Larksong Grotto my pride

skorpa. faust greeted, his voice rough, tight with something unspoken. he exhaled, slow, measured, but his lungs felt too full, too tight. nerves. exhaustion. the weight of everything pressing down on him like the cold of the glacier. he did not want to be here.
but he was.
and he would do what needed to be done.
his silence stretched too long. fuck it.
i need your help.
his green eyes lifted, searching the bearman’s face, looking for something, anything—a crack, an opening, something to pry at, something to grip onto. skorpa had never been a man of mercy. but he was a man of reason. and faust needed reason now.
saatsine. they seek war.
the words left him like a confession, like a damnation. they sought war, and so did he.
their leader—sun eater, he almost killed a woman. blackfell’s wife.
his ears flicked back, the memory burning through his mind like a brand, the way her blood had soaked the snow, the way she had rasped for vengeance even as she bled out beneath their hands.
and... he hesitated. this was the part that sickened him. the part that kept him awake. the part that clawed at him worse than the thought of war itself.
and i am afraid.
he let the words sit there, let them settle in the frozen morning air. he was afraid. not of battle, not of blood. but of what came after. of what it would cost them. of what it would cost him.
they will come for all of us.
he stepped forward, just a fraction, his tail flicking once against his hocks.
please.
a plea. the taste of it was bitter on his tongue, but he would swallow it down, would choke on it if he had to.
please. i want them all safe. i want her safe.
ayovi.
wasn’t this something they could agree on?