Nova Peak Wēkenben

decided to time skip, please let me know if you have objections <3

Ayvoi stands silent and composed, the new serenity which found her ceding to the verity of their relationship with little language.  She scents his frustration and wishes it could be easy between them. She'd been so immersed in her own life’s change that she had not truly considered the sacrifices nor the desires of Skorpa. The anxious sensation in her gut returns— a feeling like the instant after a cut, before the pain comes. But she remembers how quickly the norseman had soothed this in her and comes toward him, leveling his intense gaze on her.
“It’s all right. It’s going to take time,” she presses a kiss to his muzzle and falls into silence. Earthen bundle reclaimed by teeth, Ayovi flashes the man with doting eyes and ferries up into the mountain.

* * *

That night she’d had enough rest and leapt into Skorpa’s arms as soon as he’d passed into the threshold, stumbling them into a corner of the den where the wind could no longer harry him. She’d leaned in, twisting strands of red fur through her paws and nipped the man’s bottom lip. This was another world of rapture. The groans, the whispers, the rhythmic connection that was not that of seasonal automation. If this was to be their only shared tongue she coveted it, imagining that every day could end like this.
At last when their moans had abated a flushed cheek buries into the warmth of her husband's bearskin. She brings in the traces of his day to nose, letting it mellow her. She can scent the familiar places he'd been, the animals he'd encountered. He could not recount these events to her, so she devised her own narratives: Skorpa dancing with ravens. Skorpa finding a hind's nest near the bitcurrent.
Her eyes are heavy upon him, their blue alight with a curious gleam. She smiles, taking his face in her paw and drawing him close so their temples touch. This near, all she can see are his eyes. Glossy, bright, smoldering embers in firelight.
An ivory paw finds the thumping in his chest.
“Heart,” she whispers.