Can a frayed rope be mended?

In the wake of the devastation Relm's miscarriage had wreaked upon all of the Mendacium family, Irilyth had done her best to lie low and keep to herself. What she had felt was the right thing to do had only gotten her assaulted by an enraged Alastor in the height of his hijacked emotions and left her even more uncertain if her decisions had been the right ones to make. In the moment, Irilyth had felt like she was doing the right thing by protecting Relm's privacy when she stood up to Alastor and disrespected his authority over her, but after how Manea seemed so devastated by what had occurred now she wasn't so sure. Gathering her belongings from the Mendacium family den had been a heartbreaking and sobering experience for the small wolf, but she had done so without complaint or protest, scarcely looking up from her work as she collected her meager possessions in her satchel and heading out to her temporary lodgings. She knew Manea would be watching her as she went about her business, but she couldn't bring herself to look up and see the hurt in her lady's eyes. That would just make this transition all the more painful.

Irilyth had gotten set up in one of the smaller guest dens around the base of the mountain. Despite Manea's insistence that she take one of the larger ones for more space, Iri was a small wolf, and did her best to gently refuse the offer. Being in a larger den would have made her feel undeserving of the luxury and would have just been that much more empty space for her in her solitude. Manea had furnished the den with a large selection of quality furs for her to help keep the chill of winter out, but other than that the den was mostly sparse. Only Irilyth's satchel, a few bottles of new experimental variations of Ambrosia she'd been working on, and her medicines to help the still healing marks on her back from Alastor's claws made up the contents of the modest living space. In the days since she had been evicted from her usual home, Iri had seen little of Manea or Alastor, assuming they were either hashing it out over his forms of punishment or that they were giving her space to recover. Either way, the little blonde fae had been on her own for most of her time. It was a luxury in a way, and in others a curse.

On this evening, Irilyth had returned from getting her dinner to her den to retire early, finding peace in sleep where she didn't have to dwell on her thoughts or think about the punishment. She had not been expecting any company, so when Manea's voice called to her from the entrance of the den, Irilyth was almost startled by the sudden presence of another. Ruby eyes were wide in shock, but she quickly settled when she saw Manea hovering in the entryway, looking conflicted as she stood half in and half out of the den. Iri saw the hurt in her alpha's eyes and she understood why. Manea was helplessly caught in the middle of a feud, and Irilyth had been a casualty of crossfire. Neither one of them had wanted this to happen nor knew how to handle it. They were just doing their best to pick up the pieces. "The healing has been slow, but it has been steady," she replied in soft tones, keeping her eyes moved down to her paws as they fiddled with a vial of Ambrosia. "The drugs help." She was not nervous around Manea, but she knew that the other woman was hurting for her every time she was around her. It was impossible to not feel a little guilty knowing she was the cause of Manea's struggle.

"Manea" & "Irilyth"