Larksong Grotto fè dram

the flowering of mireille took place steadily over several weeks. 
at first it had been a thickening to her waist which demanded little change of her as the sickness faded. she was exultant to know that heda had been delivered of four healthy pups.
mireille wanted the same for herself.
the second thing was an overbalancing, the way she was forced to adjust gait and step and even her swimming.
by the time mid-may arrived, her lithe frame had become decidedly round, suggesting that she would grow larger in the weeks to come. 
and with that came a selfish ravening, the surge of shifting in her blood causing an insistent hunger that focused itself on @Val. and the day dawned where mireille felt she would answer it, indulging an impulsiveness she might come to regret.
"find me," she ordered him, and left the packlands at dawn. 
mireille meant for there to be several hours between he and she, and so hunted down from the tangle into the taiga, eating a rabbit and a pigeon.
and then her scarlet form dropped down into the grotto, and here mireille waited, cleaning her jaws of blood as heart raced.

the summons val obeyed, though he thought the insistence behind it strange. and what had possessed mireille now that she was hours ahead of him, her path meandering? if he was a bit younger, he might have thought it a game.

val's step was quick, but even then his urgency had no hope of recovering the time between mireille's departure and her call.

eventually he came across her -- the iron tang of blood hung the air between them. val paused, tail hung midway in the air in uncertainty. are you okay?

mireille hung back at the moment when his shadow touched the grotto's mouth. but once assured it was val, and that he was alone, the obsidian slipped forward with something irascible shinining hungrily in her eyes.
"very well," she purred, seeking his nape with a flick of her tongue as the same pulse quickened to a cadence unignorable.
would he look upon her now?

for a moment val stalled in confusion. mireille's body language had nearly seemed wary, and yet her voice purled as she sprang towards him. in her gaze val saw something darkening and recognized it with a start.

in some ways it had broken val's heart to consider their romp a fling. mireille had been in the throes of her season, and he, lead by instinct and perhaps selfishness, felt he'd taken advantage of her condition. he'd mourned his selfishness and that loss of intimacy every day since.

yet here mireille was, her tongue pressed against his neck in a gesture which caused every blade of fur along his spine to raise in exhilaration. val's heart thrummed as he turned and pressed back against her, preening along her shoulders as excitement chased away his worry from seconds before.

mireille's breath ran ragged in her throat. there had been a touch of trepidation in her, that val would not come. or that if he did, that he would not understand. that he would not accept.
in mutuality they twined together, she turning with small sounds beneath his touch, her gravid body given over to want and she as well.
without the plunging drive of her season, mireille was free to choose, and she chose val again, not waiting before she pressed her hips serpentine between his forelegs and urged him with a low growl.
she thought of nothing else.

val had never sat in a tidepool, but he imagined this is what it must feel like -- to have a wave wash over your body and pull with it every last ebbing worry and anxiety. that mireille was gravid did not stop him, for he loved every part of her body from the bloom of her flanks down to the cinnamon tufts of her golden fly-aways.

to val it somehow meant more now. she was not blinded by her season, she was not given over to sheer instinct -- every nerve of his rejoiced with this slow realization.

her hips pressed against him and val felt a burgeoning sense of pride and adoration both. before this moment, he'd worried for his place in sapphique and what mireille must think of him.

val pulled mireille close with his own soft growl, nibbling along the back of her ear. before, he'd been driven by a sense of urgency and intense want -- now he basked in the moment, wanting to show mireille he had not been drawn to her for her season alone.

the seeking of a man for the first time was a rite of passage among the women of sapphique. erzulie, rosalyn, and chacal had all made their choices but come home in the end, rearing their children with no men.
her maman's falter in allowing njord near, in not correcting da uttered in infancy had created a longing in mireille that was undeniable. njord's betrayal of sapphique had lodged beneath her breastbone as if it were her own guilt to carry.
and sobo — in sobo she had found a brother, a man disconnected from masculinity and tied to the shores themselves. and he was the only one to whom she had been so close in such a way.
but njord had abandoned them and sobo was dead.
in val's arms, then, mireille did not seek the same, but he offered her the unique sensation of being quite understood. her instincts wanted him for his constant nature and willingness to follow the women of the cliffs; her heart willed him for the way he questioned nothing, meeting her now with the same breathless hunger that he had shown the first time.
she had seen then that he could not replace, and nor would she seek it. but he had become his own completion among them, he had raised his teeth for them, he had not sought what was not given, and yes, she saw the love in his caresses.
mireille did not think of attachments or their repercussions; she saw only a way to have everything she desired, and when val joined them, the radiant sound of splendorous joy which poured from her throat and echoed through the grotto was for him, and him alone.

mireille stirred a stark awe in val. while she thought of her father, of men, and their role in sapphique, val only thought of her and how not once, but twice now, their bodies had collided. it woke in him a sense of belonging he had not known he was missing.

along the grotto mireille’s voice sang; it ushered him and he moved to it. when they were done he preened along her neck affectionately, only wishing then that this hour could be his forever to hold.