The Heartwood blackwound

aw but can be an RO if no one replies <3 do not feel obligated to match length if u do!

teya did not know when she finally made the decision to have an affair. it wasn't like she woke up that morning intending to fuck someone else. it was the hunting trip she took into the wilderness that left her exposed for a rainstorm to drive under a stand of berry-bushes.
and it was there that teya had plenty of time to think, to let herself feel the bruising rush of anger that choked her and asked why she shouldn't hurt reyes? more likely he wouldn't care. whatever desire she felt for him was fleeting and sparked mostly by the moments with all three of them present, where they made a tableau of a perfect family in the twilight.
at first she had considered going to back akashingo in search of that skilled coyote, but as the married leader of their ally, she could not be seen fraternizing so blatantly. she didn't want reyes to know but more than she didn't want bridget to know either. the cardinal had said she would not share. and the raven had chosen the father of her daughter, not the healer. it would be deeply selfish for teya to approach her in any way other than friendly. and it would be insanely hurtful to know that teya preferred a quick and nameless encounter rather than resuming the deep feeling that existed between them.
so it couldn't be bridget. it couldn't be a woman. that was in direct odds with a secondary dream she never let herself entertain, one where sorana was grown and teya could let herself make the choice to leave reyes — for the red-masque.
god. she was so fucked in the head. whose fault was that?
by the time the rain passed, teya was riddled with guilt for even considering an affair. it had come from anger and desperation that she could exist in a space without sorana and with someone who acted like they wanted her, if only for an hour or two. and so the raven dragged herself gingerly from the brambles and stretched, heading along the bright side of the heartwood in a slow arc for home.