Redsand Canyon I never stay in one place too long

Fennec had considered going to Epoch when Towhee announced the move but the decision died before it began.  She'd just gotten her gardens started here, she had finally somewhat learned the layout of this place well enough to navigate freely, and it was no longer full of complete strangers - if not friends.  She didn't have the energy to start over again right now.

She was upset but kept those feelings to herself because this time, at least, she had them directed the right way.  She wasn't upset with Towhee for leaving.  She was upset with herself for feeling clingy enough to be crushed by it.  Fennec was old enough not to be her responsibility anymore, and just like she'd told Killer... her mom could go where she wanted.  It had just been really nice, finally taking advantage of having her there.

Fennec poked at her garden, then stood and gave a disgruntled shake.  She was going to take a patrol instead.  Walking would be better than standing still and anything was better than moping.  She had no clue where she was going, by any sense of the word, but she needed to move.  Something needed to change - and it wasn't necessarily her home.  Fennec just needed to figure out what.

it was a selfish reason not to approach fennec. but so far she had shown no signs of departing. and the imperator did not want to sour those chances by moving toward her without a proper conversation in mind.

he was distracted as he passed her that day, eyes turned sharply ahead. he was thinking of the march to come as well as ruenna. the eagle wondered longingly if she was happy that day. if she had smiled. if their children were with her or running through the new land to where she had taken them.

germanicus would have organized a journey at once to take aquillius and valiria. and perhaps he should.

but he felt cut off from her.

"good afternoon, lady fennec." and then he moved as if to continue without another word.

Generally Fennec disliked the leader of Mereo. She didn't even think it was fair, but that had never been enough of a reason for her to seek to correct it. She was staying out of a reluctance to leave and a desire to remain stagnant, but she had wondered if he would see it as loyalty. He could believe what he wanted.

Still... she'd heard what happened. And she'd paid attention since.

Is it, Imperator? Her tone was neutral, but there was a heavy implication behind it. I think you might understand now. She wondered why he kept telling her when every time she corrected him. Maybe now she was just hoping to find someone who got it.

a thrown stone might have clanged off a broadshield had not the protective element been sorely cracked down the middle.

and so fennec's words found their barb. germanicus stopped and perhaps the stiffness radiated from him. "there is no worth in wallowing. it is a good afternoon because i have spent it in work and not thought."

he did not turn to face her. he did not spend a good deal of time with his own dislike. but she was certainly higher on that list than any other.

Right. Brave face and all that bullshit. Fennec smirked, but internally all she felt was tired. If avoiding thoughts was a fix then she was doomed.

Maybe you'll outrun it. Maybe I'm just miserable because I fucking tripped. Either way, good luck, because as far as I can tell it doesn't get better.

Even she didn't know if she had a point in digging into this hole. Maybe he'd found some secret and she was provoking him into sharing it. Maybe she wanted to Pierce through and relish the fact that someone else was just as depressed as she was.

Maybe she just bored, bitter, and had no more fucks to give.

fennec struck again and germanicus considered that he could walk away.

but whether or not he admitted it, and in the pit of himself he knew, the eagle was in freefall.

he wanted ruenna to come back. he wanted to wake from fitful sleep and find her standing haloed in dawnlight and saying she was compelled to return. to come home.

and fennec was taking the small slip of an image and grinding it into dust beneath her jaded paw. "thank you for your prognosis on the matter," he said in a tight voice that could not manage to be dry. "it is good to live in realism as i do."

outrunning such things was not possible. he was tormented by them at every second of the day.

yes. he was beginning to understand.

oh no

She was ahead and she knew it. She could hear the tight way he delivered the phrase, and she could almost feel the way he paused as if considering two roads. But suddenly... inexplicably... she wanted to take that second road.

She had him and couldn't let go.

Your road. I guess it could be worse. It was mean even for her. She didn't regret it. Now she was just twisting the bit of knife she had. I could still hope to love him after he abandoned me. At least I can hate mine and try to be done with it. Realism has nothing to do with it.

She had the familiar sensation of playing with fire, or of walking a ledge a little too close to the sheer drop beside. It was intoxicating.

OH NO

"lady ruenna did not abandon me. perhaps that is the difference." 

now he turned to face her. the red dust of the canyon shifted underfoot. "maybe that is why you tripped. chasing specters in the darkness."

the indulgence was far too much. and he had no right to quarrel with her. enough separated them where he did not even need to engage this conversation. 

and yet here germanicus was.

He was mad. But to Fennec, he was also delusional. He wasn't abandoned?! But he was here, alone, in a pack full of capable healers. She'd left him.

Love was a fucking lie.

My mistake. I thought you'd split, but it turns out she's either still here or you're gone. I guess I am the blind one.

How far would it take to snap him, she wondered? Would it be an insult to him or to Ruenna? She'd never liked her 'aunt' all that much either, honestly, and this only made her dislike her more. Cowards gave up and ran with their tails between their legs. She'd even left children behind.

Fennec relished the familiar anger and the almost high sensation that followed. Her pulse began to pick up as her body kicked into fight mode, prepping for the tightly coiled spring that was the Imperator's patience.

"yes. she is gone. when you truly love someone you release them when they are suffering."

but that was not how it happened. he had not been prepared for the ending. she had brought it and he had accepted.

and that was such. fennec accepted nothing. even now he felt the familiarity of her gathering energy. he did not move through his voice grew heavier.

she walked a thin line now.

Fennec snorted. Fuck that.

She was angry, but not in a way that was personal. Her energy wasn't directed at him, though he was very much the one she wanted to fight. She just didn't want to fight him with the guard rails on.

She wanted him to want the fight too.

When you love something you follow it. You fight for it. You tell it that giving up is bullshit, and that together is easier than alone. She tensed, then crossed that line with a firmly calculated step. Fuck leaving. Cowards leave.

"and how well has that worked for you?"

his voice was a cold windsear and he took several steps forward, seeking to crowd fennec back into the foliage lining the path.

"i will not tolerate any slight to her name." fennec clearly hated bronco and that was not something he wanted to disentangle at this moment or ever. his eyes were a flare of anger and it did not matter she would not visualize him now.

she would hear it.

Fennec stayed rooted. If he wanted her to move he would have to shift her himself. She felt him get closer and heard the rigid anger in his tone, but she got too much satisfaction in the risk of rebellion. There was no way she would cow to him now.

He never loved me. Now I know it.

She lifted a lip. And you didn't love her. Or you'd never be here instead. If he wouldn't hear it about her then he could hear it about himself. She was no bigger fan of him.

He should be able to admit it.

Cowards leave.. She of all people knew that was true. The one leaving wasn't always the one who walked away. Sometimes it was the one choosing not to follow.

fennec turned her lens back upon him. germanicus felt the fury mount.

and still he would not strike her.

the imperator was bound by more codes than most. raising a hand to a subordinate was one of them. she was not even an auxillary for she had rejected that also.

fennec goaded him. "i do not think you have ever known love." he looked down in the soft white eyes and how they were set against the pale coloration of her pelt. he saw how she seemed to be a gradient of hues and a gradient of hatred.

and still he did not move.

She had control. She picked through his words and weaponized them against him at every turn, but then he dropped a nuke that was contained within a single phrase. In an instant she was left completely bare.

He wouldn't fight her. Her composure flickered as the truth detonated, but then she shut down again. Obviously he was above fighting her. She knew he'd written her off from the start - and every meeting only confirmed it.

He'd bested her. He would see it and she knew it, but a tactical retreat was all she had left. A half-hearted parting shot to leave him with. I'm not convinced it exists.

But she was done here. She only remained a moment longer before whirling to stalk away, her prior adrenaline high tainted with the acrid taste of melancholy. He was right. She hadn't.

"do you know what does exist?"

she whirled away. he blocked her with a smooth series of steps.

fennec had been the only one to meet him with something other than well-wishes. lady meadow had given him a listening ear and the opportunity. and he had not acted in the moment. he thought of reyson's small smile and the greater implications he was sure the man had not meant to give.

or that germanicus had not meant to assume.

he had been given peace by the epochian. and fennec had taken it from him.

bound by a thousand mores and obligated to follow each one, the eagle reached the end of his eternal control and reached out to touch her, to brush her cheek featherlight with his muzzle. and it was a deep shock to him that it was not unpleasant and bore its own thorn-laden comfort. he drew back then as not to be so close. her teeth might flash next for all he knew.

it was not love. but it was not a mistake. it was a new sort of challenge and germanicus waited for fennec to place her own move.

She didn't want to hear him defend love. She didn't want him to tell her she was wrong because she'd already decided the way forward was to kill every piece of her that had ever hoped for more. She couldn't survive alongside them.

She mostly ignored him until he blocked her path. She pulled up sharply before running into him, preparing to break into a snarl before he did something so unexpected that it froze her in place.

That isn't real either. She should snap his muzzle for it. He had no right to touch her. But it had been so long since anyone had, and since she'd felt something even remotely like this, that something in her could help melting - ever so slightly. So she didn't.

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the slight relaxation in fennec's figure was seized quickly upon by germanicus. he enveloped her in his darksilver limbs, mouth descending to the hollow of her throat.

the breath shivered out of his own, burning against her lighter pelt.

his ever-present inner pragmatist began to draw up a fine list of every reason this was unethical at best and hypocritical at worst. but the tactician ignored it in favour of single-minded exploration. and the ranger saw only the unknown through which he was almost desperate to wander in pursuit of the starvation that had plagued him since he had been touched ever briefly by meadow inside the lair.

now it armed itself with all the frustrations the imperator bore and carried them both toward an escalation that would be permanent.

This was a mistake. There were a million reasons she had numbered, time and time again, as to why this couldn't happen. She'd meant it when she told Towhee she wouldn't look within Mereo for a father for her children, let alone a husband to share them. But she hadn't accounted for how her starving body and mind would betray her the instant a meal was put forth.

She responded immediately, and intimately, to his attention. This was a field and a language where she didn't need to worry - everything was explored by the closeness of touch. She was too deprived, and too hungry, to be shy about reciprocation.

Exploring his scruff and the lines of his chest, she'd worry about the consequences after. Right now she simply was.

it was odd to be so consumed in a moment with someone with whom he shared no love.

but he had caught fire now and his title too had burned away. he too simply was. 

here on the well-traveled path where anyone of mereo might see, germanicus drew fennec firmly into himself and completed the apex of their ugly and desperate interaction.

he was silent as he was able, as if the experience existed in a lightless dome where the only sound was their mingled and trembling breath.

it was not perfunctory. he was dedicated to it as any other process he performed with his physical self.

the end rose hoarsely on his voice. 

the ferns wavered against the redstone wall rearing beside the path. 

the moments after were only a warm and mindless span of time which rejected for now any formation of regret.

He drew her voice out too in a few occasions. She should have been worried about discovery, maybe, but she didn't have the mind for it now. It was too much easier getting lost in what was happening.

She didn't think but she felt. In the end her breathing was slightly ragged, to match, and she stayed tangled where she was with a pleasant heaviness over it.

This was a mistake. She couldn't bring herself to care. His weight and warmth, draped over hers, felt too comforting for her to try and get up now. She barely knew him. She didn't even think that she liked him. Neither of those facts mattered.

She leaned back but didn't break the silence yet. A part of her felt like laughing. Could she call this real? She wasn't sure. But maybe she didn't mind.

the echo of the sounds she had made was something he recalled again and again as they stood together. he drew his teeth carefully over the sensitive edge of her ear but said nothing.

peace for a time before they parted and he sank down upon haunches turned weak with the effort and pleasure.

and then the shame did begin. ruenna had not even been gone an entire month and he could not have waited. lady meadow had offered him a chance that he still wanted to take despite the selfishness of that thought. he had succumbed to emotion against the mastery of his skill. 

fennec's scent was tangled through his fur and his upon her own. the yellowpaint eyes were somber. "i do not regret that. yet it was inappropriate." but the words were hollow even as he said them. they meant nothing, not after he had broken with so much of his own tradition.

germanicus was silent now. he waited for her to speak and realized quite belatedly that he had never truly looked at her before this hour, mostly due to the crown of brambles in her aura. 

would she return to wearing it now?

He drew away and she regretted it. She'd nearly forgotten what closeness like that felt like, and knew the mistake ran deep. She hadn't felt it since before Killdeer was born; a few short months of happiness followed by nearly half a lifetime spent yearning. If nothing else, he had erased the last vestige of Bronco's hold. Now the ghost that visited in the night would be his, reminding her of what she might have had if life ever decided to give a damn about what she wanted. It meant more than Germanicus could, or would, ever be allowed to know.

She sat a short distance away and began to groom her pelt, sorting the disarray back into order as she tried to do the same internally. Nothing needed to change after this.

Inappropriate. She did let out a small huff of laughter at that description for it. Most things that are worth doing are. She knew enough not to assume he'd stoop to the level again. Inappropriate didn't seem to be his style.

She was kidding herself if she thought this wouldn't change anything. She hated it, and herself for it, but not enough to promise she wouldn't do it again. She would in a heartbeat.

germanicus blinked. "by the laws of mereo we are to be married." he had preached it enough. he had even punished kallik for it. 

the eagle watched fennec rearrange herself. she was precise and he saw how her brisk attentions might be construed as more. her humoured response told him that she had thought of it casually as he did.

but still he studied the golden woman and found the idea of using her as some sort of an outlet to have been a deeply dishonorable choice on his part. 

he prepared for her rebuttal, which he assumed would be a cutting rejection of their hierarchy's command. and there was nothing he wished to do upon that front. the idea was preposterous to utter. he saw the complete worthlessness of that law as they sat near to each other.

and yet germanicus also saw the centered practicality of such swiftness. 

"or we guard this choice of hypocrisy together and let it be ours." his voice climbed toward something that could not quite be humour.

Fennec stopped when he stated what he did next. She frowned and the fur at her neck stood a bit. I won't force a marriage again. You don't owe me anything. Her tone was sharper than she even really intended, but the thought of repeating that sent more than a little panic through her.

She would never go through that again. If she needed to leave Mereo, so be it.

Germanicus' offer to keep it their secret relaxed her some, though it essentially confirmed that it was a one time thing. Don't worry. I can stay your dirty little secret. No one needs to find out. She picked the harsher wording on purpose, something she knew would offend him more. But she delivered them with a casualness that belied them.

She should know better than to think anyone would want more than this from her. It would always be the same - but at least for a moment she'd been reminded what it was to be wanted again.