare to the words falling from storytellers' tongues. Even the love I found paled next to the epics, the legends."

The white priest drew close to the golden young man, resting his head gently between the Mayfair's shoulder blades. He had never been this physically affectionate, with anyone else before. He didn't know what in Cortland brought it out in him. All he knew is that he wanted to be near him, to touch him--and he didn't want the touches to ever stop.

"There was an old wolf, in my past tribe, which was called Mikros, for the star that is small but mighty," Phocion said softly, his mind lazily wandering back moons. "But this man, he had no name, or at least no name he told us. No, the only one who knew his name was his mate for life.

"The nameless man told me that the first time he met her, he felt his heart leave his body. And every time since, he found it in her eyes. 'And who but the keeper of my heart,' he told me, 'has any right to my name?'" He sighed, feeling slightly weepy. "She died before him, of an illness that takes many in their old age. His last words were to her, after she passed; he left us just a few days later."

He ran his muzzle through the thick fur at Cortland's nape, stepping close to run his body along his friend's. Silver and gold, silver and gold. The moon and the sun, all at once. "His last words were, 'She has died, and my name with her. Now I am no one.'" Phocion swallowed a sob, the memory of the man as vivid as the day it had occurred. "It was then that I realized that life can be--and often is--even more beautiful than stories spun from fantasy."