Jade Fern Grove chafa

a gargoyle perched on the dilapidated roof of an abandoned cathedral might have stirred more than akavir did then. she would have leapt in teethsome anger to her wife's defense had she known his thoughts, or sensed them. petrichor rose from his nightweave fur; his order scintillated beneath her skin and almost meekly she followed. and yes; when she looked up and toward him as she stepped into the slanting darkness of the aperture in the earth, she saw only rainwater sluicing upon him. desperate with propriety now, silvertongue wiped as much moisture from her fur as she was able and curled the flank nearest his with her moonbeam tail, a borderland. she would not speak again; her miseried eyes found the rain dripping from the trees above, and puddling the earth beyond; she watched wind bend the long grasses and saw, once, a skunk running for the cover of a mossed-in log. ears dismal in their planing, silvertongue waited, for this too, must pass. and silent she might have remained, had not one of those children kicked high beneath her ribcage, catching their mother with a surprised and unlovely grunt of pain.