Dragoncrest Cliffs Underwater

Like the rolling surf of a breaking wave, Njord spilled onto Teekon’s shore. From the sands he hastily trekked up the rocky mountain face towards Dragoncrest before all the ocean water had dripped away from his stone-gray pelt.

His body was lean and angular. Corded muscle showed where all fat had been recycled. A patchwork of healing wounds marred the right side of his face, fur dappeled and spotty where the flesh had been bitten. A desperate hunger hollowed out his deep blue gaze as he passed familar landmarks, noting the change of season on the boughs of the trees... He had been waylaid for far too long.

Autumnal cold nipped at his nose as he scented the air for his family. The seafarer called, howling to them, and watched the treeline impatiently for any sign or shape.

aiming for his warden. He's a little young but eh.

Eti heard a howl for missus meerkat and with a slight worried look to his mothers den. He headed towards the borders. 

He stayed within proximity of the borders and came upon the wolf who reminded him a bit of his tonton Sobo. 

He felt the ground beneath his paws ears forward to catch the dripping of seawater.  The man smelled of brine and fish.

You dere. You're at borders of Sapphique.

She sat under the tree at Mossbloom, staring down into the creek’s waters. Twice now since returning from their trip, @Mercy had declared an intent to explore outside of the territory. Well, she’d asked her mother and, to Meerkat’s credit, she had allowed it, as long as the girl took a companion with her.

Meerkat sensed it was only a matter of time now before the young woman went further and further afield, then wandered off for good. Call it a mother’s intuition. She just hoped Mercy would tell her mother and brothers first, say a proper goodbye. Meerkat would have to stay strong when that day came.

Feeling needy, she rose to her feet and went to find one of the boys. She wound along the stream headed toward Corsair Beach, even though @Stingray and @Swordfish were welcome to move freely around the territory now. They all spent time at the rendezvous site still, so the odds were in her favor she might find one of them there.

When she didn’t come across either one, Meerkat began rambling in no particular direction. She was just thinking about calling out to them when she heard another voice lifting into the wind. Her mouth dropped open, her heart practically leaping out of it as recognition registered immediately.

In hindsight, Meerkat wouldn’t recall a single detail about the race toward that sound. When she spotted Njord, tears blurred her vision even as she ran toward him. She didn’t see his altered appearance. She was too busy throwing herself into his arms and burying her head in his neck, drawing in his familiar scent and warmth. Meerkat clung to her prodigal husband, sobbing despite feeling nothing but joy, joy, joy.

She noted, first, the wandering tracks of her fair boy. His bravery was something she should have lauded; but in the wake of Requiem’s disappearance she had begun to cling to her children more desperately. So she trailed after Étienne, and would have set the child on a path parallel (but well within) the borders, she dropped the thought when a familiar voice called from the borders.

She was not far away- but even the strongest headwind wouldn’t have held Meerkat back from greeting her husband before the jackal got there. She noted the noble, natural posture her son assumed and rather than chastising him for ranging so far, she nuzzled him between his shoulder blades. 

She was happy to see Njord. Meerkat, of course, was overjoyed. Chacal’s eye noticed the change in the man, who possessed a frame no longer soft from comfort, and his pelt healing in places where he had been wounded.

”Dis be Meerkat’s husband, Njord,” She whispered quietly to her son, touching her nose to his cheek. ”De sea ‘ave returned you to our shores, will you stay ‘ere, an’ roam no more?” She asked. The heartache he had caused Meerkat would not easily be forgotten, and she had yet to seek Sobo’s opinion, knowing Njord’s return might cause him turbulence as well. She was glad to see him- but needed at least a promise from him that he would not abandon his post again.

The first warden to respond was not one Njord expected or recognized. A young boy, barely older than the summer season, greeted him at the borders. The child appeared a miniature Erzulie with the same dark points… but whose was he and when had he been born? Njord’s brows knitted, concerned by how much time had passed. His chest twisted, ached. His own sons and daughters would be even older than this one, with only a few memories to know their father.

“Aye lad,” Njord responded, holding back the urgency in his tone, “I ken these borders well. I li-” The red tail’s words were cut short by the rapid cadence of pawsteps running through the woods.

To be alone with his thoughts during the vast ocean swim had spun Njord’s mind tight. The bleak events on Meares Island were layered by a fierce longing to be with his family and the guilt of having been absent in the first place. He knew the look of betrayl, of abandonment, from Sobo’s pale eyes. Was more of that waiting for him at home?

His expression opened, ears rolling forward (though his right drooped to one side), waiting to see who came forth… but he recognized the sound of those footfalls well and deep in his heart Njord knew whose face would appear from betwixt the autumnal colors. Any ounce of effort to hold his emotional state together was sundered, and the man cried out when Meerkat appeared.

Barely a heartbeat had passed before she was in his arms, crying with joy. Njord groaned and choked on a sob – the remorse of knowing that he had caused his wife such sadness embroidered only by a thin, silver lining of happiness to be rejoined once again. He was both overjoyed and ashamed – heart heavier than a rock at the bottom of the sea.

He wrapped around her smaller form and pressed tightly, damp fur masking the wetness that dribbled from his eyes. Chacal’s presence was like a spectre, her words echoing the sentiment of his conscious. “Aye, no more. Nev’r again,” he swore.

The broken beast didn't even had a chance to answer before Missus Meerkat was rushing past Eti, and past the borders and slamming into him. Eti's eye's grew wide and he rocked at the sheer wind that had blown past at her speed. He was growing rapidly, but he was still a child, unsteady on his feet at times.

His mother's paw step behind him with it's melody that simply belonged to her, was heard and when she dipped between his shoulder blades. He licked her chin and nuzzled at her chest fur. To let her know he was there, and he felt her there too.

Etienne listened to his mother as she spoke. He was the husband of Meerkat? Where was Mother's husband? But that was a question for a different time. Her next words drew a pause to him and he tugged at her.

Manmi, èske li pèdi jan granmè di. Jwenn wout li tounen?

The male spoke to both him and his mother. He listened and watched with careful, large eyes. Golden and introspective.

She had no awareness of the small audience behind them, every bit of her attention pouring into her mate’s return. For several minutes longer, she clutched at him. Her emotions bled out of her in great waves of weeping.

Even after all this time, she had not forgotten just how it felt to hold and be held by Njord. But slowly, she became aware of small differences. He did not feel so broad, nor so soft, as she remembered. Meerkat drew back, wiping at her eyes and nose, to really look at him.

Something had happened to him to keep him from his family. She didn’t know the story yet, though the marred flesh on one side of his face told a dark tale. Meerkat’s lip quivered as she beheld him for a moment, a shaky foreleg raising so she could gently cup his cheek. It felt as different as it looked, though he was still her same handsome husband.

There were murmured voices behind her, though Meerkat didn’t turn. Njord answered, though she knew his response was more for her than for anyone else. Never again would he leave her. Meerkat believed that, in part because she would never let her husband out of her sight again.

Do you have any idea how much we’ve missed you? How much I’ve missed you? she breathed, throwing herself against his leanly muscled neck again, the rest of her words muffled against his scruffy fur. I thought… it doesn’t… mo chridhe…

She smiled faintly at her son, nodded, and gently nudged him so as to hint he ought follow her. Njord was not one she believed needed to be one interrogated firmly. He would need to prove himself to earn his rank back, but she had no reason to deny him from rejoining his family and the pack. 

”Welcome back to Sapphique, Njord,” she said. She gestured, then, for Étienne to leave with her so that Meerkat and Njord could fully enjoy their sudden, unexpected reunion.

Was there any greater pain than to be the cause of, and witness, such misery in your beloved? To know you had cut their heart, shaken their strong resolve, and permitted sadness to root itself like a weed in a garden?

Njord had known he had erred despite his best intentions. That his choices had fractured, if not broken, the vows of trust he had promised Meerkat on their wedding day…. But to actually hear her cries, in the flesh, was a pain worse than death. He held her tight – tighter than he ever had before – face pressed into the sandy ruff he had so deperately missed.

The muscles clenched around his jaw to hold back visceral emotions that threatened to pour from him. Perhaps it was a natural response to seeing your partner in a state – an attempt to try and keep it together. Yet Njord shook with the effort. His adams apple bobbed up and down, stiffling the hiccups of sobs that fought to be free. Fast blinks shepherded tears to the corner of his eyes when Meerkat pulled away.

Their glassy eyes met as water spills onto the beach. Njord’s lips pulled themselves into a smile despite his short breaths, and he leaned into her touch, relieved, until her paw cradled his temple. A long, shakey exhale pressed itself from his lungs as he felt Meerkat’s gaze rove across the new wounds, face changed by the trials of his summer abroad.

Words came next. Though his wife’s voice was symphony to the ears, Meekat’s rhetorical questions went unanswered. It felt like there were no earthly words to satisfy the sentiment that he had left her alone, with newborns at her breast, to wonder… if he had gone. Died. Drowned. Despite this, Njord knew he had to try.

“I’m sorry, mo luaidh. I’m so sorry,” he mumbled into her ear, smoothing the hair of her cheek with the gentle touch of his maw. He heard Chacal’s words behind them, and felt the shifting of their presence towards the wood… thankful to the young leader for the space to be alone with his beloved.

Eti had not needed his mother's reminder to move and follow her. Even in his child'like innocence, he knew that whatever was happening at the borders between two wolves was not for the likes of him. He could not feel their vibrations 100%, and yet he could. He knew what it was like to sob as hard as Missus Meerkat, had. He had done son, in the privacy of the tangle, away from his mother and his siblings. Fearing that his own pain would be their undoing, and he too felt the ache he knew was happening to Mr. Njord as he fought to temper his own emotions. He had done that too, when against his sister, and she had sobbed hard into his chest.

He had stood stalwart and strong, protective. He would continue to do so. He was a man in a woman's world, and for that he would simply be the support they needed when they needed it. He had already made that decision at such a tender age. He didn't matter, everyone else did.

He stepped behind his manman, happily and also thoughtful.

Meerkat finally turned slightly to acknowledge Chacal and her little boy, offering them a brief, grateful smile. As they retreated, her attention fixed once more on Njord. The Tanzanite hadn’t asked for an explanation before welcoming him home, nor would Meerkat. There was time for the full report later.

You need rest. Come on, Meerkat coaxed gently, staying close enough that some part of them always touched as they walked. After we get you settled in, I’ll call for the kids.

She couldn’t help but rue Mercy’s timing. She may not hear her mother’s call, depending on how far she’d ventured today. The boys should be somewhere around here though. They were free to roam Sapphique nowadays, but anywhere in the territory should be within earshot.

Meerkat did not take them to their original burrow, though a sun-dappled glen nearby. She motioned for Njord to get comfortable, then hastily began gathering dried grass and leaves to fashion a makeshift bed. When she was satisfied, she promptly curled up beside him, gingerly draping herself over her husband like a pale scarf.

There was really only one thing left to say, breathed warmly into the friable fur of his scruff: I love you, Njord. I’m so happy you’re home.

And then it was just the two of them. The world felt small — Njord’s senses tuned into every small gesture of his wife. A twitch of the nose, a dart of the eye… the way she smelled of the dried sweetgrass from under the Mossbloom Tree. He was so very thankful to hold her in his arms once again, their hearts turned towards one another.

The torrent of emotions ebbed for a brief moment, and they were able to collect themselves. Rest. Njord spurned the idea of it. He had so many things to mend! Yet at the sound of the word his body crumbeled a little automatically, engine running on nothing but fumes.

“Aye,” he acquiesced. And the kids! Stingray, Swordfish, and Vixen… he was so anxious to reuinte with them. Njord breathed, centering himself. One step at a time.

He followed Meerkat at half speed, and it seemed she asembeled a whole bed before he could even collect one bundle of ferns. He grinned weakly in adirmation and appreciation, curling together as they settled down. “I love you too, Meerkat,” he replied as his words began to slur as sleep took him. “My heart is whole again.”