Ocean's Breath Plateau I want a heart unbreakable

The dark crept in, and the stars glimmered like a threat from above. The air within the lodge had turned suffocating, and so Marina finally braved the night in favor of a moment alone. It'd been weeks since she'd dared to stand under the stars.

@Dutch's presence within the lodge weighed heavily on her. Marina had not spoken to him directly. The fire of her season and the lingering wariness of unknown men had kept her back; occupied with her husband, with Tullik, with anyone else. Yet she thought of him now, wondered if he meant to return. To stay.

She'd seen how he looked at her. Marina couldn't help but question if he would still look favorably upon her when her season had passed. Would she want that? Frustration filled her, and she cast her gaze defiantly skyward as if to kill any thoughts of the future with remnants of the past.

Immediately she was filled with unwelcome memories. The stars; that night. Her eyes filled with tears.

He was awake. The lodge was peaceful, but his thoughts were turbulent. He needed to go back to the glacier — he should not have agreed to stay the night.

A whisper of movement. Paws quiet on packed earth. Marina stepped outside, and after a long, quiet moment, the panther climbed to his feet and followed.

He made a little more noise than her, giving just a little warning before he came out to find her back to him, looking frail in the moonlight in ways she hadn't in the warmth of the lodge.

"I hoped to bring you peace," he said in a low, hoarse murmur. He limped closer, but only to stand beside her, a short distance between them. There was concern in his gaze, but far more apparent were regret, and sympathy, and a tenderness that was borrow from his bond with Chakliux. "I carried your name in my heart, as my purpose. But now I have seen you with my eyes, and I wish that I had brought him home instead of spurring him onward. This is where he is needed. And this, I know, is where he needs to be."

He watched her, feeling it would be a disservice to turn his face away from this pain.

"How may I help dry your tears, Marina?" he asked her. "I will go away if you tell me to. But maybe you will tell me to sing, and you will find that my voice is soothing. Or maybe you will tell me what words are in your heart, and you will feel a little lighter for it."

He awaited her command.

Perhaps her thoughts had been too loud; perhaps he'd been summoned by them. Marina glanced over her shoulder as Dutch slipped from the lodge after her, gaze drawn to his sunset eyes and the way they burned even under darkness. She looked back to the stars.

Her own heart was a guarded thing, but Dutch laid his heart bare in his words. I hoped to bring you peace. Ah, the hunt; the failing of men, to see hurt and think that some action must be taken to mend it. Revenge. What was that worth to her? Would revenge keep her warm in the night, dry her tears, kiss her sorrows away? Would revenge give her children and stand beside her as she raised them?

Yet Dutch had guarded her husband through this folly of anger and love. And he surprised her now with his recognition, his regret. Marina let out a soft breath. It was as difficult to hold her anger toward him as it was with Chakliux.

No, don't go, Her eyes found him again. I carried your name in my heart. She had never felt this before; the immediacy of attraction, a magnetism she could not explain. It had always taken time to nurture her affections, to see them grow into true want. Was it only her season that made it so? Your words are enough to bring peace. You kept my husband safe in his hunt - and I should thank you for that. It was something he needed. But I would sooner never see that monster's hide again, even torn into strips.

I used to love the stars, Marina continued softly, glancing briefly skyward as she said it. He took that from me. Do you know any stories of the stars, Dutch? He was a story teller, was he not? Perhaps it would heal some part of her to hear the stars in his voice.

The panther shook his head was gratified to see some small measure of tension release from her. Chakliux had come home, in the end, safe and whole and still warm at heart. He had done as he thought best. He chose to believe that Marina believed this, too, and so he took her absolution at face value.

"I hope you never do," he replied. "I hope someday soon to be sure that no one ever will. This is why I hunt. This, and my regard for your seal hunter."

He looked up at the stars, pained by the implications of these words. He had no true concept of what Marina had suffered, and what Marina had lost. He knew, functionally, what had taken place — but he was a man, and his anger had first been stirred by what one man had done to another's wife, and not by the sin committed against Marina herself. He had thought of her much, since then, and now seeing her felt his rage and horror renewed.

A woman's body was full of her magick. He understood this as a curse — one that struck fast and left a painful mark, but left her still unblemished to his eyes.

A story sparked.

"These are the stars that sing to the ocean," he said in a quiet burr, giving weight to his voice to signal the start of his tale. "Where, far beyond a wolf's reach, sea creatures dance in the moonlight. These stars watch them. They alone see the glitter of moonlight on rainbow scales. They watch and they marvel, and then they rest as the sun rises so that they can look again when it sets.

"These are the stars that sing to the mountains. They whisper lullabies when it snows, and the whole world quiets to hear that soft and distant susurrus. They see the snowflakes where they form — they know this secret that they cannot share, though they want to. They must have so much they wish they could share.

"These are the stars that sang on the day that you were born. Your mother brought you into the world, and the stars wished they could hold you. They wished it as they watched you grow, each day waiting for the sun to set so that they can reach down and brush your cheek with their gentle light."

He swallowed back on some emotion he could not quite name.

"They sang that night," he told her. "It was all that they could do. They sang that night, and they cried, as they cried with you tonight. But they still sing, too. And they still shine for you, as they will tomorrow, and the day after. As they will shine on your children, and your children's children."

His air of gravity broke, then, and when he spoke he was only Dutch once more.

"He cannot take them from you, Marina," he said quietly. "And he cannot change you in their eyes. They know who they sing for. They have known you all your life."

It was not the story she'd expected. But perhaps she needed it, needed to hear this; something almost too beautiful to be true. Marina was lost in the sound of his voice, and then lost again in the wash of emotion that followed its end. Her tears surged anew, but this time they did not taste of sorrow.

To speak in the aftermath seemed like a silly notion; why bother to light a candle under the brightness of the sun? She shifted closer instead, her flank pressing warmly to his. Tentatively her muzzle trailed along his shoulder and came to rest alongside his neck. She felt her heart in her throat, felt it lurch unsteadily.

Marina would not ask more from him than this, not if he was unwilling to give more. But she wanted to.

The panther waited only long enough to see how this story landed before he gave Marina her privacy, turning his own gaze back up toward the stars. They held no significance in his culture, or in the cultures of any of the family he knew — but they were important to Marina, and so he looked up and he wondered what it was she felt toward them. What powers did they hold?

And he was yielding when he felt her heat against him, making himself into a comfortable resting place, and pressing his muzzle into her fur in a gesture that was — not chaste, exactly. But ardent in a way that began and ended with the very act. He, likewise, would not press for more — but he welcomed her against him with a spark of wonder in his eyes.

Dutch welcomed her touch; it was all that she needed. Marina pressed closer with a low wanting sound in her throat, a wordless invitation. Her touches turned to preening. She had not thought of any man but her husband since —

But she wanted this. Dutch had earned her trust with the safekeeping of Chakliux and captured her heart with the sound of his voice. Even now his story echoed in her ears, and the glimmering of stars above softened from a threat to something more like a promise. The future written in the sky.

She could be part of his future, if he would let her.

The bloodfire came over him quickly; he was enchanted, and they danced where the stars could watch —

... and in the aftermath, the panther cradled Marina carefully, lovingly against his chest. It was long minutes later that he finished smoothing down all her ruffled fur, wondering all the while if she could feel the starsong surrounding them.

The fire in her burned low for the moment; Marina was content in the aftermath of their coupling, peppering light kisses across Dutch's face as he smoothed her fur. She felt safe in his arms.

Will you still be so friendly when my season has passed? She teased lightly after a time — but there was real vulnerability behind the words. Would he want her even in absence of such temptation? The potential — consequences — of their coupling had not escaped her. Not in the moment, and surely not now. Marina knew that one of her children might one day look at her with that same sunset-glow gaze. A permanence, then, to this quick-burning bond between them. She wasn't sure yet if that should scare her.

The panther huffed out a laugh. He felt warm again, he realized, remembering Moonsong's chill. And he had to go back, but he couldn't think of that right then.

"Is this friendliness?" he asked her, amused by the idea. "I am a friendly man — but this is not how I treat my friends. I mean to express my tenderness and my esteem. I mean to say that I wish to invest myself in this lodge, and in your wellbeing. If you ask me if I mean to keep saying it — then I do."

He flashed his teeth in a wry little grin.

"Perhaps not every time like this," he allowed. "But the seasons will not decide this."

They retreated to the lodge.