Sunset Valley Tell it to my heart,

@Blackfell : backdated to March 15, two days after their arrival in Winsook

the valley was still.
thick trees grew ancient here, their limbs heavy with snow and silence. few dared wander this deep, where the shadows fell in slants and the wind held its breath. and so it was here, beneath the gnarled roots of an old fallen cedar, that morwenna carved her sanctuary.
hidden beneath woven branches, dried moss, and stone, her den was small—just enough. enough to keep the cold out. enough to keep her children in.
within, the warmth of her body cloaked two small lives: fa’liya, the fiercest spark, nestled close and quiet now, and caan, her fragile son, whose small cries had grown fewer with time, though the pain still laced his every breath. she nursed them with the steadiness of a storm long since passed, movements methodical. loving.
her tongue ran over caan’s little leg, the joint still hot beneath the skin where it had broken. she soothed it with herbs brought from the river, chewed and pressed into a poultice, and gently she straightened the limb—again, and again, and again—hoping his bones might remember the right shape.
but her heart knew what her teeth could not fix.
the den pressed close around her. protective. quiet. and yet… not enough. not forever.
her eyes turned to the opening in the earth, where shadows played with light.
and then—she moved.
her head lifted slowly from the hollow, pale muzzle emerging into the cold dusk. breath curled from her nostrils like ghosts. and from her chest, a song poured.
not loud. not frantic.
a mother’s song. low, aching. the kind that curved with mourning, but held hope within the fold of every note.
blackfell, her voice begged. please.

---

? — not long is it before crimson eyes split the night time. his men, stood at the ready. at any time, they would leave to hunt. his wife lay in mortal wound, healing slowly, with no yet sign of recovery over the days. it had only been a few of them. he told himself he must practice patience.
but there was none to be had. the last of it fled like black feathers in the wind.
upon which his arrival to her would be announced. the low, eerie call of a raven as it swoops before the den and stares eerily upon her. head tilting once, then it was gone. and shortly thereafter, the warbinger appears. he is not upon loyal legs. he does not revere her with warmth in cold, calloused stare.
his words to her now are as cold as the heart that sheltered within the ribs of his chest. ég á ekki orð yfir þig.
so she has escaped. and he smells milk's teeth and the downy fur of children, but blackfell does not look to see. eyes only remain cruelly pinned upon the woman who had endangered the life of many with her insolence.

she cannot breathe.
his voice is stone and winter and death, but she does not hear it—not truly. her children’s scents still cling to her: milk, blood, herbs. grief. she carries them all like chains. her body is gaunt, devoured by fear and flight. her soul has been starved and pulled thin, as fragile as parchment.
and now—him.
blackfell. war made wolf. his shape cuts through the fog, broad and bitter and familiar. and the moment she sees him—sees him—her knees buckle.
the weight of it all crashes from her body like snow torn from the cliffs. fa’liya. caan. the others. she does not remember how she moves. she only knows that she is collapsing, her ribs heaving, her sobs broken and wretched and animal.
—they—he— she cannot form the words.
her body surges forward as if driven by instinct alone, and she throws herself into him, burying her face into the armor of his shoulder. the scent of old blood and smoke and ash clings to him. it smells like home. like ruin. like everything she’s lost.
there are no speeches. no apologies. she is beyond pride.
her throat is raw from screaming. her shoulders quake. and all she can do is weep—ugly, choking sobs wrung from somewhere deep and holy. a queen shattered, broken down to the bones of a mother.
morwenna clings to blackfell like driftwood in a storm.
for the first time, there is no fury in her. only grief. only the sound of her heart breaking open.

---

— he is stone and mountain when she crashes into him. he smells salt, salt tears and they form in rivulets upon the star-pelted face of the woman. they bend upon his fur, the fur of his shoulder and soak through, melting soft against the heat that radiates from the skin of the beast.
he had told himself he would be unmoved by her. such things collapse when he is faced by the sight of the queen breaking down. a collapse of grace, crumbling at its foundations; the blackbird grunts, a dark sound and reluctantly brings enveloping paw around her neck. he can only think:
fuck.
blackfell drags paw from neck to back and pulls away from her, only some, to bring her face to look upon his. seeing first the crystal beads of tear as they pour upon her face, and then letting upon the heartbroken eyes that sit upon stained cheeks.
he cannot find words.
ég mun drepa hann. this is his promise to her. the same promise he had made to gjalla, but such a thing had stemmed then from rage. this is from the depths of a heart blackened that beats indefinitely for the star-kissed woman within his arms now. his nose seeks her cheek where he inhales her scent and feels a shudder wrack his engulfing frame, as she pours herself into him. tongue stroking delicately the salt from where he touched. Ég mun færa þér höfuðið á honum þegar ég fer á þig drottningu aftur.
i.
it would be no other than him.

she shudders again, a trembling breath stifled in her chest, as if the world itself sits there, pressing down. her sobs have quieted only to a pitiful cadence, but they do not stop. they spill like the melt of glacier, unstoppable once loosed.
blackfell’s paw is a weight she welcomes—no, needs. his grip is iron, steady, and she clings to it like a drowning woman to a rope thrown from shore. when he pulls her back, when he makes her look into his eyes, her own flash with a thousand things at once: fear, fire, guilt, and grief. she looks for a future and finds only ruin.
his vow reaches her. i will kill him. and something inside her clenches around it—something bitter, broken, but still burning.
but her voice, when it comes, is ragged and thin. he will come.
her eyes dart to the edge of the valley, to the snow-covered expanse beyond. sun eater. he will not rest. he will come for the children— her voice catches, a gasp swallowed by another shuddering breath.
and then—
gjalla? she asks, too suddenly. too afraid.
gjalla, her voice cracks with the name. is she safe? is she— another sob chokes her before she can finish the sentence. her head shakes, violently, as if she might shake away the image of her sister torn like meat. her brave, blood-bound sister.
her face presses into his again, trembling.
tell me she's alive, she begs in a whisper, please—blackfell, i need to know.
for i cannot fail again.

---

— and let him come.
he would know the wrath of the north's true blood. he would know the wrath of the father who made blackfell into the vessel of him. who would carry on the blood of blackmarch and seed it across each expanse of which he traveled.
this; this is met with the crass, low, hungry chuckle of the titan. maðurinn þinn er fífl sem mun mæta endalokum mínum með tönnum mínum. and let it be known blackfell had regretted turning away when he did. he had done it for her; the woman he held now in his arms.
but it would be the last time he made such mistake. he would defy morwenna's word, again, again, if it meant keeping her safe. gjalla lifir. he loathe speak her name to morwenna. she did not deserve it. did not deserve to know. gjalla had near given her life for the woman—he burned with a grudge, but even then, it was not enough to sway him from her side now.
his jaw ticks. how he infuriates himself.
þú verður að hætta þessum gráti. roughly now, he grabs her by the face. his paw pressing red to her cheek as he grapples her, forcefully drawing her closer, fixing snout to snout and feeling her breath pour in heavy steams upon his. þú ert ekki þessi veika helvítis kona sem ég sé fyrir mér, morwenna. þú ert drottning, og þú verður að haga þér eins og einn núna.
he does not wish to see her cry. he does not wish to taste her tears, to see them fall upon her face any longer. his heart squeezes. and if he must be rough with her, then by the gods, he would.

her sobs stutter beneath the strength of his grip.
his callused paw presses firm into her cheek and forces her gaze to his—snout to snout, fire to fire. morwenna stares, pupils wide with grief, rimmed with the glinting wetness of fresh tears. his breath is harsh against her, demanding, searing through the fog of her pain. and she does not resist. not as he grips her. not as he snarls the words that rake down her spine like iron claws.
queen, he calls her. drottning.
her lips tremble, parted with the weight of everything she cannot say. her children. her body, ravaged. the blood of ishmira still clung to her memories, matted and fresh. and she sees her, in the moment of her last breath—her eyes. wide and so full of trust. of loyalty. of love.
morwenna had failed her.
blackfell’s words crash over her, cruel only because they must be. you are not this weak woman, morwenna. you are queen. act like it.
and she would.
a slow breath pulls into her lungs. steady. heavy. like thunder gathering in the hollow of her chest. she stares into the eyes of her warhound, the only man who had never flinched beneath her grief.
her blood sings.
then crown me, she whispers, voice low, shaking, but not from fear. crown me in ash and vengeance, blackfell. and bring me the head of the man who broke my son and destroyed my family. her jaw flexes, defiant now, no longer broken.
and i will burn the saatsine to the bone.

me when these two reunite *girlish screaming*

---

— she speaks words that strike him; a blade between the ribs, driving up and into the calloused flesh of his blackened heart.
it is now for the first time in so long that he sees her—the very reaction he wished to elicit from her for moons now. she is suddenly not the woman before him, but the girl she once was. standing tall before her father’s pyre, light in her eyes and fire in her veins, chosen not as daughter, but as heir. and he, young and fierce and ambitious, kneeling before her with his head bowed, lips uttering a vow he would not realize the true weight of until it stabbed him in the back.
he vowed once. he swore fealty. to kill for her. to die for her. to never let her fall. and he had broken those vows once, and though it had been indirect, he would burn before they were broken again. now—he kneels again. crownore blood sinks to the earth before her. black crown bowing low, muzzle brushing her forelegs.

ég heit aftur. ekki sem stríðsmaður, heldur sem riddari.
eyes raising, crimson and smoldering, to meet her gaze. ég skal standa við hlið þér í dauða og dýrð. í blóði og í eldi.
and then he rises again. the inches between them do not exist as he draws mouth to her brow, to press a lingering kiss there. it is searing to the spot where her crown would lay again. þú ert drottningin mín. alltaf. aftur. núna.

her tears had dried into salt.
she stood before him, not with the fragility of a grieving mother nor the ruin of a fugitive queen—but with the stillness of one who had crawled her way through fire. a hollowed creature. reshaped.
her breath shuddered once in her chest, but she did not fall again. no—this time, she did not weep.
she watched as he knelt.
watched as the black crown, forged in the old ways, bowed low to the star-eater.
his vow spilled forth in the tongue of their blood, their fire, their gods.

her jaw clenched as something in her cracked, a deep thing, old and buried. for a moment, she looked at him like a woman seeing her ghost—and maybe that’s what he was. the boy who had once bowed before her father's pyre. her protector. her blade. the one she thought she had lost.
you are late, she whispered, voice thin as gossamer, yet sharp as cut obsidian. the accusation was there, but it didn’t strike.
not truly.
because when his lips touched her brow, her eyes closed.
not in submission, not in forgiveness—but in recognition.
you swore once. her voice was low, coiled with everything unspoken, everything broken. do not leave me again, kol.
a breath.
if you do, it will be at your peril.
her eyes opened, blazing ghastly grey, and she met his crimson with something fierce. not tenderness. not yet. but trust.
i have no strength left for mourning.

---

— he does not argue. he does not try to soften what cannot be softened. because she is right. and her voice—thin and sharp, forged like obsidian from the marrow of ruin—it shakes something loose in him. something he had buried, long ago.
then—i will not leave you again, he answers. his muzzle hovers near hers, and he speaks only this: if you burn, so do i. if you fall, i fall. if another ever dares to take you from me again— his teeth bare, voice gravel— —they will have to go through me.
and at last, he looks her in the face. we are past mourning. now we make war.
a shallow breath. letting her loose from his grasp, despite how he wishes to cling her to him again. tell me all that happened.

morwenna did not speak at first. not truly. she only let her head fall to the curve of his shoulder, the warmth of his fur soaking into her bones where no sun had reached in days. for a long moment she said nothing at all, her breath trembling as it pressed against the line of his throat.
then, slowly—ruthlessly—she began.
sun eater had his putrid members want to take my pups, she whispered, words like coals on her tongue. didn’t give me the choice. he said it was to protect them. but it was never for me to decide, was it?
her voice did not rise. it sank, like a blade pressed lower into the gut of a story that tasted of rot. meleys—cunt that she is— made a move. childless. she looked at them like they were prizes.
the name came next like a blessing, one offered in a near breath. black hawk fought. she stood between them. ridgeback—ksura took fa’liya. she glanced over her shoulder to fa'liya, sleeping.
but her voice cracked then. her throat went tight.
other shore... she’s hunting ghenaya. a pause. she still believes she can find her. i—i let her.
she did not say ishmira’s name. couldn’t. didn’t know if she’d lived or died, and the not knowing gutted her worse than any wound.
and c’ed’e... her breath hitched, and she pulled in tighter to him. was left.
then, finally: caan’s leg was fractured. crushed when sun eater—when that thing—tore into ishmira. the boy was still in her mouth. he didn’t stop. didn’t care.
her teeth clenched, jaw trembling, and she bit the rest back. her tears were dry now, nothing left in her to cry. only fire. and the scent of milk.
she turned her face into his fur. i want his head, kol.
and she believed he would get it.

---

—his muscles go rigid beneath her. breath stalled in the cage of his chest. his whole body surges, dragging the cold with it. earth scatters in his wake. teeth bared, breath heaving, crimson eyes like fire under glass.
where is my daughter. voice cracking like thunder upon stone. he’s already moving. limbs stiff with fury, war breaking from his marrow like rot from wood. he storms down from the den, toward the black heart of darukaal.
if morwenna tries to stop him, her attempts are failed. he hears no reason, he feels only seething rage. sun eater had marked himself when he maimed blackfell's wife. now, there would be no restraint when blackfell seized his life.

exit blackfell!

her chest rises sharply, lips parted as if to stop him—yet she does not.
she watches him go with wide, aching eyes, pupils trembling as they follow the path his rage has carved into the mountain. and still, she does not move to chase him. how could she? she has lived this, breathed it. the same fury, the same collapse. it had shattered her. made her hollow.
and now he burns for her—for gjalla—for ishmira.
she does not stop him because she understands. because she loves him.
she is waiting, morwenna whispers behind him, though he cannot hear it. her voice breaks upon the words. she is waiting for her father.
her legs falter beneath her. not from weakness, but from release. she sinks where he stood only moments before, head bowed in reverence not to gods—but to vengeance. and in that stillness, where only the wind dares whisper, the queen of the stars closes her eyes and prays that blackfell finds his daughter whole.
that he returns whole, too.