Fox's Glade someone only you could want

@Silvertongue.
Not a day had gone by in the past weeks where the riverwolf left her mind. Wren thought herself almost diseased; during long days of travel to and from the palace of red sands, mundane duties back at home. When the sun's first rays of light beam across the valley in the morning, late at night in her den whilst everything else went quiet.
It was sickening, horrifying, and yet she couldn't stop herself. Her skin itched, her head swam, her heart thrummed!
So, tonight, in a lull of activity as the muggy midsommar evening came to a close, she finds herself slinking through the brush and out past the meadows and grasslands.
She had a promise to fulfill. Deep in the heart of the glade, she calls for the sharpfang with a lift of her head to the stars.

wren. to say that she was elated to see the swiftcurrent wolf was a great understatement. and yet silvertongue held a great deal of time for herself, straightening each hair and smoothing it to a silverglow gloss before she went to meet the other. teeth glinting; a purr in her throat; she arched shoulder and hip catlike against that of wren and nipped the strong shoulder. "you wake me so early." and yet her glassblue eyes said it was no trouble, no problema at all.

Ever patient, Wren was, and the payoff for having waited was worth it. The riverwolf is engulfed in an embrace, a kiss pressed to the junction of shoulder and neck — as if there had been no passage of time at all.
You gonna complain? she teases, a coyness to the bashful grin that spreads from ear to ear. There is space between them only for a minute, Wren's gaze carefully inspecting the curves of her face, the slickness of her fur. Well don't you look beautiful, belladonna.
Another kiss, this time to the top of her forehead, and then an invitation to walk with her in the form of a swaying tail. Someplace quiet was needed, Wren thought.

"and you look thoughtful," silvertongue observed, falling into gentle step with wren. trilling insects rose, but the cool shadows of the hollow protected riverclan from the worst of the heat. jetstone and gold obscurity hung like beaded curtains between the trees. the sharpfang at last looked with a smile toward the creekwolf, a questioning tilt of her ears.

Thoughtful, she says, and Wren finds herself barking out a chuckle at that. I guess you're not wrong, guiding her carefully through the spiderweb network of foliage, she stops near the edge of the treeline. got a lot on my mind lately.
What should she tell the riverwolf, for fear of upsetting her? She knew not how painful the mere mention of Akashingo could be to her, although surely the scent of travel still lingered in strands of wiry fur. She had to know at least something about the voyage, but Wren would not be the one to press it — delicate subjects call for delicate hands. I went on a trip with Akavir to try and find his daughter. Spoiler alert, we didn't find her. The tip-toe dance around the destination, and who they were with and what they knew now, would begin.
But that's... y'know, boring. How's life been in Riverclan? she slumps down into a sit against the tall slant of a large boulder, coaxing with a come hither motion of the tail. A smirk of mischief follows. Talk to me.

the soft graduation of darkness seemed to swallow them both in eddies. silvertongue's tail was a curled banner that fell against her flank as she settled herself at wren's paws. "riverclan is silent, as usual. ash paw's children grow." delicately she swept a paw across silken emerald grass. "you have been to akashingo. akavir told me of his trip before he left." a grasshopper inched out of its disturbed nest, perching momentarily on silvertongue's wrist. "what did you find if not her?" she wanted to know nothing and yet everything at once, and what was more, her blown-glass eyes wished to know the source of that odd unknown expression she felt lurked just behind wren's eyes.

Another thing Wren had learned: she is a terrible fucking liar. Or maybe it was just impossible to lie to Silvertongue.
She thinks of the promise she had made to Akavir about not telling her that they knew, and she finds herself sucking in manual, haggard breaths as those eyes of pure jewel stare up at her.
She knows there's something the Gamma is hiding.
Hey, it's better to have things be silent than have some shit goin' down, right? A forced laugh followed by a shiver that runs from behind her ears to the tips of her toes. They've got this, uh, like, really young queen. Name's Toula or something. She was... nice...? But that whole place was just fuckin' creepy. So advanced, like, to an unnatural degree. Fur coats everywhere and shit, like they live in some kinda dystopian Hell of opposable toes. She waggles a paw, aimlessly flicking her wrist for emphasis. Some guy called Sen-moot gave us these berries and I ate a bunch and got really fucked up. God, that was embarrassing. She's rambling. Or maybe just stalling.
Silence, as she swallows her breath and presses her teeth down on her tongue. And I, um, I heard you used to live there.

furs and lavishness. berries. a man named sen — whatever. his name tasted of them, and silvertongue did not care to know it. but all was correct of akashingo, down to its hellishness. a smile on her mouth until the last; it hung there, stricken into a frozen mask, and then dissolving. now the affectionate eyes grew harshly cold; she tried to find pity in wren's mien, in her limbs, and projected it was there now, in the way that her lover struggled to speak to her now. "what did you hear?" perhaps akavir had said something, but she had said nothing of that to him. had she? silvertongue willed peace, even as her limbs turned to pillared lead and her voice failed her.

She knew. Oh, God, she totally knew. An inaudible whine comes from pursed lips as Wren watches the sharpfang's expression shift in the salted hues of midnight. Fear. Flashbacks. She knew that feeling. She offers a paw for her to reach for, if she wanted it.
But she couldn't pretend. It all came spilling out in a pitifully high-pitched voice.
Germanicus, she rasps, an edge to the way she says his name. Germanicus, we were talking about what Lilitu could've been doing in Akashingo, and he said that-- that he took you there. Something about one of his friends and a lady he wanted to marry that was a fella-heen. She would not use the word slave. He didn't, uh, go into any detail, but I swear to fucking god I could've killed him.
She makes an effort to keep her voice low, even as the venom etches at her tone.
I didn't-- I didn't wanna tell you, because I, I know what it's like, to try and rebuild after living through that kinda hell. To want to leave it in the past. And I wanted you to have that peace. She looks away. The tears glaze her eyes, well at the brims. But I can't lie to you. And I'm sorry.

germanicus, germanicus, germanicus. something frothed inside silvertongue, blackened bubbles upon the surface of a long-fermented hatred. memories of the red wolf leading her to the palace, of germanicus speaking; of the girl belen's confusion and then her fear, and then all that came next. first he had sold her, then he had barred crowfeather's heart from any great love that she ever could have given her prince, the shadow whose warmth had healed those long-ruined places inside her very soul. in stark relief that night returned to silvertongue, who by now was swimming in hot and silent tears; that night that crowfeather had turned away from her and the briefest taste of desire she had felt in him during her season. germanicus had taken that from her. he had stolen her want to be mother, not only for the fierce agony of that birth but also because silvertongue knew she would only hate the children she had borne if she must love them and crowfeather when he would never adore her in that same way. and now — now, oh, he had robbed her too, of this! this budding and sweet thing between she and wren. how could silvertongue not see pity, not sense it; not look for it, each time wren embraced her. and more, still, to ask; "he only spoke to you?" she asked, tones tight and breath ragged. no more, no more, she could hardly bear it now, let alone if —

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But it was not pity, per se, that Wren felt.
Silvertongue was not a woman to feel sorry for. She was an imposing thing in a small body, witty and confident and cool-tongued. She spoke with grace and walked with even more of it. She maintained herself well with tight-curled smiles and long eyelashes.
No, no. She was a woman to feel angry for.
And Wren knew this better than anything else. She, now, understood just how alike they were; Wren ran from love, pushed it back with a ten-foot bar, whereas Silvertongue chased it. And at the core of both of them were two scared girls.
Right now, that is all they were.
No one else knows, this, she would fib about. Perhaps Akavir had been implied in that statement, given the fact that he had been on that trip just as much as she; but she would not say it. She longed to kiss away the tears, to cradle her in lanky arms, but impose herself Wren would not. And I'm not-- I'm not judging you. It doesn't make me want you any less. And it-- I don't pity you either, because I hate pity too, there is desperation that hangs on every word, a thin veil of calmness that masks it. I know how much it sucks when people look at you with those stupid sad eyes and, and they don't know what to say and they look at you like you've got six heads. I understand.
In the coffin of night she would tell Silvertongue everything, just as she had done with Akavir. Her father. The eyes of pale smoke ablaze with unrelenting fury. The power he held, the sickness within it. Her sister, her mother; how old she was the first time jaws were laid upon her. The bones strewn across a forest floor that had once belonged to the woman who nursed her. A song and dance and jumble of words that came out in a sea of hysteria, of a gut-wrenching fear Silvertongue would never look at her the same. Because she knew the riverwolf would not pity her.
With a draw of breath, she finally relents her barrage, shaking. There is nothing that fuckface could say or do that would take me from you.

she wanted to walk away; a violin-sob in her ears as wren's voice threatened to dip and blur. why had germanicus told them? why had he ripped away the final vestige of what she had built to hide her basest shame? a breath, drawn; held; silvertongue upon the verge of sending wren truly away, and walling herself behind swiftly built ice-blocks until the slow, tiny hope inside her veins died a hypothermic death. night swept down upon them and silvertongue was carried away from the beginning foundations of that wall upon the deluge of admission, a tale so horrible as to render her own somehow reframed in the end — and in that end, silvertongue was shaking at the end of it, eyes wide and wet and her entire frame astir with this tremulous violent rush of so many untranslatable things; the language of two women who have reached a place where words no longer fit and they must move to another way. her paw moved hesitantly, and then out, and finally she placed it into that of the creekwolf with a slow exhale that shuddered as if it were a tattered ribbon upon a sweetwater breeze.

There were no walls, now, not anymore. Shed were the layers of shame and anguish, of bleak lives that had just begun to grow new roots in new places. Tales of lust and violence and of dangerous men, of stomach-curdling abuse of power and coping mechanisms one can never fully rid themselves of. Of teenage girls who realized their own plights just a bit too late.
Silvertongue reaches for Wren, then, and it felt a little bit like God above had cast a beacon of light upon them, however dim it may have been. Two rhythms of breath in sync for a fleeting moment before they fell out once again. 
What more was there that could possibly be said?
Wren looks at her, really looks, this little riverwoman who came plundering into her life in a series of impulsive decisions and sweat and tumultuous conversations. And yet there were no regrets. None at all. This trembling little figure who had come undone in front of her, who bled raw with wounds the Gamma could only envision the weight of. And yet she understood.
The tangling of palms is met with a ginger press of Wren's lips to the tendons of Silvertongue's paw. She did not speak, she did not even think of getting up to leave.
She would wait for everything until she was ready.

tooth to lip, a bloom of heat spreading upward along her limb. silvertongue looked in soft wariness and greater daring toward wren, worrying now the inside of her jaw. wren had given so much, and so she found herself offering the same, unloading herself of all the sharp-edged memories: the night of her arrival in akashingo, how the scarlet man who had found her cold and lost outside the palace had struck a fellahin in front of her as he brought her to pharaoh. the sound of his voice as he spoke in coldness of that servant, and the confusion of the queen's hatred at once. the way that germanicus had spoken as if she were not inside that room, and how he had talked of debts, of her taking on a debt. after that, he had taken the crimson man and the shy, sad girl away and left the poor shivering stranger there. silvertongue's voice forged on; she tightened her grip upon wren's paw and continued, telling of how ramesses had invited her to leave, to freeze in the snow after she had lost her parents, and how he had accepted her inability to move as reason to keep her. the training thereafter, sent softly from one kind fellahin to another, to learn these arts which pleased pharaoh. the shaping of her mind, the culmination in being presented to pharaoh and queen together. silvertongue paused here, her mouth creating a small sardonic smile as she described how the royal woman continued to demand, demand of her. the priest! the chaos of akashingo; crowfeather, her love for him, and the eventual purchase of the courtesan she had been by blackwater. "up the coast, to the sunspire. i found the canyon where germanicus ruled. and i found crowfeather again." defiance, hissed.

Silvertongue expanded upon the vague sins Germanicus alluded to, painted a vivid, sickening picture that made her throat close. And still, she listened, intent on every word that came from her mouth, sharp as glass and dipped in honey.
She understood now; the love she held for Crowfeather. Why his rejection stung so harshly. Why she chose the people she did, gave her body for the sake of a picturesque love that lasted only as long as the afterglow of intimacy would allow.
Comfort and expressions of empathy did not come easy for the gamma, but perhaps she didn't need to give any. No pity to be found, only a bleeding heart that swelled and tugged and murmured in the chasm of a broad chest. Not pity, but shared sorrow. Understanding.
And maybe that's what empathy really was.
She solemnly swears in a whisper through gritted teeth that Silvertongue would never go through anything like that again so long as Wren's lungs still sucked in air.
What she didn't say was that she would rip Germanicus's windpipe from his inkblack throat at the swift gesture of her paw, if she asked. Even more silently was her billowing desire to do the same for Crowfeather.
And then, once the waves of despair and trauma had come to a low tide; We're both safe now, though, yeah? Free. We can build a new life. Tighter she clutches that dainty paw, the same way Silvertongue herself had done. You've got me, now.

Two slow dancers.

there, all an inkspill of emotion upon the curtaining peace of the glade. it roiled, moved; "una vida nueva," she whispered, an echo of what wren had said, and looked at the strong wrist and dexterous, capable grip holding her own — "together?" she and crowfeather had built this place. riverclan was a thousand atoms inside her, but while germanicus lived the sharpfang did not know if she could breathe. and yet — the faintest idea of departure stabbed inside her wildling gut. she bowed her crown, at last, to the connection of their paws and breathed out, for suddenly words had gone away and the tears painted her face once more, sweetly so as birdsong echoed in the green canopies.

Una vida nueva.
Silvertongue had already tried so hard to start over; the foundations she had built with a man who understood, and yet one who had betrayed her in possibly the deepest way. Her soul, still, with Riverclan — Belen was no longer. And Wren would never ask her to leave it behind so soon after she had built it; no, not at all.
But perhaps it could benefit from some... restructuring. Or maybe that was the red-hot fury thinking for her.
There are more tears from her lover, and this time, Wren reaches forth to dab them from her cheeks with gentle kisses. They are sincere, tentative, as if she is afraid she may be met with gnashing teeth for coming so close. She cries not for Wren, but for Crowfeather — someone Wren could never compete with, and she knows this, and she cannot decide if that is a good or bad thing.
Her own eyes have become glassy again, too, but that was not of importance in this moment.
Una nuova, nuova vita, insieme, so similar were their mother tongues, the slightest of differences that made them intertwine in a blue-green haze. Riverclan is yours, Silver. Don't let any man take that from you.
I would love you the way he could never.
But she decides against saying that.

will i learn to live without you also? the thought was forceful, provocative; it overwhelmed silvertongue with the harshness of a wave, crushing her for a moment as she thought again of swimming that bitter sea. the kissing mouth of wren did much to steady her, though a bitter herb touched her tongue, some seed of tiny resentment that it was not — no, no, and again, no more. "riverclan is mine." she tucked their mouths together with the softest touch she could muster, for inside her heartstrings now an interlacing of fear to say so aloud you could be also.

A touch, two noses pressed together. Wren's eyes squeeze shut, just long enough so that when they open, the tears roll in beads down to her chin and it confirms that Silvertongue is still here. She did not run, did not look at her in horror, did not scream.
And nor did Wren.
So foreign, so new, this tender silence between them. The emotions roll in tidal waves, so much of everything that she almost wondered if it was nothing. Every instinct tells her to flinch, to raise her hackles and then her paws, to beg Silvertongue to admit that she is lying. It does not make sense for her to still be here. She will grow tired of this, she will turn the other cheek once the truth sets in. The beast known as Wren is nothing more than a vessel, a catalyst; a creature of destruction, both of herself and others and everything she loves.
But maybe that is what Silvertongue thinks of herself. Maybe that is why they are both still here.
A long, lonesome foreleg snakes up and over the smaller's slender shoulder. Stay with me tonight, not a question nor a command. I-I don't wanna leave you alone.

"all right." mariposa would almost have followed, but that was for crowfeather, though silvertongue could not discover why she should wait any longer. perhaps it was because it had always been his name. perhaps it was her settled words. perhaps, maybe — there was great fear in silvertongue to turn love, to turn affection, into a mutual gold rather than holding all the coinage in her grieving paws. she sighed it out; she looked into the eyes of the woman who had loved her body with such intrinsic wisdom. now their minds had touched, psyches not in a collision but a discourse; "all right," silvertongue whispered again.

<33333

All right.
C'mere, Wren peels herself away to rest her head on the ground, and in her place, her arms are opened in invitation. The grass is cold, prodding, unbefitting of a bed, but this was where Silvertongue was. And as such, it was good enough for her.
She sniffles, audibly, a harsh sound amidst the hard swallow of ambient summersong. The trembling has not ceased. While she has laid with a handful in this fashion, it has never felt so different, so connected. Never before was it with a woman, a woman who now held a softened heart in her hands.
It's okay, she says, wearily, quietly — and it was.
She would remain there until the morning rolls into mid-noon, and whispered into round-tipped ears are promises to return if she did too.