Finding not so platonic love

It was a night of celebration and partying. He tried to at least look as though he was enjoying himself for Venom's benefit. Attending alone only helped to remind him of what he had lost. Her. The first surge of color in his morning sky. The northern star in his endless night. It meant that Zee had not been beside him when he had lost Resin, when the wolf he had claimed as mother had been put to her final rest.

She was not there to watch Briar slowly fall in love, or Kotori grow into a wolf of fierce love for his family. To guide Gossamer when she was lost. So much missed. He felt the thoughts battering down his sanity, and slowly chased them away. Too often they lingered in his forethoughts and clouded his reality. He held tight to the promises he had made, and found strength.

Moving through the late event attendees like a ghost, passing through without lingering. Before he knew it, his paws had found Armada lands once more. He drew strength from the familiar sight and scents of his home. This place that they had built together. He paused, standing there, head raised subtly to the late night sky. Breathing in the aroma of late-winter chill. There was no trace of his beloved scent in these winds.

And then, all of a sudden, she was there. Tamsyn, his friend and General. He blinked once, clearing his thoughts and started to offer her a smile. The scent on her coat stood out to him with his next breath, and frowning, he leaned closer to her. Breathing in more steadily. There was the scent of a stranger on her. The scent of a man lingering all across her skin. All the places he had touched her. Intimate, and slow, and passionate. His eyes lifted slowly back to her face, and naked pain flared in his eyes. Pain, and then anger. “You…” He started, but the sudden, overwhelming force of his emotions cut off the rest of his words.


"Speech"