I Think We're Close Enough

Waiting for Relm's answer to his question felt like eons to the dire brute. The two large wolves laid in the shallow water of the lake tangled up in one another's limbs, the fae tense and unyielding, the brute insistent and adamant. Her silver-toned eyes opened again, but didn't look directly up at him when he spoke. She was processing everything—thoughts, actions, emotions. Alastor recognized the familiar pensive expression on her features and gave her all the time she needed to reach whatever conclusion she desired most. Eventually, she admitted that she wanted to be with him and Kichi in Elysium, and some of the tension melted away from Alastor's muscular form. They shared the same desires then. But Relm's next comment about there not being any place for her drew a disgruntled huff from the older man.

"Elysium is your place," Alastor asserted with resolute conviction in his voice. "You're already home, Relm." He didn't know where she'd gone during her time of solitude, but he'd known of her dislike of the frigid tundras of the north as a pup, shackled to her father's will by circumstance. Now that she was old enough to choose where she wanted to go and who she wanted to be, she chose him and Kichi. That meant she had chosen Elysium as her home by extension. She needed someone to reassure her of that though. "I want you to stay as well." Especially after what they'd just shared here tonight. Not because he had intentions of fucking around with her on the side (though he couldn't say the idea wasn't tempting), but because she had solidified herself as someone of great importance to the deranged wolf, and he never let those close to him go.

Alastor didn't even consider Manea asking Relm to leave to be a possibility. He was alpha male, second only to his wife. He would not permit anyone or anything to turn Relm away, not even Manea. He would have fought tooth and nail against that. In a way, Alastor saw Relm as his, much in the same way he saw Kichi as his. They mattered to him. She mattered to him. Slowly running his massive paw along the smooth plane of Relm's side, Alastor traced the natural curves in her body upwards, feeling the tension in her muscles. She had withdrawn again from him some, but he didn't relent. His paw slid over the side of Relm's neck, then brushed her cheek a few times. All the while, Alastor gazed at Relm, watching her expressions, studying her like she were the most fascinating thing in the world at this moment. Then he did what Kefka never took the opportunity to do: he moved his paw to the back of Relm's head and cradled the young woman in his arms, holding her to his chest—like a father showing a child affection or like a lover to their partner, it remained to be seen. "We should probably head back, shouldn't we?" The inflection in his voice betrayed how much he didn't want that—perhaps hoping for a repeat performance?—and how he wanted to stay by Relm and make sure she was okay.


"Alastor"