Shadewood haagax ⚘

it was in the warming wind of early evening that kukutux waited for @Cry at the borders. the furs within her den had been carefully stacked, the hardpacked dirt inside and out free of debris. her cache was filled with dried meat, just inside the entrance, and she had strengthened her scent around the small clearing, hoping to ward away any small animals that might attempt to take up residence.

across her shoulders was a new pelt, taken from the rabbit that the man called higoro had given her at the borders, and in its folds kukutux had placed three sticks of meat and a mouthful of caribou leaves. it would not be easy, what she meant to do, but gwen's growing belly and her own fear that she would be seen as a threat now dogged kukutux' waking hours, and she could bear it no longer.

having called lowly for the shaman, the little duck awaited him now, eyes half-closed at the strengthening pleasure of seasalt upon the breeze.

It had come. For once, he felt her throat as it rasped up his name in a summon. Every letter that pressed forth, he could hear the change of air as it shifted to the next. Almost impossibly the Phantom could imagine afterwards, a smile on her lips as the last of his calling left her pale lips. But he knew better. He knew there was no smile in this situation. How he had treated her when they had last seen one another- there was nothing more that could salvage the situation.

What mattered now...
who knew? He had him a girl who would ride or die, who would follow him to the ends of madness and back- because ultimately, that’s what he had become. A draconian, set in his mind that it was either life, or death. Power, or weak. He was no longer harboring whelps and powerless children who could not hold their own. He would bring Shadewood to majesty, to herald a legacy that none other could stand the might of. 

And with resolution in his cold stare, narrowed and forthcoming, he strode tall and telling to the call of Kukutux.
It wasn’t long before he spied those verdants of hers-
And for once, he was not pained.

Winter may have left the lands of Shadewood, perhaps the entirety of Teekon itself; yet Cry was Winter. Whatever breezes of warmth from spring came to address him, they were too warm for the timber mix. Distaste filled him. 
He wanted to return to the shade of the woods...but this needed to be settled first.

So often he had spoken first, dropping an entire list of his worries, his desires, his intentions and fears. But today, he knew what this could be. 

“If you choose to do this, you will be labeled a ‘Traditore’ should you share any information of the Keep or it’s inhabitants. You will be hunted down,” he began finish of the contract. “And killed.”

There was no remorse. No pain could settle in him as he spoke apathetic to the woman he secretly coveted. But he need not her-
His Gwen awaited him. 

His breath was cold, his heart throwing arctic water through every vein in him. But there was no fear.
No worry.
This was her choice- and should she choose to make it, her own blood and those she condemned with her tongue, those who were damned to listen to her words, would be upon her head. 

“And I will know once you do.” It was not just a threat, but a promise, a guarantee stocked and loaded in the glacials residing icily on his face.

He would not miss her.
He would not let himself miss her.

kukutux had expected cry's removal, but not his coldness, the burn of his ice-eyes like shards into her. nor did she expect the promise of death, and her eyes widened with a pained shock she could not hide. how could he do this? threaten her as if she were nothing? breath shuddered in her throat; for a moment, kukutux felt as if she might weep at his sheer erasure of her.

but she had shed enough tears, and though they prickled at the corners of her cooling mint gaze, the girl faced upward into the face of cry and realized she felt anger outweigh her fear. "then judge me in two weeks when i return, qugax," she cursed softly. "i go to find a husband. and if he can be persuaded, i will bring him here. but if he cannot be," kukutux warned, her gaze flashing with a contained wrath, "then i will stay with him. either way, i will show you the courtesy you do not show me, and i will return to tell you."

then you may kill me, the duck added silently. "there are plants in my den for amaya to study. she too enjoys the study of plants. you will not need anything else that is there," she added in defiance, knowing full well that cry could claim all the things she had painstakingly gathered, and refuse to return them. 

"i do not belong to you. i am not yours to keep," kukutux finished, daring him to disprove her, strike her down, and she held the full weight of his glacial eyes in the silence that followed.

The Phantom felt desire curl in him- her words challenged something in him, and it only made the wanting grow. But despite the desire to near her even more, he grounded himself. The Ex-Nightmare’s voice however, lessened it’s pitch, baritones lowering into a swift and crisp rumble that caressed her auds with enough vehemence to sour berries and enough omen to darken stars. 

“You aim to replace me- to replace what I stood for in your life before you grew to seek closure, Kukutux.” It was a claim he could not validate by facts, but by his perception, his twisted and wrought sight of what he thought they could have had. 

‘Remold, restart, rebirth,’ 

Words fell alight with anger, snatching up a blaze in his condemned mind. Delusion of her, decadent flurries of images never had nor shared between the two. 
He could have made a wonderful husband to her...

”You are given much more courtesy than you know, love.” It physically ached. This woman corroded him, her innocent outlook, her gentle persona. It was so contrast, it was so...good. “You are still alive. You are not trialed and deemed unworthy to be in my face,” he spit, the soft murmur morphing into an icicle begging to melt in her bloodied heart. 
“And you are free to leave, and not come back, should you choose.”

His thought processes crumpled further as he relapsed over what she was leaving for. To replace him. To find someone else to love. She did not know-

“However, if you choose to return under these woods,” he pulled himself back to par on league of elite, tall and unmistakable in a crowd. 
Lips tilted up at the corners, a smile that would have been near charming had it not been on Raziel. 

“then you will return as mine. You and that husband of yours.”

how could she have ever felt anything for this man, who looked over her and scorched her with his breath? who spoke of ownership, reducing her to nothing but a pelt and a pair of eyes?

kukutux listened with a growing hatred in her heart — whatever cry had meant before, he had made himself small in her eyes, a towering bully unable to accept what he could not change. there was no need to replace what she had never been granted. he had gwen, the promise of children. he did not need the duck for ornamentation.

the smirk chilled the girl, for it was not altogether sane. throwing aside his ramble of basic courtesies, kukutux determined in this heartbeat that she would not come back to reside at the keep to be his plaything.

”i am going now,” she murmured, when the last reverberations of his voice had settled. springmint stare met the harsh ice of the one also called raziel, and then the girl had turned upon her small paw and began to stride away over the borders, lips atremble with fear and with rage.

She had said nothing to him, slaying the romance of the entire moment with the delight of her silence. He was stuck where he stood, unable to continue as she had had fed him nothing in which to possessively respond to. However, this was not without consequence, as it somehow filled him with the idea that he had won whatever challenge this was. In his eyes, her silence was cornered defeat, relenting, and this too floated his high inexplicably. 

“I am going now.” Her words were clean and sharp, an abraisive introduction to the silences she had brewed between them. 

A nod as he dismissed it. Released her. 
A careful gaze stayed on her, watching her depart with that gentle gait she carried, unhurried despite the trepidation plastered thick within her-
he did not let up until she had disappeared fully past the horizons brimline, watched her until she had crossed the Isle and beyond. 
Ensuring no one had snatched her up so soon. Would be such a painful shame to see such beauty slide down the gullet of a senseless monster-

or for her to be mauled by a bear or something.

whatever monster, whatever crude and makeshift husband she chose to take- they would be what either made or broke them. 
And yes, Kukutux left of her own free will...

”But you will return,” his words soothing on the tide of warming spring, floating behind her direction as though she could still hear him, could still feel him.

”And I will still be here, waiting for you.”
The Phantom chuckled, finding it almost pathetic he was still so loyal through the mess he was fighting for.
Turning, he returned to the confines of the junglewoods, seeking. I thing in particular.