Stavanger Bay I know what they say, I know that they say that no one dies from love

Whenever you have time <3

When Reverie parted from Bridget's company, she went first to Blossom. She pulled her into a brief hug, kissed her on the head, and murmured, Maybe we'll go on a trip soon. Maybe we'll go see your uncle Everett, If he even wanted to see her — but perhaps he would see Blossom, at least, who had done nothing wrong.
Then — reluctantly, tiredly, she went to @Lestan. I saw another healer, Reverie announced in her quiet way. She said she can help me. Her eyes were still warm with love when she looked at him, but nothing more, and she did not look at him nearly so often as she once had. Even at the height of her activity, constantly fluttering in and out of pack territory, it had always been in orbit of him — but now...
It was the little things, mostly, that were missing. Or maybe not so much missing as redirected; now it was Blossom she fussed over, Blossom always in her thoughts and in every word she spoke, and there was a comfort in this because she knew that her daughter would never reject her the way Lestan had. It had been easy, in the end, to do as her husband asked of her. He'd made it easy.
For this small kindness, she was gentle with him. Her name is Bridget, and she seemed confident, But then, so had Kukutux, hadn't she? Reverie was uncertain — but she wouldn't let Lestan see that. She only let the words hang in the air for a moment before, inevitably, she turned the conversation toward their daughter. I've been thinking - if it helps, maybe we can take Blossom on a trip soon. Not far. I think she'd like to see what it's like outside the Bay. Reverie cast a faint smile in Blossom's direction.

they remained fractured, the little family beside the sea. at times, lestan joined his wife and daughter adjacently; he kept the caches stocked with seafood buried in cool sand, or brought polished stones and glittering shells up for the girl. a sand dollar, large as his paw, turned up also in the place where his mate slept.
once — twice — lestan caught himself consumed by the urge to turn toward reverie in the night, to seek her warmth and reassure her in the wordless dance of love that had always lit them both to flame.
but while the thought had done much to light his mind with want and his heart with fervency, his body continued its silent rebellion, not an ember but ashen remnants swept from a fireplace.
it was too shameful then, to know he would only be a disappointment in this as well. a true husband brought satisfaction and contentment to his wife. lestan had brought neither for a long time.
and today, his attentions were turned out to sea, toward the island where the four children had been taken. the things he had said! the coldness in his spirit! lestan hated himself for the willingness of killing which had come upon him, and blamed the fever, the french cat, when all the while such livid seeds were his birthright.
reverie brought hope. the mayfair tore his eyes from the shoreline. "that's good," he said with quiet encouragement, needing the love in her gaze. "what, uhum, did bridget say? will you be going to her now?" to blossom he looked now, and nodded, a small wan smile playing over his mouth. "yes. maybe one of the beaches. or inland a little." but firstly, this healer. "i-i'm glad you found someone, reverie. glad you w-want to keep seeing her."

She felt... very calm; whatever Bridget had given her was taking effect more fully now, it seemed, and Reverie was far too familiar with the effects of medicine to overlook even this subtle change. In a way it was a relief, but she did not like it. The healer had said nothing about this. But it made it easier to deal with the hurt she always felt when she spoke to Lestan, and so Reverie decided to only be grateful for it.
Still, she never knew how to act around him anymore. She was his wife in title only, it felt, and sometimes she wondered if she even wanted that anymore. There was love here, surely, but so much hurt too; so much resentment and guilt, seemingly in equal measure. He had brought those children to her only to threaten them, to threaten her with them — and she'd said such terrible things to him...
She said... she thinks it's a kind of rejection. Either an infection, or my body fighting itself, Reverie answered a little distractedly, gaze still lingering on Blossom. She was silent for a time, but eventually her eyes found Lestan again. She gave me something already. Turmeric, chamomile, ginger.
I thought maybe she could stay here, with us. If that's okay with you. I told her I'd have to ask you first, It was his home too, after all. But Reverie hardly wanted to linger on this; how could he feign interest in curing her when he'd cast aside the last opportunity they'd had? Against her wishes, no less. Her eyes found Blossom again. It was only for her that she searched for a cure now. Reverie didn't want to die, but she'd never really been afraid of it; she'd only ever feared being parted from Lestan. Now she would do as she'd planned when she'd first laid eyes on Blossom. She would raise her, and then she would rest.

reverie was far calmer, distant since their argument. she was not so desperate nor frenetic, her focus turned almost singularly on blossom.
as lestan had wanted.
and if he was honest even with his very self, he had meant the words: he did not want to carry such weight for anyone, for blossom, for reverie. or confounded him that she would end her life if he left, and that sensation would have plagued lestan had they been childless.
did she want the same of him? to know if she took a final breath, he must also?
the idea of being without her tightened his chest in the beginnings of panic. "of c-course she can stay. we have the space. uhum, we could make her a pallet here," by the door, "or r-really she could choose wherever."
infection. rejection. lestan was so desperately focused on the prospect of hope that this illness, this curse, could be lifted from reverie that he didn't stop one moment to think how awkward it would be to have a new pair of eyes watching how shattered their marriage seemed to be.

Reverie nodded, her eyes still lingering on Blossom, but she was thinking now of Rose. The first sun of her life; the first great loss she'd experienced, the first time she'd ever truly wanted to die. That day in the cave had not been the first time, after all. How could it have been? She had known for a very long time what that hopeless feeling was like, what it could do to someone; the way it twisted everything into cruel shapes and deadened every nerve.
Rose had not left her by choice, but through death. It had hurt less, somehow, than losing Lestan. Her gaze flitted away from Blossom, out to the sea, and the hurt crept into her expression as it sometimes did. She turned her thoughts toward the trip she hoped to take soon, but it hardly helped. Perhaps they'd visit the burned forest, see the flowers there. Maybe they would find a treasure to take home; Blossom was gathering quite the collection via her doting parents, it seemed. Reverie, who had never been allowed such frivolous things as a child, found great joy in giving her daughter this experience. There was jealousy in it too, though rarely; sometimes she found herself running a paw over a certain sand dollar and wondering what it might be like if she had gone to see Ashlar, after all.

lapsing into another silence, reverie's focus visibly dropped from lestan or their conversation. his gaze tightened but he turned it resolutely on their playful daughter, who each day grew into a more well-rounded individual despite the fact her father was an absolute failure of a —
"i shouldn't have brought them, or told you i-i would leave," lestan murmured in a tone only for reverie to hear. "i'm sorry. a-and i don't expect any sort of answer, now or later. i just wanted you to know i was wrong."
the great quiet became his own peace, husband and wife sitting alongside one another, watching waves, watching the miracle of their household, watching everyone but one another.

She had done so well; she had avoided letting him see the full extent of her grief, though she knew he sensed her distance. But now Lestan had soft words for her, apologies for all the wrong things. I don't want to be the reason you live; was it wrong of her to be so hurt?
It just didn't make sense to her.
Reverie had never tried to hide it. At every crossroads she chose Lestan, for every horrible offense she forgave him, and rarely had she gone against his word when it was spoken. These were things she'd done for love of him, for devotion, and he had accepted it readily enough. How could he expect to hold such power over her with none of the responsibility, none of the burden? How could he expect her to love him so wholly that she would gaze unblinking into his rage, into his murderous hatred for children, for babies, and still love him, without needing him too? Lestan's decisions, throughout their relationship, had forced her to part from her beliefs, the goodness she tried to nurture in herself in spite of unforgiving conditions; her anchor to this world in absence of Rose. She could have been okay with that, and had been, once.
Reverie's gaze turned back to her husband slowly in the wake of his words, but she could not seem to find her own. She only looked at him for a long moment, and finally started to cry, and then the tears turned to sobs and she was burying her face in her forelegs and trying desperately to stifle them. But she couldn't stop. She trembled, and curled in on herself, and wished that Lestan would just — leave. As he'd tried to do so many times already.

but lestan did not want to leave; his arms trembled as she wept and at last he wrapped them around her, eyes moistening; if he was rebuffed he meant to keep vigil at her side; if she rose and left, he would helplessly follow, at a distance.
something was broken.
suddenly he longed so fiercely for natigvik and the river that his heart felt fit to burst; he did not join her cries, but kept his own stifled, nosing through the fur of her shoulder, pressing as close as reverie would allow as in his ignorance of how he had inflicted a true pain — as that calamitous chasm he had opened between them — as these things kept him from seeing and he only searched, reaching, grasping.

She was broken. A broken creature who could only ever offer a broken love, a stilted love; one Lestan would not accept now that he saw that it was more than just folded corners and torn edges, that it was thrice-shattered and awkwardly mended with something sticky and noxious, the kind of love that could only cling and burn like tar.
Reverie did not pull away from his touch. She let him hold her, and she let herself think that maybe one day this too could be fixed. She did not allow herself to wonder what it would look like then, how the glass shards might fit when pieced together anew. If they were lucky, perhaps the light would catch them in a new way, and they might relearn how to find beauty in one another. Or maybe — maybe their love was so broken now that any mending would only muddy it, and no light would ever shine through their marriage again.
She didn't know; she had a feeling it would be a long time before she did.