Lion Head Mesa and there's a storm that's raging

for @Jakoul, hopefully, backdated to maybe a day after she came back but i'm flexible

the shivers of his breed wracked him, made him stumble even as he tried to keep poise in his posture and step.

he saw her wither, not from near enough to be awash in the scent of her decay, but he saw.

his bride, dressed in white, wilted before he could make of her a wife.

it was no surprise when she left, but the greater agony was that he couldn't follow. still, as he did once before, the small man quietly hoped to see her return. see her frame moving trough the fields, no longer bent under the weight of whichever illness sapped her of strength and will.

but @Maegi never came back. 

instead, something dark, and sleek, slithered into the palace, wreathed in grief, and announced itself with a pained cry.

he knew, then. but feared it.

gucci searched for the mazoi.

Jakoul did not cry.

But she wept, horrible and fierce, in the halls of Maegi. Resigned to the room the woman had once claimed. After she had been cleaned, she clung to all the scents that still remained of Maegi. As if any of it might bring the woman back, hold her closer once more.

Scarcely did she leave the room.

When she did, it was as a wraith.

And this small beast riled something ugly within her. A sliver of violence brought back in place of her loss.

She stared into him with the intensity of her sorrow.

maegi's rooms. how he looked forward to them living together alongside two pale children, a little noble family within the palace.

but before he could enter the rooms to reminisce, to pretend, he found the wraith.

his shakes worsened a moment, then they calmed into a consistent trembling. he looked upon the black, silver-eyed mazoi, snakelike in sleekness, and found his voice not leaving his mouth.

he had to take a shaky breath and close his eyes a moment, before looking again and weakly parting his lips to say;

"she's gone."

spoken as if to empty air, not even a question. it surprised him how easy it was to admit.

it shamed him how he expected to be told no.

She wondered what Maegi saw in the small, trembling beast.

But Maegi had always seen wonder in the stranger. Jakoul alone could be proof of that, if the swath of shadowed children and hazy background was not.

"She's gone."

Some part of her felt the words grind against the stone of her heart. There were no words the could (or needed to be) said in return to his own. She only remained, staring at him.

I make altar.

She chuffed this to him, hoarse and low.

he was quiet for a while, looking blanky at some low spot, head lightly shaking.

"she.. she's gone." whispered and drawled. gaan. "mah.. mah..."

we were supposed to be so much.

gucci felt lightheaded, and stumbled. one paw went up as if to hold his skull in place.

the mazoi spoke.

he lowered his paw, but the odd, weightless feeling remained. 

"y-... yeah." gucci nodded, still staring blankly "she, she mentioned her gods." gawds. a sensitive topic for the late maegi.

his gaze lifted to the sleek woman.

"ya were friends?" as much could be assumed from how often her scent lingered in the fur of his fiancee.

Friends.

Their bond had extended well beyond that, Jakoul thought.

Blackfeather Woods?

She wondered if Maegi had ever spoken of her past here, in the haunted halls. She was prepared to tell a butchered story of their time together.

gucci lightly shook his head.

"naw. ah... ah don' know how that relates."

but he was willing to listen. to learn.

catch the wisps of his betrothed slipping out between his toes.

She stared at him.

Hollow and empty, except for the salted granules of her grief floating by.

She could mourn like this, she thought.

We lead together. Her family built. Then earth angry. Shake and shake. Loss.

How funny. How bleak. That they returned to their origins and Jakoul had found loss there again.

Long ago. Find again now. Promise not leave —

Her voice hitched in a creaking manner.

his large ears were focused forward. he listened with intent, sopping up every syllable. piecing together the story.

she and she both were leaders, of a pack maegi's family made. then there were earthquakes. mother nature took something from its offspring. loss.

and that was long ago. long enough that there was exhilaration to be reunited. to be wounded to have their time together cut so short.

she had so much more right to feel grief than he.

and with that thought, the blankness of his state passed. gucci felt that hot sting behind the eyes, and tried for a moment to hold it back. but it didn't work. the mazoi turned into a dark blur, and the chihuahua bent his head, breathing gradually descending into heaving and sobbing.

"y- you." he gasped, feeling knowing that his outburst would only worsen. "guh- give- g-give me ya name. ah, ah jes', ah je's need- nedd'a..." he couldn't finish.

with a bent head, the chihuahua gracelessly wept.

It heaved.

It sobbed.

She could feel nothing as she watched him, tiny and trembling. Was that awful? Should she be condemned for not being moved by others who had known Maegi? Why had she placed her grief above those around her?

Jakoul.

She rasped.

Then turned, a long look over her shoulder at the man. She wished to go back to her vague excuse of an existence, if he needed no more.

"th- thank ya." the man got out.

he had begun falling into himself, before realizing she- jakoul - was still present, awaiting his last word.

he let her go with a tight-lipped nod.

when the serpentine shadow left, he would preform the act of a less emotional man to empty air, before, of course, collapsing against a wall, curled and heaving.

maggie, oh maggie...!