Fox's Glade Seafoam Eyes said, "The water's safe"

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Etienne wandered aimlessly for a bit. He always returned, but where was homw now? @Anselm his companion again, but the mountain born was fighting his own battles. Battles Etienne couldn't help with.

@Cambria had left. Claiming he had no love to government in any capacity. Because he was scared. And did not want that pain.

But where did that leave Eti? Eti who had lost his mother, his sisters, his auntie, his baby siblings? Eti who had been too late to save those he loved more than his own life? Eti whose sister left him when she had made him promise time and time again to never leave. And yet she had. Where did that leave him?

It seemed to Anselm that wherever he went, trouble followed.

When he'd first joined their pack in the bypass, Etienne had been happy; or at least happier. But one thing lead to another; the pack imploded, a girl got hurt, a child got lost, he'd hurt Heda, Heda hurt him, Druid got rabies, and oh yeah, Heda had fucking died.

He swallowed stiffly as he trailed after Etienne, lost in his own thoughts just as much as the seaborn was. Maybe it was him; a black talisman collecting bad luck wherever he went - because now, Etienne was truly unmoored -- a man without a family, a sister, mothers, nothing.

Eti, Anselm cleared his throat, knowing the seaborn was deep in thought.

Etienne did not blame this on Anselm. He did not blame it on himself. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried bad things happened.

His family lived dangerously. Frankly, his mother's, grandmother's, sisters. Their want to keep men out of their lives only when breeding. That bred a naivety that they had learned the hard way was not good. And men you did not know, but spent nights with grew possessive. So he lay blame solely at the feet of those who had hurt them and fate.

Etienne had not been happy in a very long time. Even qhen he had joined the pack of Anselm's father. He had been running. Running hard.

Eti turned golden gaze on white patterned face. Ear turned upwards in hearing. A rare vulnerable look on his gentle face. Would Anselm leave him too? Could he let him? Or would he do the faux pas and beg him not to leave him like everyone else did. Would Etienne finally break. And it was unfair. Unfair to lay his happiness at the feet of another. But Etienne no longer knew what to do.

Just looking at those sad eyes moved Anselm in a way no soul had moved him before. Nausea and grief both cut at his throat, while shame shouldered past and set its cold grip on his heart. 

He wanted to ask ‘are you okay?’ - he wanted to be the man Etienne needed in that moment. But Anselm was a weak man, his constitutional spine contorted by his own bigoted hang ups. Men were not to talk of such things or show softness.

Clearing his throat, Anselm gilded right over what should have been said and instead roved into a mental thorny wildnerness he wished he’d never stepped foot in. Ve should get you some food.

Bone crushing, heart rending relief. It stole his breath away. For a moment Anselm had stared at him. He had not given comfort nor asked for it. And Etienne had held his breath. He had thought for sure that the mountain born would wipe his paws of the trouble that the sea always brought. The curse that lay heavy on Eti like a cloak.

Instead he offered food. He didn't offer what Etienne needed, but it was enough. It was something. It was more than he had. It was a small pairing of hope. It was something.

I is not 'ungry. But I will eat. He almost added for you, but he swallowed those words. He stuffed them down, down until there was no semblance they even almost existed. But he held them there with the barest of the hope he had been given.

Perhaps providing food was as altruistic as Anselm could be. A hug provided no sustenance for the belly, a warm look prolonged no moment from death. 

He wished he was less brittle a person as he strode by, one ear turned towards the lilt of Etienne’s voice. Would he ever tire of such melody? 

Unaware of the ‘for you’ nearly tacked onto the seaborn’s words, yet cognizant of something unsaid between them, Anselm dropped his head in favor of detecting scents.

Whatever they hunted and killed would be together; and while that was not enough to heal the wounds of loss, or pave over the gaping hole in Etienne’s life, it was something.

And sometimes something, however small, was enough.  

would u like to fade for an utd one?<3

Etienne had learned early that Anselm only gave what he could. And often that was a meal, a place to lay your head. Butcould he blame him, the man who carried heartbreak almost as closely as Etienne himself. What a pair the two were.


He would follow. He would chase and he'd force the food down hia gullet despite that he would rather throw it up. But he would do it.