Foggy Bottom Way ratero

Adrenaline held him now in a vice-like grip. Silvertongue spoke—a mesmerizing and achingly beautiful speech, just as she was, he was sure, but Akavir barely heard a word over it as his grief began to swallow him. Wren, too, sputtered words—and still, the wolves on the horizon began to close in.

His teeth were bared—a threat to the world as it tore another loved one from him without second thought.

The snarl that gripped his chest became loose tot he air—terrible in his fury, his grief, and his inability to understand why she had always pushed him away.

Always pushed away, somehow—his littermates, as they had scattered to the wind. Ibis. His children.

Somewhere along the line it was hard to not look at how the problem must be him.

He hardened in that moment, chased by tooth and claw by wolves he did not know and with the praise of his previous lover. Only later, when he returned to the creek and was humbled by fermented berries would he fully break.

And then… he would harden once more. Anything to not feel like this ever again.