It was several days after the turmoil that Syanna had gone through to end the pregnancy that had resulted from being trapped with her attacker and Ezra had hardly left her side, insisting on caring for her and getting things for her while she recovered regardless of how she felt about it. He knew she usually liked to do things for herself and he respected that about her so much, but after laying there with her and not being able to help of effect the outcome of any of it he felt like he was making up for it in some small way. He still forced himself to keep up with his usual patrols and hunts only because he knew she would chew his ear off if he didn't just to stay with her more, but this day he had gotten his patrols covered by one of the other warriors and they were more than stocked up in the food stores so he didn't need to go hunt. Today he had other plans.

He slipped out of their room that morning and got a little picnic set up out on the plains for them. It wasn't anything fancy, just a fur rolled out next to the stream with a couple of venison steaks and a little bag of berries, but it suited his needs just fine. Going back inside and up to their room, he didn't close the door when he came in like he usually did, instead walking over to the edge of the bed and standing along side of it with a nod of his head, giving her a grin. "Come on! Hop on! I'm taking you outside." Sure, maybe she could have walked herself, but it was more fun this way. "We need lunch and you need some sunlight and to get out of this room for awhile. No buts!"

Once she finally gave in and settled onto his back, Ezra carried her out to the plains and to the little picnic area he had set up for them. There was only so much he could do to help her, but he was certainly trying his best. He carefully lowered himself onto the fur and helped her down beside him, snuggling around her and nuzzling her cheek. It was a beautiful day outside with the warm sun above them and just a few lazy clouds drifting by. It felt strange that the world just kept on going and turning around them no matter what had happened or was going on. Sometimes it felt hard to keep up with it all and it just made him want to focus on one small thing at a time—like a little picnic with his love.

"Syanna & Ezra"

In the days that followed the termination of her pregnancy, Syanna did her best to just heal and forget. She was bedridden following the trialing procedure, letting her body recover in its own time. She hadn't experienced any more symptoms of her pregnancy, so she assumed it meant the procedure had been successful. It was a bittersweet victory, and ultimately one that left Syanna feeling hollow and less like herself than it did before. Was this how all those other faes felt when they'd gone through with it? Was this why so many of their mates ended up leaving them? Because of the depression they sank into afterwards? Well, getting to live it firsthand was an experience she had never wanted, nor would wish on anyone. She hated the way she felt, hated herself too. Voicing those thoughts and feelings didn't happen though; she didn't want to worry Ezra more than he was already panicking over her. Syanna knew he meant well, but it was anxiety he didn't need to put himself through.

One of the perks of staying in bed all day was that you never had to face anyone. She could hide herself away all day with her crushing thoughts and broken soul and just pretend she didn't exist. Others came to check on her, but Ezra kept them all at bay, reassuring them that she was just recuperating. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. In all honesty, Syanna just wanted to stop existing. She felt trapped in her own body, a prisoner of her circumstances and her victimization. It revolted her to see how much she'd fallen from grace. So when Ezra came marching into their room and sidled up alongside their bed like he wanted her to climb on, Syanna shot him a confused glower. No. No, she didn't want to go anywhere. "Ezra..." she sighed in protest, but he would have none of it. Syanna tried to resist a few more times, but he was stubborn and persistent. So with a defeated sigh, she slumped her body across Ezra's back and let him take her off to... wherever he was taking her.

Ezra carried her out of the castle and into the bright summer sun, carting her over to a picnic he'd set up for them. A small smile touched the corners of her lips at the sweet gesture; he was such a silly romantic and much too kindhearted. She slid off of his back onto the blanket when he set her down, feeling the sunlight warming her matted fur. She was a sight for sure, having not bothered to bathe or groom since the procedure. Ezra curled his massive body around hers and Syanna laid her head down across his paws, giving in and letting him pamper her however he saw fit. This was almost entirely for his benefit; she knew he was trying his damnedest for her and she didn't want to discourage him or break his heart further. So she played along, if for no other reason than to make him happy. "You didn't have to do all of this for me," she commented after a moment, looking at all the effort he'd put into their spread. "You really shouldn't have..."

"Syanna & Ezra"

Ezra gave a little bit of a disheartened smile as Syanna's head rested across his paws, glad that she wasn't looking up at him as his ears flicked back. He had been trying his very best to bring her the warm energy he felt like she deserved and to try and take her mind off of things as much as he could, but that didn't mean it wasn't difficult. The more she insisted that he didn't need to do these things for her and that he shouldn't take care of her like this the more he wished he could make her understand his need to do just that. He curled his tail around her hips as he held her close, dipping his head to groom over her ears and the top of her head, trailing on down the back of her neck. At some point he'd make her eat and he would eat as well, but for a little bit he just wanted her to enjoy the fresh air and the sunshine.

He didn't expect her to simply bounce back as if nothing had happened, but every day that followed the procedure that had made her this way he kept questioning himself and wondering if he had made the right call. He knew that neither option would have had good outcomes. They were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. But... He wondered if he hadn't gone with the option to have her take those herbs and go through all that pain if maybe he would have a little spark of the Syanna he loved with him now. It was so hard to think about cause it was impossible to know, but he couldn't help but wonder as he gently groomed her fur and poured out everything he could to try and help her get better.

While they were laying there, he eventually slipped one of his paws out from under her head so he could slip it around her shoulders, holding her to his chest while he gently nuzzled her cheek. The more he wondered about the what ifs, his thoughts eventually wandered to his mother and the search his father had ultimately failed to find her. That was a what if he considered often, wondering where she had ended up and what had happened to her. This happening to Syanna had made him wonder even more if his mother had really left on her own accord the way his father seemed to think she had or if something like this had happened to her, but she hadn't been so lucky.

The thought made his ears fold back again and he gently squeezed Syanna in his embrace. "I know you don't feel like you deserve all the things I'm doing for you and I know you say that I shouldn't, but... You're here. I was so close to losing you, but... I didn't. How can I not spend every single day cherishing and supporting you when I almost lost the chance to?" He shifted a bit so his pale gaze could find her tired emerald eyes, his paw brushing her cheek. He knew he didn't really talk about his family much. She knew his father from when he was leading the pack when she joined, but he had never really brought up the details about his own family. It wasn't something he liked to talk about, but maybe it would at least give her some perspective on his thoughts.

"When I was little, my mother went missing," he admitted, gently stroking the fur over her shoulder while he spoke. "My father searched for her for a couple of months, but... eventually he gave up. He couldn't find her. At the time, he had me and my siblings to take care of and he was the second in command of the pack so it wasn't like he could just leave and look for her, but I... I resented him for it. Sometimes... Sometimes I still do." A frown tugged at his lips and he held her a little tighter, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. "I almost lost you. I was willing to kill myself searching for you because you are worth the world to me... I know you don't believe me, I can see it in your face when I tell you, but when I say that you are what is important to me I mean it."

"Syanna & Ezra"

She did have to admit, it was quite nice lying out in the sun with the cool coastal wind wafting over their fur, keeping them both warm and cool at the same time. Syanna laid in Ezra's embrace, just relaxing and letting herself heal. Though her body had done most of the physical recovering of the procedure already, she still wasn't quite 100% back to her strength, still finding herself randomly queasy throughout the day and generally tired and achy, but it was a far cry from how she had been immediately after the termination. But emotionally, mentally? She still had a long way to go for that. She felt Ezra shift and move about her, grooming her fur, holding her close to him. She offered him no resistance, but she didn't embrace his touches the way she once did. She still felt gross, like a part of herself had been sullied and couldn't get clean. Sometimes she could swear she still felt her stomach churning as if the little parasites were still in there, but she knew they weren't. There might never be life growing within her ever again now...

After some time of lying there enjoying her boyfriend's gentle ministrations to her, she felt Ezra pull her to his broad chest and squeeze her in his embrace. She nuzzled her nose against his forelegs, but otherwise did nothing. Black-tipped ears perked when he began to speak, assuring her that even though she felt she didn't deserve him, she was still here and he wanted to spend every day cherishing that fact. It was a grim truth of the matter—Syanna had nearly died to the paws of that monster. He had killed her, in actuality, when he drowned her in the river. But unfortunately for her, he resuscitated her. She hadn't told Ezra about that part of her attack. She didn't want him to freak out if he knew she had actually come within a hair's breadth of dying. If he was this panicky about her now, she didn't want to see how he'd be knowing his worst fear was a second away from coming true, and her life had been in the paws of a madman.

He shifted her again, moving them both so he was leaning over her and gazing down at her while she peered up into his eyes, so bright blue they matched the sky he was silhouetted by. A little smile touched Syanna's lips while she looked up at him, listening to him while he spoke of his mother's disappearance, sharing the trauma of his childhood he hadn't shared with her before. How his father had searched to no avail, how he blamed his father, and how he almost did the same looking for her. It made her heart wrench in her chest, both because of how devoted he was to her and that she had someone who cared about her that deeply, but also because she had been the cause of such pain and worry for him. "You can't protect me from the world, Ezra," she spoke softly, reaching a small paw up to caress his cheek and jaw. "I'm not some delicate porcelain doll for you to keep safe on a shelf. Sometimes... bad things just happen. But I'm still here... like you said."

Her smile turned melancholic then, the light in her eyes dimming the longer she looked at him. She loved his eyes, loved their color and clarity. She had sometimes infrequently caught herself daydreaming about what those blue eyes would look like in little orange and brown and cream puppies. Now she may never find out. Her smile slid from her lips, and her paw stopped its movement on his cheek. "Your father is a highly family oriented man. So are you, Ezra. Whether you realize it or not, your family is the most important thing to you. That's why you got so upset at your dad for giving up." Syanna swallowed hard to rid herself of the lump in her throat, her paw reluctantly withdrawing from his face. "That's why it kills me that I had to do this to you... Knowing I may have taken away your chance to have a family of your own, to be a father to a bunch of your own little Ezras... I can't get over that, and I can't forgive myself for it." Maybe it would have been better for her to just bear the brunt of her pregnancy, get it over with and get rid of the pups, just to guarantee her future with Ezra. The uncertainty of it all now was torturous, and even just considering the prospect of what she might have taken from him made her sick with herself.

"Syanna & Ezra"

He smiled softly as she reached her paw up to his cheek and he leaned his head into her touch. He knew she was right, that he couldn't protect her from everything, but this wasn't just anything. He didn't expect to be able to protect her from little run ins with predators or from getting small injuries from time to time in her daily life. Bad things certainly did happen, he was very much aware of that. But he felt like if there was anything or any moment when he should have been able to protect her it should have been then. He should have been able to find her and yet somehow that wolf they hunted down had managed to make it so impossible to find her that she was seemingly gone without a trace. He knew he had to put it behind him if he had any chance of moving on form all of this with her, but he couldn't help but continue to feel angry and frustrated with himself over it. Taking care of her and helping her heal was actually his best distraction and gave him something to channel his energy into. If she hadn't managed to make it back... He didn't know what kind of state he would be in right now.

His own smile faded as he watched hers slip away, his ears flicking back. If she had compared him to his father when he was younger he probably would have staunchly denied it and in fact he thought he had at some point early in their days together, but now he had come to terms with the fact that he was more like his father than he had wanted. He had never considered himself a 'family man' as she called him, but he had always felt responsible for his siblings and cared for them deeply. Now it wasn't just his siblings, but Syanna, Artorias, their pack... He cared for them all. If that made him a family man he supposed there was no denying it. A frown pulled at his lips as her paw fell away and she continued to blame herself for what happened, for potentially denying him the chance to have his own children one day, that she couldn't forgive herself for causing that. He realized as he looked at the guilt etched deep into her features that they were both being eaten alive by their own guilt when it was neither of their faults for any of this. They hadn't caused it, but the only thing he could really do to get revenge for them had already been done. The perpetrator was dead and they were just left to deal with the aftermath.

"You did nothing wrong," he insisted quietly, his paw lifting to her cheek and gently bringing her gaze back to his. "You gave me the choice. You told me the consequences and I chose. If anything comes of this it's on me. Not you." He was firm, but gentle in his words, hopefully leaving her no more room for doubt. "I valued ending the torment that your attacker caused for you as soon as possible. I couldn't watch you go through a long, dangerous pregnancy and birth pups from what he did when there was a way to stop it, even if it was risky." His ears folded back as his firm expression began to soften with his own guilt that he had otherwise done his best to try and keep from her, his paw stroking gently across her cheek and jaw. "Honestly... I... I don't regret risking not being able to have pups. I just... I regret how it's torn you apart the most. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right call—not because of the pups thing, but because of the mental damage that I wasn't anticipating... I thought I made the call that would save you from the worst of that."

He sighed softly, letting his paw slip down from her cheek and instead rest over one of her paws, giving it a gentle squeeze. "I just don't want you to feel all of this guilt for what you think I want or need. There's still a chance... there's still hope. If we end up being able to have pups then of course I'll be happy, but I'll only be happy about it because they're with you. I don't want to be a father just to be a father... If we end up not being able to have them then I'll still be just as happy and just as thrilled to be with you and have you be mine." He lifted her paw to his lips, giving her ivory toes a kiss as he gave her a small smile. "I know you still need time to heal and I'm not trying to rush you, but I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to help get that fire back into your emerald eyes that made me sound like such an idiot when we first met."

"Syanna & Ezra"

Bless his heart, Ezra was trying his damnedest to get her to turn a corner on her road to recovery. He was tenacious to a fault, denying every attempt she made to take blame onto herself. He simply wasn't having it and it was so incredibly frustrating and kind of him. He guided her gaze back to his and as much as she wanted to avoid his eyes, she wasn't given that choice. He forced her to look at him while he spoke, affirming over and over and over again that this had been his choice, that he had decided this, that any consequences from it were his to bear. But they weren't. That was just fundamentally untrue, but nothing she said or did seemed to get that through his thick skull. Syanna had also had a say in the matter. She could have just swallowed the bitter pill and dealt with the aftermath of her result to guarantee a future family for them, and she had equal culpability in their path. She just wished that there had been a better solution all around. But life was not kind that way, and this was no fairy tale with a happy ending.

Ezra's own self-assurance deflated then when he admitted that he wondered if he'd made the right choice for her, that he regretted the mental anguish it was putting her through. Syanna felt herself collapse inward, hating herself for being so fragile and weak, that she couldn't just fix herself up like she could do with a physical injury. She couldn't help it though. It literally felt as if a part of her had been ripped out of her, and the hollow feeling that remained was a dreadful reminder of what she probably had paid as her price for her choices. "Maybe there was no saving me, Ezra..." she mumbled, her eyes drifting down away from his again while her ears folded back to her head. "Maybe I was doomed from the start..." Ezra held her paw and tried to reassure her that maybe there was still a chance that everything hadn't been ruined, that she hadn't become less of a woman or a wolf by doing this. She doubted it though. He couldn't feel what she felt like right now. It felt like a cavernous hole had been opened up in her belly, like a part of her was missing completely. It was easy for him to say such sweet things from the sidelines when he had no clue what was going on with her.

When Ezra claimed he would still love her and want to be with her whether they could have children or not, Syanna just sighed and shook her head. "This is not going to be a quick process, Ezra," she told him with cold, clinical factuality in her soft voice. "This will take time, and even then, I might not ever be the wolf you loved ever again. This might have changed more than just the physical parts of me. I don't know. I don't know how to heal a mind." Morose green eyes looked back up to him then, reaching a paw up to gently touch the underside of his jaw. "Would you still love me then if I never heal, Ezra? If this is who I am for the rest of my days? Because if you say yes, then you really are an idiot." She fully expected Ezra to lie and say yes, whole-heartedly believing he was telling her the truth. It would be impossible for him to say for sure though. She'd seen so many couples try to stay together and make things work after the termination process, only to fall apart days, weeks, even months or years down the line when the consequences had become too much for them to bear. In her mind she could already see Ezra, older and with different opinions and priorities, reconsidering them as a pair and leaving her to save himself. She wouldn't blame him, of course. It would kill her—but in some ways, maybe she was already dead.

"Syanna & Ezra"

It was undeniable that it was difficult to maintain his own positivity and optimism when Syanna was so deep into her own darkness that it was impossible for her to even consider the thought, but she was worth every moment of it. Each second he spent encouraging her, reminding her of what they still had together, telling her how much he loved her... He would do it a million times over if that's what it took. When she told him that this would take time and even then she might never be the same again his smile faltered again, but still lingered in a faint form of its previous brightness. "I know it will... And I don't know how to either, but I have to try," he replied softly, giving her paw another gentle squeeze. As badly as he hoped that one day he'd see that fire in her eyes that looked like she might be able to challenge the world again or the grin on her lips that made him want to sweep her off of her feet and have his way with her again and again... He knew that everything that had happened had altered the course of their lives forever and correcting that course was going to either be difficult or impossible. But he couldn't give up on her. He just couldn't. He would never forgive himself if he didn't.

His ice blue gaze returned to hers as she brought her emerald eyes up to his with her paw resting delicately on his jaw. She asked him if he would still love her if she never healed, if this was how she would be for the rest of her days, and for a moment it was hard for him to answer. Sadness twisted at his gut at the thought, but not because of the idea of him living with her being in this state, but because he didn't want her to go through life feeling like this. All of this was no fault of her own and yet somehow she was left facing and feeling the burden of it and that made him so deeply sad and infuriated for her and frustrated that there wasn't more he could do. He lifted a paw, taking hers from his jaw and tipping his head to gently kiss her soft paw pads. "If loving you and standing by you for better or worse makes me an idiot then I guess I am," he told her with a quiet sincerity.

Ezra gently placed her paw down again and leaned forward to place a gentle, light kiss on her lips. "I know I'm not always the most bright wolf around, I know I'm not the most intellectual or wise. Maybe someone else would think about this more logically or less emotionally at least, but... That's not who I am. It never has been, it never will be. I would rather pour everything into being with you and helping you than to give up on the woman I love and end up in some loveless partnership or alone forever. So... here I am. Your idiot and forever your idiot." He gave her a gentle smile then before looking at her paws for a moment, trying to decide if there was anything else he could say, but for now he didn't think that there was. He had to give her time and so that's what he would do. He turned his attention to the lunch he had laid out for them and pulled it closer, taking some for himself and making sure Syanna had her fill as well, refusing to let her not care for herself in all of this. He had made a commitment to her and he was going to see it through whether she wanted him to or not.

"Syanna & Ezra"