Stone Circle revenio

maybe @Tauris? <3

afternoon stretched in bitter shimmering waves through the land of kvarsheim.

germanicus had gone to ground; he had found a small pool and rolled his withers in its mud, as much for the biting insects as for the coolness of the wet soil against his skin.

and he would not think about moss.

he folded himself into the shadow of a low ridge which faced away from the brunt of the sunlight, meaning to doze until the day had lost its flame and he might hunt again.

and he would not think of crowfeather.

germanicus shut his eyes, even as his heartbeat tripped faster and he knew no respite would come.

<33

He looks first to be sleeping when she comes upon his enclosed shadow- but there is a restlessness conveyed in the shut of his eyes, a static that warps the aura around even the stillness of him. And she would feel guilty for her intrusion if she could not see it; if she did not know this sensation so well herself.

So instead of retreating, as perhaps she should have to allow the man whose repsite was earned lay, she chanced forward.

“You are sweet with Skáld,” she comments softly first, assessing his reaction to her unsolicited company before lifting into a following step.

Then with a swift, almost shy conjecture that would have been withheld from the tongue of a wiser wolf: “You intrigue me, Germanicus.”

for a long moment the roman's yellowpaint eyes only took tauris in, devoid once more of the sungold glimmer he experienced only with crowfeather.

there was no breeze to stir her moonsilver cheeks, but knowing eyes watched him out of her earthshadow face.

germanicus had come alert, not rising but with the air of a sentry. now he spread the scarred dustiness of his paws akimbo.

"ask me, tauris."

and perhaps another time he might have been less forthcoming, but there was no longer anything to veil. the eagle, plucked bare.

The sin is her’s, another lapse in judgment to seat herself near instead of honoring his privacy. And he looks like a man with plenty of that- honor.

But mostly…he looks lonely. Like it’s an ancient trait; a lifetime spent outrunning demons in seclusion, and another yet to follow. And even as he raises his eyes, inlaid with a deep gold that must have shown furiously once, he is afflicted.

And she cannot help to ask why.

“The valley has a lot to say about you,” she admits, though he tolerates her questions. She hardly needs to preface. His void-eyes tell her as much.

“I hear you’ve a mate, a Star of the Riverclan… Your son is healed. Your debt to Gunnar- is it not paid?”

“Yet, you remain. Why, Germanicus?”

Instead of running to something- was he running from it?

"because i have ruined most of what i have touched."

his inability, the touch of a woman's heart.

his unsurety, her pain to bear.

his betrayal, born in another land.

"my son and i were estranged until he was injured. i destroyed my second marriage for the one i love."

voice paced; careful; the melancholia drifting in sunmotes to the curious eyes and the unjudging tone: a soldier removing his worn helmet in the presence of a noble.

"i keep to ranging for it is what i know, and where my skills lie." not in fatherhood. not in marital bond. 

it would be easier perhaps, to die, to spare crowfeather the hunger in the eagle's heart that was never filled.

So there is the truth. He is a man who believes himself beyond fixing. Who the valley has forgiven, but who condemns himself. Who makes mistakes and outruns them. Who works hard for his mate, but not with him.

And for love… well isn't that when one does the unthinkable?

She wishes she could convince him life is not war.

“I think everyday I become more a fool," she murmurs. Especially as of late. "But I don’t think Skáld sees me as that.” A little closer she pads, into his pool of shadow now, hiking her shoulders up as she does so.

“You have been good to Kvarsheim. For what it’s worth, I look at you and I see an honorable man. Whatever it is you’ve done, I wish you could forgive yourself.”

raising the dullcoin shimmer of his eyes to tauris as she came near, germanicus felt the urge to laugh, to dissuade her.

to tell her of moss, that his mate was in riverclan and his children would be at the creek.

that he was not a father, scarcely a man, no longer a soldier — that he existed on technical and ancient mores and that the world around germanicus had outgrown him and his selfishness.

now; a muscle, leaping along his jawline, clenched until it smoothed into submission. tauris did not know the half of what he had done or what sort of mistakes continued to be his legacy.

she saw honor for it was how he held himself. the eagle no longer believed himself to be that individual or capable of reaching such a threshold.

a flash to raise the sodden fire in his gaze; moisture beneath one eye and then it was gone in a single tiny rivulet which cut a dark valley across his cheek. "then you understand that i must remain worthy of your forgiveness, and of your regard."

hers? that of kvarsheim? germanicus said no more.

He bleeds and she does little beyond ache for him.

She will say nothing. Her words are inane. She is an inconsequential, tender-footed girl in one phase of this wanderer’s life. But if there is any solace at all to offer, it is in hope that there are echoes of shared memories, that before all this pain began, he too had been a child once.

So she raises her muzzle and into his raven fur presses a kiss upon the single tear that evanesces along his cheek. Then for a long moment she sits with Germanicus, listening to the distant stirrings of nightjars as the sun sinks towards a blue range.

“You always have a home here.”
She murmurs finally, rising.

"But… life is long. I do not think it needs to be lonely, too.”

"suppose being alone is what i am skilled at?" not a jest, not truly; it would fall flat as a joke. 

suppose his heart could take loneliness no longer, but it was the binding tie between he and sanity.

and his pulse; it galloped; he felt himself careen headlong into the hunger for touch that expected nothing.

beneath her kiss, she would feel him tense, his nostrils flare slightly. this denial, unbending. 

there is no home for me, the roman wished to say, but the words did not come for he would not wound another.

instead, gratitude at last splintered across his countenance, and he looked away as guilt curdled in his gut.

She sees for a brief moment the absolute truth of his world. That time is borrowed and so are the eyes which sorrow it.

And if it is truly only the road:

“Then… maybe that is just enough. Knowing he is alive and well nearby, and that today you are both walking around in the same sun.”

She steps from him, with a sweep back over her shoulder.

“Germanicus, take care of yourself.”

<3

forgiveness was for those redeemed in battle or deed.

he had not killed the witch for aquillius.

and he had not kept to his own laws and own loves.

"i am blessed each day i know he lives," the eagle murmured, and stood to attention as the warrior-wolf bid him well.

"be well, tauris."