coffee black at three

It was easy to sense the tension building throughout her petite frame, he anticipated some kind of outburst of emotion to follow. Would she be angry with him for worrying? Was she equally distraught by her absence? Had she been harmed? Hackles bristled slowly, a gradual rise of gunmetal and alabaster fur over his shoulders as he waited for her to speak up. A flood of questions escaped Gem almost immediately, vocals tremulous with emotion. He sighed softly, peeled his eyes from her features and over to.. anything else. The earnest terror in her mismatched eyes was enough to make him want to cry again. He couldn't look at her. "I couldn't say, Gem. Their deaths weren't very preventable, from where I was standing.." he murmured, the softness of his vocals betraying the pain in his heart. It was true, their deaths had been sudden, of the manner that might each be labelled an act of god in their own right. He could feel the way that her eyes bored into the pale flesh of his cheek, searching for answers that he lacked. He listened, a dutiful brother, but he couldn't help objecting. In his own odd way, trying to redirect her misery towards something far less self-deprecating.

"What if you didn't get lost, and they died anyways?" he returned carefully, tilting one keen eye to her. Tall auds tipping backwards, unable to hide his distress at the painful line of questioning. If she wanted to talk about it this way, he could play ball. "What if they still died, no matter what? You would have been here to mourn with us, but they would still be dead. And you would find a new way to take the blame, wouldn't you?" his question rings out in the painfully silent clearing as she pulls herself tightly against his chest, warm tears soaking into the soft fur around his neck. The sharp pressing of small claws into the flesh of his shoulders does not garner a response beyond the slight curl of his pale lip, as he turns his muzzle to curl his skull about her diminutive neck and shoulders.

And all at once she'd found a new avenue of self-sacrifice, all too eager to right wrongs that she has not committed. As Gem pries herself from his embrace, and sets about pacing back and forth, the willowy giant pulls himself up to a seated pose. Head hanging between his shoulders as he tracks the repetitive path of his sister before him. There is a grim angle in his shoulders, a tightness that one could easily misidentify as the rigidity of good posture, and not the taut pull of muscles straining to contain a host of emotions. Aethon is keeping a lid on it as best he can, for his sister's sake. It would be too easy to pluck her up in his jaws again, to cart her off to Elysium as a prisoner to ensure she doesn't put herself in harms way to rescue their wayward sisters. Gem mentions meeting a boy, and his ears flatten. Something painfully similar to jealousy trips down his spine, a possessiveness borne from the intimate knowledge of the male psyche. No boys would be anywhere near his sisters unless he got a good look at them first. Gem explained that they were in some way related, that their sire was the Raid Queen's uncle- not that such things were much of a barrier to their bloodline, from what he'd heard. Best to keep an ear out, for now.

He steels himself as Gem whirls on him, the whites of her eyes flashing, and asks him about finding their two missing sisters. She's entertaining the notion that they are also alive, which he appreciates. It seemed so likely that the other two were dead, but with Gem here before him, there's every chance they were also lost. Elle too, she's out there somewhere. Their once massive litter hasn't dwindled as much as he'd originally feared. He opens his mouth to speak, but finds himself faltering. Raising Ashen again, or even Fenmyre? The old pack hasn't stood in a while, felled long before their birth as Chimera's illness first struck. Aethon found his gaze dropping to mismatched paws, as he seeks out the best way to respond. "I.. I don't know if he would, Gem." he admitted it slowly, with a furrowed brow as he looks back up to where she's locked him into an expectant stare. "He's only recently begun to feel like his old self again, and I don't know if mom would let him put himself under such stress again. What if he got sick again?" pragmatism is an unfortunate side effect of being the quiet, lurking observer that he has grown to be. He can see the way her tail is lashing with manic energy, a fervour overtaking her as she clings to the notion of their family piecing itself back together under their father's reign. The chimeric princeling passes his gaze over her wide-legged stance, and the wildness in her eyes. "It may be better to think about one of us taking the crown for ourselves, you know." the tone he used was measured, careful. Yet, he wanted so badly to feed into the hope that he could see in her eyes.

It almost seems like she's in another realm, and all at once Gem flung herself into his grasp. One long, slender limb curled instinctively to wrap around her, to grant her a perch as she clung to his chest and shoulders. There are tears in her eyes, and a not insignificant amount of mania. He smiled sadly, accepting the frantic kisses applied to his chin and jaw without question. Pale tongue slipped from his own maw to swipe over one of her cheeks, tasting the tang of salt as he swept the accumulated tears from her soft fur. "I don't think there's ever harm in trying, but Gem...." he hesitated again, faltering in the face of her belligerent hope. How was he supposed to crush her dreams? Perhaps he should simply shut his mouth and follow along, if that would make her happy. Was that not his duty? "Nevermind." he shook his head, pulled his lips into the best smile he could. "Let's set ourselves to searching for them, and we can see where that takes us. Where would you like to start?"

(WC: 1102, 1962/1500 COMPLETE)