Firefly Glen and time breaks your heart

He wasn’t sure why—but it was a relief to hear she wasn’t enticed by the idea of the royals—her description of weight when considering them was something he found apt—and in truth, he could have shared his own time with his late wife and the Empire—but that particular wisdom remained set within—unshared, for now.

‘Akavir, wait, can we talk?’ The last words his wife had said to him alive—and he had denied them. She had carried another man’s pups and he had naively pushed away the gift of presence—the hardest lesson he had learned, when he realized afterward, he would never know what she had wished to say to him.

Her eyes trailed over him, and he was pulled from that reverie once more, as he was so many times, a wane smile surpassing him, but not meeting his eyes. “That loss was years ago—I’ve lived a lifetime and more in comparison to what she had at the age she was gone.”

He could have asked of her loss—the sense something lingered there—but he had never been one to coax tragedies from others. If she wished to share, she would—and it was with that thought and her question regarding the valley he lived in that stirred his shoulders to roll back in a light stretch, his brows arching in quiet thought. “I was born there—we left, after some time, my parents seeking their own fresh start. I returned later—after Ibis—claimed the Creek along another, Arric, my Beta. He and his mate have started a family.”

He missed the ease of companionship with both Arric and Arlette—idly owndering how much the kids had grown in his absence of a month, now. “We tend to joke and say we’re a pack of assholes—mostly I’d say we’re a little rough around the edges… But we’re tight knit. Family. It was my goal to create alliances with the other packs of the valley—to keep a place of peace and camaraderie. Turns out that’s a lot harder than anticipated.”

Another wry smirk—a shrug. The valley packs had shifted in so many ways—death—foundings—disbanding. “Our ranks consist primarily of fighters and healers. A lot of youth—yearlings, and another litter of pups, aside from our Beta’s. We’ll be turning soon,” he continued, and a certain wariness fuelled his muscles in that moment. “The attacks on one of the Kingdom’s I mentioned before is closer to home than I’m comfortable with, so I need to return and prepare.”