Swiftcurrent Creek If ever I could love, I think it could be with you.

To leave Swiftcurrent Creek had been one of the most difficult decisions she'd ever had to make, but not one she could refgret. With Winter's approach and her firstborn missing, despite knowing that he had chosen to disperse, she could never forgive herself if she didn't try. So she did just that, and she searched with everything that she had through the snow and the wind, to find the boy who didn't want to be found.

Viinturuth made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of returning to their fractured family. Still, the russet Frostfur persisted for days - lingering at the outskirts of a territory belonging to the pack that chose to shelter her wayward dragon. She waited and waited, until the pale youth she'd bore of her own womb turned on her not with words - but with fangs.

Wounded, both emotionally and physically, Durnehviir finally returned to her home. She limped carefully, favouring a forelimb and painfully exhausted, but she pushed on through the night until she slumped pitifully in the snow. With what little energy she had left, the broken dragoness released a short call for @Constantine and hung her head, defeated.

His youth were older now—they would be entering the adult ranks within a month, and yet the shadowed warrior could not seem to keep them far from his sight for a certain length of time. The night usually found them together—a small comfort he took, that even though Talos was refusing his presence with any form of welcome, she was still seeking a certain amount of time with her brothers.
 
He remained in the darkness under the tall foliage, watching their sleeping forms. They had spoken little of their broken family, as if to draw attention to it would be the final nail in the coffin. But he knew they couldn’t walk on eggshells for much longer—not if they hoped to move forward.
 
Durnehviir’s call caused his spine to stiffen, his gaze to shoot toward the distant borders. A frown clouded his features, and he paused, uncertain what news she would have brought and whether he truly wanted to hear it—the mournful note in her once delicate song did not indicate triumph at finding their son.
 
He was quick to make his way to her, once the shock of her howl had settled away from him. She lay, stooped on the borders in fatigue, and he could see the myriad of inflicted wounds and bite marks upon her lithe body. He had to refrain from sweeping to her side—from collecting her in his embrace and ensuring her that she was safe and within loved arms. It was no longer his place to do so.
 
“Who did this?” It might not have been his place to kiss her pain away, but the lash of his tail and the rolling thunder in his voice made his intention of retribution very clear—he would bring whoever had done this to their god damn knees for even thinking about touching her.

She rested quietly while she awaited Constantine's arrival, nosing gently at the marrings of her extrended forelimbs. Tenderly, her tongue swept over the bloodied ivory fur there, but she winced at the sting of her own touch. Only the larger wounds had re-opened in her days of travel but Durnehviir persisted, knowing that she could not risk infection, and halted only at the sound of another's approach.

Ears pressed forward to listen, she peered through the darkness with tired champagne eyes in search of the swarthy Alpha. Relief allowed her weary muscles to slacken at the mere sight of him and, with an exhale of breath, the dragoness pulled herself shakily onto three unsteady limbs to clutch her most sensitive fore to her chest. She hobbled forward a little with a softly sweeping tail, eager to fit herself into his embrace, but Constantine made no move to welcome her home.

Her heart sank. Her lobes fell back. Durnehviir blinked up at him, holding back the whine that tightened her throat, and mentally kicked herself for expected anything more than this. She had brought this ruin upon them, after all, with her insecurity and accusation - she knew that now. "Viinturuth," she answered simply, disheartened gaze dropping briefly to the frozen ground as she tried to keep from crumbling again, "it was not his fault, I... I pushed him too far. He didn't want to be found." 

Unable to keep herself upright, the wounded wolfess lowered her exhausted hindquarters and dared to seek the Alpha's tangerine gaze, longing to see a familiar warmth within that she knew she may never find. "I'm sorry," she offered then, probably too little and too late. For everything.

The hobble of her step only further incited his mind, his jaw clenching heavily as he already attempted to gather his thoughts and how he could exact revenge. She was not his any longer—a painful reminder to the swarthy Mayfair, and yet she was still the mother of his children, and he considered her still to be pack—each a reason he would bend over backwards for.

The simple fact it had been their son to do this set fire to his emotions fully, and the shadowrunner found himself unable to fully grasp the thought. Viinturuth, fiery as his mother, had never once seemed privy to violence of his loved ones. And now the whelp had deemed it a good idea to bring injury to his mother and risk her infection in the winter?

There was a rumbling in the back of his throat as he considered this, his tail giving a dangerous lash through the cold air. In his growing anger, the wolf did not recognize the features of remorse on his previous lover—any regret indicated upon her features surely stemmed from her interlude with their eldest child, given she had made it very clear before they were to be on a break, if not completely segregated.

“Come,” he ushered, withholding from burying himself in to the familiarity of her touch. “You need rest. Food, water.” He paused, his tongue sweeping past his lips. “I assume you’ll be returning to the pack?” He couldn’t speak of their son—not yet. Not when he wasn’t sure how to feel on the matter.

Silently, she pleaded with him. Come back,, her tender heart called out to his, thrumming wildly in the hollow of her chest as though desperate to escape. Come back to me. It yearned for its mate. It longed for the familiarity of Constantine's quiet love. It craved his nearness, the safety of his embrace, to know that it was truly home.

And yet as the pair stood there, Frostfur and Mayfair, once united, she felt so far away.

"Yes," she answered, though sorrow lingered. Swiftcurrent Creek had meant a new beginning for them, a fresh start, a chance to rear their family peacefully. As she blinked pitifully up at the wolf who'd followed her there to whelp their litter, the man whose surname she'd taken as her own, she could see nothing of the love she'd so desperately wished to feel from him. Durnehviir wondered if her departure and decision to sever their companionship had driven him to seek the comfort of Aria, but she brushed the thought away as soon as it arose.

He was not hers anymore. But she would always be his.

The dragoness swallowed thickly, gathering herself once more to follow her swarthy Alpha. "Constantine, I..." Durnehviir tried to bite back the emotion that swelled in her throat, but tears pricked her sad champagne eyes as she sought to hold his own and she found only the strength to muster a vague: "I was wrong."

She seemed overwrought with fatigue. The way her usually graceful form moved, as if she was sore—not just from he rinjuries, but her heart was fractured. The beast watched her with careful eyes, a low rumble breaking past his muzzle as he once more thought of their youthful son attacking the woman who had given birth to him—should Viinturuth dare return, he was certainly going to hear an earful about the risk he had put her in.

He would have liked her to seek out the wisdom of a healer, but as far as he knew, they lacked such talent in their ranks. Another thing to remedy, he mused quietly.

His gaze drifted from her delicate features to note the limp—the cradle of her limb close to herself. As she began to follow him, the shadowrunner slowed his stalking pace, giving her the time and comfort to catch up. One ear splayed back to her direction at her words, and he didn’t know how to take it—what she meant. Their fight had extended itself for months—for as fiery as she had been with her passion toward him in their days of courting, she had turned completely on him with the same ferocity—his muzzle had certainly bore her teeth from her rage.

Nothing had placated her before, though he was not exactly innocent in the matter. He had offered her too much space. Too much time.

So he chose the most logical direction of what he assumed she meant: “Don’t apologize, Durnehviir. It was my fault. I should have paid more attention to him…if there were any signs he would just run away. You did everything you should have. It was me who failed him.”

He paused, his muzzle swinging back to study her, unable to fully focus on the pain in those beautiful champagne eyes of hers. “Where is he? Far from here? Do you know the name of the pack?”

He told her not to apologise, pressing on in confession that it was he who failed their son. The dragoness pressed her velvet ears back against her crown, her tongue eager to counter his claim, but she knew there was no use in arguing. She and Constantine had done enough of that to last a lifetime, and the only communication she could manage to offer was the silent assurance in her watery gaze that the fault could never be entirely his own.

Durnehviir wasn't sure if the shadowrunner purposely skirted over the implication behind her words: that she'd been wrong about him, that she should've trusted him over her gut. She'd so tried to, every day that she looked upon him and imagined his coupling with a she-wolf he once longed for, and failed. Her heart yearned for her to press the matter again, to be more open about what she meant, but the very real fear that Constantine would reject her entirely prevented her from presenting the topic again.

"About a weeks' travel, South from here," she answered, "I do not know the pack's name, but he was safe there." A small comfort, but more than she could hope for, and she would hold the knowledge close alongside the wish that one day her baby might forgive her.

She did not refute his words as he chose the path of conversation—her pale champagne eyes seemed to imply more, but he would not delve into it further right now. He couldn’t. There was little more to say on the topic of Viinturuth, but he was relieved to know his son was not too far…and that he was safe.

Ambling toward the den they had once shared together as the whelping den, the stocky wolf felt a tightness in his jaws, the oncoming of a tension headache as he swallowed the emotion that threatened to rise within him. This had marked the promise of what was supposed to be a happy family—a fresh start. He could only hope he hadn’t insulted her by bringing her here for rest.

“You should sleep,” he offered, pulling aside from the den entrance, his eyes sharp upon her as he felt the awkwardness cling to the cold air. “I’ll send the children to you. They’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

They maintained an uncomfortable silence, and her gaze lingered solemnly on the hollow he'd brought her to. She had bore their litter there, welcomed to the world in the very den that she herself had been born into, and Durnehviir's jaw tightened as she fought to keep from faltering. Durnehviir's thoughts turned to happier times, when the pups had been so small and pure, before her paranoia had tarnished what had been a beautiful family.

His words drew her attention to him once more, and she blinked sadly in his direction to find his piercing gaze. While she hadn't expected a warm reception, the sharpness of him surprised her as he insisted that she sleep - suggesting that he couldn't wait to be out of her presence. Her ginger ears fell back and, with a slow nod, the dragoness limped forward toward the hollow's entrance.

"Thank you," she offered without looking over a shoulder, feathered tail limp between her hocks as she ventured into the cool darkness and be out of her former mate's sight.

She spoke, slipping past him and into the dark privacy of the den. He lingered only for a given moment, his own mind recalling their young brood in tumble and play among their legs--a family that had held such promise.

He shook his ehavy fur, his reservations firmly falling to place as he backed away, his muzzle sweeping down to track the scent of their children and send them in the direction of their mother. It was no longer his duty to nurse her heart, but he would be sure his children managed to do it.