Larksong Grotto doctor sleep

maybe @Hiram?

she had studiously avoided the cardinal since the pack meeting, named as he was by kesheph. no -- vuk filled her days with rearing seff and seeking a deeper bond with terich, compromised as it was by her love for reek. hiram was not a name she accepted, but vuk was too wearied to argue this aloud. her lover was no more -- she had watched him die upon the priestess' altar.

dusk found the woman returning home after a successful hunt; a pheasant hung from her jaws. the return of the prey animals had padded her skeletal frame with a hint of curvature; her pelt had found itself richer for the meat, and her eyes were bright despite the pain she held daily.

pausing alongside the stream, vuk set down her kill to drink, lingering as the glow of the sun disappeared slowly from the sky to make way for the moon's ascent.

For the first time in what felt like ages, the Cardinal's stomach did not growl. The return of prey had been a blessing. He did his best to enjoy this gift from the Daystar and so he spent most of his day in pursuit of a quick and easy meal. He found food in plenty -- goose after goose fell between his mighty and wanting jaws. After eating what he could, he stored the rest away for the others -- but not before taking a goose in his mouth to bring as a gift to a certain someone. 

He had not seen the woman who laid claim to his heart since the ritual and it pained him deeply. It was known that she would only break his heart, but he could not deny the draw to her that he felt. The attachment he had to her would not die, even though a small part of him willed it to be so. 

She is not mine, he told himself. He belonged to God. To Raas alone. But, he needed to see her -- to look into her pale blue eyes again and forget this pain. And so he went, perhaps foolishly, guided by naive affection, to seek her out.

He found her as dusk kissed the stream with a fowl of her own. He approached and set his kill down in front of her. "I, uh—" awkwardly spoke the cardinal. "I wanted to give this to you... But, uh— you seem to have food, uh, covered." He winced.

reek.

he approached, seeking her out as she had once done for him, and vuk lifted her eyes to meet his own as he laid food alongside her paw. she stared at it for longer than necessary, pondering the meaning of his gift. what had she done to deserve such -- what was it reek wished from her? vuk decided that the dakrfurred man meant no such thing with his gesture, and so she nodded vaguely at him.

"thank you," she said quietly, priding herself on the lack of stammer. her turquoise eyes met his own gaze for a moment before she looked away, wincing inwardly at the stab to her very spirit. despite his new name, his new faith, his new cleansing -- reek seemed unhappy, but vuk was not so vain as to believe she was the cause of this.

The expected nothing in return for his gift, it was merely a gesture of kindness. He pushed the goose's body closer to the woman as she spoke. She spoke with such clarity that he had never heard. He smiled at her. "There's no need," he spoke in response to her thanks. Moving close, he spun his body around to lie at her side, close enough to let their bodies nearly touch.

"Maybe Seff will enjoy it," the Cardinal suggested. The growing boy relied solely on his parents and the food from the caches, any extra food would surely go a long way. His suggestion lingered in the air for a moment before he brought his head to rest on his outstretched forepaws. A yawn slipped from his mouth.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but he hesitated. Something strange had settled between them since the ritual and it weighed on his heart like a lead weight. "I've—" his mouth shut and he took in breath. Trying again, he said, "I've missed you." It was hardly enough to describe how he felt, but the woman didn't need him to wax on poetically about his feelings. His feelings, however, were sinful in the eyes of Lord -- but he could not suppress them, not even if he tried.

hiram turned and their pelts brushed; vuk fought the urge to stiffen, to pull away from him. instead the girl trained her eyes quietly upon the water and grasped deepened breaths as the cardinal spoke, his voice somewhat muffled by the placement of his muzzle. yearning broke in vuk; she trembled alongside him, unable to keep her marked ears from falling back along her skull.

she missed the man in return -- reek was upon her mind many moments of each day, but it was not reek. he was no more. the wolf at her side wore the man's face but it was hiram, hiram, hiram -- he of the lord, he of kesheph, he of raas. why did he speak such to her?

"y-your g-god does n-not allow t-that," vuk whispered, surprised at the bitterness in her tones as she turned at last her eyes upon hiram, to trace the handsome features of his face with her wanting gaze, and the betrayal of her tears brightened her stare with grief.

He knew his desire for Vuk was sinful in the eyes of the Lord, but his emotional attachment to her -- the love that burned in his heart: it was something he could and would not deny. This feeling, love, was surely the creation of Raas. A thing to be shared. The Seer was wrong, she had to be. Why else would the Daystar bring Vuk and her child to his doorstep if she were not made for him?

He could hear the bitter quality in her voice and he felt frustration flare in his breast. Not with her, but with God -- with the Seer. "My faith does not change the way I feel about you Vuk," returning her gaze. Reaching out just barely to brush his muzzle against hers."The Seer has departed, her laws have no hold." 

Kesheph had taken her leave to spread the word just as she had to Reek months ago, leaving the church solely in the Cardinal's hands. He, being the head of the faith, was to interpret the will of God how he pleased. There was a temptation to twist the will of the Lord to fit his own desires -- to build his church the way he wanted. Surely, as long as Raas was adored, would he not accept the Cardinal's bastardized version of the faith?

he spoke again, moving to touch her, and vuk felt her heart harden. that he would change so easily behind the back of the one he had allowed to shape the pack, she who had driven away his wolves and stripped away his name, his very identity. he sought to explain, but anger burned hot within her heart as it had not before, and the girl drew sharply away from hiram, tightening her body into a compact shape of resentment.

he had allowed kesheph to come among them, to order them about, to shatter the heart of larksong, and now -- "y-you h-ave no l-loyalty, hiram!" vuk hissed, malevolence leaping into her gaze as she sought to scorch him. "n-not to m-me, not to y-your m-mates, n-not even t-to y-your own g-god." he was a jellylike thing, spineless, molded into whatever was wished of him.

he had let this raas break his own pack upon the altar of his cultish worship and now he would turn his back upon that and all those he had driven out in the daystar's name for what? for her? how could he dare to believe she wished that?

He was lambasted, and he wrenched back. Ears folding backwards, a sharp whine escaped him. He cast his eyes downward. Her words hurt, but he knew she was right. He was selfish -- so much so that he was willing to give everything up to make this woman his. "You're right," he muttered, knowing he was at a loss. "I always want what I can't have." He always had, the allure of the forbidden had always tickled his fancy -- it had with Saena, it had with Tavi, and now he felt the same for Vuk.

He sucked in breath, shutting his eyes to stop tears from welling."—And I can't have you," he choked out, nearly a whisper. He had always known this would end in heartbreak. He had known since the first time he took her in his arms that their love would be fleeting. However, his foresight did not protect him from the pain he felt now.

"I thought— I thought, maybe, Raas had sent you to me," he explained. "He healed my spirit, but you... You healed my heart." Now, he knew he had taken a far too liberal interpretation of the will of the Lord. He was grasping at pieces of a complicated puzzle and jamming them together, in the hopes that they would fit. However, what he ended up with was a mess. "I'm torn Vuk," he said. Pulled between his faith and woman he loved. Between his duty and his happiness.

no, she wished to say. you cannot.  but vuk was silent as hiram -- reek! -- writhed in the grip of his emotions. he knew her to be correct. she heard the tears within his voice as she turned her eyes upon the water and kept them there as she listened. vuk feared if she turned to the man again her weak resolve would founder and fall, and she would embrace him and let these necessary words be swallowed up in the desperate cadence of their dance.

"k-keep your w-word, ree -- hiram," vuk corrected, her own voice now shaking with the force of her fury and her sorrow. "s-serve raas." at last the girl's turqoise eyes came to rest upon the deepset earth-toned gaze of her lover. "t-this p-pack l-loved you ... and y-you turned y-your b-back on t-them, for t-the daystar." 

she searched his eyes with her own, unable to hide or cease the rivulet of tears. "d-do not b-break a-another ... p-promise for y-your o ...wn w-wants," she went on, reaching quickly the end of her abilities, convulsed as they were by emotion. "b-but i-if y-you s-serve ... h-him ... t-there is n-nothing f-for us."

He nodded and found his devotion to the Daystar renewed in force. Her words were a swift, yet necessary kick in the pants -- but, however necessary this lambasting was, it still hurt. She cut deep, down to his quickly hardening heart. It was no surprised, their love had ended just as he had expected; he lost her. He was forced to chose and now, there was only once choice to make. For the good of himself, for the good of the pack, and lastly, for the good of Vuk, Hiram chose the Lord.

It was a painful realization, but one he needed to make. "I should go," he said, rising to his feet. He averted his gaze from the woman his heart ached for. "I hope Seff likes the fox." With that, he slunk away with his head cast low, desperately holding the pieces of his heart together in his paws.

but he was wrong. 

he had not lost her, or her love.

vuk could not speak as hiram slunk away. for the reasons he deemed fit, he had turned to his god over her, and the realization of this crushed her very core into a powder that bittered her tears, the salt of them flowing silently over her trembling lips.

in time she rose and brought the fox to her son, but for a long while vuk merely remained as she was, weeping for what had been there only a fleeting moment.