Jade Fern Grove klagelied

But there wasn't. Not for her.

Once she led Grimnismal, proud of her role, but glutted with youthful arrogance. In hindsight, from the crumbling walls of a castle that used to shield her bare heart, she could understand why those wolves had not respected her authority. She had demanded it of them while doing nothing to earn it. In the end, it had been her arrogance that drove her from those shores, her need to be treated like she was Better without putting the work in to make it so.

Sagtannet was different, she felt. She'd still made the mistake of expecting respect rather than nurturing the bud of it in others—she saw that clearly now, now, now that fractures ran clean and cold through her mentality—but she had at least earned it there. She'd given children to the pack, ensured Star had a safe den to whelp in, nursed Astraeus when his mother abandoned him. She'd patrolled the borders in endless cycles. Sure, she'd taken poorly to various border-dwellers who didn't display appropriate etiquette on the borders, and she had been unkind to the orphan boy when it became clear he thought he could disrespect her, but all that was normal for her, driven not by arrogance, but the need for validation in her life. When the Saints came and they had to make a choice, she had helped to carry Calcifer and Marble. She had hunted for the caches even while doing double duty for Mahler, going hungry herself to ensure the well-being of all the others who could not hunt at the time.

Aside from her mistreatment of Nyx's children—another failing she saw more clearly now at her most vulnerable, though not enough to feel full guilt for it—and perhaps turning Wintersbane away, she had done her best as leader. As mother. Still the wolves had shown no trust in her when she asked them to rise up. Still her children had not wanted to be with her. It was not just Taikon, but Star's silence, Takiyok's cool logic as she stood with a newcomer over a wolf who had led the pack for nearly a year, the new female's questioning, Mahler's inaction. Only Stag. Only Stag.

Taikon is one wolf, said Wylla, foggy, adrift in some reminiscence. It was all of them. My place, a farce. I thought you wanted the same thing? But then... You just watched. She visibly shrunk. Had he not wanted the cliffs unoccupied? But when she made the mistake of believing that Sagtannet would fight for that goal, he had let her fall from grace in front of all of them. Alone. Unsupported. A flash of anger, stifled by the warm brush of his muzzle. It was inconsequential now, but the rejection of her pack was not, would never be. It could not be undone. I can't go back there. They didn't respect me as their leader or even trust me as their packmate. I have never been so humiliated... I can't live like that, Mahler. I can't feel so worthless anymore. It's killing me. And Stag. What an insult it would be to him to ask him to return to Sagtannet after he had been shown that his devotion was not returned in kind. They would both have died for their pack, and it was impossible to throw the veil back over the fact that they were alone in that feeling. Later she might feel ashamed for begging him despite the part he had played in it all. How weak and stupid of her.

Please, she breathed, not realizing at all how it must look for her to storm off and abandon him, only to plead with him to leave his post and strike up a new life elsewhere with her. She had been upset. She had been hurt. She'd reacted childishly, but the damage of that was done. If she had stayed, her authority would forever be false. More than anyone, Wylla thought he knew that being respected and valued was extremely important to her. It had been lacking in much of her life, and now it was lacking in Sagtannet, too. Surely he could not expect her to live that way. He had not soothed her then, only patronized her when she was reactive, and she had exploded. For the first time, she put it behind her, embraced a faint ember of hope that things could be better if he only came with her. I can't go back, but... I want a life with you. Without all the bullshit between us. Fuck it all. Glitter in front of her eyes, a faint dream of a life that might be better, devoid of burdens and demands. Just them and their children. The hollow, perhaps. No more anger in her—just a desperate prayer that he wanted that, too, more than the shackles of leadership he wore. She drew back enough to look into his face. I need you. Just you.

Everything was wrong without him, no matter how much hurt existed between them. Maybe that could be mended, but no matter what Mahler thought about her finding another lover, there was no one alive who could patch the hole it would carve in her heart to have to walk away from him forever—no desire in her for any other. That was crystalline to her now.