Jade Fern Grove You assume I'm fine, but what would you do if I

It took several days of chugging through impossibly deep snow, but Wylla was pretty sure this was the last place she'd seen @Mahler. She was just as livid as the day she arrived at the mountain to find them all gone. It granted her yellow eye a singular burning intensity as she raked the trees with a hawkish glare and a growl. The setting sun helped a little with that illusion, too.

There was no telling if he was still in the area. In fact, it was incredibly unlikely, but she had to start somewhere. If she'd known they were literally a skip and a jump away, she might have spared the Rivenwood residents the vicious thunderclap of a howl that boomed from her muzzle as she prowled through the woods.

and a roar of stormcloud it was
mahler looked up at once from where he had been scenting for star. marble had been missing, but calcifer remained. he suspected she would be back once her search had come to a close for now, but felt the pang of worry in him all the same. the snows had grown less volatile and she was not young. neither was he, the gargoyle reminded himself, gathering his winterworn body up with a suprising delight — and dread.
the voice belonged to wylla; it was a tidal wave lapping at the hull of a roman ship, and it hurried the musiker along with a spryness to his step he rarely felt.
noctisardor held the scent of old earth and ancient stone, pinewood, oakenfell, and the scent of juniper carried on the cold breath of the taiga. it reminded him at once of everywhere he had ever been, and nowhere at all.
mahler slid into the icegreen shadows of the frigid grove. his heart was no less elated to see wylla than all the times before, but felt himelf pale a little beneath the sunwrath of that one eye.

As the bare canopy swallowed her voice, Wylla lowered her head and breathed heavily. The anger that churned within her was sudden, a stark change from all the numbness that lately defined her days. For the first time in her memory, she felt sick with it. The molten heat of it scorched her throat. The brimstone taste of it bathed her tongue. It was all she could do to refrain from taking a mouthful of snow as though that could wash it all away.

The sight of Mahler doing anything but groveling and cowering before her only sparked her into a volcanic fury. Diminutive as she was, the top of her head was barely level with his lips when they each stood tall, but she felt like she deserved to tower over him now. What was it he had said about being unable to uproot himself again?

How many lies would he deliver to her ears?

Where, she snarled, clacking her teeth together in his face in a wicked promise of pain, did you take my children, you fucker?

"the bypass. east of here," mahler answered crisply, hackles bristling involuntarily at the ringing snap of her teeth and the hatred that seemed to wreathe from wylla. "thade comes and goes. phaedra is distant as ever. you left our children in my care, and i have protected them."
betrayal nor inclement weather nor the embedded rage of the one for whom his heart pined most would remove that treasured obligation from his shelf. charcoal ear flicked. he would provide an explanation if she asked, else mahler sought then to step aside, pointedly leveling his lavender stare upon the fiery she-wolf with a pregnant silence. 
noctisardor was theirs. would she accompany him there? or would she remain in this ice-green grove, seeking to skewer him with her rage?

The bypass.

Her lips writhed into a monstrous black line over her teeth, rippling with fury. She hadn't asked how their children were; she could ascertain that for herself when she saw them. An attempt at deflection is what she saw, and an effort to turn the blame around and pin it to her own breast. She flashed her teeth.

Did you ever stop to think why I left them in your care? she snapped. Did you ask them? I promise you it wasn't because I think you're better able to care for them than I am. If nothing else, this only further proved his negligence, the selfishness that defined him to his core. How had she been blind to this before?

I left Thade with you because I believe he needs a father figure in his life, but Phaedra, she said, stepping back and bristling and fixing him with a frigid stare to match his level one, the only reason I left Phaedra with you after all you've done to her is because she didn't want to move again. She wanted to stay at the mountain.

So why is it that after telling me a whole lie about how you can't possibly move again, you drag them here, and then fail to fucking tell me about it?

whatever he felt was drowned beneath the rising surge of anger answering in his breast. she had abandoned sagtannet and left their brood behind. for what? now she returned to malign him as no one else could do. mahler held his silence until she had finished pouring her bitterness into him, salt upon torn flesh.
"i am not tied to the gottverdammt mountain, vylla. i had no reason to stay vhen four of sagtannet left in the same night, two exiled to go elsevhere vith their anger. my hand vas forced. between rusalka and takiyok's betrayal, i did not feel it vas safe to stay."
he studied her for a long moment, searching for any break in the harshness.
"i know vhy you left them. believe me vhen i say i do not think it vas out of your belief i could do better than you."
mahler did not move. "you are settled now? vhere is stag? take phaedra and thade to the place you have made for yourself, vylla."

Your daughter not wanting to move again wasn't a reason? Your son's need for stability? No, of course it wasn't. Wylla wondered if Mahler had ever thought to ask his son or his daughter what they wanted out of life, or out of him as a father, or if they were happy where they were, or if they would like to go elsewhere. She sincerely doubted he had considered them at all when he made his decision. Perhaps it was unfair of her, but she could paint him only in negative lights right now.

I thought that you couldn't uproot yourself again, or is that only when I ask you to? She pulled a long breath through her nose, tried to steady the churning inferno in her stomach. She wasn't here for him. She had given him a chance, and he had made his choice, and she was not enough to change Wylla chose a different angle.

How would you feel if you went to Moonspear and found that Ciri and Elke were no longer there and you hadn't been told where they were? As to his suggestion that she take Thade and Phaedra with her, Wylla wanted nothing more than that, but it wasn't her decision. It was theirs, and she wouldn't justify what must surely be a play to get rid of his children before he produced a dozen more this season with any sort of reply. She didn't owe him an answer about Stag, either; he had not come looking. Wylla would inform Stag of their location, and if the Sandraudiga wanted to visit, he would do it on his own terms.

mahler set his jaw against wylla's mention of elke and ciri. he had tired of hearing her talk about his daughters, for any sort of reason, and so he ignored her tack set upon their name. unsaid, now, that he would not rise to it so long as the rein held. but the first barb sliced him, scratched across a wound that had only just begun to heal at the edges.
"do not make this about us, vylla. there is no longer a point to it. make this meeting about our children."
he lifted his chin with a lofty expression he did not feel, only painted onto the stoic planes of his facade. "i vas vrong not to tell you. i did not know vhere you vere," mahler added with a rasp of irritation, but he was slowly beginning to drag it all behind a curtain of ice.
"but now you know vhere ve are. i do not intend to leave again, regardless of vhat happens now. so be assured i vill be here vhen you come calling another day, vylla."
hurt flickering behind his tone for a barren moment, then sealed away. sinking into the wretched coldness.

You made it so, said Wylla, seizing her own hurt, no longer stifled under layer on layer of ice and dismay. She would have loved to have this argument with him—she had begged him to leave with her, and he had strung her along only to say he could not, and then when she was out of sight he had gone and done what he said could not be done! She would have loved to tear him apart strip by strip until he bled out and died in the snow, and her lip lifted over her teeth, and a muscle twitched in her shoulder. For half a second, she nearly lunged for him.

But then she would be close. Then he would know she was on the cusp of her season, and he would try to manipulate her and turn her into another of his brood mares, and then he would steal those children, because in his eyes, they made wonderful children, but she was worth nothing.

I told you exactly where I was, she snarled, and decided then and there that she would not mention that Greymoor Watch had fallen apart and that they had gone down the coast. It gave her an upper edge to maintain that she had not been secretive about her location, even if that was no longer true. She had begged him to come there with her, for god's sake! And it burned and chafed even more that he had apparently heard nothing that day, and sought to cover up his misdeeds with lies.

I don't give a fuck if you're here every time I visit or not, she growled, because you're going to stay away from me, and you will not dare to intrude upon my meetings with them, or so help me god, I'll fucking end you myself.

and i have admitted that, mahler wanted to snap. the loathing pouring from every one of her pores, it seemed, kept him at bay, guarding each word as if it were a dragon's-egg of volatility. the reality of her teeth being turned against him — he felt the scars she had given him at the birth of their children tighten suddenly as if in answer. "then i did not remember, because i had other things to vorry about, and knew you vould find us." his words meant to cut.
"phaedra and thade vill be old enough to make all of their own choices this year. i vould not dream of interfering vith your meetings." dryly, stung by her overwhelming threat toward he who had offered her no violence. but perhaps it was all he had done, and so he controlled the rage that would have blossomed in him already were not her speaking.
wylla disrespected him upon the borderlands to his own territory, and he would let it go on, for even as she flamed with malicious intent, mahler could not mark her as foe.
du bist meine größte schwäche.
"do not vorry yourself vith my life, vylla. it vill come to an end before yours."

She clapped her teeth shut over the accusation that he didn't remember because he didn't care; she was already giving him far more energy than she wanted to. Her anger and sense of betrayal sought to swallow her. It was all she could do to hold any semblance of control over herself, although Mahler could argue that she was doing a terrible job of it, tossing death threats out like that.

She didn't respond for a while, choosing instead to glare at him and breathe. Slowly in, then slowly out. He was delusional if he thought she cared about how long he lived, though in some deep, deep core of herself, she felt a pang of sorrow that he would speak that way.

Mine ended a long time ago, she said in a low and somber tone, but Stag deserves better than another letdown. Thade and Phaedra deserved better than losing their mother, too, no matter how darkly her mind muttered that she had already left them and it would be less painful if it was for a better reason, like death.

Take me to them, or bring them to me if you prefer, she muttered, and then go back to your duties.

wylla shot back a rebuttal and mahler, again, held his tongue, nostrils flaring with the effort. he had whelped stag and all his siblings; that memory brought to him mind of takiyok, and he felt the rawness writhe slowly over his spirit again. too many things piled haphazardly upon one another, and mahler could not allow them to collapse. he had been more father to the pale boy than his kill-brother, more father to the children stigmata had sired with ketzia. more father to marble and calcifer than he had managed to be to any of his own. he must end the bind here.
the gargoyle did not approach, merely inclined his head toward wylla and began to shoulder his way between the snowy trees, back the way he had come. if she did not follow, he would send down their pair, but now he kept the lilac stone of his stare trained upon noctisardor —
which he had won
and there was no sweetness in it.

Mahler turned away and Wylla followed in resentful silence. Her mind attempted to weave justifications for him, and every one of them she shot through with the flaming arrow of her hurt feelings and loneliness. Months ago, she had laid in his embrace in a high place on the mountain and thought that he might ask her to be his everlasting, and their next litter would be raised with all the love and attention their first litter had craved, and there would be no competition from ghosts of Wylla's past.

But she had been a fool to think she could ever deserve something like that, or that he would ever rise to the occasion, and now she stared at his backside and wondered if every road for them would inevitably have led to here. Maybe it would have taken longer. There could have been more sparks of happiness hidden in their miasma of accusations and expectations, or there could have been nothing.

She shook the thoughts from her head and focused on the simmering remnants of her anger, pouring everything into it and not letting go of it, for she could never again allow herself to be weak enough to beg or plead or reason with any man. She looked forward to seeing her babies, and dreaded knowing that they would not come with her, and wondering if it was because they truly did prefer their father over her, despite everything he had done, and everything she had done.

phaedra drifted inside rivenwood, ghostly; there were no longer flowers to be found here. and thade; he hoped the boy would be nearby and would come to his mother's call. he and astraeus had both been seen within the confines of noctisardor. to think that it had already been a year since their birth dizzied mahler, tightened his gaze with a vestige of fatherly delight — and pain.
for what a year he had given them.
the gargoyle stopped before the stoneway leading arched and silent into the bypass. here rivenwood's scents lay thickly, and to his nose there was no sign of the pack that had once resided here. he turned toward wylla now, a sentinel without movement save for the wind that raked through his fur. 
words leaping and then buried within himself; a thousand sentences to speak but naught would quell the hatred that lay in magenta fragments around a heart he had broken too many times.
tilting charcoal crown back, compelling them with a summons, and when it was ended, he indicated the she-wolf was free to enter the territory. he would not follow; he would remain in this part of the claim, no confirmed entry until she had gone —
would not interfere
a helpless step and then another carried him toward wylla. "i do not vant to quarrel vith you," he said in an anguished rasp, meeting her sungold eyes for a tense moment, should she allow it. 
mahler searched a long second for any aspect of something that might suggest she did not hate him.

Mahler led her to a natural stone entryway, one that might have impressed her once, but Wylla no longer noticed such things. The gaze she swept over the arch was inscrutable, and would have remained on the stone if not for the steps Mahler took toward her then. Her heart thumped in her chest at the pain she found in his voice, but ultimately, she recoiled from his approach.

You had a choice, she coolly reminded him, and you made yours, and apparently lied to my face in the process. I'm not here for you. As far as Wylla was concerned or aware, there was nothing left to salvage here. Even if there was, so much damage had been done that she could see no way to surmount it besides Mahler groveling and working to make it up to her for weeks on end, and that was certainly never going to happen.

She kept her eyes trained on something distant, unwilling to look at him and acknowledge whatever emotion might play across his stony face; she had begged him to come with her, promised she would do better by him, and that had not been enough, and he had shattered her heart with his decision. How dare he say such a thing and step toward her now, as though the choice had not been his to make.

mahler scarcely comprehended her words at first, so struck he slowly became by a trembling awareness of something stirring between he and wylla. and it was not the unsaid words that beat upon the back of his tongue; he had moved closer in his plea and now stood stiff-legged and marvelling.
their yearlings were surely leaping about in some snowy recess or another.
mahler pulled the sound of her voice back into his mind. "you are not here for me. that does not mean each time you come to see them ve must fight, vylla."
— the sound of her name held between tonguetip and tooth a moment too long.
mahler drew away, straightened, tried to will away the compelling softness that seemed to suddenly limn each one of her features. "please come and go of your own accord. the others vill be informed. it is ah," faltering, cursing himself, "better, perhaps."
she did not wish to see him, had threatened him only minutes before — he would remove himself and in his mind, give her the respect of an unimpeded causeway.

While realization dawned on Mahler, Wylla stared resolutely away. She'd planned her trip impeccably to avoid this exact awkward moment, but Noctisardor Bypass was a fair distance further than Nova Peak, and the time she would have taken to return home and seek solitude was instead wasted coming here, and now he knew.

And some part of her was plucked toward him, stretching out for a fitting, masculine body she had known before, but she was quick to stomp on and bury it. It wasn't strong enough to compel her yet. She would be gone before that happened, and the price was too high for her to pay if she was not.

I will not, she said stiffly, choking on the softer things she wanted to say and the apology that pressed against the backs of her teeth. I will call them from here when I visit. I do not need special treatment. She should apologize. No! She did not owe him one, not even for threatening his life. Unreasonable to bar him from those meetings, she thought suddenly, and knew it was only because she wished for closeness to soothe her, but she could not abide it from him. She could not. This time, she would not.

Goodbye, she said.

but i want to treat you as if you are special, his mind hummed, too late too late too late. it was grace enough that she was at his borders. but of course she would come, of course she would return time and again to visit the children that remained with mahler, however inexplicably.
the truth of her tormented him; his claws gripped into the ground with the effort of not reaching toward her —
"very vell, vylla," he said, successions of accenting ground down beneath a tone that tried and almost became formal.
undone, this, by the vexation of his eyes as mahler looked last upon her small hardened frame.
"goodbye," palesworn and threadbare. the gargoyle turned, he would not look upon their meet, nor her again.
he would not come back to his borders until wylla had parted from their pair.

Something flashed in his gaze as he made his departure, something that Wylla was certain was irritation. She met it with a flash of indignation—did he really expect something here, after all the times he had turned her aside and failed to show in any way that mattered to her that he actually cared? Men. She thought it coldly and venomously, with no trace of the humour with which many uttered the word.

Nevertheless, she caught herself taking several steps after him while a lump of desperation formed in her throat, and reined herself back, annoyed now with herself. He's just a body, she scolded herself, you can find other bodies if you need to. He's just a body and he doesn't love you like you love him, so it doesn't matter. Remember what he did. Remember what he will do again with all his women here.

She scuffed her toes in the snow like she was trying to wipe the stain of having ever loved anyone off them, and by the time Phaedra and Thade arrived, she was able to grin and wag her tail and frolic with them and at least pretend she hadn't hoped Mahler would say something to indicate he regretted his decision to not come with her.