Redtail Rise the teeth of seven thousand men

ancelin had come home from his wanderings in some days; he wore a dozen stories and brought them all to @Lilia at once, butting beneath her chin and covering her face with soft, slow kisses as his plume swung wildly behind him.
that stirred ancelin's youthful frame as most of her did; he nipped toward her ears now, grinning. "missed you," spoken huskily and half-muffled by her proud beautiful ruff.
his. only lilia quelled that wanderlust, only she brought him home now, as he fought against dispersal instincts to seek a new land of his own.

Her days were full while Ancelin roamed, but her heart was not- and it wasn't until she saw him stride back into view that she realized that her happiness was contingent upon having him near. She inhaled the many scents he wore, postcards from the different lands he'd visited. Hints of pine and cedar, of brine and marsh, perfumes from lands she herself had visited and many more as well. 

It had pained her to see him go, and to spend nights wallowing in desire she could not satisfy herself, but she too had sung a hallelujah from the peak of a mountain summited for the first time. She had known the quietness of a road travelled alone, and the solace it brought to one's soul. And as selfish as she could be, she would not deny him that experience for the sake of her own jealousy and needs. 

She felt electricity spike through the fur along her spine when he nibbled her ear, and she shuddered. With bared teeth she pressed her muzzle into his fur, gritting them together to keep herself from the instinct to grab him and pull him closer. Her response was wordless but profound in meaning. She was glad to see him return, seemingly fulfilled from his adventures.

in a loving snarl, he closed his mouth gently around her cheek, sundered by the vibration that rushed through them both and shook his blood to boiling point; he simmered in peace and love and want, pressed entire to her flank.
"we should go out," he urged in breath that singed her throat and mingled their fragrances. for though ancelin would always come back, merrick and astara and their traveling fierce love was burnt into him, though he hardly knew their faces by description.
he wanted to share the land with her, land in a new place, before winter bound them close and spring brought events he could only imagine with the smallest instinct.

Every thrum resonating from his vocal chords strummed her heartstrings and a gasp slipped unbidden past her lips as his teeth grazed her cheek. His breath hot on her larynx evoked mixed feelings of instinctual aversion then held at bay by infinite trust. Even with the confession of bloodlust lingering as a secret between the two of them, she felt no threat. Not when she knew he loved her heart so much for beating. 

His suggestion caused a ripple of excitement down her spine, lifting the fur there in rows of gold-flecked quills, wavering like a thin field of barley. Shrewdly loyal to the pack, she had some reservations about going off on a spur-of-the-moment trip, but she felt the children were grown enough to require less, and the borders had been quiet. She too knew that the onset of winter would likely bring wanderers to their borders, and she would want to be present for their judgement. 

Still- that was months away. 

"Where will you take me?" She asked, playful and voluntary.

attunement; desire; their creed formed in sibilant whisper and in constant touch of one another. ancelin drew his chin over her hackles, enjoying the tickle just above his throat. "my dad was born away from here. i want to find it." a valley? a glacier? he dragged on things he knew.
tongue to nosetip; hers; his; "we can go anywhere, lilia," and ancelin meant it, licking the seashell whorl of her ear, nipping its bulb, all his blood cinnamon-hot and beating and now wanderlust, drawing out a thrumming sigh into her shoulderpelt.
imagining them beyond.

She considered, for a moment, her own wanderlust, satiated at times by her scouting missions- but all previous to her attachment to Ancelin and her promotion to Berserkr. She felt natural in her role, and fulfilled a thousand times over having secured herself a mate. Would she lose one if she chose to pursue the other, though? Would the anchor of her job security create a rift between herself and her adventurous husband, or would she leave with him only to come back and find her position had been fulfilled by someone else?

She pondered for a moment which she wanted more- and which she was willing to risk. 

Ancelin's skin warmed as he spoke, his breath hot in her ear. Her flesh goose-pimpled, her withers hitched. He spoke to her most feral instincts, and she unsheathed her teeth; daggers longing to be anointed once again. She became distracted by longing for a moment and went both silent and dumb as he made her questions and doubts become nothing but swirling clouds. She had to fight to remember what they were talking about. 

"If we found it," She said, tilting her head back to press her lips along his cheek, fluttering her eyelashes against his cheekbone as she nosed the fur below his ear. "We could claim it."

that surprised ancelin more than anything. he drew back slightly, his ears flicking toward her, cupping the essence of what these weighted words meant.
one, it suggested lilia wasn't happy, that after all her accomplishments, the rise no longer satisified her. they'd spoken of this, perhaps, in not so many words.
but as his melonii-eyes traced the beauty of her jawline, ancelin felt the wandering rise high in his chest, drowning all else out with the eagerness of what he comprehended would be an entirely new start.
ursus was a memory that did not belong to the bearclaw boy. his parents had closed that part of their lives to him, save for a mention of the valley in the rising sun.
"you would leave here?" he asked in a murmur, just to be certain.

The fleeting thought stopped him quickly, and she felt the whisper of cool air slip between them as he drew back to read her expression and she his. He looked surprised, and she felt a pang of adoration to see something of childish surprise on his features, as though he'd tasted a drop of the water of youth. Something seemed restored, a book placed lovingly back in its proper slot. 

She pondered her impulse and what she truly meant, and after a moment of consideration, she nodded, faintly at first. "Yeth," She said, though she surprised herself with the word. Part of her- the part that had been trained to be loyal to a fault- murmured the word betrayal, though she didn't voice such a thing. 

"There'th nevuh gonna be anothuh Wealda, not like Avicuth. Not here," She said. "At leatht, not until thothe who knew her and her wayth path on." The memory of Avicus and her reign saddled them with an era, a way of being and acting. Lilia felt primed for the role of Berserkr, but that achieving the rank had perhaps limited her scope. A racehorse with blinders knew only the field it could glimpse with every bob of its head- not the world around it. 

Some small part of her had always wanted to be Berserkr, but when she recalled how she'd felt when she'd first been asked what specialty she wanted to take, she remembered a different sentiment. 

"I wanna be a real leaduh, thomewhere. I want for uth to lead." With him, she had ambitions abound. She was not without hesitation, but the taste of speaking some of her most primal desires made her willing to bolt and chase.

queen.
she'd done well here but she was right; in his marrow, she was right. only avicus would ever reign in that way here, and now that she'd come back, ancelin sensed there might be more tension to come. lilia's rank made her eligible for rights she didn't have before, but avicus hadn't been part of her ascension, either. ancelin knew how things were and accepted them, was even encouraged by them at times.
but the blame for relic still occupied a good part of his mind. 
"you wanna leave now? or — travel, check things out, come back." come back to fall shifting toward winter, where the wanderlust of young wolves peaked in order to establish new reservoirs of life and related packland.
"say the word." ancelin waved his tail once to punctuate, eyes blazing into her own with resolution and excitement.

The proposal had begun as a mere side-note, but had grown to become a mission, and how effortlessly her mind flew to logistics was enough of an indication that this was something that was meant to happen. Ancelin, too, forged ahead without question. It was no longer a matter of if, but a question of when and how. 

She had been glad for Avicus' return, but it had left her feeling unsettled when it should have made things simply feel normal again. Nothing had been the same since she'd disappeared, but life had gone on in her absence, and had changed. Seemingly, when she came back, it could have been the same pack as it had before- but Lilia felt that something had changed. All of a sudden, she felt like the puzzle had changed, and that she no longer truly fit in her place. 

The impulse to leave was opposed by her fondness for her packmates. She wondered idly if any might follow, but she had her doubts, and did not want to see them confirmed. Nor did she want to uproot the pack more, when it had already shrunk over the past few months. 

"I....I want to go." She said, surprised by the impulse which had grown stronger with every moment, like a vine climbing to sunlight. "Talk to Augur firtht, an' let the pack know, but..." She exhaled. "We could go anywhere. An' when it feelth right...We can make that our home." He had wanted her to declare the plans for the both of them, but she wanted his input as well. "What do you think?" After all, she would lean on him, and look to him for all matters as well.

"i think yeah. yes," ancelin amended with a little grin, trying to be serious but so elated he couldn't keep it up for long. "we'll stay a bit, sure. maybe through winter?" he suggested, thinking already of the kids and how they'd need a good bit of training before they were ready to be hunters and guardians in the next year.
but; he nibbled the bulb of one ear and swept his mouth down her spine, "this would mean our kids wouldn't be rise kids."
wasn't that what he and she had always wanted? every step of her life, lilia had been proving that she was just as good as the family. ancelin had always proven he should stay part of it.
but that early old dance was exhausting, and he was ready to admit he was looking forward to a place where no one needed to do that.
"they'd be bearclaw kids."

She considered his plans, and while it would have been easier to simply follow through with her initial impulse of leaving and spending the autumn and winter finding and establishing their own territory, such things were tempered by the knowledge that winter could be cruel, and that it might be less accepted by the others if two out of their very few adults left before the children were a year old. She wouldn't want to put the others in that position, and it might make it difficult to keep positive ties with the Rise. 

"Mmm," She murmured in approval, her words made lazy by the touch of his teeth to her ear. She could be persuaded easily while she was being preened. She lifted her gaze to his lazily, at the mention of children, at first wondering what he meant, until he explained further. 

Bearclaw children.

In comparison, 'children of the Rise' grew pale. She imagined their children- fierce, inimitable, unstoppable. She nodded. 

"Let'th tell Augur thoon. We wanna be the firtht oneth to ethtablish our own realm." She said. Ever-keen, Lilia hoped to seize that novelty for the both of them.

the first to discover their own realm.
ancelin had always been her knight. perhaps now he would be her king.
he thrilled to her now, rumbling lowly, pressing their pelts together as if to coat himself in her scent, and she in his own. belatedly, it occurred to ancelin that there was a far more pleasant way to accomplish his aims.
he preened the sensitive places along the base of her tail, glancing up with a roguish look as his indigo eyes shown.
their realm. their kingdom. their children.
he burned for her, past, present, and future.

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His return was welcomed by the Berserkr, though the promise of one day leaving together had sparked a new excitement for her, something to look forward to that grew like a beacon in the dark. She leaned against him until she could feel her paws beginning to slip beneath her from the force, and when he nibbled down along her spine, she uttered a soft, murmuring laugh. 

She turned and slipped her muzzle to her ear, tugging just below his earlobe to whisper "Let'th go thomewhere we can be ath loud ath we want," before she cackled wickedly, and bounded off, glancing coyly over her gilded shoulder and giving him a wink with one saucy, blue eye. Longing had grown in the time they had been apart, and she knew just the way to get that feeling to disappear. 

fade?