Wapun Meadow broke my own limb and blamed you for the limp

in the days following the rendezvous, the newlyweds made camp at the lakeside. wren, for one, only truly enjoyed it when the men had gone and the fireglow could be shared with one another. it began to dwindle to a slow flicker now, and so wren felt it safe to begin to walk @Silvertongue home.
the consequences of their tryst were also now beginning to sink in. the chance of children taking root in both of their bellies was high, very high; and it frightened the warrior for reasons she had not considered before until now. these children were to grow up in riverclan. a place where one of their parents was revered, and the other was — condemned. she had known that life once before, and as the hours grew shorter and sunlight burned to nothing behind them, wren began to think more and more that she did not want that.
she pulls off toward the northern tip of the meadow, where in the distance one can see the trees of the glade cast in moonglow. can i-- can i be honest with you about something, silv? she began, chestnut gaze gleaming with something vulnerable; something that begged to be listened to and believed. i'm a little worried about going back to riverclan. and of being a ma there.
it's not that i don't like living there or nothin', i just, uh. i feel like no one really likes me. besides you. i mean, ash star-- one day, when you weren't around, she told me i wasn't good enough for you, or riverclan, basically. she, and now the dark eyes trail down toward her limbs, the tiny, faded scars that take up empty space. she thinks i'm crazy. and shadowpaw-- shadowpaw told me i should demote myself to an apprentice, because that's what starclan would want. and i just, i don't, i don't feel like i'm good enough. and i'm scared shitless that our kids are gonna be too much like me.
tears begin to roll down the sharp-edged cheeks. but you've moved around so much, and it's your home, and i want it to be our home. so i-- y'know, i, i don't know why i even brought it up, it's-- i'm sorry.
sorry. it was all she ever knew how to be.

they were each fairly silent as trajectory took them back in the direction of riverclan. silvertongue did not share her wife's trepidation; she had come off the week of heat quite sated, moreso by wren than by the men who had spent a time of dalliance with them. her wife's trepidation did not catch her off guard, but her expression was vaguely worried as wren began to speak. first, to know that ash star did not like the tall woman was surprising; the other aquilanera had tried hard to ingratiate herself with the pack. but silvertongue had been so out of it upon returning that she had certainly missed some things. but shadowpaw's statement gave her less pause, the girl having been so confused about her maternity and crowfeather's silence. slowly she took wren's paw between her own, soothing the taller woman for a moment. "it is our home, wren," silvertongue said with gently emphatic tone. "ash star knew i was — she saw me at my worst when shadowpaw and stormpup were born. and before that, i did not want them." this was the truth, one she could never share with the young ones. and one she never wished to share. "ash star has seen me in torment. she worries. but she — she cannot discount what you have done for me. i will speak to her. and shadowpaw — listen to what she said. demote yourself and become riverclan. she wants you to choose a new name and become one of us." slowly her mind was gathering thoughts. "she would not tell you this if she wanted you to go, wren. starclan, our river home, it is all she knows. i hope they are like you, querido," silvertongue murmured, reaching up to wipe tears from the strained, grieving face. "and if you are crazy, i am far more than you, si?"

i'm never really gonna be one of you, silver, wren's tone is soaked in torment, cast in a winding shadow of long-standing grief. i-i can't-- it doesn't feel right to force myself into this mold just so people who fuckin' hate me might give me another chance.
the wavering of her voice finally breaks; she squeezes tightly the dainty paw that found her own. a-and it's not your fault, i just-- i don't feel like riverclan is my home. your culture, your traditions, they're beautiful, but-- it's not mine. it feels like a costume. and i can't force myself to take a different name, or, or-- be somebody i'm not. and i've never exactly listened to what people tell me i should be doin', eh? star-gods or not.
silvertongue was trying. wren closes her eyes while her wife wipes the warm saltwater from her cheeks. i guess what i'm tryna say is that i want both of us to be-- equal. if we're pregnant, and she pauses there, for a moment, the word freezing upon her tongue; i want our kids to, to have a choice. to have a riverclan name or not. to be more like me or more like you, or-- both of us, or neither of us. i never got a choice, as a kid, and i don't wanna repeat that.

a choice; but wren did not understand the pain that silvertongue had underwent to bring riverclan about! and it was unfair to think of crowfeather now, but she did — he came to his mind, his soft, concerned expression and the princely setting of his shoulders, and how they simply had not worked. but he had been riverclan for her before the pack existed, and all that came after was not for wren to bear, not her tearing, pained wife, terrified about her place among them. silvertongue had always existed in strictures, and now that she had created them herself, she did not know how to resist clinging to the seams she had stitched. a breath; a loosening, though it somehow rankled her nerve to hear wren describe riverclan as a costume, too ill-fitting to be worn. did you try? but — now that was predicated upon the swelling heave of her belly and its reaction to any stress these days. "i see no reason we would have to give them riverclan names. ash star did not give them to her first children and may not for her second." only crowfeather and shadowpaw had been born to it. "they will have a choice." for silvertongue too had known force, and the forgotten girl being led into a palace was a memory still too harsh for her to endure. it would not happen again. her ears flicked. "you are afraid, wren," she pressed, a claim she felt was true. "i want you tell you that you do not have to remain pregnant. it will change nothing between us."

if there was one thing wren was decidedly good at, it was her ability to tumble downward in a violent cascade at the very first tremble of earth when she stood on the precipice of her emotions. silvertongue tries; she tries so hard to comfort her, to reassure her, and for a stretching moment the warrior is thankful for it before she can no longer bite back the avalanche that threatened to roll from her tongue.
i am afraid, she croaks. i'm fuckin' terrified. i don't want to fuck them up in the same way my parents fucked up with me. but i-- i do want this. i want it with you because-- because i love you, and i like the woman i am a whole lot better when i'm with you.
but she did not yet know what it'd been like when she was gone.
but what scares me the most is-- it's not just riverclan that doesn't like me. it's the whole valley, silver. before i left swiftcurrent, gunnar came to our border to tell us-- you remember that, uh, that guy? that tried to take moss's child? the one i, a swallow, a breath, hard and sharp in her throat; the one i fought with. apparently, he was from kvarsheim. and i had no idea. g-gunnar wanted-- wanted to put me on trial, and akavir tried to protect me, and i-i have never felt so fucking guilty for anything in my life, and i just-- i missed you so much. and i left. i went to go find you. and now-- swiftcurrent creek hates me for leaving, and kvarsheim would probably have my fucking head on a stick if they knew i was even still out here, and,
shaking, trembling, rupturing; sometimes i think about just grabbing you and all our shit, and leaving the valley. b-but i don't wanna do that to you. i don't wanna drag you down with me because-- because i fucked up. and i'm sorry i didn't tell you this sooner, i, i just-- i want us to be happy. i wanna raise our kids together and be, be stupid, and grow old together, and all that dumb lovey-dovey shit, b-but i'm such a fuck up and i'm-- terrified that one day you're gonna get sick of me and leave and i... i wouldn't even be able to blame you.

as if it were a deluge at the beginning of spring, wren's fear and sorrow and anger broke over the brow of her listening wife and pooled around them. all that had been said once. all that had not been said. silvertongue watched wren reel through the fright and rage of painful memories, and knew she could not argue with her mate's view of what had gone on. by evidence, by experience, wren had suffered rejection from each pack in the valley. this would not be easily assuaged. by the end her own chin was trembling, her smaller paws clutching the willowy ankle of her wife. two tears rose, sped down her face, were gone. "i do not want to leave you. i do not want to leave riverclan." a breath, her grasp tightening once in reassurance. "you have been mistreated, by many. but you are here. with me. gunnar is dead. akavir will not approach us unless i tell him it is all right. you are here, conmigo," she said with a fierce exhale, her eyes resuming a hard look that wren would not have seen since the desert. "i do not see a fuck up. i see a woman who is hurting, who has been hurt. you have done nothing to earn my departure, and all to earn my trust." there was a soft quiet now, a softening, and silvertongue reached to touch wren's face, feeling the moisture of tears upon her paw; "we belong to each other. not riverclan. not kvarsheim. not swiftcurrent creek. and i am leader. i can protect you as you have not had before. but there is no gunnar to face. no trial. no akavir. only us, and the children that will come. let me stand between all that is outside, for us. it is time for you to rest."

for a long while, wren does nothing but listen, breath crawling from her chest in agonizing exhales of icy air. melting beneath glass eyes, skin raw and red and cracked and hideously vulnerable; silvertongue touches her face and immediately her quickened heartbeat slows.
silvertongue did not see a monster. silvertongue did not see a battered woman, an ugly stain, an undeserving parasite, a cowardly child. silvertongue sees her wife, someone she had willingly given her name and body and devotion to, and for possibly the first time, wren realizes it.
the trembling forelimbs reach up to gingerly enclose the slender frame in an embrace, and for many more minutes there is only the sound of shared breath and hammering chest. it finally breaks when wren lets out a laugh, a shuddering sound muffled by the feathering along the other's nape.
i don't know what the hell i did to deserve you, wren finally says. but whatever it is, i'm glad i did it.

"you loved me and you let me trust you, wren," silvertongue murmured, for it was no talk of deserving for her. the woman she adored warranted her heart entire, even to see the dim places where crowfeather and akavir still resided. silvertongue was not certain she would ever be rid of such shades, or if she wished to be done with them; what mattered was that her heart burned for wren, having caught into no such conflagration even for the shadowprince. "because you are you." they breathed together for a moment, and then she straightened. they could keep to their territory. silvertongue would venture when it was necessary. perhaps what wren needed was to retreat for a time, from everyone save her wife, from everything as well.

because you are you
she plays it over and over inside her head, that statement; to silvertongue, it was only a passive endearment, but to wren it was as if all of the pain, all of the long grueling days and nights edged with static were worth it. the scars she bore both beneath her skin and along the surface were worth it. the bags under her eyes, the moons she spent sleeping alone;
all of it had led her to silvertongue, and she decides then and there that she would do it all over again in every lifetime so long as they embraced by the end.
we should get home, home, their home, her home; because it was hers, it was theirs. butterfly kisses dot silvertongue's eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her forehead. i miss our bed.