Whitefish River this is how we heal:

@Bercingetorix. Week of the 27th
lmk if the date needs changing ❤️ vague

When she wasn’t cloistered away with her daughter, or mooning after Kaisteloki’s impermissible garden, the silver could be found here.

Here, in this cave;
It wasn’t the cave that Tux had brought her to; it wasn’t cave in which her own hunter had made them his conquest; it wasn’t the cave of stars — as if the world had kept them stilled, suspended. Waiting. It wasn’t the one that she’d wished to show her beloved, and then their children, once upon a dream. But it was dream wouldn’t ever come to fruition, now; not when Silvertip’s menagerie had been so irrevocably blighted.

These musings had murmured beneath the shadows of slumber and vigilance alike; if she could never bring her loves to that place as a gift for their arrivals into her heart, then may no wanderer find wonder there.

As Aurëwen awoke from another of her fitful reposes, it was to the shifting amber of early evening. With bleary wakefulness followed an inscrutable, sleepy compulsion; to lean against the dull quartz mouth and send out an airy, gentled beckon for Verx.

And whenever he arrived, she strode for him through the sun drenched grasses, staggering a little in her sleepiness. Aure was wordless, faltering—until she murmured a sand-soughing “...Trikova,” and lifting a  (tentative)  pink nose, wishing to touch some inked place upon his broad chest.
Tentative, because the three of them were so worn, and she didn’t quite know when to hold either of them, much less what to say.

But perhaps being here and there for another would be more of a balm than any words that could be bartered.

He came only because Aure would have the latest news on Dragomir. He feared the worst. But upon seeing her face, still pained but not panicked, he relaxed a fraction, though dread remained in his stomach. Verx bore her touch, settling down on his haunches with a rattling sigh, staring at some invisible point past her slender shoulder.

The brute was silent for a moment, chewing his words before he spat them out, slowly.

How is he? Vercingetorix asked, nodding toward the direction where his -- their -- son lay. He must be fine, otherwise there would be much ado around the site.

Well. . .relatively fine. Would Drago ever be fine again?

In a voice gentle and weary and wisping: “He needs light, dragă. He needs to heal beneath ze sun, so there is warmth in his bones,” not a note of petulance to be found in her own helpless exasperation: thin shoulders wilting, riddled crown lolling on a thinner neck. And then, she suddenly detested the one they conversed before, “they cannot keep him in their caves,” shearing a scathing, frigid glower to all those unassuming, refracted, glimmering quartz cusps. “They cannot.”

But what sway did she hold in Kaisteloki, to change what the riverlands’ herbalists did here? All the silver had proven thus far was that she was a petrified, ungovernable mother — and so her grievances sifted into her eyes in the form of furious tears. When she spoke once more, still turned from Verx’s eyes, her chords were choked, albeit low, quiet. 

“It will take a moon for his body to realign,” an absent, erratic shiver ebbing through her once, twice, “and another, and perhaps another, when he has ze strength to walk, to—” before settling on the faintest quivers to ruffle her pale hide, “to return to what he adores doing. ...All we can do is wait. Wait, and guide him. Guide ourselves.” And even then, there was no telling how Dragomir would metamorphosed.

A shivery, thin breath had the silver returning her attentions to her inked guardian, eyes gleaming and wide as moonstones set into her scarred face. “Dragă,” Aure began — but her throat constricted, cutting off everything she didn’t know to say. So she sat there, foolishly inarticulate, and only looked from him once more.

His brows furrowed tight together as he glanced at her, frowning. He's still in there? he asked, a growl building in his throat. I thought he might have been able to be moved. I was with him, outside. . . He thought of his visits with his son, but cast the image aside -- it was too painful. Too painful to think about Dragomir, so broken.

His breath caught in his throat as Aure described the long road to recovery. This was on him. Drago lay shattered because of him. And it was on him to both right the wrong against his son, and to prevent it from happening again.

Right?

I'm going to find who did this, Vercingetorix vowed, his voice full of quiet venom. I'd say I'll kill them, but. . .no. No, I'll make them wish they were dead. I'll make them suffer, for a very long time. There were no qualms in saying this. As easy-going as he could be, there was a streak of cruelty in the warrior brought out only by injustice. He would use that cruelty to his advantage.

Silence fell around them, save for the crickets, the gentle whisper of the nearby river. I don't know when I'll go, Verx said after a moment, but it needs to be soon. Before their scents leave the cave.

“Den gyon au, ai trikova.”

Her moonbow jaw quivered — at the implications, the vexation of his parting from them — and made her next words delicate. But they were not without her own tormented, viperish taint as she went on, “And when you make them as affrighted of you as our son is of them, when you give them the deaths they don’t deserve,” somnolent, lurking fury tousling her ruff, “return to us.”
To me. But it was too selfish to add that. Not when she must stay by their children’s sides as their father strode the path to vengeance.

And yet, Aure so pined to follow; to revel in the unmaking of those who had brought her family misery.

“Here we are again,” she murmured, then, more to herself than to her beloved, “plotting to do away with those who’ve wronged us,” her mind threading faraway to her spring revelation to Verx of the Dreadwolf. Of his doings to her brother, and to her. The ‘mares had dimmed, but in the wake of their son’s trials, they’d... 

The herbalist stood to attention, suddenly, hoping the movement rid the prolonged shiver from her doe-thin figure. With a turn to Vercingetorix and an appeasing wriggle of thin shoulders, “At least, let me make a poison?” A faux-plea in the form of honeyed words, more for his benefit than hers — always — as she teased and lilted and entreated, “Beja? Bejaaa? Jos gon yu.”

Then reiterating, with a sly smirk through her sweet lil murder mama façade, “Os, gon emo,” in a devious drawl.

She gave him her blessing. Not that he needed it; not that he'd sought it out. But it made things that much easier. He hoped the trip would be short, that he could return as soon as possible --

Of course I'll come back, he shot back, frowning. I've done too much running away. I'll take care of this, and then. . . What? Where would they go? Stay here, in Kaistleoki, much too close to Rusalka for comfort? And yet, he didn't want to uproot his children again.

He managed a weak smirk at her query in jest, shrugging. Like I could stop you, he drawled. If I've learned anything about you, bounkola, it's that you're unstoppable when your mind's made up. Stubborn. I've never figured out whether I love or hate that about you. Probably both.

That was Aure -- myriad contradictions. But at the end of the day, she was the mother of his children, and she would always be close to his heart for that. No matter the arguments, no matter the missteps.

They'll suffer for it, Aure, Verx murmured. I'm more sure of that than anything else in my entire life. Anything less than grievous punishment was yet another failure to add to his resume.

Goddamn him!
When his first words of wit returned to her, Aurëwen only simpered elfin up at him, lashes fluttering faux innocent; but then he mellowed once more, remarked on her character, went on length— and it all threatened to unmake her, and the spriteful guise she’d put on play for both their sakes. “Careful, niron,” she murmured  (the first she’s dared to say it in a tongue he understood!)  eyes softened with a tenderness that seeped through her impish façade, anyways. “You haven’t seen how stubborn I may be. Yet.”

And then to her mind came Verx’s comment — praise? no — and the little poltergeist grin returned to her lips once more. “We need to prepare you, soldier. I do not know where you go first, but...” This time, however, it was shadowed by something pensive; the workings of the labyrinth within the mind of her enigmatic self. So her half-sight returned to the quartz cavern at their backs, and when the smile returned yet again, she hummed, “...What if they lurk in Silvertip’s depths?”

For a moment, the silver gave pause; scar-tissuey lips parting wordlessly as she gazed upon Verx a bit listlessly, making herself sure that this would work in his favor. “You need as every bit of a chance you can attain,” came her own words, a bit thick and trodden with thought. Then— “I will hide myself from you, and you will seek me out.” Her lilting, imperfectly-roughened timbre brooked for no argument. 

“Pretend that I am one of them; that I lie in wait, knowing you’ve come after me; knowing you mean to find me at all cost.” Gray eyes silvered and agleam with that stubbornness he so loved to hated, hated to love. But Aure couldn’t afford to let solemnity draw them back from this opportunity — whatever it was. She didn’t know.

Yet Aurëwen knew that she loved the inked male before her; and so she would do what she believed she could not only to support him, but to help coax out the most agreeable outcome to his vengeance, and to ease the anguish of their children altogether.
And she didn’t even realize it, in this moment. 

“I will give you twenty heartbeats, and then you may pursue me,” the herbalist trilled, stepping back back back with easy, languorous steps to the mouth of the cavern. “Or, fifteen beats, if you’re feeling daring, solider,” with another simper; but as she came to a halt before the dim quartz palace, Aure took a try at her beloved’s laid-back, crass drawl: “You... you game, or wh-what?”

Feeling ridiculous for it, and probably sounding as such; but perhaps that was just what they both needed, presently.

Niron.

He froze, stiffening, staring at her. Again, and still, she fancied themselves. . .star-crossed lovers? Soulmates? And again, he felt helpless, put in the position to explain to her that any love he once might have felt had waned, and might not ever return. Their relationship had been built on lust -- heady stuff, sure, but nothing he'd describe as love.

No, he loved his children only, and perhaps select members of the family he'd never see again, and as she teased --

Prepare me? Vercingetorix shot back at last, emerging from his stupefied state. He meant the remark to be light-hearted, but there was acid in it he couldn't bury. You do realize I've trained as a warrior since I was this small, right? he continued, holding up one paw, toes splayed, in illustration. Funny that you think you're up for the challenge of preparing me.

There was the anger, now, all of the rage he felt for his bad decisions, hers, the horror of Drago's injuries. . . No, I'm not game, the brute spat, ears flattening. I'm going to go find the monster that nearly destroyed our son, and I'm going to rip them apart. And I'll do so without any sort of preparation, whatsoever, because that's what I've been trained to do and that's what I was born to do. To kill, Aure. To fucking kill.

He began to stalk away, shoulders hunched, before turning back to stare at her with eyes much closer to fire than ice. Give up on me, Aurëwen, Verx said. You deserve better than someone who will never love you the way you want.

Exit scene.

last post yee haw

That hadn’t been what she’d intended. The word had wisped from her without thought. 
This.. hadn’t been what she’d meant to bring about. At all.

She lingered there with a smile, as usual, but when he went on and on and on, it faltered into an inescapable frown. And when he looked at her with flame in his eyes, she’d gone stricken, the color of wax.

All she said to his wishes, like the fool she was? “No.” Then: 
“You are not a game to me. You never were. Tell me how else to help you, how to know you, because I do not know how! It does not matter that you will never love me ze way I want — you love our children, and that is more than I could ask for.” Was it? “I cannot ask you to love me! And each time I think we grow together, I— I say ze most ridiculous things. I ruin us.”
She would open her ridiculous, scarred mouth and send whatever progress they’d made into shambles. “Forgive me.”

Once, in midwinter, he’d told her that he must come to her — and in this moment where her mind craved for his and her heart thrummed for him and her blood murmured for his, it was his choice. And he was walking away. Still: 
Aurëwen wanted to know him; she wanted to know the shadows in his eyes when they spoke of battle; she wanted to know each and every part of him as intimately as she believes she knows herself.
And she wants to know how he is, and how deep his anguish went. She wanted to know if it was as unforgiving as her own self-loathing was. She wanted to know how to soothe him.

She was not merely his friend  (still?)  and lover  (never again?)  and the mother of his children but she was his mate. Whether Verx ever wished to be hers by vocalization or never, they had made life and had raised it in this world, no matter their absences. They were bound by creation — and she was sure she wasn’tmistaken that he held her body and soul merely in his own scent.

At least, that was how she saw it.

But she only stood there, for the remainder of the heartbeats she’d originally proffered to him, 
“Until we meet again, Vercingetorix,” voice hoarse, strained.
And then, she receeded into the dark of the cavern, without another look or word.