Lone Star Mountain so hold your love and your truth

AW but maybe a @Muskrat? >.>

He wasn’t particularly interested in delving in the reason he had managed to trace Muskrat’s scent so easily—nor the jolt it gave him as he drew closer to the lands she seemed to frequent more. Clearly—his son and the little swamp panther were looking to settle nearby—and for now, he allowed the concern that they remain within such vicinity to the creek to be explored on another day.

Instead, he lurked—a wraith among the mountain- pale champagne eyes preening out to the direction of the creek every so often, as if it would crumble away without his presence upon their soil.

on one of those headturns did muskrat's eyes materialize, her voice glistening around akavir. "why you here, tuta runa?" perhaps her. perhaps hex.

the swamp panther dropped where the creekwolf might see her, see the scintillating yellow meet his own gold in the murk of the mountain.

Eyes that rivaled the sun’s flames fell upon him—her voice a balm in so many ways, and the rise of his ire in others. Prowling, she came forward, her question clinging to the otherwise silent air of the mountain—‘Why you here?’

Had he been a more foolish man, he would have sought the slender curve of her form—not for indications of child-bearing, as she might have assumed, though.

Instead, he shifts, gaze tracing her face. “You call it white spit. What do you know of it?”

"kill slow. thirst. wander. not right in skull. not eat. not drink. forget." he had climbed all this way to know? muskrat did not understand his torment, even as she felt suffocated by the notion that there existed such pain in this world.

but did she not know it?

her eyes held his own.

That mask he had learned since the days of serving the Reneian Empire settled on his features, even when the burn of her eyes settled over him.

Not Jakub lingered on her--something he found minor solace in. At least his son was not alone.

Clinically, she listed the symptoms. Inwardly, he crumbled.

Outwardly, he remained a solid wall, untethered. Unmoved.

His tongue smoothed over his lips--unable to stop the dryness of his throat. And how is it spread?

"bite. blood." muskrat blinked, lifted her chin. "wolf who sick act odd. stay away."

her sympathies were held at bay. the warrior circled to one side and turned away from akavir, looking out over the mountain from which she and makono had come down upon the woman with her child.

what such things happened at the creek? muskrat wanted to ask after arlette. she knew it was not her right, however, and so her silence continued.

Her gaze turned from him—an enigma to him still—which was for the best.

“So one could move a body if one was careful,” he queried—allowing his eyes to turn away from her and drift to the direction she looked to, the whip of cold autumn wind more biting on the mountain than in the valley.

Winter would be here soon. His time was running out.

"not know." her voice had closed, and with it the expression swung toward him had closed as well. he came here, asked many things, answered nothing.

muskrat was beginning to wonder if they might remain companions at all or if his presence here would be unpalatable to  hex. akavir — was it fear for this body or entitlement to her which had brought him up the mountain.

"should not come here," she said now with a flare to her hackles. it was not hex's land but it was close enough; with newcomers to the vale and odd women wandering the ridges, she, the eagle, and the lynx girl were his vanguard.

A firing of questions—he had used up her patience, it seemed, and her gaze swung back to him, a crackling of embers within her eyes as her hackles bristled.

He studied her—a nod given at her words. The flex of his paws smoothed over the rocky loam, but it was the pinprick of that familiar headache that plagued him. “Okay,” he acquiesced. He wouldn’t demand to know why—no more than he would not expect a wolf who he was uncomfortable with to be loitering so near the creek to retaliate with stubbornness.

Instead, he swept past her—a wide berth, for they were no longer pack—and her ire was not missed. “Thank you, little panther,” he murmured—eyes grazing over her one last time.

here he was once more, days away, in pursuit of muskrat once more. she was flattered but her annoyance grew. the warrior had asked clemency for the creek from hex when they began their raiding, but if akavir was often gone so long, why should they hold to this?

still, it was not something she wished to change. they would raid the other camps, take what they wished. swiftcurrent would be spared, so long as the night man came to understand that there was no alliance between he and the ridge without a formal declaration.

she said nothing. her eyes winked out; she disappeared into the darkness to watch akavir, and then to return to the shadows claimed by the mayfair's son.

She spoke nothing then—sharp eyes cast upon him, and he wondered, if only for a moment, what would have been had he perhaps fought more for her presence to remain at the creek. What drew him to her, like a moth to a flame—only left to ashes in the end, surely. She lived for herself—

—he lived for his family and pack, though it almost always felt he missed the mark at showing them this.

She left—and so did he, with so many things left unsaid… and even worse, pushed from the mind.