Redsand Canyon prehendo

the return home had been swift.

germanicus looked up at the high walls of redstone, at the sprawl of cacti and lake. but it was for the forest he pressed, steps determined not to be waylaid until he had found @Fennec.

he was not certain what he might say. his eyes found the flickering leaves, the greening of spring. he discovered the deep contentment that had first led him to the canyon. and then he looked for her, for the muted gold of her pelt and the paleness of her eyes.

his belly clenched. his heart lurched. he settled beside their den to wait, drawing steady breaths even as a desperate love for her rose and mounted and wavered in his gut.

fennec redhawk, the only woman who had ever truly known germanicus.

She’d been waiting.

She knew how this would end and she’d repeated it, over and over and over again, until any hope that might crush her was ground into dust beneath the weight of reality. It wasn’t hard for her to understand that whatever he might come back and offer… Fennec would not be getting the thing she truly wanted.

She caught his scent early and stopped to gather herself, knowing she was going to need every ounce of her self control to not turn this into a scene. She was so angry over all of it, but it didn’t matter how angry she got - no accusations she threw would fix this.

She walked towards their den with the resigned air of a woman who was used to bad news. She would allow him to speak first, despite the assumptions she’d already drawn.

fennec.

she filled his eyes and senses; he almost went to her at once but hung back in a silence that grew far too tense before he spoke.

"i found him. he loves me. and i love him."

but i love you also
 
the eagle would not dare to say this.

"i mean to return to ranging." riverclan could not be his home, not now. but neither was mereo, and neither could he continue to drag fennec through the lie that was his own spirit.

his mouth opened, but no sound emerged. his ears splayed. germanicus in this moment was perhaps as undone as he had ever been.

She wanted to cry, hearing it. She wanted to scream at him that his word meant nothing, that all of the promises he’d made to her had clearly always been lies. She wanted to ask him what it was in her that seemed to be disposable, but what was the point?

She was quiet for a while too, her heartbeat loud in her ears. She’d been prepared for this, but it still hurt to hear. Businesslike. It was so easy. It was always so fucking easy for them. They lost nothing and took everything with them.

Then go.

She was done fighting for anyone who didn’t find her worth the same. I’ll let Mereo decide where they go from here. But I won’t be staying. The words felt as if they had to claw their way out. Everything wasted and only twice-shattered hopes to show for it.

wildly, horrendously, germanicus thought if fennec could only see his eyes she might understand the turmoil.

in the next, he harshly chastised himself. sight had never been lacked in their relationship. it was only he who fell short.

she did not mean to stay. his heart felt raked with claws.

"i meant to call everyone together, to — inform them." his voice was heavy, the question lurking of whether or not fennec would stay for that.

and then heart, struggling with a hundred unsaid words.

It was a little numbing, how casual this conversation could have been if she wasn’t the one experiencing it. Pack logistics and finality.

It was never about love.

Do whatever you need to. She was suddenly furious, and just as suddenly, the tears were there. I don’t care what you tell them. Just so long as you know two things; I never lied to you once. And I didn’t send you there for you. I did it because I figured you for a coward who would stay just like he did. And I’m sick of being blamed for actually fucking trying.

So much for not making it a scene. But she was shaking, she was so angry, and the few tears that escaped down her muzzle were more fury than any kind of actual regret.

She’d let him respond, but figured this discussion had about run it’s course. There was nothing to salvage here.

the tears; the tears drew germanicus a step forth and then another.

"fennec." his voice was a husky plead, for what he did not know. "i blame you for nothing. and it was not you who lied."

she trembled. the eagle moved closer, in range of the imperatrix' teeth now should she flash them upon him in a deserved rage.

"i lied to myself. and in doing that, in believing it, i told the same to you."

the fact of recognition. the fact of admission. the fact of crowfeather, the shadow who had ridden in the corners of his mind all these years.

"i am sorry, fennec. i do not — expect your forgiveness. but i will say truly that i am."

the yellowpaint eyes tightening in the face of fennec's tears; he remembered how in anger and in grief they had clashed upon that path and how it had transformed him once more.

He didn’t get to be reasonable now. He didn’t get to be nice, or understanding. Why couldn’t he fuck up!? Why couldn’t he let her leave and not remind her of why she’d been willing to try in the first place.

She could have loved him. In a few ways maybe she did. And he couldn’t even give her the courtesy of a bridge burned.

She cried harder and hated herself for it, taking a step away even as he moved closer. She didn’t need to remember what it was like to be held by him. That was meant to be someone else’s place now.

It doesn’t matter if you lied. Because you’re the one who gets everything and I’m the one who loses. All because I trusted you. She wanted to hurt him. But even more, she wanted him to say this was a joke. Even now, even with her fucking insistence, she was hoping he would choose her.

She needed to get out of here.

she was weeping openly now, placing space between he and she.

germanicus did not follow.

and he did not know how he could respond, or if he might.

you were the first to see me.

and in that there was his innate selfishness, to not have seen fennec first.

germanicus felt as though he should pursue her. that he should not. that he should fight for the threads of who they were. that he should speak of love. that he should not. 

that he should respect fennec by allowing her the absence of his presence.

in the end he only followed her with a last helpless step before reining himself sharply and with an exhale of breath meant only for himself and her to hear.

tears, tasted; he would let them fall.

He didn’t follow. At first she walked hurriedly, but as the finality of it overwhelmed her, she began to run.

She heard his final breath. She heard his tears. But neither fixed the damage his decision had done, or the hollowness left when he made it clear he was letting her go.

She would break down near her gardens and let her inconsolable heartache water the roots. She wouldn’t find @Killdeer until she had collected herself some, but as soon as she did she would insist that they go. She wouldn’t stay to hear him say any more.