Moonspear look what you've done

Of course, Amekaze only irrationally got angrier. Charon truly did not understand it. He was a visionary. He'd always had a vision. The stars had chosen him to live here, to one day reach the tips of this mountain so that he may touch them and converse with them in person. He knew this, he knew that he was meant for this. Why did Amekaze not understand that if their legacy was what this was about, then it should be them together? Did she truly not wish to stand together, beside him?

As Amekaze spoke of his children again Charon gritted his teeth, feeling himself get angry but not wanting to let his temper get the better of him. With blood rising to his head he said pointedly: I did not say the children will, I say our union will, for without it there is no family and all of our children are worth no more than any other. That is not a world I want. But she would not have any of his words and did not seem to want to mend what was broken between them. Not even for the sake of Hydra's reign, for their kingdom, for their legacy.

She threw it all away when she came towards him, surprisingly fast for her old, shriveled up age, and lunged at him. Charon saw it coming from the moment she repeated his words, spat them back in his face and came into motion, so he was prepared when her teeth grazed across his cheek. A snarl ripped from his throat and ears folded back, tail flagging over his back in dominance. He was not going to let anyone take Moonspear from him; not even the mate he had loved for so many years, still loved, but who would simply not see this for herself.

Pain ripped through his face as her teeth tore into his good side. He had turned it towards her so that he could see her easier but now the only side with good eyesight he had left was exposed. Charon took a step backward but soon found himself confronted with a crumbling ledge behind him on the winding path. They were quite high up the mountain and he knew what happened with wolves who fell down there. They would die or be dealt with when found. He lunged forward, leaping up and tried wrapping his forelegs around Amekaze's neck so that he may not be as easily pushed off the mountainside -- at least not alone -- while snapping teeth tried to find their way to latch onto any part of her face or neck he could.

He misunderstood. He missed the point entirely that these beliefs made him the enemy of hers, and the harder he pushed for them to come to pass, the fiercer she wanted to lash back. Up until now, he had avoided all of them, or fled before she could finally meet the end of her slow-burning but dangerous fuse. She had kept it to herself, stewed, tried to cope and swallow it down and away from what mattered. But he kept digging his grave, and he was constantly making her all too eager to help.

In the back of her mind, she hoped he would underestimate her. He had an awful lot lately, so really her odds were good here. It was her womb that had failed him and helped motivate him into many of his mistakes and lies, but the dark alpha didn't think she was the only one to blame here. He had helped make that slope slippery, and gone headlong into the fray. However this absence made her keen and absolute. She was entirely her own once more, far more herself after the last year's efforts on their behalf left her tired and spent, and finally, nothing at all reigned her back in.

Into his flesh--from the first slice, this became her singular goal now. It was a past due sort of frustration she put behind the motion, and not an intent she had ever truly turned on him before. Amekaze felt her motivations plainly, however, and boldly pushed him back when they separated, him towards the crumbling edge. When he lunged back for her, she defended her face with a shoulder turning his way; he could have his grip at the base of her nape for there was nothing his teeth could do to hurt her worse. She used this opportunity of him close to turn her head and swing her own jaws for his shoulder, neck--whatever, snapping and looking for a solid grip or to cause him the pain he deserved for wronging her.

If he could hold fast to her, she was going to match it with excess and continue trying to force him down and out with her weight and momentum--towards that teetering edge to make him realize that she held his life in her paws, and she wanted him out of her sight.

All of his thoughts burned down to one thing, a single instinct: his mountain. His life. His control over everything. He would not let her take it from him, for it was everything to him. She was everything to him. Their family was everything to him. Charon did not want to give that up, and to be pushed away from Amekaze, to have to pretend everything was fine or going to be fine beside or beneath her while their daughter finally stood on top... That was unacceptable.

His teeth hit home but she held fast onto him, too. Charon was determined to land on top... Or not at all. And if he were not to land at all then he would drag her down with him. He felt the ground crumble beneath his hind legs. The world blurred away; he did not even know if Hydra was still there nor did he remember how steep the ledge behind him was.

All there was was he and Amekaze. The woman that he loved who was breaking him now. Charon's teeth wrapped tightly around Amekaze's nape, keeping them locked so tightly his jaw began to hurt, but making it very clear he wasn't intending to fall from his throne high up on this pedestal alone if he should. Meanwhile she tore at the flesh on his shoulder and neck and pushed him ever precariously closer to the edge. Charon tightened his grip and tried to push back, pawing with his front paws to try and get a closer grip and get some weight advantage of some sort, while his hind legs were slipping.

She had waited long enough, and given him plenty. If he had cared enough about them, together, she believed he would have settled on some middle-ground--not some wild dream fantasy of him where he could have it all his way to just cast her aside carelessly when she no longer bred for him. There could have been more tactful ways to handle it. She wouldn't have it without something back to her of equal worth, and intended mightily to stand against it, and stand that way for her daughter's right to inherit this mountain without him there to further pollute and divide the family when now more than ever before this was not what they needed.

Time again, at the root of their troubles lately, there was him. She intended to cut off what was feeling rotten now, holding fast and pressing back towards the very open threat of the lands and he still was showing no signs of letting up himself. When she felt secure in her grip, and her damages so far, she tried to wrench her stinging shoulder free with a twist so that she could shove back harder with her body weight. Hopefully she had made it too difficult for him to get any good traction, not here locked onto her where she was ready to push that line herself if it meant keeping him at bay. I loved you, she snarled into his closeness the second she let go of his torn skin thanks to her, and already it was tempting to go back for more knowing and feeling that she could have it. She smelled nothing but him, and the thin mountain air of home, then lashed another bite at him forcibly, looking to shove him back, down--away. 

She needed to know it was real, and that it still was. She had loved him, maybe still did, but couldn't--or wouldn't--like this if he was hellbent on having here, and his bastards together with her. Or was it a dream? she spoke cryptically through his blood on her teeth where she felt nothing, still pressuring him towards the edge while looking to loosen his grips on her--while not backing down herself on any regard. It felt like he had discarded it as easily as one just lost to the night, too.. and maybe if he looked long enough, he might see the hurt in her eyes, visceral and whole.

His teeth slipped from her skin, but as his hind legs nearly slipped him down the mountain there was a moment of calm. The pressure was still on and his face was smarting. Amekaze spoke words laced with hurt. But he was hurting too. He still loved her. He didn't want this to go away. His breathing was heavy as he looked at Amekaze.

As they locked gazes for a moment Charon's eyes shone with all that he felt. Regret for tearing it all apart. Regret for hurting her for through all the anger and rage he could see that she was just hurting. Regret that he could not give her what she wanted, could not aid in healing whatever was broken here. Pain because he truly did want their family to be whole. Pain because he just wanted to hold her... But now he might never get to again.

Words hadn't helped him any in the near past and so he didn't use many. Now as she held anger in her gaze mixed with hurt and he held sadness in his gaze mixed with hurt and guilty, he frowned and asked hoarsely: Please. Don't throw this away. Don't do this. Think of our legacy and how great it could be. They, to him, were a side-effect, something not nearly as important as his Amekaze. He was at the ready for anything. Should she try to push him that last bit he would try to dive aside and grab her again, hoping to tug her along down the mountain, if it came to that. But he hoped that it wouldn't get to that. That she'd listen to his plea. That she'd make up.

That she'd let him hold her again.

Consumed in her grapple and consequentially lost in him, she did not realize how very close the edge had come until he felt his weight shift just enough, again; his hindpaws hardly had solid ground, meaning she was not far from the edge either. Just behind him, practically underneath, the mountain gave its way to the air and she caught her heart racing, her blood slicking her hackles and mouth hung just slack enough to taste it all through her measured breaths.

And if there was any saving grace, it was that she could resonate better with this type of chaos--the kinds that got the blood rolling and the body moving, not the bickering and the constant misunderstandings circling back and forth, down into a tight spiral of despair that never seemed to solve anything. The hanging threat of danger, the lifetime at stake.. she was sharply aware, clear--concise. Yet this didn't mean it was right. For her, for either of them, but it felt like what she must do, even as she stared his guilt and hurt in the face. She wished that it moved her greater. She waited for it to, it didn't, and only felt her nose crinkle back into an ugly snarl at his plea.

She refused to let him run rampant on her, and by extension, here. He either stood balanced with her, or not at all in her life, and if he must have the otherwise.. then that was his choice. She had made herself remarkably clear. Her, the Spear itself, and the family of his it would still hold until she stopped drawing her air.. it was her peace's sanctity, them all, or the unborn, the unwarranted, and he refused to straighten up and see it. The fact that he fought back at this at all twisted the knife for her. He could have just sent them off into the wilderness, and forgot it--like the last time, she thought bitterly. Then, maybe their disillusion could return to their shade of tranquility, she could turn a blind eye if they weren't beneath her nose on her home where her clan rested their heads, and then... maybe it could have been.

But you are too late, she murmured, somber, and almost sounding tired--would he even listen, let alone understand? She usually felt like she wasted her breath on him lately, so most likely not. He had refused to wait for her, listen to her, and now, she would return the favor. The damage was done, her chest torn asunder by this broken heart and his constant continuation nothing but the last irritations to finally drive her quite literally to the precipice on which they stood. Could it get worse? She would have to find out as she snapped her teeth viciously towards his forelegs in a feint--to first maybe unsettle his balance, but secondarily, and with more fury put behind the drive, she planted her hind feet and went teeth-first for his face, chest, or neck again.

It was not that he didn't understand her words, but they were hurtful, too hurtful to fully grasp. Surely she couldn't really mean those words. Not after so many years together. She couldn't throw it in the dumpster. He wouldn't let her. Amekaze seemed to expect him to understand when she was the one deciding that this was no longer his safe place, either - his peaceful place.

Maybe if she hadn't attacked again at that moment he would have chosen to leave and let it all fizzle out. But when she went for his front legs he immediately jumped up and tried to go for her face, resulting in their teeth meeting halfway and clicking together.

As his feet slipped Charon dove forward and tried to grab Amekaze even as he started to slip down the mountain. He would not let her take this from him. Take his legacy from him. It would all mean nothing. It already meant nothing.

I love you, you stupid idiot, he thought bitterly as he grabbed for a leg or neck; something he could hold onto. He would not go down alone.

For if he could not have her, then no one would.

When their teeth clattered and her head jarred, she still refused to be subdued--having soared well past the point, focused singularly on making him struggle, suffer, hurt for what he had made her endure. The mother had decided she would simply burden the cost, whatever it may have to be, for it had to be said the loudest, worst way she knew how and it was all for what they had created; a part of this that she wondered, distantly here in this perilous exchange, if he could even truly grasp and value it the way she did, right or wrong.

Amekaze reeled on impact and saw past him for an instant to the vast empty skies, then she realized his slip's full measure when his teeth sunk into her chest, not far from her leg. Right away she tried to get back from it, her paws splayed wide and a silent snarl carved into her expression as she felt him tearing downward, dragging her towards him with this awful grip. She lowered her front half, braced, and tried to secure herself best to the ground--but it wasn't enough, not with him clung fast and her footing growing worse. 

She simply didn't have the time to sort it out better and would not go down further without a fight until she physically couldn't. She lashed her teeth downward at him more, his neck, the side of his face, and whatever else she could do to him to undue the vice of his hold torn into her chest in her last ditch efforts to do so. Slicked in her blood, sheer adrenaline, and raw determination, it might have almost been enough to get him to loosen but too finally came the cost of her precarious foothold whether or not she gained any damage or grips on him. The haunting absolution of that gravity's consequence arrived in full, Charon first, her too close by. 

There wasn't time to see what was below either, if it was stone or forest or water or else, how far.. or near, until the mountain rose for them again. She only supposed that whatever it may be, it would be--and it was only suiting that he was her loftiest heights and her greatest downfalls all simultaneously in one place in the one being who had shared a part of her meant only for him.

Through it all, Ame had wanted them restored in balance though, so maybe she should have known despite aiming her willpower at coming out on top--somehow, someway. Maybe this was the only answer they deserved. The wind in her fur had never been quite like this though. Still, she wanted nothing more than to dig her teeth into him, to never let go through earth and sky alike.

wince

Adrenaline gushed through Charon's body as his grip on the earth slipped. Another boost of it sharply awakened him when his teeth found purchase on Amekaze's chest. As soon as he managed to grab it Charon didn't let go. While Amekaze assaulted his face with her teeth, sending sharp pain through his body, the world turned upside down. He saw Moonspear's tip high above him. His Moonspear, his beautiful mountain, where it pierced the sky and touched the stars. One day he would climb it. One day he would touch the stars. One day he would find the right paths. He would have Maia beside him.

Crash.

Sharp pain in his shoulder added to the assault of teeth Amekaze set loose on his face as though sharp punishment for his thoughts of Maia. Then there was some rolling. His teeth still clung on to Amekaze's chest as though she was his lifeboat through it all, even as they rolled across the mountainside, leaving behind a blood trail. Then more sky, more Moonspear, tumbling, tumbling.

But she was still his. Ha! Her teeth in his face and his teeth in her chest were proof, even if they had never showed their love in this way. He had won... But at what cost? Was he truly so proud that he would tear Amekaze's throne down with his? That if he could not have this crown, then nobody could? Her anger was righteous in some way, but He was the King! He should be able to do as he pleased! Still, she didn't deserve to...

Crash.

The side of his face was torn open, ripping some of his teeth violently from his face and finally forcing him to let go of Amekaze. He broke her fall, and then they rolled over the edge again. Charon remembered falling for what felt like an eternity, with his dark thoughts and the peak of Moonspear as his only companions beside his fuming, biting -- yet oddly comforting; negative attention had always been better than no attention, he had learned from a young age -- wife. Oh, how he loved her still, despite his unseemly attraction to Maia and his inability to still himself during a woman's heat.

How proud he had been the day he had claimed her to be his. How she had always made him proud to stand by her side. Always she had been there, for almost his entire life. She had never judged any of the things others disapproved. He'd always been proud to match her, to be her equal, to claim such a proud and strong creature as his mate. He had always been proud of how far they had brought each other. How poetically aesthetic that they should tear each other down now.

I love you, he thought as his nose touched her bleeding chest one last time before black spots filled his vision and he lost consciousness.

Charon remembered falling for a long time, but he never remembered hitting the ground.

Her mate did not let her go, not for far too long as they dropped at the mercy of the mountain and its great pull. She looked upon him wildly, but lacking nothing--from adoration to rage. With it, there was blood, air, rock, him, beneath every attempt back she made even still where his tenacity and stubbornness that she cherished truly could be put to good use holding fast to her--so accordingly she answered with all of her own, able to unhinge where nothing else would dare stop her.

The lines between one end and beginning blurred worse with every horrible crash they endured, however, fighting bloodied down the mountain's edge. But past the raging current of adrenaline, dark, deep in her soul and every fiber she occupied, she loved it just as she loved him. Never before, and perhaps.. never again like this--not knowing what awaited, and neither able to process it in full now as it was all nothing but a wicked blur of stone and sky where if only for fleeting half-seconds, everything felt better. It was only the two of them, proper gatekeepers to the hell of this beautiful verdant Spear, tangled together, and home. She had him right where she wanted again.

She processed only this singular vision, not even when his grip finally loosened from her chest or the damages done, or incurred. By that time, it was all the same, numb, raw, and crushing. All she needed to know was that he was there. He had always made her journey worthwhile, after all.

When it all finally stopped and everything stilled with solid ground below them once again.. she was only dimly aware of this cold quiet, and how it had gone. Everything, and nothing.. she couldn't say, but with the last ounce of fight she could draw forth from this beaten, bloodied body, she pulled it closer into his and tucked her head against his chest. Ame's lips quivered, for she would have normally nipped fondly to the pale fur she found there, but she had nothing left to give in that moment. She could only let her eyes shut and a tired, shuddering breath come to pass.