Whitebark Stream That's the role of poetry: to say what others cannot utter.

Artyom felt the dread settle in the pit of his belly like a stone, unsure what to expect from the sterling huntrees as she prepared her answer. He found himself gnaw on the inside of a cheek until it felt raw, until he tasted the metallic tang of his own blood. 

Instead of an acceptance or rejection, there came the words of something he hadn't been expecting: a confession. He'd been safe to assume she'd been involved with another in some way, considering the suggestion of last year's offspring she only briefly shared with him before. It had made him curious before, her mention of her cubs, but that quiet wonder quickly disappeared - replaced with sympathy that showed in the mahogany of his eyes. 

They'd been only babes when she lost them, far younger that he hoped, and his heart sank. Dawn's previous relationship experience differed entirely from his own, which had left him reeling for another connection when it was over. He looked at her, gaze soft and sympathy clear on his face, and his gilded ears pressed firm to his nape as he saw the emotion well in her lashline.

She turned her muzzle away, shameful of the tears, perhaps, and Artyom waited until she returned to him once more. He reached for her, his nose tracing the velvet of her cheek reassuring before he planted the most tender of kisses at the corner of an eye. "Destiny has a funny way of bringing wolves together, мой сладкий," he assured her. Her choices, her experiences, every single one of them had the potential to shape and mould - until one could find exactly where they were meant to be.

"I, too, took a mate when I was young," he told her, keen to show that she was not alone in the world of loving and losing, "not by choice - we were betrothed as cubs- but it did not matter. I loved her with everything I had. Her name was Ana."

Dear, sweet, perfect Ana. Artyom believed that if there were one wolf to do only good in their lifetime, it would be her. Only her. "Infection ravaged a wound from a hunt, and no salve or poultice could save her. I was devastated," his turn then, to turn his face away. He glanced out over their territory's namesake, at the ice and snow and frosted tree trunks beyond. "I left my home because life without her there felt impossible, and her last want in this life was for me to be happy. I knew I would never find it there."

His life from then had revolved around fulfilling Ana's dying wish, and it had come in small pockets since his departure from Timiryazevskaya. It was something he hoped Whitebark could provide on a permanent basis.

"Your past is your past, Dawn," he rolled a golden shoulder, "it will always be part of who we are, and there's no point in wishing we could change it. It happened, and it mattered, but... yours was never going to make me care any less for you." His gaze returned to her and he exhaled gently. "I believe that I was meant to find you, that you belong in my future."