Phoenix Maplewood and make Death proud to take us

My hand slipped. @Warbone.

The urge to gather her wolves has become greater but there is still delay in her mind. Perhaps because her shoulder has not fully healed but the scabs have gotten smaller or because it will be the first ritual performed at the helm in front of all of her wolves. The worry about Wildfire and the changes she will be making has yet to seize the opportunity. She is making differences for her own selfishness, to make Wildfire—a wolf not of her home—happy. She wants everything she would never have been able to give her but Drageda is not shaped the same and will not follow everything rule for rule. Her wolves will accept the changes, or they will not, but for fear of tearing their lives apart, she's kept quiet.

In a few days, she tells herself. Just a few days and it will be over.

In order to clear her mind, she breeches the borders and finds herself alongside the river for a while. Once she crosses it, her path is obvious as she eventually reaches the edges of the maplewood. She'd sent Arch to investigate and has not seen or heard from him since. If he had found something, she suspects he would have come to her before the final leg of his mission an sonly hopes he's staying on course.

Her own search began earlier and she only finds scent of travel and nothing repeating that leaves her concerned. The search does not last too long as she comes to a stop, dropping her head to drink from a puddle as the signs of a drizzle collects upon her dark fur.

He moved with the storm that had come rolling in from sea; the clouds overhead seemed true to represent the tumultuous mood of the ferine wolf traveling beneath it. He felt a kinship with downpour, and followed it far inland until he had almost forgotten about the Keep and his entire reason for remaining nearer to the Sunspires. The weather had eased too, the further he traveled— as if to tell him he would find clearer skies away from him unhealthy obsession with the Willows. He would ignore signs like this, however, as he couldn't imagine himself yet giving up on the distant prospect of ever leading that pack again.

The rain had long simplified to a polite drizzle by the time he found himself deep in Maplewood. His only eye would travel unexpectedly towards the skyline, and he realized he was looking at Sleeping Dragon after a long time of heading towards it. The recognition of it and his time spent there came in ungentle waves to the forefront of his mind— and when he saw Thuringwethil at first, he thought he was hallucinating.

Still, he called out to her, just to be sure. "Thuringwethil?"

sorry for the delay and this crap u have to read

Thuringwethil picks her head up, licks at her muzzle, and rescans an area she never let her eyes fall from. At first everything seems normal but there's something that tells her otherwise and she moves a few steps in one direction to almost come face to face with him. His face, or lack thereof, might be unrecognizable, !$5 she recalls easily with a weird mix of resentment and relief. The distance between them is significant but not great enough she can't hear him call her given name. As Drageda has taken full swing, the use of it is limited and her ears twitch upon her head.

"Heda," she calmly corrects. Even if Warbone no longer lived on the dragon, her title is no different, no less superior than it has always been. However, her posture doesn't stiffen as it might have before but her assertion is still no different. Her tail, always a flag, offers one shake—the meaning unclear—and her head crowned, as always, as she walks upon land she claimed so many months ago, land she has kept free of settlers, that she has kept hers.

Warbone could not at first help the edge of confusion that spawned when she corrected him. Had he been mistaken? Was this not Thuringwethil? But as he scanned inactive memories, he found the term she had given then to be related to the name he had spoken, and then recalled it to be her title. Warbone didn't openly acknowledge the correction. When they had first met she had introduced herself with the name she had meant for him to call her when they were alone— and that was all he would ever address her as. If she saw fit to correct him, he'd avoid the compulsion to say her name at all.

He moved closer through the Maplewood, careful and slow, beside the swift and curious wag of his own risen tail. For the male too is dominant, and though he claimed to own nothing, he had never met this woman as anything but his equal, and he would not disrespect either of them by presenting himself as anything else now. From the first time they hunted she had made him feel alive, and the raven queen's allure was not lost on him even after all this time. She had always given off the overly proud air that it wasn't okay to touch her, so he didn't exude the desire now, but he came boldly as close as he was allowed, and breathlessly took in her laden scent.

He smelled Wildfire, which was a memory that sprang up on him in that moment, and he remembered seeing them together. "I am glad to see you well," he murmured, regardless of her reaction to his initial closeness, and he took a several weaving steps back.

Her eyes fixate upon him as he goes through his own revelation through the tattered and worn and eyeless. How he'd come to bear such a look leaves questions, locked away with the other questions she's had for him since their genesis. None of them surface while she stands there, him approaching and matching a similar stance when he wears no scent of others as she'd once remembered. Something lost beyond the expressions he can no longer bear, realization that she is just as easily mortal as he in some parts, where others have life eternal.

"I am," she tells him. There had been a time where she saw great things before her but taken away from her before their blossom had turned sour, regardless of what they've been through since. "I'm glad I can say the same for you," she says with a short huff of breath, the only resemblance—maybe—of a laugh she can give.

For a brief moment, Warbone found himself content with his place in the universe. Standing before Thuringwethil reminded him of an easier time; a time where he thought he might not need to think so hard on his own, a time spent roaming at her shoulder, forcing wolves like the Grotto-ers to bend to their will. He missed it, if he would allow himself to admit as such, and the fact that she was not vengeful for the manner in which he left her, meant that their relationship was not one yet lost to the tides of change.

He took a respectful step back, his expression sobering. "I realize much time has passed since the occurrence, but even still I would wish to apologize for the way I abandoned your rule." He did not come across as a wolf who offered apologies very easily, so he hoped the true sentiment he put behind it meant something to the raven commander.

Thuringwethil can’t help but wonder how things would have been if she’d stumbled across the brute closer to Sleeping Dragon’s claim. With the aid of the others and the army she’s created, she’s confident their conversation would have been short-lived and his life in danger. Darkened, silvery eyes focus on him through his apology and she only nods her head to mask the uncertainty that wells up within her.

The last time they met had been in the maplewood, with a challenger and Wildfire, but the brief interaction had ended abruptly and she never saw him again. Until now. Her ears twitch upon her head to consider what he has given her, an action that she suspects few wolves have seen.

It is only a single nod that accepts the apology without the hint of forgiveness.

“I do not want to find you near the mountain,” she tells him, one simple, final command. “But I would like to see you again.”

There is another world where they do not miss one another, where Warbone does not walk out, and their power is a light for one another. He amplifies her as he was always meant to and Thuringwethil does not let him slip through her fingers, giving up a strength she doubts she’ll ever see again. A sigh escapes and the hint of a smirk toys playfully with her features, wondering if the same thing haunts him in his dreams as it does hers.

Warbone snorted sharply, almost derisively, as she insinuated he might approach Sleeping Dragon again. The nearest he had come since leaving there was the south end of the river, an occurrence which had been partially the fault of that wild bear of a woman once belonging to her ranks. Even from first being introduced to the sulfuric mountain she now called Drageda, he had not liked it, and he now had less than no reason to return there; the suggestion or even thought that he might was erroneous, and laughably insulting. He didn't take offense, at any rate, and his mouth curved slightly to indicate humor. "I would not dream it," he growled reassuringly, his head canting suddenly as Thuringwethil added that she would like to see him still.

His eye moves across her face, his expression softening somewhat. Despite the many mistakes he'd made in his time with her, there was no part of him that was lost to the feeling she had once given him— the solidarity he had felt hunting with her that first time. He had not enjoyed being a subordinate, ultimately his downfall, but his discord had been forgotten in moments spent solely with her; on emissary trips and the like.

His tail wagged slowly. "If you still have an affection for travel, then I have no doubt we will see one another again." Warbone picked up his head, motioning over his shoulder, towards the Sunsire range. "You can find me there."

Warbone announces where he can be found and Thuringwethil looks briefly past him. The mountains are not somewhere she has been yet, for the distance is greater than her need, but she considers it for a moment before she brings her attention back to her former friend. She doesn’t speak anything and regards him, as if the story for all of this is somewhere just out of reach but the questions can be grabbed by her tongue—just like the great things they had once been able to accomplish together. Instead, she nods her head.

“May we meet again,” she tells him as she glances back the way she’d came and the way she’d been going before deciding to wait out his departure.

In that moment, it was hard for Warbone to know truly what he wanted from the commander. He both wished to be gone from her, and to stand at her side; to maybe enjoy the throes of a wild hunt as they had their first encounter. It would've been poetic, almost, but neither wolf seemed capable of expressing anything besides their mutual contentment to see the other still alive, and their brief meeting drew to a close faster than either could ever be satisfied with. His head bobbed in a short nod, passing his eye over her features one last time, before turning to move south with the intention of hunting and clearing his thoughts before returning to his own range.