Dragoncrest Cliffs i know the pieces fit, 'cause i watched them tumble down

It is midday when he reaches the borders. He takes a deep breath and enters Drageda, shaky paws crunching the fallen autumn leaves. His journey home went smoothly, with only one event, his encounter with Witchbaby, to slow him down. But he is here now, and he knows what he must do. It cannot be avoided or sidestepped, and so he makes no detours. He leans against a tree and throws his maw skyward, summoning his Commander.

With another deep breath, the snowy wolf lowers his head, his ears splayed in sadness and anxiety. She will not be happy with him, he knows, but he has to face it. He has done so well up until now and it feels as if his world is crashing down. There is no guarantee that the coal-furred woman will greet him in anger, but @Thuringwethil seems stern in her orders and he doubts she will react to his premature return gladly.

Thuringwethil drops whatever it is she is doing the moment the call is made. It is difficult to decipher when her anxiety has risen to such a high level with the sudden expectation that her mate is finally home. She spins quickly on her heals and her paws hit the ground with a thunderous roar to make it all the way across the territory to the origin of the howl. It does not lead her all the way to the borders when she finally catches the scent of Hux… and only Hux. Before he comes into view, she slows down, struggling to catch her breath while her focus suddenly becomes on every aspect of her surroundings.

There is no Wildfire attached. Nor is there Eljay, which she hadn’t been expecting to want to see home but she had. Her jaw tightens, feeling awash with every emotion she can possibly think of to the point it begins to cancel out and she turns cold, colder than the November air against the coast. Thuringwethil moves carefully then until she sees the pale wolf, searching him over for any obvious signs of distress other than the exhaustion of such a long trip. Setting her jaw, one ear flicking back every so often for the sound of the approach of anyone else, while everything else zeroes in on Hux.

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Hux fidgets with his tail as he anxiously awaits his commander, flicking dehydrated leaves around with his tail tip. But his senses remain alert and he stops his fiddling as soon as he hears the thundering footsteps of Thuringwethil's hasty approach. he reacts in kind to her superiority, lowering his ears as well as his posture, though he feels like he should be rolling over and showing his belly because of the news he will soon deliver.

Heda, he says with a nod, his voice a bit ragged. He clears his throat and brings his gray eyes to her own, finding it difficult to maintain eye contact; he has to force himself to do so. Wildfire, she... she told me to leave. She didn't want me there. He tries not to think of how much it had hurt to be rejected. All he wanted was to take care of her, like he had been asked to do... He felt he had done everything possible to help the fiery woman, and he actually cared about her. He still does. Her mounting irritation with him and eventual dismissal is painful to experience.

She said the Redhawks will care for her. She will return in the Spring. Finished speaking, he looks down at his paws.

He shifts his weight and Thuringwethil stares hard at him, watching him lower a little further to the ground. She can’t take her eyes off him, waiting to speak, and the moment he says her title, she feels a chill run down her spine. Between then and the next thing he says, every possibility runs through her mind and they all point to something terrible. The painful wait sits heavy in her chest that her mate might be dead and her ears flicker once but remain upright to listen. Thuringwethil sucks in a breath and holds it.

She is awake. Alive.

The breath she is holding turns sound and expels out of her in one gust, licking her lips in a weird mix of relief and frustrating battling against one another, while anger beings to rise. He tells her that Wildfire sent him home and the Redhawks will take care of her. Her grey eyes narrow, staring hard at him for a long moment before she can find the words to speak. She had left Hux to do the Redhawk’s bidding while they use their resources on Wildfire and getting her better. He had a bigger role to play and he left that behind against her word.

“Did Finley and Elwood dismiss you?” she asks. Perhaps they had felt they truly did not need him over the winter, which still leaves her a little unsettled and a slight itch to her paws. She thinks of Blixen and what she said the other day about going back to the caldera and the desire only grows.

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She releases a breath of air and he wonders if it is due to relief. For a split second, Hux is hopeful that Thuringwethil might just be glad to hear that Wildfire is alive, and forgo being angry with him. But he knows that this is wishful, foolish thinking.

Fear solidifies when she asks if the Redhawk leaders had dismissed him. He keeps his eyes on his paws and gnaws at the inside of his cheek, creating an odd hollow on one side. He is visibly nervous as he considers lying. Is there a way to make it seem like Elwood or Finlay had approved his departure? But he cannot come up with a fabrication quickly enough; besides that, it's wrong to lie to one's Commander. Lies are easily uncovered, especially since Heda definitely isn't stupid. She is much smarter than him. He can't lie.

N-no... he says at last, peering up at her with enlarged eyes.

He stammers out his answer and acid licks the back of her throat and her jaw tightens so hard her teeth grind together. A rumble vibrates her chest and she growls her disapproval, stepping one smooth shift forward. Her teeth flash despite how he looks at her, like a child trying to avoid punishment. There have been disappointing wolves coming and going through Drageda since its rebirth and Hux proves no different. Her command is once again question by listening to someone that is not her and fire flashes behind her eyes. Her nose wrinkles while a snarl begins to form but she withstands the desire to lash out at him.

With tension built behind her shoulders, it would be easy to finally find that release in Hux. Perhaps had this happened long ago, she might have, but she remains silent and steels herself. “You were to serve the caldera while Wildfire is there,” she reminds him, her voice ice cold. She flicks her tongue against the back of her teeth while her fur bristles along her neck. Thuringwethil forces herself to take a step back and think clearly, and without the fire building in her chest. "How is she?"

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Hux lifts his head and watches the anger flood over her. He lifts a paw as she steps forward, wanting to shrink back against the tree, but he can't bring himself to grovel that strongly. With her cold words he feels a surprising tinge of anger himself. I apologize, Heda.

It all seems wildly unfair to him. Heda had asked him to watch over Wildfire, to do whatever her mate needed, but the woman had rejected his every effort to make her comfortable, to feed her, to keep her safe. She made her irritation with his presence obvious but he'd never wavered, and then she had dismissed him. Was he supposed to continue to follow her around for months, enduring her bitterness, when it made her unhappy anyway? Thuringwethil probably would have met him with the same anger if he'd done that. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn't. There was no way for him to do the right thing; any choice he made would have been the wrong one.

He hides his thoughts, knowing they are selfish as well as irrelevant. He knew this would be the outcome from the moment he left the Caldera. So he just answers the question. She's much better. She'll be fine, I think.

I think.

A chill runs down her spine and it takes all she has not to let it show. Her mouth parts to say something but there are no words that come out. He is not confident in the words he uses and she licks her lips and takes a single step back. When she doesn’t find what she wants to say, or ask, despite how much she has in the forefront of her mind, she retreats even more and gives the brute his space. There is nothing more she has for him, unable to even look at him for a second longer. She slowly closes her grey eyes, for only a moment, before she opens them as she turns away and leaves him near the tree he leans against.

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Hux expects more of a reaction than he receives. Not a physical attack, but perhaps more of a reprimand. She backs away and he takes a small step toward her, his mouth open to say something more, he doesn't know what. Before he figures it out, she has turned tail and left the area. With her gone the snowy wolf is alone to process what has just happened. He hangs his head and then lays on his belly right there by the tree, not really wanting to go anywhere else, or even move at all.