Relm had been rather absent from the confines of the pack as of recently. It had been a few days since she had seen Merrick last and the few wounds she had were mostly superficial and easy to hide under her cloak. She had made her patrols and gone about her life like any day, that was easy for her. Though she had made an effort to keep herself out of pack lands after her patrols and waited for most everyone to be tucked away in their dens before she returned. As much as she told herself she was okay she didn’t want to be around anyone else more than usual. She wasn’t really avoiding Merrick or Alastor... it was really everyone.

She had made her way out to the lake, in a sense her place of comfort as odd as the land was tainted in her history. She didn’t feel any different... but she knew she was. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to her. She was asking for it too. And there was a part of her that wished she could have found a way to make it work with Merrick. There was something missing in her life and this was the only way she thought she could fill that, but she was wrong. And she’d keep doing it until she found it which may have never happened. She’d keep hurting herself time and time again, she had no limits.

As the sun had set pretty early given the winter months were now upon them, she waded out into the chilly water of the lake up to her stomach. Her cloak draped over her back as it always was. She looked down at her reflection as her mind went blank because even looking at herself was difficult for her. This was the life she had accepted.

"Relm"

Fall had fully shifted into winter in the northern territories of Boreas. The days grew shorter, the air colder, and every morning greeted the dawn with frost or a thin dusting of snow on the ground. Many of the birds native to Alias Island had begun to fly south to escape the cold, and soon the full brutality of winter would be upon them all. Alastor had occupied his days with Saracyn helping to keep their larders stocked and full in preparation for the harsher later season, as well as tending to Manea and their new daughter. But even with his preoccupations, it hadn't escaped his attention that Relm had been mostly absent from pack life. Every so often he would peek glimpses of the cloaked woman slipping off the island across the land bridge, but he never saw her return. Every time he went to check her den, it would be empty, though he knew she was returning sometime at night. The shift in her behavior worried him. Relm was a reclusive creature by nature, but even this seemed like an extreme avoidance of everything and everyone.

With preparations for Avacyn's festival all but completed, it afforded the black-furred dire a bit more free time. This evening, he decided to head across to the mainland to try and find Relm as she eventually came back home, hoping to intercept her to check and make sure she was all right. He was a bit concerned that he'd done something during their hunt together to turn her off from him, but for the life of him, couldn't think of what it could be. Twilight gripped the land by the time his paws touched the rocky shore of mainland Boreas, and it was soon growing dark by the time he'd scoured the Rock Garden. Relm was nowhere to be found in pack lands. Alastor pursed his lips in pensive thought, trying to suss out where she would have gotten to. After some time thinking, he turned in the direction of Firefly Lake, heading to where he had found the pink woman before.

Sure enough, his hunch had been correct. Coming up to the lake, he spotted the dark form of Relm beneath the moon and starlight wading slowly out into the water. He cocked his head; surely that water had to be freezing cold. This wasn't like before during the summer, when it was hot enough to justify the swim. What was she doing? Alastor prowled along the shore, making his way across the rocky ground until he came closer to where Relm stood in the shallow water. He didn't say anything while he waded out into the water with her, and while his height prevented the water from coming up quite as high on his body as it did hers, it was still frigid and biting cold, cutting through his fur like it wasn't even there. Relm would catch her death if she stayed out here for too long. Alastor remained quiet as he came up beside her, dark eyes scouring her face for some sort of reaction or explanation for her behavior. He fixed her with a confused look, waiting for her to fill in the blanks for him.

"Alastor"

Relm was partly aware of Alastor’s presence before he joined her in the water, but not fully until he had reached her side. Her cheek turned only slightly towards him as her eyes remained down in the water, catching the glimpse of his silhouette on the rippled surface of the lake. The lake was dark as winter grew over it, and the skies were gently scattered with clouds but she could still see it was him. She would always know.

Her long breath could be seen through the fog escaping her nose, she wasn’t feeling anxious but she didn’t want Alastor to know. He asked her without saying anything but she didn’t want him to know. She did remember that first time she had come back to the island when her virginity had been taken... she couldn’t imagine how he would react now. She would defend what had happened as she had before, and she would lock her lips from there. Even for Alastor, she couldn’t tell him.

With her gaze back forward and down at her own reflection, her paw raised up and played with the strings on her cloak, reminding herself of what she was hiding under there and just from the slight touch there under her throat she was sore from that too. She didn’t undress for him, she didn’t flinch from that small ache she felt from her paw pressing near the puncture wounds there. She went back still as she dropped her paw back into the cold water. "I shouldn’t be here." Not him, her. It was deeper than what she could have meant, just the lake. Maybe Alastor knew her enough to understand. She shouldn’t be here, she should be dead. And then she wouldn’t have worry about what she was feeling or have never experienced it to begin with. She was close to emotionless, but to him he may have known that hurt hidden under the surface. She was stuck somewhere that was unreachable to him. Her eyes closed as a neon tear dropped from her face and into the water. She couldn’t hide it.

"Relm"

Relm's subtle movements that acknowledged his presence would likely have been missed by many. Alastor noticed it though, a side effect from a lifetime of having to watch for subtle cues and body language just to stay alive. The turn of her cheek towards him, while wordless, greeted him as much as if she'd said the words herself. She did not though. Relm said nothing, simply staring down at her distorted reflection in the rippling black water. Alastor saw the tension in her rigid form, the unease and withdrawal within herself. Relm was keeping something tucked away inside. Alastor didn't pry—at least not right away. He watched Relm as she lifted a paw to fidget with the knotted strings of her cloak, but didn't let the fabric fall away from her like she had done with him before. She was hiding herself away again. Alastor's frown deepened, creases forming in his brow while he studied the young woman. What was she hiding from him?

Relm was the first to speak. The ebony and pink fae declared that she shouldn't be here. That could have multiple contexts given the history he knew of the Abraxas woman. She shouldn't be at the lake? She shouldn't be in Elysium? She shouldn't be with Alastor right now? She shouldn't be alive? Alastor reasoned that all four might have played a part in her statement, and yet all four were equally as wrong. Alastor strode through the icy water to draw closer to Relm, seeing the glowing pink tear fall from her silver eyes to vanish into the lake around her belly. "Neither should I," he agreed in his usual rumbling tones. A large paw lifted, water sluicing from his digits in tiny waterfalls while he reached towards her face with the intent to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Yet here we are." Alastor and Relm had the odds stacked against then since their birth. They had both defied them, thrived where they should have perished, pressed on when they should have broken. Relm was an incredibly strong fighter—which was why to see her in this state, Alastor knew something was terribly wrong. Somebody had hurt Relm, physically or emotionally.

Gazing down at Relm, Alastor frowned while he tried to look her over. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do so by moonlight, but he'd make due. The night was far easier on his melanistic eyes anyway. He didn't see anything immediately—which meant she was hiding any physical injuries beneath her cloak. "Show me." The dire brute gestured with his muzzle to her neck, where her paw had been rubbing and pressing just moments ago. Without waiting for her to do so herself, Alastor raised his paw and moved to grasp the strings of her cloak. He aimed to untie her cloak, just enough to let it fall down across her back and reveal her neck down to her upper chest. Something was bothering Relm and he would find out what it was and rectify it if he could.


"Alastor"

Relm could feel just how much Alastor understood her without him saying anything. Without even looking at him. She didn’t move away from him as he drew closer. It was hard for her to be like this just as simply as Alastor had thought, she was tough and it’s how she always wanted to perceive herself. It was easy for her to hide her true emotions but they were always there threatening her to come to the surface. Alastor would be... the only one to see her this way and to know of the harder parts of herself that she kept away.

Her eyes had been closed as he drew closer, just a bit of pale slits shown as he went to wipe her tears away. It was a feeling she had never know but in the attempt of shutting herself down she couldn’t fully live in this moment. He untied her cloak as he insisted, Relm only reached up gently to wrap one paw around his own. Not to stop him, but just to hold him there. "Please don’t say anything." it wasn’t about what he was going to find out, she was scared of how he would react. With a shuddered breath in, her sad and coarse eyes looked right up at his, "I love you Alastor." but without giving him really any time to respond to her, she dropped her gaze back to their paws where she pulled his over the two scabs surrounding her throat. With her same paw all she did was pull down one shoulder of her cloak. The healing nature of her wounds and really the fact that they weren’t all that bad made them blend in with both her fur and skin and the darkness under the moon. But if Alastor felt up above her shoulder there on her scruff he’d feel that rough patch from where Merrick held onto her. From that first time Irilyth gave her contraceptives she felt different in this nature with Alastor, and she knew it was different for him too.

It wasn’t just the physical marks on her, it wasn’t that at all actually. Someone had hurt her, it was herself. In her own mind at least. In a way she knew what she was doing to herself and only with her confession to Alastor did she really understand that hint of what she was missing in her life. She couldn’t have that though. If she couldn’t be with Alastor she couldn’t be with anyone. There was no one for her, as much as she wanted to make it work. Everything was piling on and around her all at once and it was starting to get difficult to feel herself.

"Relm"

Relm offered him no resistance as he reached for her cloak, one sharp claw hooking around the knot tied in it and swiftly tugging it loose. The strings fell away, and as the cloak began to slide down her shoulders, Alastor felt a damp paw catch his own. He peered back to Relm, gazing at her silently while she pleaded with him not to say anything. Then she looked up in his eyes and said that she loved him. Alastor felt what little parts of his heart that could still feel emotion ache. Not because he didn't feel the emotional connection between them also, but because he hadn't intended to bring these painful emotions to Relm. His heart and soul belonged to Manea; he could never offer them to her. But that didn't mean he didn't care for the pink fae any less because of it. Surely if there was anything he could call love left in his blackened heard and twisted soul, this was the closest thing to it, was it not?

"I love you too, Relm," said Alastor in his deep baritones that seemed to rumble as he spoke. He was still staring at her, but Relm had looked away already. It didn't bother him. What did bother him however was when Relm guided his paw to her throat, his paw pads grazing over the rough scabs on her neck where she had been bitten, and quite savagely. Like a strike of a match, Alastor's rage was incensed. Black eyes widened with a feral violence, ebony lips peeling away from sharp fangs in a silent snarl for a split second. Relm continued to reveal more of herself, moving her cloak aside for him. His paw trailed from her neck down over her shoulder, feeling similar healing scabs in long lines down her body—just like the ones he'd left on her a few seasons ago. He couldn't see them beneath her dark fur and the dim moonlight, but he sure as hell could feel them. His paws followed them up, running his digits through her thick scruff to find even more scabs in thicker clusters—healing wounds from teeth in her flesh. Someone had hurt Relm.

Alastor was glad he hadn't made a promise to not say anything, because he was definitely about to break it. "Who?" The singular word framed in a question was spoken through a barely contained growl. Alastor felt torn between a compulsive need to protect Relm from anyone and everyone who wanted to harm her, and the primal urge to go hunt down the motherfucker that had made the fatal mistake of laying a paw on a wolf he was safeguarding. The animal inside danced and regaled at the prospect of getting fresh wolf blood on its tongue again. It had been oh so long since he'd last tasted it with Kefka's murder. Now it seemed he was due up for an encore performance.

"Alastor"

Relm barely gave herself time to respond to him, but as he told her back it felt like a bullet to her chest. She only held his paw there to her throat for a few seconds in this bit of shock she felt, hurt even. And then let go to let him roam the rest of her. She asked him not to say anything, she didn't mean about the rape. She didn't want him to tell her that he loved her back. It hurt because she couldn't have him. She knew she couldn't. She couldn't have exactly what her heart told her she wanted as much as she ignored it. She'd never ask him, she'd never leave with him. No matter what else happened. She couldn't do it to Manea. She'd suffer the rest of her life like this because she knew better. Even from her fucked childhood, no mother, no family, just a deranged incestual controlling father that fucked her so bad to this point. She should have left when she could. She'd never be able to leave now.

Relm felt her throat tighten as Alastor asked, but it wasn't because of what would be more clear to hold back. She was holding back from the emotions she was feeling between the two of them. Not what had happened between her and Merrick. "Me." She spoke quiet and broken, trying to find her voice in the back of her throat. Her voice rose as she went on, raw emotion coming out into cries as she went on. Her eyes shot back up to look at his while her body spun around in the water to face him. "I did this. I told you not to say anything Alastor!" She ran quickly into her sentences because her heart was racing. She grit her teeth as her tear filled eyes closed, maybe he could feel the conflict within her. This time not only because of what he said, but because of who had actually hurt her. It was both, she was fighting with herself in her head.

"It's you Alastor, I fucking need you I need-" She started shaking from everything she was feeling, here at the lake where it just seemed like everything needed to happen in her life. "I can't make it fucking work with anyone else. I've fucking tried." Her breath quivered out quickly in a heavy sigh, in a way Alastor may have never seen her before. He may have still been crazed, demanding to know. She didn't want him to though. She wouldn't put it on Merrick, as much as he may have actually hurt her in more than one way. She'd stand by her belief that everything was her fault. She thought she wanted it, she did. But because of the way she was feeling afterwards she couldn't hide it from Alastor. He knew her, he could see right through her. More than anyone. She believed she did this to herself, but she hated it either way. She was going to be stuck here like this forever because of what she couldn't have with him.

"Relm"

Though Alastor wasn't clueless, he also wasn't a mindreader. He couldn't tell the inner turmoil and conflict Relm was grappling with over her emotions for him. She'd asked him not to say anything, his immediate protective nature had turned to assuming she meant about whatever dead wolf walking had left these marks on her. It hadn't even crossed his mind that his love, the one truly rare and unique thing he could give to her, was what was causing her all this pain and heartache. Maybe it was because Alastor found it easy to love Relm that he didn't consider it the way she did. It was a hot and intense love, not entirely dissimilar from what he felt for Manea—though his violet queen would always have his heart and soul. Relm had cemented herself in his spirit though, aligned herself with him through their shared traumas and suffering.

Relm spoke after a moment of struggling with herself, naming herself as the cause of what had happened to her. Alastor scowled in displeasure; he knew the pink woman wasn't being earnest with him. It wasn't entirely unexpected, however. Relm had always blamed herself for the misfortune that befell her, always took the fall for someone else. He knew she was protecting her attacker, which meant only one thing—the perpetrator was either someone close to her or a member of Elysium. Alastor huffed to suppress a frustrated growl, then quickly recoiled in shock when Relm rounded on him and began chiding him for having said anything. Dark brows knitted together, bewildered by the young Abraxas woman's abrupt outburst. Slowly the gears in his head began to turn and Alastor realized what Relm had meant all along.

But Relm was far from done. The floodgates had opened and now the emotional outburst was released in full force. Relm choked back sobs, fought her tears while he declared him as the thing she needed. She said she couldn't make things work, and Alastor was totally lost now. She had been trying to make things work with others? Was this what had happened to her? Had she tried to seduce someone else and gotten a raw deal for it? It would certainly explain why she was blaming herself for her injuries. Relm released a stuttering sigh and looked away from him, looking so beaten and downtrodden and broken. It incensed Alastor to see her in such a state. "Relm, stop it," he interjected with an unyielding tone. He pushed through the water to close the space between them, standing so their chests were almost touching as he gazed down at her with resolute yet affectionate obsidian eyes. "I don't blame you for anything, so stop doing it to yourself. You're better than that—much better than that! Gods and devils dammit all, what do I have to do to get you to see yourself the way I see you?"

Without waiting for her response, Alastor lunged forward to throw his powerful forelegs around Relm's shoulders and draw her in for a hug. He didn't expect her to resist, and if she showed him none, then he'd pull her through the water until he had her snug against his larger, bulkier form. A low, possessive growl rumbled in the demon wolf's chest while he clung to her, considering all the pain she was in. Some of it was his own fault, but some of it still remained with an as-of-yet unknown and doomed assailant. But none with Relm—never with Relm. "If I'm hurting you... do you want to stop this?" He was hesitant to ask the question of her because he didn't want to consider the option she might say yes. She might put an end to this wonderful and crazy thing they had going between them. But if it meant protecting and caring for Relm, then it was an agonizing sacrifice he would find the will to make.

"Alastor"

She stayed quiet as Alastor said his own, and as he closed the distance between them she was struggling to not look at him. Just as he had known, and she had to this point, looking at him and touching him were the real ways for them to communicate with each other. They didn't need words, and it seemed that words hurt. She'd rather him just know how she felt rather then a jumbled voice between them. She was retracting from him.

There was a bit of satisfaction in her, the way Alastor saw her. But it was drowned out by everything else. Relm may have never felt confident or strong or beautiful. Not all the time at least. She only felt that way in the moments that Alastor held her and they indulged in each other. Otherwise she felt worthless amongst everyone else. It was known how misunderstood she was mostly from the time she kept to herself. Manea didn't like her, Merrick didn't like her, she was starting to see herself as some sort of plague after she may have seen a little bit of light with Merrick. It was singed now, she'd probably never come back out of that hole other than to search for something remotely similar to the way Alastor made her feel that she didn't believe existed anywhere else. She was destined to be like this.

As Alastor wrapped around her, she only fought in a single push with little effort, reminiscent of how much she may have needed it. In a deep exhale she found comfort there with her head against his chest, not hugging him back but carefully pushing into him. She still fought with herself to pull back her emotions because not just Alastor seeing her this way but her being this way was hard for her. She was reserved even to herself, it was like cracking something open that was hidden down deep inside of her as her outburst had suggested.

She didn't say anything. Because she couldn't tell him to stop and she couldn't tell him not to. She already knew she wanted more then what they had, maybe she wanted some kind of compromise. But she wouldn't ask. She wouldn't offer. She knew what should have been done as he suggested. For him, for Manea, never for her. From her end at least. She nearly diverted from it after some time of staying there with him. She didn't pull back to look at him though, just stayed there. "You have Manea, why do you need me?" Her voice could almost tell him how little she valued her own life, at least the quality of it. She did care about Alastor, and even Manea more than herself.

"Relm"

Alastor felt the tension in Relm's body while he embraced her, ad though she wasn't actively resisting him, her passive resistance of doing absolutely nothing screamed as loud as if she were. Relm was merely existing at this point, no longer engaging him. It made the demon frown to realize this. Eventually she did press into him some more, but Alastor had already felt the hesitation, the trepidation in her inaction. Already he had decided that he would hunt down whoever had done this to her. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Elysium only had so many wolves, and fewer still that could leave those kinds of marks on her. This would not be a difficult hunt, and Alastor already had an idea of where to begin.

The two remained in silence for some time, standing in the cold waters of the lake while Alastor's fragmented mind raced with a million thoughts all buzzing around his skull like a swarm of angry hornets. But right now, Relm had all of his focus. She was hurting and she needed to be protected and reassured. From his standpoint, he had thought their relationship had been going pretty smoothly, all things considered. Apparently he had been wrong. He hadn't realized just how deeply Relm's emotional bond for him ran, to the point where she was virtually killing herself over it. Eventually Relm did speak again, though she didn't pull away, her words somewhat muffled in his thick fur coat. She wanted to know why he needed her when he had Manea. Dark brows furrowed; he didn't understand the question. "You and Manea provide me with different things," he explained, still refusing to let her go just yet. "It's not that I don't need you, Relm. I want you. You're very precious to me, and I want to care for you and protect you, because you're mine."

It was as simple as that: Relm was his, and so he would love her with this ferocious protectiveness until the day she decided she didn't want him anymore. But until then, he would always find her. He would comfort her and care for her, he would love her and he would protect her, he would fight with her and hunt with her and fuck her. Until the day she no longer wanted to be his, only then would he consider letting her go—not a moment sooner. "Why do you need me?" asked Alastor in return, now equally curious as to what Relm saw in him that made her feel so passionately for him. Relm had the luxury of total freedom; she could leave any moment she wished. Yet here she was. She stayed.

"Alastor"

She kept her face buried in the plush warmth of his chest as he spoke. No, it wouldn't be enough for her. It would never be enough. She'd never tell him, she could only admit to herself. She did want to be right in Manea's steps, maybe not right this second but she did want to come home every night to Alastor, have his children, have a whole happy life with him. It would never happen. She would come to terms with it as much as she wanted this alter life, she'd let herself break just this one time.

Her face pulled back as Alastor asked her just the same. The tears welled in her eyes were just that of normal tears and not the neon ones that fell from her earlier. "I do need you Alastor." There was a part of her that was pleading with him, but she didn't have to. He understood her just from that look. "It's clear to me that I'll never get what I want. No one will ever understand me the way you do." There was a tone of hurt in her, she truly believed she was never good enough for anyone. Even Alastor. There was nothing he could do to change that way that she felt. It had just become a part of her since before she joined him here in Elysium.

Her head dropped again as a shaky breath left her and she went to move forward past him. Making it back up on the bank where she took off her cloak so she could shake off her pelt, and then readjusted it back on her. She didn't know what else she could say to him. She was growing more lonely the longer their relationship went on, but she'd never imagine her life without him. She couldn't. She didn't even want to look at him right now. She didn't want to be this way and she didn't want him to see her this way either. Maybe she wasn't thinking quite clearly because she was young but... no. She really felt like she couldn't belong anywhere. She shouldn't have been here in Elysium. She did not belong. She'd rather be cast out and disliked rather than outside and alone though. Even with Kefka gone, she wouldn't feel safe without Alastor. It was him... or it was no one.

"Relm"

For as long as she wanted to remain buried in his fur, Alastor would continue to hold Relm, giving her the comfort she needed—but maybe that was the mistake. Maybe his caring for her was akin to a drug dealer keeping a junkie hooked on their product; the more he gave her, the more dependent she became on him. Alastor wouldn't see it now, or if he did he didn't acknowledge it. He could never know the depths of Relm's fantasies for them, how far her desires ran, not unless she told him. Thoughts of black and red and pink and white pups racing with their parents around the Rock Garden, of cold winter nights spent snuggled together in a shared bed, of countless hunts and adventures could have easily been planted in his mind by the young woman. Alastor cared about Relm that much. Perhaps he was as sick and insane for her as she was for him and he just didn't realize it yet. It was easy to miss when his focus was split the way it was, between being the Genetor of Elysium and being Alastor.

Relm pulled back and Alastor reclined his head away from hers to gaze down into those argent eyes again. She confided her need for him again, crystalline tears building in those silver jewels. Alastor's lip twitched as his heart ached, wanting to sweep Relm off of her paws and give her everything she wanted from him in that moment. He wanted to comfort her, soothe her, protect her and care for her. He wanted to support her and watch her grow and blossom into the beautiful and magnificent something he saw her as. But he understood her pain. When she said that no one would understand her the way he did, Alastor breathed a slow sigh and tightened his muscled forelegs around her back, flexing giant paws over her back to gently rake his claws over her shoulder blades. "Oh, my sweet Relm... You're far too young to feel this lost." In truth, Relm was about the same age he was when his whole world had spiraled out from beneath him and left him with nothing in a world that didn't want him. Perhaps that was why he hated seeing her in such a state—he didn't want her to feel the ways he had.

"I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Beautiful, capable, strong, inspiring... Even if no one in the world understands us the way we do, you are worthy of their respect and love. That is not my opinion, that is fact. You are here for a reason. You might not know it yet, but you were meant to be here." Unfortunately for him, his efforts seemed to be for naught, as Relm slipped out of his paws and moved past him, heading back to the shore where she shook out her fur and put on her cloak again. Alastor watched her for a moment before rising and following her to the rocky shore. He reached a paw towards her, but she was already moving away into the night. Alastor's mouth hung open, caught between wanting to call her back and not wanting to hurt her further. Ears slicked back to his skull and heart wrenched in his chest. This had been his doing. He was the reason Relm was so twisted up and lost. The compulsive need to protect her and right the wrong ached within his soul—but how did he go about fixing what he was causing?

"Alastor"