Lost Creek Hollow Butterflyfish

"she is." there spoke in his eyes a pain, a pain of morality and the sinew-shaping of a love for fennec that was so vastly different than the swell of ribcage to simply contain the magnitude of crowfeather's touch.

he shut his eyes, mouth drying to a desert and jawline a strip of guarded steel. "but you are — i have —" the imperator of mereo, the tactician, stumbling where he never had before. 

too much, the starfall of tears upon the long-beloved face. "no," germanicus denied in a voice sent to a ragged octave. "had i the strength you believed i did, i would not have married ruenna."

germanicus might have stayed with the ranger. the long shadows of this place might have been his also. 

rivulets of bitter saltwater now shone upon his own cheeks, cutting through the silver fur like twin rivers of melancholy. 

"you did nothing wrong. i was only afraid." 

at last, a tightening in his throat, the jagged exhale of a long-held sigh; germanicus pushed all aside and lowered his muzzle to brush the tears from crowfeather's perfect face with trembling, awestruck lips.

all of him ached and he felt the long years in it.

and all at once he wanted to return to mereo and pour this sunlight into fennec, who had understood even when he did not.

he thought of how her voice had sent him to this place, how she had without question accepted all that he had said to her.

germanicus had wronged her in his pain and knew even now to have him here must do the same.

the eagle did not push her from his thoughts; fennec and her undeserved goodness toward him gilded his lifting spirit.

a riverclan man came and went, hardness in his face. germanicus noticed him only in peripheral for the shadow's softness was as he had remembered.