Stavanger Bay Rose

Staying vague about a couple things, this can wait however long you want, I just wanted to get it on the board <3 dated not long after this one!

Reverie did not dream anymore.
When she slept it was an endless fall into thick, unforgiving darkness, and when she woke she felt in a haze. Outwardly she was unchanged, but the gilded girl was slowly withering. She had not left the territory since meeting Towhee. It was for the best, perhaps. She'd taken note of the change in Vairë's scent, her sudden absence, and thought it wise to stay near her husband. He clearly found nothing to desire in Reverie, and she feared he would find the answer to his wants elsewhere, as she almost had. Almost; that was a funny word, a mixed feeling of guilt and relief and the agony of never knowing if she truly would have betrayed him that way.
She woke one morning and felt the first creeping tendrils of a familiar discomfort, a slight rise in the temperature just under her skin. Reverie stirred slowly in @Lestan's arms, her distress showing a little even in these first moments. Distress not because of the shadow of sickness she felt inching back over her with every passing day, but because she knew that it was time for Lestan to hear the truth. The reality she had spent months hiding from, something that horrified her so deeply that her mind could do nothing but shroud it in dreams of dying gods and cures of another world that even now she clung to. She did not want to tell him, not when he was just beginning to step out of his own darkness. But he would find out soon, one way or another — and she wanted him to hear it from her.

lestan mayfair settled into a routine. as his speech returned, he kept himself busied with decorating the lovely den where his family made their home. reverie traveled, roamed, and he had not left saltshore.
and perhaps this was most suitable.
but she had been home for some time now, and lestan had seen her quietly weaken once more. he stayed close to her, deciding that he must find someone to teach him medicine. as she moved in his embrace, the mayfair kissed her forehead and smiled down into her face, refusing to display the worry he felt.
"could you drink water, reverie?" lestan asked in that same hushed voice.

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Reverie had never wanted anyone to take care of her. Freedom was what she'd always wanted, and that was what Lestan had allowed her in her weeks of respite from illness — but it had not made her happy. In fact, she was deeply unhappy; and she'd blamed it on him, on his silences and his distance, but she was realizing now that it was her own fault. She could only ever seem to push her family away when she most needed their warmth.
She felt that warmth now, aware of the way Lestan was attentive and gentle with her. Reverie felt it was undeserved, not least because of the small spiteful part of her that could only feel it had come too late. He was a better husband than she deserved… but that didn't quite soothe the hurt of what he had been to her before. She looked at him and thought: I can't. I can't tell him. I won't.
That might help a little, She murmured, eyes warm and stinging now. Lestan, I - I was wrong. About why I'm sick. Kukutux was wrong, too. I thought - I hoped it was because of Blossom, because that would mean it isn't - She took a deep breath, and forged ahead without allowing Lestan time to respond.
Sometimes… well, there's a certain sickness that people get. Something goes wrong - internally. It - it's different for everyone. But it always ends the same way, and - Reverie fought the mounting urge to cry. The only thing anyone can do is… manage the symptoms, until -
She hated herself.
I'm sorry. And the tears started to fall.

he had known it was coming.
right?
right?
lestan heard reverie as if they were both underwater; he felt his arms tighten around her, felt the dizzy wetness of tears;
dripping;
along his muzzle;
"we'll find another healer. another. another, another, another," until he was chanting it, pressing trembling mouth to her cheeks, her forehead.
no!
in entirety, lestan rejected this premise.

Another healer. She closed her eyes under his affection, feeling suddenly numb. The Gilded Sea, all over again. Treatment after treatment after treatment. Side effects and adjustment periods and allergic reactions and a constant chemical smell to her breath, a constant haze. Reverie did not want to find another healer.
After a small silence, she nodded slowly. We can try, She allowed quietly, feeling very bitter and very unfair for it. Reverie knew that it was only that he did not want her to leave him. She herself was desperately unprepared to return to the world she felt she'd only just come from. I - I'm going to... stay here for awhile, I think, Their den, the beautiful space they were creating together even as Reverie slowly faded away from it all. I don't know how much time I have, but maybe if I - rest more, it'll slow down, at least. Or so she hoped.
But she was uncertain, more so because she didn't know if she could truly keep herself so confined. Part of her hoped that, in telling Lestan her intentions, she might find some kind of accountability. He'd never tried to stop her, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to — but something had to change.

he felt her resistance, as surely as he knew his own veins and blood and heart; he did not want to release her.
now she spoke of time'
time; finite!
and his breath began to come harder; "no."
and his eyes blurred, and finally he did not see, and the sickness rose, oh, he was going to be ill;
"rev," there has to be another way
but speech truly evaded him now.

She kissed him softly, turning her focus now to him; to his grief, a less terrifying beast than her own but no less fanged. It'll be okay, Reverie assured him, not really certain what she meant by it. Almost idly, she started to speak, reaching for anything she could think of now to keep him from falling to panic. The witch knew, I think. That's why she told me - to touch divinity. I thought, maybe, Mother Rain - but -
Reverie sucked in a breath. Did you know that gods can die? She hadn't, not until she reached for healing and saw that empty place, and came away with no words but those meant to praise gods. She still did not understand; why darkness? Why would the dark summon the mother of rains? It was fire that called the rains, and so shadow could only be meant to bring —

"but you can't! you can't!" and then his voice broke again. "reverie, what am i going to do? w-what do we t-tell blossom?" when? when when when WHEN
he was splitting; he fought for breath for control for anything, for everything;
anger desperation sorrow rage, rage, rage, desperation, fear.
fear to be left behind, to be left alone with no remnants of reverie except what existed in blossom.
he shook his head, a sob breaking between clenched teeth. "no."

Light; that was what they needed now, what Lestan needed so desperately. Reverie held him tightly to her, kissed his face, felt her heart shattering at the taste of his tears on her lips. She tried not to resent him for this, but all the same it stung her to comfort him even as she grappled with her own mortality.
Reverie was silent for a time, only clinging to Lestan.
We won't tell her anything, She said finally, her voice firmer now with resolve, and perhaps a touch colder for it. We'll - find a way. I - I know where the witch is. She has to know something more. Reverie didn't truly believe she could be helped, through medicine or through magic, but for Lestan she would try anything. His words played again in her mind, haunting; what am I going to do? Without her. Without her.

the witch the witch the witch;
"damn the witch, reverie," lestan choked, framing her face between his paws a moment. mayfair magick, mayfair, mayfair — mayfair in a land denied.
in a land where their bloodright was denied.
truly what did lestan have to offer?
"where? when? we'll g-go, now, blossom has to stay here. when, reverie," voice cracking like a fallen paperweight once more.

She flinched a little when he cursed at her, but did not pull away from his touch. When he released her she buried her face in the fur at his neck, wishing very much that he would simply hold her and tell her that he would be there to the end. There was a part of her that doubted not at all that he would be — but another, louder part of her remembered the shattering feeling of Lestan breaking every promise he'd made that he would never leave her.
There are islands - by the beach where we stayed, She said quietly, muffled by his fur. That's where she went, weeks ago. Where she would still be, Reverie hoped, remembering how she'd been weakened and heavy with children. The more she thought about it, the more she found that she did not want to go.

lestan hesitated; he wanted to ask how she knew, how she knew, but he did not. he wasn't sure he could handle more, and knew his weakness in this moment was so great as to be reflected in her eyes. and so, like a man straightening a silken waistcoat soaked with seawater, he struggled for a moment of dignity and tried to think.
for now, vaire and rhaegal were gone, off, pursuing one another. it limited the mayfairs for the time being. "we'll go — soon? yes, or," the only other option was returning blossom to the creek, or taking her with them — but how could they show her what was to happen if they could not even speak of it?
"send me," he said, finally, "i-i'll go. tell me what to say, w-what to ask."

She desperately did not want to be parted from Lestan. Not again. Reverie pressed more tightly to him, a small lurch of fear at the thought. What if he never returned? What if he found danger, or temptation, or —
What if he returned to find her gone?
Her own panic began to rise then, her pulse fluttering fast and uneven. But she saw the logic in his words, and she told herself that she would have to trust him. He'd survived so much already — had killed, for her! — and besides; if it did work, if the witch could truly save her, perhaps it would soothe him to have played a part in her recovery.
There was no true optimism in her. But she nodded all the same. Tell her - that what she told me didn't work, She took a breath. Lestan, she was pregnant when I last saw her. She'll have young children now. Be careful, please. Reverie knew from experience what it was like to feel a threat to her own child, to feel that rush of heat stronger than any fear; those were the only moments she'd ever thought she might truly be capable of killing.

the glen.
the deer.
the sea.
the gold.
lestan mayfair did not know he wished to live without reverie, the thin red strings knotted into something almost unrecognizable by now.
"i'll go. i'll be careful."
but he would slaughter them all if the witch denied him anything, this lestan knew with a sinking coldness. their blood for hers. 
with trembling paws, he pressed her back upon the bed, drawing up a fur toward her midsection. "i'll go. now."

She started to cry again, a quiet flood of tears for now; the mess and noise of true weeping would come later, when Lestan was gone. Her paws lingered over his, unwilling to let him go even as she accepted it. Reverie feared that the stress of his absence would send her into another abrupt downward spiral, as it had when he'd left her behind on that beach. But she did not say this.
There's - a path. A bridge you can cross, but the water covers it sometimes, She murmured instead, trying to control her emotions. Failing. I love you. Reverie blinked several times, vision blurred by the tears that would not stop coming.

last for me <3

"i love you, i love you, reverie, i love you," voice shattering; pressing kisses to her face and cheeks and chin; burying the crown of his head against her breastbone; the dragging shade of his breath; and then lestan whirled; then he went away, swiftly, calling out once tentatively to @Rhaegal and @Vairë before he disappeared over the borders.