Sleepy Fox Hollow [ tm ] the girl with the face that launched a thousand ships

this post got long & rambly. no need to match the length!

when blodreina had used to envision her future it hadn't included a husband, nor children. it'd included the heady thrum of war and the kill marks that would mar her shoulders. they did now, but not nearly as many as a younger blodreina would've liked. then again, in her visions of her future she hadn't lost her heda to suicide either. life was never straight-foward and while she'd never ever thought herself to be the wife and mothering type ( and ok maybe she wasn't ) she is not unhappy; and there is a distinct feeling that she is right where she needs to be. war cannot be tamed out of her but ingram doesn't appear to mind that and she couldn't have asked for a better partner to share the rest of her years with.

blodreina was not commonly a jealous woman — only really when it came to freyja — but she feels a stir of it beneath her breast as nyx admits that she knows ingram from time past ...and not for the reasons one might expect. she wishes that she could once more be reunited with kru ( besides verx, for while praimfaya liked him reina was still on the fence about him and his penchant for disappearing ) regardless of how she thinks they might have dragged her name thru mud, tied as it no doubt was, to natrona. have you spoken to him at all since you arrived in diaspora? blodreina inquires curiously, knowing that ingram's memory was not whole. did he even remember nyx? blodreina cannot help but wonder.

i might've not been looking for a family when i first met him, blodreina admits, offering the sincere words without prompt simply because she feels like she needs to. but i love him and i'm glad we found each other. not just the first time but also when he'd found her in diaspora and had decided to, despite that he could have easily walked away, stay with her and praimfaya. ingram saved me. she says quietly, not out of shame but because admitting it out loud was massive for her.

but all that she said was true. when blodreina had been so very lost and shattering from the inside out at heda's death, threatening to drown in the sea of the storm ingram had rose from the murky and atrociously vicious waters like a lighthouse guiding her to safety. guiding her to him. and the gift he'd given her: their praimfaya, a commander to be ...together the two of them gave blodreina direction and purpose.

but this all feels so heavy and a bit too personal for blodreina to wish to continue sharing. even though all the good ingram and praimfaya's done for her, blodreina, at her core, still likes to keep her feelings pressed tightly against her chest especially in the presence of strangers. i brought praimfaya here a couple of days ago, blodreina shifts gears then and gestures to sleepy fox hollow with a small shift of her muzzle. it was the first place i thought of when mahler approached us. there is ample prey, trees to offer shelter, freshwater and the sunspire's peaks could offer plenty of protection from hammering winds or invasive wolves. but it was true that blodreina hadn't had a whole lot of time to explore.