Bearclaw Valley just have the strength to know you're wrong,

set immediately after this thread

indra had first been in disbelief to see stigmata had graced their lonely valley once more; at first she had stubbornly refused to acknowledge him. it was spiteful, but indra had accepted him into their ranks, and he had just as easily walked out on them.

just like reek had done. and saena. and in a way, xan.

for that alone stigmata did not earn her counsel, and she had every intention of leaving him unmet at the borders.. but sweet piper had come to intercept him, and indra could not well enough leave the girl alone with him. it didn't matter if the man would or would not harm her; it was simply not in indra's code to leave piper unsupervised with a man, especially so soon after lucas' mysterious disappearance.

stigmata had not been above being a suspect in lucas' departure; he had disappeared roughly around the same time, and there was something about the man that indra knew was being held back. somehow, she knew also that whatever part of him he concealed was a part in which she had no desire to be knowing.

the only thing that absolved stigmata from the full brunt of indra's ire was that his scent had been entirely absent surrounding lucas. yet despite this inconvenient truth, it did not spare stigmata from her reproachful stare from within the pines: she kept a hawkish eye on him as he entertained bearclaw's firebrand youth, her hand ever ready to exact vengeance should he show any sign of harming piper.

she was loathe to give him the time of day for what he had done to them, but after the conclusion of piper's interest in him, she stepped from the tall shadow of the trees and made towards the man with a cold expression on her features.

from beyond the redleaf princess, the missing dancer's sister, stigmata could feel the glare of a thousand eyes prickling the edge of his awareness like blunt needles. he looked directly at the spot that concealed her, and then without missing a beat, devoted his full attention to piper until indra saw fit to make herself known.

a crackle of tension bubbled up between them, and if walls were what she'd had the first time they met, then it was a frigid mountain that stood between them now. he was not eager to take on the daunting task, but if nothing else stigmata was a wolf of his word and he did not intend to let her fierce resentment deter him from remaining. after asking @Piper for permission to speak alone with indra, the two were left to stand alone in a cloud of dead air.

there seemed to suddenly be no wind. no scents. all sound except for her breathing seemed to elude him, and stigmata was hyper-aware of everything about the young beta in that moment. he knew that the things he wanted seemed impossible, and still, he wanted them; still, he would try. "it was not my intention to be gone for so long, indra," he offered in his nethervoice, deep and reverberating.

would it matter? would she want to know why? "i am still here to serve bearclaw."

the distance closed between them, and a silence rose in foreboding tenacity about them. suddenly it was not stillness that enveloped the vale, but a crackling disquiet: as if in any moment the stare of the storm would splinter and all would be delved into ruin.

indra's eyes too carried a storm in them: a blast of mistrust tinted her mahogany gaze, and it frigidly lingered long after stigmata spoke. it was not his intention to be gone so long -- but that was the way of all letdowns, wasn't it? surely reek hadn't meant to fracture their family - surely saena hadn't meant to set the emotions of her children alight when she departed too -- and surely, stigmata had not meant to take advantage of her reluctant good nature, only to show her in the end that the world was full of selfish bastards, and selfish bastards only.

she sniffed derisively, childishly mimicking the snort he had uttered to her once. yet curiosity tempered her instinctive want to chase him out, and reluctantly she asked: "where did you go?"

stigmata rippled forebodingly at her scornful reception to his words. he feared he had done irreparable damage to his stake here by not returning sooner, and stiffened in grim preparation to be chased off. but she did not rise up on leathery wings and breathe fire down upon him; instead, she gave him another chance to speak.

shifting his weight, the warhound leveled his ink-smoke countenance to regard her evenly. "i fear the sanctuary you have chosen as your home could turn into a winter-trap if the snows fall too heavy or too long," he began drearily. "i went to find a more viable domain to ensure our survival."

indra's question did not ease the hardness of her posture, nor soften the coldness of her gaze. she watched as he shifted - perhaps uncomfortable under the weight of her heavy fury (unlikely) or perhaps, simply an idle gesture made to ease from lulled silence back into conversation.

his explanation was at best unsatisfactory to the woman - to the small girl inside of her, that had been left alone bewildered in the wilderness. his words fell short of their noble thrust and sank into the ground; it weakly stank of feeble justification. indra thought it strange he had not informed her first he was leaving; indra didn't believe him.

again she caught that malodorous whiff of something darkly familiar.

it stank of Reek.

when she looked upon him again she was not thinking of the Stigmata that had coursed and hunted wordless besides her; she was not thinking of the powerful predator questioned her logic and oft tested her patience, or the man that stood before her. she was thinking of Reek.

"you left us, you bastard." she snarled, her limbs snapping into sudden motion driven by abandonment far deeper than the shallow wound Stigmata had inflicted. if Stigmata's departure had left a cut, her parents' had left a chasm. this wound was deeper, buried in between her gurgling heart and straining ribs. a nameless scar kept among the lightless space of sinew and viscera that had until then, been hidden by bone and gut and tissue.

and now it all spilled loose; a blackened, raw torrent.

it seemed in that brief window of time where she flung herself upon her deserter that she planned to eviscerate him: her teeth had been bared and her body rounded to drive into him -- yet in the moment it appeared she would collide with his frame her limbs lost their strength and she fell against his form in a limp heap, all volition driven from her exhausted body.

you bastard.

offense broke stigmata's poise, and his grimace bulged into a frightening contortion - eyelids recoiling, teeth and nostrils flaring - as rage conflated by adrenaline ordained his response to the slight before he could even consider it. and still, he was not prepared for indra's lunge. a fact he would later blame on himself; for he had been unable (or unwilling) to predict the sheer magnitude of her unforgiving nature.

he reacted as he had been trained to: viciously and without mercy. a warhound's creed. the only thing saving the beta's autumn-red hide from turning dark with blood was the instinct to preserve the body of a packmate, which he still considered her to be. but because diplomacy had been shattered first, stigmata's retaliation was more severe than intended. he heedlessly defended himself with a wrought-iron savagery, and it wasn't until indra was crumpled and bruised beneath him that he realized she wasn't truly fighting him back.

stilling his onslaught with heavy, jagged breaths, stigmata loosed the folds of her nape clutched oppressively in his jaws and lifted his daunting weight from her summerfed figure. he looked down at her grimly, and felt stupefied by how small she looked; how ravaged he had made her, even without having spilled any blood. it was not how he wanted to see her... what he wanted to be the cause of.

"do not attack me again, indra." she deserved the warning, at least. his tongue lolled, and he yawned to chase away the stinging need to impose upon her further. "please," he hissed, unable to stop the quiver in his low, melting voice as he attempted to suppress the note of a whine. "i have not abandoned you. will you not listen to me?"

in a few seconds, indra's rough fumble sunk to ruin -- a raw and absolute strength gripped the back of her neck, and her world stilled as particles, fur, and dust-motes swirled in kaleidoscopic schism before her lowered gaze. she felt a yawning deep in the pit of her stomach, a dull roar of a feeling that started low and grew and grew.

he had released her, but the sting of his teeth was not forgotten. she did not rise from her crumpled position, though she propped herself on her lean elbows and regarded him as if she had never seen him before. her expression was deceitfully cool; yet inwards, a gathering turbulence threatened, looming like the unsavory shape of a swollen storm.


she held his gaze unapologetically, for his voice was fractured with a quiver -- an emotion that seemed deep within him. so she had somehow cracked the stony, serpentine exterior - her own vulnerability exposed his in turn. it did not matter she was beneath him, that he stood over her -- part of her dared with a mutinous desolation for him to end her -- end it, there and now; to spill her blood and free the growing wrath within her.

"i listen, and i trust, and they all leave anyway." indra growled, feeling again the malcontent that bubbled thick as venom in her blood. "what makes you different?"

"i came back," sandraudiga snarled, hackles flailing as he became hyper-aware of his temper, and the incredible effect indra had on it. he couldn't remember the last time any wolf had so blindly riled him - the last time he'd cared about anyone's feelings - but here he was, stricken low and desperate by an accusation that under any other circumstance wouldn't have wounded him at all. stigmata felt exposed, immeasurably vulnerable, and it was with great difficulty that he reined in any need to further assert himself.

even under her seething, hateful stare.

his shoulders fell. "and i returned only because of  you." had it been a mistake? could she not see the only wolf worth such devotion in this godforsaken fishbowl was her?

lying there underneath the heavy tension between them, indra could feel an indignant current course from the male's roughshod form. she shifted under its inescapable pressure, a flinty resentfulness still in her glare.

yet she could not deny the intensity in which stigmata vehemently defended his actions; it was so fervent it seemed genuine - for a moment, the stony she-wolf appeared to relent.

if she had been wrong to doubt him, or to call in question his honor, she quickly pushed it aside. stigmata may have been the first in a line of males to go against the grain of indra's perceived male stereotype, but the cut left by his predecessors ran deep.

"you'll leave eventually. either you'll get bored of us, or we'll drive you away. you came back now - but what about the future?" indra couldn't stifle the cold snigger as she realized the irony - somehow, xan was their most faithful counterpart -- and he was hardly in the picture at all. perhaps keeping those you live with at arms' length was the right thing to do, so that when they left they hardly left an imprint at all.

an eerie silence came over stigmata for a long-drawn moment after she spoke. his figure became stone, and a severity enveloped him in the form of a black and oppressive aura. he could accept being accused of failing to remain impressed by her and her kin, but the implication that she or anyone else might intentionally seek to expel him was almost beyond his understanding. his pride wouldn't allow the slight.

"you would drive me away?" he returned, almost in disbelief. "after i have shown you nothing but respect, and- and driven myself to injury just so—!" the smokehound found himself rising indignantly, wrought with the emotion only indra was yet capable of driving him to. he was stricken, in that moment, by all the suddenly complicated pieces that had become his life and how strained he felt without the power to control them.

he stopped fuming immediately and deflated - eager to preserve what little he could of his indifferent facade - and he sidled on an agitated expression as he regarded indra evenly in a moment that would make or break them. "i will not stay or return to a place i am unwanted."

for a while he was silent alongside her. indra knew the silence would not stay - like all things, it was born into the world, had its riotous heyday, and then it too slid into obscurity. she used the silence to collect her thoughts -- or to put it less kindly, collect her wits.

stigmata was fuming, and rightly so. indra could see a coldness shroud him - it was an empty, yet oddly consuming presence -- similar to the impression one got as they stared down a well and felt as if they were staring eternity -- or endless blackness -- in the face.

she knew what happened next would shape the formation of the days that followed; the foundation of their relationship was like clay - smooth at first, yet fissures had slowly sprawled across its worn surface to the point indra wondered how little a shake it would take, just to see it come crumbling down.

and indra was so very tired -- but not yet of him.

so, she bit back the prideful lash of her tongue, swallowed the crackling emotion that threatened to overcome her, and chose her words carefully. "you are wanted -- needed -- with us." she expected the admission would make her small to a fault; instead, she just felt exhausted.

the same tiredness that weighted indra into surrendering, plagued stigmata like an old wound impeding him from progression. his shoulders fell, for despite all appearances of a dark resignation, it wouldn't have been easy for him to accept dismissal from the redleaf— his pride would've been too wounded— and it was all he could do not to sigh in front of her as the burden of uncertainty suddenly left him.

relief aside, he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing he had been worried of her choice.

"then i am yours," he reminded her firmly; quiet enough to be a whisper. "do not forget it." and he left her there, banishing himself to some corner of the wood where he could sort out his over-boiled emotions in peace.

a covenant had been made between them, though darkly indra wondered at what cost as she watched the baleful man's backside slip into obscurity.then i am yours, do not forget it. she would not forget those words, hoarse as they were, they burned with the searing intensity of a brand through her mind.

for a long time - perhaps longer than necessary - the woman stood where she had been left.

she was dissecting, laboriously unwinding and unraveling - her mind going from dark room to dark room, shining a brief and pale light in those scarcely-tread halls, hoping for some pattern, dreading the recognition of that damning pattern if it ever came to be ---

at last she moved, and like the shutter of cards shuffled into place, the redleaf's mind had been made.