Sunset Valley seltsam
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Ooc — ebony
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#1
All Welcome 
an ice-carved valley stood sentinel between the bracken forest and the lands leading to the peak.
it was a place he had once thought to bring his children to hunt while sagtannet stood, but he tore his mind fiercely from that point.
for some inexplicable reason, he thought of @Ketzia in the cold afternoon, drifted softly by silkfluff snowflakes. his figure moved boldly through the valley; mahler neither sought prey nor a trail, only moved with an utter blankness to his silvering features as he thought upon diaspora and all that had gone to the grave with stigmata.
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#2
Her exotic muzzle leant forward, brazen as she nosed to the gentle touch of crimson that drifted upward to mar her pale pelt. The travel between the shore and the taiga in the bitter winter had brought the realization that soon she would need to make a decision on where she would invest herself to the winter—a brazen move to check on her friend had lured her from the oceanside, though not without the drifting thought to the shadowblade that had come upon her path.

Tongue sweeping out to soothe the minor sting, the she-wolf gave a flick of her ear, glittering gem eyes glancing up to note a stoical figure in the distance—one that seemed achingly familiar and stirring her head to lift, openly watching.
...you should see me in a c r o w n
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#3
he thought of the children that had been born to his kill-brother, how he had silently admired stigmata's virile claim to the sunspire. it had been a mistake, however, to lie to himself and to all else so that he might achieve the same. for the ironwolf had left too great a harsh stamp upon the heart of diaspora with his passing.
melancholy rising to swaddle his stare as he shifted it to a pale outline broken by the gentle snowfall.
familiarity blooming; mahler did not trust it, could not trust it, not when his heart had been so laid beneath a carved stone altar to wither slowly into ash.
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#4
Darkness draped the pelts of many--and yet it was the rugged manner in which the wolf held himself that drew her closer. The stir of nostalgia usually led to disappointment within the woman's breast, yet as the distance between them was lessened, it was those eyes that captured her, stealing her breath and curving a smile to the corners of her mouth. 

He was different--something about the way he held himself, but she dared not guess why. Concern would have marred her fair features, but she kept it beneath the surface of her curiosity, crooning a growl to him as she moved closer, her muzzle canting as her gaze swept over him. I kept running into your pack mates, but always seemed to miss you, she murmured, stilling now a pace before him, uncertain what distance to maintain.
...you should see me in a c r o w n
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"i am scarce as of late." why had she come? the nature of the past coldness inside sagtannet, and then rivenwood — it had inserted suspicion into the gargoyle. yet his eyes were warmer as he looked upon her, and he stepped somewhat closer.
"so you have been to rivenvood." he had not been near enough to hear her call, and wondered why nothing had been said. "it is not diaspora," and here a fractal of pain filled his expression; he glanced into the distance and was silent, lavender stare eventually traveling back to her.
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#6
Broken. A fallen creature—a soul lost. She could have placed such words upon each of them—the survivors of Diaspora. Scattered like ash to the wind now, a reiteration of such brought to the man’s lips when he spoke of his current claim.

A light frown washed over the delicate features of the lissome woman—glittering eyes sharp upon him as she took in the ragged man she knew so well and yet so very little. “I don’t seek Diaspora,” she answered simply, the lash of her tail given, her gaze avoiding the looming peaks of the mountain and the ghost of a buried love.

There was something haunting within his expression at his words—it pulled her to close more distance between them, the warmth that radiated from his hardened body stirring a shiver from the honey and ivory she-wolf—she had missed him, though could not openly express it. Had it been a mistake to leave? Her children thrived—and yet Mahler’s role within their lives had been left without the praise it deserved.

“Come,” was the croon she gave, wrapping herself to him in the embrace of a hug and familiarization—as if she could somehow warm the frigidness within his very stance. What had happened in her absence?
...you should see me in a c r o w n
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#7
come, she bid, and after a moment's resistance, mahler allowed himself to be held.
a shuddering rush of breath outward; he sagged against ketzia, wending her closer for the sheer fact that he had been starved for an affectionate touch.
"vhere did you go?" he asked faintly, echoing something he would in the time to come ask thade. 
the last they had met; he thought guiltily of it, for any woman's nearness crossed over what he felt for wylla. it seemed a betrayal. improper.
and so at last he broke their connection, but hovered close in the shared warmth between their wintertime pelts. "did you find your happiness, ketzia?"
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#8
He melded to her—the warmth of him pressed against her soothing her, if only momentarily, as she took in the familiar scent of the healer. Mahler, in many ways, was home, just as much as her children were. Land did not hold her heart—simply her kith and kin—a lesson only now truly learned and grasped.

“Not far,” she murmured, muzzle pressed to his nape and shoulder, relishing in the comfort he offered. A touch that had incited passion, certainly, but also one that brought a certain safety. “We claimed a small grove just outside the valley… I left my children in charge of it.” She paused, amusement flickering in her chest. “Breeding season… I didn’t want to cramp their style.”

Yet she missed them dearly. When she returned to visit—would she be a grandmother? The thought seemed an odd concept to the woman.

When he pulled back, glittering green eyes searched his own lilac, his question loaded in so many ways. “Define happiness,” she whispered, keeping the downturn of her lips from brandishing the world with any of her disappointment.
...you should see me in a c r o w n
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#9
the last time mahler had seen ketzia, they had come together in some dance-step of mutual desperation, winding flesh with pain until they passed beyond the edges of one another. and as she rested so close in an intimate lightness, the gargoyle was reminded of that time again.
she, bound to her love for stigmata, driven out of the mountains that had only ever brought her pain;
he, bound to his ambition and resolve to continue the name of the ironwolf ever fast and ever forward.
something prickling beneath the spread of his hackles;
he grasped the end of what she was saying; her children, building their own empire, perhaps filled with the same powerful pride that had marked their father. and she, come to wander alone while they birthed their own populace. life moving on. inexorable as he was bound to the roots of his own inability to evolve.
"is there still sadness in your heart?" he clarified, knowing there would be but meaning to hope that ketzia was now unbowed beneath the weight of her former sorrows.
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#10
She paused, considering his words. The ease of the normal lie was ready upon her tongue—I’m fine, she could say. Had said. Always, always said.

But this was Mahler. She did not need to protect him, as she did her trio of now-grown children. Her smile waned—a certain flash of understanding within her emerald gaze as she looked to him.

“There will always be a lingering sadness there,” she determined, her voice a gentle whisper as her tongue smoothed over her lips in pensive consideration. “But each day there is more clarity. And with it, light.”

To further this, she finally spoke the one dark thought that clung to her heart—a truth she could see more so with each passing day. “I don’t know that Stigmata would ever have been able to be the mate I so desperately wanted then—needed then. Not without taming the wildness in him—and reflecting on it now… I would never want to change him. Not truly.”

She hushed out the last thought, the ‘what if’s’ hanging throughout the air heavily—never to be answered, as the man’s final place lay within the depths of the mountain. What more could there possibly be to say?
...you should see me in a c r o w n
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#11
"alvays is a heavy vord, ketzia."
his voice was a gentle warning against the great changes that could come to her. would come to her, more than she had surmounted thus far. such was the nature of living, and they were subject to the whims nature set beneath that boundary.
a growing desire soon choked by shame, shame that mahler should want to use and give himself to be used, chasing away the clinging shroud of memories borne for a long-dead man.
always stigmata in his head, and mahler realized that perhaps he had lied.
it bore a weight but certain things would forever be the bruised place within him that had never healed upon losing their ironwolf.
"in the end i could not embody his spirit the vay that i vanted," mahler said softly, admitting the truth of it in an instance. "he vas a proud and feral man until his last day."
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