Lost Creek Hollow Butterflyfish

By the time they had moved themselves around the glade and the neighboring pack, Swordfish was surly and tired. His ribs ached. His side was prickly with fiery pain. The young seafarer thought back to the white girl who had demanded they leave and had puffed herself up to deter them from the edge of Kvarsheim. If he hadn’t been with the Mereo man, he might have cursed at her and risked the injury to show her that the glade did not belong to her pack. She could not extend her territory as she wished.

Upon the edge of the hollow, the redtail boy sighed.

Riverclan, he announced drably. He glanced to @Germanicus, wincing at the sight of his wounds and the blood that now soaked through his bandages. Best get ‘em here quick, he added before drawing his head back and calling for @Silvertongue and Crowfeather.

quadruple date time

it would have been easy to press the young woman, to enter the no-wolf's-land all the same.

but germanicus had burned enough bonds to last a lifetime.

and so he retreated.

the night was here now over the hollow. they had lost a good hour of the boy's tracking. his lips were traced in rueful shadows.

here was where crowfeather resided.

the star of riverclan, shardik had said.

the man's heart thumped ferociously in his chest as the boy called out for silvertongue and the shadow himself.

in the peak of her season, silvertongue raised her head. she was not far from crowfeather these days; in fact she had stayed as close to her fellow star as he allowed — or wished, taking the warmth and ardor of his body and offering her own. but she knew this voice. she knew it, for it reverberated in her head. silvertongue unwound herself and melted into the river-shadows. her eyes were a confrontation as she arrived in all her fragrant splendor to regard the roman with utter coldness.

Me: This will be fun!

Me five minutes later: Why am I writing this at work and crying at my desk? :D

It was dark and Crowfeather had been sleeping fast with his limbs twined with Silvertongue’s and his snout buried deep in the ruff of her neck. The call started him, jumped him to go. He blinked sleepily and shifted, worried that he might wake her, worried that he would disturb her sweet peace. The shadow leaned into her and pressed a kiss to her neck. He had not forgotten the love she had given. He had not forgotten how she had loved him despite his unlovable qualities.

In his tired state, she was first to pull out and approach the caller at their border. On his three legs, he moved much slower. In pursuit of her scent, he padded the hollow and drew up beside her with a wide yawn of his narrow snout.

But his stomach could not stand the image that his eyes had created.

What cruel trick was this? What horrible dream had plagued him?

Like something from his nightmares, he saw the glow of yellowpaint eyes before he saw the wounds that bled through the man’s care. Crowfeather froze, afraid. Tears came quick and he had no means to fight them in his weary state.

Germanicus, he breathed, voice falling from his lips in a haggard whisper. You- You- You’re hurt.

And his heart told him to rush forward and mend what had been done, but his feet would not budge.

The beautiful girl with glassy eyes was the first to approach them. Swordfish waved his red tail at her, pleased to show that he was a familiar face, that he did not intend to bring harm to their healers hollow.

Her eyes were trained on the Mereo man. She did not look the same as she had. She was cold, now. She was quiet and fierce and frightening. Swordfish didn’t understand. He glanced between the man and the girl, shuffling upon his sandy paws. Tired and worn to the bone, he was ready to have them open the door and begin their work…

But when the dark star approached, it was with a cloud of sadness so great and heavy that even Swordfish could not stand beneath it. He saw Crowfeather’s tears. He heard the desperate crack and stumble of his voice.

Swordfish stepped back, to the side. He put distance between himself and whatever this was. When he could not find a place to set his eyes, he let them fall upon Silvertongue. Silently, he pleaded with her to break the weight of this meeting.

belen stared at him, her face carved from memory's coldness.

he had wronged her. his lips parted in shame and in guilt. and suddenly he hated arsenio more in a rush. now he would shoulder their association for belen. silvertongue.

his eyes were upon her in near-pleading apology. but then they moved inexorably to crowfeather, crowfeather with honeyed eyes holding a sheen of pain. the shadow on three legs, scarred in the battle that germanicus should have fought for him.

he drew a breath. surely he must be older before the shadow's eyes, more drawn. and now slashed by a cat, healing pink marks upon throat and chest.

germanicus could not look away. he could not move forward. a thousand things rushed inside him, made sharper by the edge of the woman's piercing scent.

"yes."

it was all he could say, yellowpaint eyes fixed in breathless wonder on crowfeather as the shadow began to weep.

silver out!

silvertongue loathed this man. he and the greek wolf had sold her to pharaoh. and then he had hurt crowfeather down to the very heart she so loved. saliva gathered in her mouth; the star wished to spit, to curse him. but a look to her prince of shadows showed his transfixed and haunted nature. silvertongue felt something move low in her spirit and at last tore her eyes from the men to look at the boy. "come, shardik. i will feed you." a touch of her small paw to his shoulder. she would take him away from his place, strangely moved to something akin to sorrow by the sight of so many things in crowfeather's eyes.

Yes.

Just one word and it felt so heavy that the dark figure quaked, shook, withered.

Yes, Germanicus.

Crowfeather had never felt so young and so old in all his life. He felt like a child gazing up at his hero, at the thing that spurred his heart to continue beating day after day. Their time apart had aged him. Germanicus, too. He was older and more weathered. He looked so tired. Were it not for the poignant scent of blood on the air, the shadow could not believe that this was real. He was dreaming, of course. He was dreaming of this man the same way he had for nights and nights and nights.

How had he come this far with those wounds?

In the moment his paw stepped forward, toward the man with yellowpaint eyes, he knew how Germanicus felt. And it was hell to know it. Honey eyes were unblinking. As though one millisecond of having them closed would mean that he would vanish again and Crowfeather would be left standing upon the edge of his quiet little home.

Part of a moon was falling in the west, dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Crickets hummed, as though unaware of the heartache that filled the air around them.

Another step drew him within a breath of the older man.

Why? he croaked. Why are you here?

And though he hated himself for it, the next words from his mouth came without an ability to stop them.

Is Ruenna okay?

If you look like this, what has happened to your family?

Fish out. He’s got a hot date ;D

Swordfish did not need to be told twice to follow.

He cast a forlorn look toward the man he had traveled with and the dark figure who had greeted them. There was no curiosity or sense of envy for their conversation. He did not want to be near them. He did not want to feel the pain that filled the small space, shrunk down more by the weakening and pitiful voice of the star.

Quickly, he brushed himself alongside Silvertongue and offered a friendly bump of his shoulder in thanks.

two of the four took their leave but this did not stir germanicus from his waking dream. crowfeather was approaching, and he drank in the dark-limned and familiar details of the shadow. down came the moon and with it a silvered light that bathed germanicus in argent glow and crowfeather in a cloak of starglint.

horse-hooves upon a field of battle struck the cadence of his heart as crowfeather moved closer and closer with a practiced grace, so seamless that one might not have noticed the loss of the leg. as it were, the imperator forced himself to see all things, so that he might not forget.

honeyflower eyes asked of him before the words came, the soft voice that had not left the back of his mind.

"i am here because i was wrong," and his voice broke, slipping into grey shadow. the sunyellow of his eyes burned with a fervency that singed the edges of his mouth like woodsmoke.

"ruenna left me. i remarried far too quickly. but i —" head bowing. "but i told her of us. she sent me to you." an intake of breath. "i came here to see your face again."

to know.

neither he nor she could move forward without this understanding.

fennec; she was braided tightly to the seams of his spirit and it was only through her care that he had come to riverclan.

Ruenna had left him? 

Crowfeather could not hide his shock and anger. 

How dare she? How dare she take his heart and abandon it? Who did she think she was? 

Germanicus bowed his head, as though his words were too difficult to utter with his chin held high and proud - where it should be. 

Crowfeather couldn’t stop. 

Tentative, whiskers quivering with the breath that he held in his chest, the dark star reached for him and pressed his nose to the space at the bridge of the older man’s snout. Air quavered through flared nostrils, drawing in his scent. It was as though he had been away for years. The smell of him, so familiar and yet so foreign, filled him. 

A new wife had sent him here. And though he did not wish to know it, though it burned like fire in his throat and scorched his tongue as it left his mouth, the shadow whispered, she is good to you? 

Tears fell from his eyes. 

That was all he cared about. It was all he needed to know - that Germanicus was loved, treasured, cared for in the way he so deserved. For if it could not be Crowfeather, he could try to release his heart’s twining from this man. If only he was given everything in the world that he deserved. 

The dark star could not breathe. He feared the answer he hoped for. 

I’m sorry.

Starlight danced in his tear stricken eyes. 

I should not have- I never should have left you the way- 

All those angry words. Crowfeather was ashamed.

Just a cameo to show Crow he has support. He will be far enough away to not bother them and once he realizes they are okay. He'll disappear back into the shadows.

Sandy moved at the call. He knew it was for Silvertongue and Crowfeather but something told him to make himself known. He moved at the edges of the pack lands and he looked and eyed the other soldier and the body language told him all he knew. This was the man that had hurt Crowfeather. That he had cried so hard and so fast upon his chest and a snaking ball of anger unwound within him and he glared, a small show of teeth but he didn't move forward. 

He would show himself to Crowfeather remind the shadow kissed wolf that he was not alone and then he would return to his rounds.

"she is." there spoke in his eyes a pain, a pain of morality and the sinew-shaping of a love for fennec that was so vastly different than the swell of ribcage to simply contain the magnitude of crowfeather's touch.

he shut his eyes, mouth drying to a desert and jawline a strip of guarded steel. "but you are — i have —" the imperator of mereo, the tactician, stumbling where he never had before. 

too much, the starfall of tears upon the long-beloved face. "no," germanicus denied in a voice sent to a ragged octave. "had i the strength you believed i did, i would not have married ruenna."

germanicus might have stayed with the ranger. the long shadows of this place might have been his also. 

rivulets of bitter saltwater now shone upon his own cheeks, cutting through the silver fur like twin rivers of melancholy. 

"you did nothing wrong. i was only afraid." 

at last, a tightening in his throat, the jagged exhale of a long-held sigh; germanicus pushed all aside and lowered his muzzle to brush the tears from crowfeather's perfect face with trembling, awestruck lips.

all of him ached and he felt the long years in it.

and all at once he wanted to return to mereo and pour this sunlight into fennec, who had understood even when he did not.

he thought of how her voice had sent him to this place, how she had without question accepted all that he had said to her.

germanicus had wronged her in his pain and knew even now to have him here must do the same.

the eagle did not push her from his thoughts; fennec and her undeserved goodness toward him gilded his lifting spirit.

a riverclan man came and went, hardness in his face. germanicus noticed him only in peripheral for the shadow's softness was as he had remembered.

She is.

Though his heart sunk, he felt glad to know this. He felt glad that there was someone who had not left him, had not taken his heart away with them. If she was good to him, that was all that mattered. If she loved him with all of herself, Crowfeather could not ask for anything more.

Germanicus stumbled over the next words. The dark star watched him, longing to be closer, to press himself to the man’s bloodied chest with his heart until they beat together.

He spoke of his strength, of… regret? Crowfeather did not think it true. Strength had nothing to do with love. When he had looked upon the man in the canyon, he had believed that he was fulfilled by his life. He had believed with his heart that Germanicus had known love and had felt it for the woman he had first married. He did not know the woman who was wed to the older man, now. Crowfeather knew only that she had sent him to Riverclan.

I was only afraid.

The shadow felt his heart tighten. He had been afraid, too. He had been afraid of all the things his father had said to him – wrong, unlovable, abomination, disgraceful.

Crowfeather had never known the love of another man because it had been steeped with shame.

He did not wish Germanicus to feel this.

Fearful, the black figure with three legs pressed his snout beneath the silver eagle’s chin and lifted it up.

You do not need to be afraid, he said lovingly. You never need to be afraid with me.

Crowfeather knew that he had held these feelings inside him for too long. They scratched and clawed at the glimpse of light – the opening doorway. If he spoke these words to Germanicus, he knew that he must accept them for himself. If he did not speak what his heart screamed in each desperate, thrumming, painful beat… he would live his life in regret.

We fear the thing we want the most, Mothwing had told him the day of her death. He had not understood until he had known Germanicus.

I do not love you for your strength and grit, for your set jaw, or the harsh cartography of your muscled back. I do not love you for your sharp corners. A daring flare of fire erupted in his belly. Crowfeather leaned in to kiss at his jaw. I wish to soothe the hurt inside you. To calm your fear. To look at this raw-eyed vulnerability with my open heart, Germanicus. Those unarmored parts of the man which felt like they were Crowfeather’s and his alone.

You are not at war, the shadow whispered as he tucked his snout into the man’s throat. Slow down. Breathe deep. Drop your guard.

A shaky breath was exhaled.

No one is chasing you but me. The air was thin in his lungs. And I love you so.

(how i see crowfeather rn

you are not at war

eternal soldier. dutiful son. imperator. eagle.

his jaw was tight once more, brow furrowed; on an exhale, a ragged sound emanated from the back of his throat. germanicus felt his eyes welling. crowfeather went on. with love, with adoration. with acceptance. this stardark soul who the roman had so harmed now bared breast to his revelation as if they had not been apart.

the shadow described him as an artist setting charcoal to an unblemished canvas, and it felt somehow as though all of his sins had fallen into chalkwhite ash beside the path.

oh, damnable tears! was it easy to weep so freely once the dam had already been shattered? germanicus did not know, only that the hotness had become liquid and cut across his cheeks in streamlets of sorrow and apology and perhaps even relief.

but his eyes did not waver from those of crowfeather.

you do not need to be afraid.

"do you remember what i said. heart to heart." his voice shook but germanicus would not yet allow himself to be overcome. he searched for another stitching of worn memory. "i remember how you said with you, the day we hunted boar."

the yellowpaint eyes were a caress as suddenly he realized that crowfeather's own had lightened to the sheen of fine amber. "it lives in my mind." his voice broke but he did not look away, shoulders tensing, chin trembling for a moment germanicus might have found unseemly as a soldier were it any moment but this.

"i watched you moving so skillfully in the water that it has never left me. you were almost — i think, at that moment, i knew i did not wish to be without you."

tactician. warrior. a studying man who did not draw from a tome but from a diary, ink-stained, weather-worn, hidden at the bottom of a traveling rucksack beneath a week's rations.

"i cannot recall that i considered becoming a father before you, crowfeather," germanicus admitted with a tightening to the edges of his open, threadbare gaze. he studied the eboncast features of the shadow for whom he had long denied love, denied the entry of his heart even when the other had pleaded.

"but i do remember you gave me a name from your people, and i gave you one of rome." his throat felt as though it had run raw with the billowing grey of a forest fire softly dampened by rain. "peak where eagles soar." his kiss was soft, hardly more of a breath that traced in ardency along the shadow's throat. "apollo."

crowfeather had offered the breadth of his spirit. but germanicus had turned away, and again he demanded that crowfeather remain where no harm could come to him, the desperate act of a soldier who has lost too many to think with warmth any longer.

germancius remembered the righteous, flaring anger of the shadow, wielded in wrath where there there had once been a softness routed by germanicus.

yes, the eagle remembered all these things. "i loved you before i knew." and then when he had known he had said nothing. his lips pressed softly to one cheek, and then the other, seeking the almost unreality of crowfeather's starglow form. 

"i am finished with fear."

I'm so sorry to make you wait on this reply and I'm sorry it's not... great. I had a health scare during the end of last week and konked my head really hard. Made me feel like I had time-traveled. I didn't want to leave you waiting, though. <3 ;w;

Did he remember?

Crowfeather might have laughed if the moment hadn’t felt so surreal. He remembered it all. The memories of their time spent together lived in his mind as a constant reminder for why he could not love another, for why he could not give Silvertongue what she so deserved.

Even standing there, overwhelmed with the silver eagle’s words, Crowfeather felt guilty.

If this was merely a dream, he must wish for it to continue for eternity. He could not release this feeling. He could not know the warmth of this love and then abandon it.

Oh, Germanicus…

I loved you before I knew…

Childish glee erupted within the shadow’s belly.

Once, he had thought that he would follow Germanicus anywhere. He would trek across the harshest snows and hottest deserts, if only it meant that he would bask in the brilliance of the other man. How had he given up so easily? Shame replaced his glee.

The touch of his kisses was like a speckling of sunlight. It glittered across his throat and held his breath. Did Germanicus know what he did to the dark three-legged man? Did he know how his voice, how his eyes, how the breath from his lips was like kindling added to the fire?

I remember it all, he said breathlessly. I planned to carry your memory in my heart… forever.

He did not want to tell the man that he had been smitten by him from the start. He did not want to tell him how he had struggled with his decision to leave. It was difficult. Time had showed him that the pain it took to stay would have been greater than the pain it took to go.

Crowfeather thought he finally understood the saying ‘like a moth to a flame.’ He was the moth. His heart fluttered like paper-thin wings. And Germanicus was the flame; incendiary, scorching the shadow’s soul. He inhaled so heavily, like he’d been holding his breath underwater. He pressed his lips against Crowfeather’s throat. The shadow followed and pressed against him. Their bodies seemed to be dancing – shadow and stone. Perhaps Crowfeather was wrong… He wasn’t a moth. He was Icarus. And he had flown too close to the sun.

Germanicus, he spoke the man’s name as though it would be the last time. What does this mean? For- For you? For us.

i know we talked over messages but please tend urself first <333 i will wait eternity for u

germanicus, and it was as a deepest succor in his heart of hearts, where the shadow had always resided since their parting. "it means i wish to be with you. to be close," came the ragged fault of his voice as the slender darkness of the riverclan wolf pressed closer. and the eagle drew crowfeather toward himself, lowering forehead until his own touched that of the other.

"you do not need to carry the memory of me."

the eagle raised his paw, to softly cup the left side of the starwolf's face. "i am here with you now."

and yet a long atonement was ahead of him.

"for now, i must return to mereo." there were things that needed completion. and fennec — fennec must be told.

"i will return to ranging," germanicus said at low-last. "but i will be close. crowfeather," and his voice held a thousand things. "i have no intention of letting you from my sight again, or me from yours."

mind sweeping to the future laid new before he and the shadow.

a future in which germanicus unfurled himself from the always-apparent expectation of pack life which drove him into the arms of responsibility.

"show me your home."

show me where you lie watching the stars

germanicus felt himself come alight as only the shadow engendered, hungering; he pressed his mouth to the curve of the jetstone throat and inhaled gently before drawing away.

"i will come back when i have gone to mereo again."

Crowfeather’s features were sharp, pointed upon Germanicus, intense. His dark whiskers flicked forward, eyelashes fluttering over honeywarm eyes.

The silver eagle would fly home to Mereo.

Without warning, fear seized Crowfeather. One step was placed tentatively toward the older man. Fear, fear, fear – it flooded inside of him like a storm surge. Once, he had spoken of his promises in the dark of Akashingo. His breath had been nothing more than a warm whisper. His words had been all that had pushed Crowfeather through the cloud of darkness.

He had promised they would travel east, together. Then, he had vanished with Ruenna. In the time he had been gone, they had made a family together. They had children. Germanicus had promised that he would return to Akashingo and he had never done so. The burning of Crowfeather’s fear licked hot at the back of his throat. He did not want to reveal his fright. He did not want to spoil this moment, this moment that he had waited for-

I trust you, his voice cracked, uttered like a fragile leaf falls from the tree in autumn.

Crowfeather could not allow his fright to ruin this. The negativity, the anxiousness, it could be forgotten in favor of this warm light. It shone through the cracks of the shadow’s heart with yellow light.

Come, come, his nose nudged beneath the man’s chin. A smile lifted the features of the tripod. For the first time in many months, the expression reached his eyes. Let me treat your wounds. Let me show you Riverclan.

And oh, how his heart sang.

If this was only a dream, Crowfeather wished it to be his last.

omfg heart palpitations do u want to tag me in a new thread? <3

rich expressions raced over the sable features. 

germanicus feasted upon all of them with a flickering of light in his yellowpaint eyes. 

i trust you, and he would not allow it to be in vain. his gaze searched that of crowfeather and he drew another steadying breath from the shadow's presence. the goldsun eyes before his own brightened with a true glow and the eagle found himself soothed by it.

the riverclan wolf meant to tend body and soul. how might he say that the simple closeness of the other did such for him? a smile did not yet attend germanicus, but there was a lightness to him that was apparent as he followed with strong strides into the place of the hollow.

and fennec remained on his mind. 

germanicus meant to earn the trust so given. he could not allow another collapse between he and the shadow. he would not.

muzzle to withers, he sought once more to assure himself that the other was real, was existent, was tangible. it soothed something in the far recesses of his mind.

crowfeather would find himself hard-pressed to keep the silver ranger from his side.