The trip back through central Boreas up into the Col was lengthy and a sporadic trail of blood marked the path as he walked. Azure had expected the pirates to put up more of a fight - certainty for Sparrow to put up more of one - but against their best efforts, he had still yet to be made to regret stepping a toe over their border. Sparrow at least had an excuse, what with dropping child after child onto the obsidian shores and all, but the rest of them... they had failed her. All but the one colourful man who took from him his own ear tip in retaliation. Azure had come away bruised and bleeding, but an undisputed victor through the chaos.

He did not call for assistance as he tread through the mountain pass and into the cluster of dens that made the home of his particular branch of Fatalis', would not add validity to what Sparrow and her crew accomplished and admit that he was any worse for the wear. Panting behind the severed ear that hung from his jaw he merely followed the scent toward his mate, found her on a bed of furs within the den, dropped the trophy unceremoniously upon the ground before her, and then moved to collapse wearily alongside her. Azure assumed she'd have words about not cleaning himself up before pressing in close to her, but the exhaustion and blood loss was weighing upon him hard enough that it was likely he would not move even if the cavern itself was due to collapse.

"Speech"

Hanako made the most of being home, rested up and had her fill of succulent fish and sweet teas. She found it hard to rest too easy though, since it felt as though Azure had been gone forever, doing what needed to be done but seemingly taking his sweet time nonetheless. She really ought to chew his ear off when he got back with her complaints and-arguably very minor-grievances, but all such thoughts were yeeted away when she sleepily noticed the scent of blood. The wet splat of something in front of her furs before a massive form flopped down beside her.

"Az?" She stirred with a rough, if not a little confused hum as she sat up a little, as best she could considering how much Azure was smushed up against her.

Her confusion cleared as her senses sharpened, vision becoming focused as it narrowed in on the torn remains of a brown ear. One that reeked of blood and Sparrow. Beyond that, she shifted a little to try and take a look at his face, to see why he smelled so bloody too. The sight she was met with was uh-not pretty, to be honest. Enough that she had to bite back an ew- not cause it was Azure, he knew how squeamish she was with these sorts of things and-

Well, he'd once almost slapped a dudes dick off before. She shouldn't have been surprised or icked out, but she still was. Couldn't help it.

Leaning to his neck to soothingly nibble at his thick coat, she spent a long moment thinking about what she wanted to say. What he'd want to hear.

"Thank you." She settled for, throwing in an affectionate lick in for good measure.

Azure was not sure what he expected, but her lack-of-a-response was not it. He peeled one heavy eyelid open as he felt her teeth upon his fur and considered how much energy he had left to argue. Evidently, he had just enough. "That's it?" Battered and bruised, maimed and lacerated, and all Hanako could say in return was thank you? It was not a new occurrence for him to put himself out there for her and risk everything for such little reward (historically, earning the favour of one of the only wolves to ever accept him had always been enough) but come on, he could have died. Perhaps he was a tad over-sensitive given the circumstances, but after what he had been through and the reoccurring memory of Sparrow's insistence she'd slept with Hana 'recently', Azure was quite volatile. "If I didn't know better, I'd think it wouldn't matter to you if I'd returned home alive at all." Was Hana disappointed to see that Sparrow had lost? The pirate bitches words repeated on him once more, earning from Azure a soft growl from the back of his throat.

"Speech"

She could tell by the way he tensed up, a growl in his voice that he wasn't pleased. That he wanted more for his efforts, which was fair enough, she supposed. From the state of him it was easy to deduce he'd had a rough time, ripped and torn into, but victorious all the same. Home where he should be. He was getting prickly, no doubt pent-up frustration worsening his mood. It was hard to not take it personally, to not sulk or jab back, but she didn't think either of those responses would get her very far. She knew how to handle him better than anyone else, was willing enough to fall back on old habits to placate him if and when she needed to.

"Then I'm so glad you do know better." She told him ever so softly, stopping her nibbling as she laid a little flatter against the furs, smaller, as she diverted her gaze in obvious submission.  Not forced but readily given. "But I knew you would, as I will always come back to you."

She'd tried, had told him as much when they'd last spoken. He knew this, hadn't forgotten, was just cranky and pent-up.

"I just...you looked tired. I wanted to help you relax."Was that so wrong? To not force a conversation out of him when he clearly wasn't in the mood? Apparently that nicety was mistaken for a lack of care, typical.

Hana had always been good at toeing the line and expertly navigating Azure's emotional needs and tonight was no exception. She did not prod back nor grow defensive at his tone, submitting to him even in body language. It was almost enough, though the speed in which she had hastily thrown control back to him only fanned his anger higher. There was no closure, no win. It was as frustrating as it would have been if Sparrow had simply given Azure her ear rather than making him earn it. Or like Hana being kidnapped and then sent free before Azure could fight to win her back. She was crowning him victor by default, bowing out of the fight before it even began, and using his guilt against him to do it.

"Would you?" Azure murmured, trying to keep his wrath contained. Wrestling with the want to clash was much more difficult with the insecurity that perhaps she had strayed from him and might again, if he pushed too hard. "How long after she let you go did you leave?"

"Speech"

There was no pleasing him sometimes. He wasn't nearly as cranky and Hanako considered that to be a win, mostly, but he was still prodding her with questions. Doubting her intent. She had no idea what Sparrow had said to make him doubt her so, but knowing the Pirate King her words had been barbed at the very least. Not what she ever wanted to hear. A soft sigh passed her lips, close to a breathy whine as she considered his question.

"As soon as I was able. We...argued a lot. Changed her mind about letting me go because I told her she was pregnant, she was mad. Didn't believe me." She allowed her eyes to drift closed, she didn't like thinking about that day and it was clear on her expression. How it tightened into a grimace and she found herself burying a little further into the furs to find comfort. "They fed me well enough, or tried to but I refused it all. Didn't want anything they were offering me. Their company or their drinks, none of it. I just wanted to go home." She allowed her eyes to flutter open. To him.

Hanako ran all the way here on an empty stomach, he ought to give her some credit. She'd been exhausted!

"I chose you. Said it right to her face. I don't know what I've done wrong." Why he was still mad at her.

To Hana's credit she was keeping herself more contained then Azure had expected possible of her - normally the prideful part of her would have flared up by now and fought back, unwilling to bend until he had her muzzle in the dirt for a third time. Perhaps her period of captivity had shown her exactly how well she had it here in the Armada, but a part of Az wondered if her lack of passion and willingness to argue was instead simply apathy. Apathy toward her situation, towards the pack, and towards him.

As she mentioned Sparrow's pregnancy his lip began to peel, his neck pulling back to look down past his nose at her and what was left of his ears pitching forward assertively. "How did you know she was pregnant?" Truthfully, Azure did not remember much of how early a pregnancy could be determined or how, but based on the timeline Sparrow must have been very freshly fucked when Hana had been captive there. It might have been ignorant to assume that the only way she could have determined another wolf's so soon was by being in very, very close proximity - but he only had his own experience to draw off and much of Hana's bodily changes were apparent to him before any other mere pack member. Azure was grasping at straws, trying to find a way to make Sparrow's insistence that she'd slept with Hana make sense, probably so he could have something to be angry about.

She went on to explain how she had been fed and Azure bit back the immediate instinct to cut her off. He hadn't asked how she was treated, he'd asked when she had been allowed to leave. As far as the Champion was concerned, his diplomatic mate was once more drawing on her talents to try and leverage his guilt against him. Reminding Azure that she had been a victim of Sparrow so he would not make her one of his. It was frustrating, but not as much as her final words were.

"You chose me?" Azure pressed her, his tone equal parts of heated anger and disbelief. "Since when was there a choice to be made, Hana? You were fucking kidnapped. You were not off on some holiday with your ex trying to decide with whom you wanted to spend your life!" 'Choice' implied that Hana considered Sparrow to be an option, if even an unlikely one. It was not a concept that sat well with the possessive beast with which she now lay.

"Speech"

"Cause I could smell it. It's not exactly subtle." Her senses were far from trained but she'd been there, recognised the scent as one that had clung to her form seasons ago. She wasn't in any real rush to risk her life again like that, not when Azure seemed so displeased by the results. If nothing else she'd been on birth control that worked fine till now, no unexpected surprises or unwelcome intervention of the forever moon.

But of course he was combative, saw threats where there were none and naturally took it out on her. Picked apart her choice of words with a fine toothed comb, found one thread he did not like and near shoved it in her face. Like he'd found some sort of proof, a reason to blame her when the fault laid entirely at someone else's paws. She felt her expression stiffen, a prickle of annoyance she couldn't hide as she pushed herself to her paws and made a point of busying herself with the ear on the floor. She tucked it away on her shelf of special things, important gifts Azure had granted her one by one. Things he might take away if he was feeling particularly mean.

She stomped her paw on the hard stone floor. It began."You always do this. Push me away when I love you, only you. What do you want me to say?" The pitch of her voice rose with each word, slightly more shrill than the last. "Tell me. What to do then." She sneered, rising her chin in challenge.

Azure had no cause to refute her response and turned his head away from his mate as she stood and began to investigate the ear on the den floor. Staring into the plush fur bedding beneath him he wracked his brain, trying to put timelines together and draw on memories of Hana's own early stages of pregnancy. He'd paid so little attention that truthfully, Az could not argue that she might have discovered Sparrow's as innocently as she'd stated.

As movement caught the corner of his eye once more his gaze shifted, watching critically as she crossed the floor and placed the trophy alongside the rest of the baubles he'd acquired for her over their lives. While he was hyper-aware and alert to see any subtle sign that the dismemberment bothered her, he was forced to accept that there was nothing he could pick out and weaponize. Fuck.

And then her paw gave a small stomp upon the floor and his attention was swiftly redirected, the muscles in his body tensing at her call-to-post signature gesture. It meant fury and fire, since the very day he'd met her in the woods. Azure met her challenging gaze with a lifting of his own skull, holding her gaze at equal height despite their differences in positioning. "Sparrow said she fucked you." The expletive was all but a snarl, his tail lashing through the bedding once in frustration. "Was this before or after you 'chose' me? 'Chose' your children? 'Chose' your life in the Armada where you are pampered and protected?"

In one sudden movement he pushed himself firmly to his paws, taking a long stride down from the raised bed and into her space where he could make her feel the impact of his words properly. "I have given everything to you. Everything I have. Everything I am. I have maimed for you, killed for you, practically grovelled on your behalf making excuses for you -" (It was clear from his tone which of those were the most annoying for Azure to suffer) "- I've destroyed relationships to keep you, I gave away an Empire to be allowed to love you, and nothing is ever enough!"

Before her the titanic brute held his most domineering of postures, tail flagged, ears pitched forward, aggression clear in every movement and muscle and yet, he could not bring himself to hurt her. Each violent scenario played out in images behind his eyes and none offered even a glimmer of hope of the catharsis he needed. "I need effort Hana! I need you to prove that I'm more to you than a convenience or a path to luxury. That you're with me for reasons that aren't your consistent need for validation and adoration. Do you even know what love is?"

"Speech"

Hanako had to do a double take, her eyes wide and expression twisted in such confusion so blatant it took her a few blinks to really register what he'd said. And then she was angry, puffed up, knocking a stacked pile of spare furs over with a whack of her hind leg, levels of angry. She didn't care if she made a mess, Lyre could pick it up later, it was her job after all.

"I NEVER fucked her." She was near screaming now, shrill and all orange fury. "Do you think I-UGH! Is that what you really think of me?" Hurt emerged in her eyes, tears streaming down her face, at war with the venom in her voice. "That I put up with the humiliation and torment just so I could get laid?! She tried to kiss me, forced herself and I pushed her way. Was prepared to fight her even though I knew I couldn't win. I have NEVER fought anyone Az, but her fought her cause I didn't want her. Because I want you more than anything! Why can't you see that? "

She swatted the ear off the shelf and stomped on it for good measure, smushing her paw side to side to get some sort of release. She'd never considered attempting to push Azure around the same way she'd tried with Sparrow. The thought didn't even cross her mind so she had to make do. It felt wet and gross beneath the fire of her paws, smearing a bloody mark on the floor as she snapped her gaze to look up at him.

"There is nothing I have that I haven't or wouldn't give to you. I almost died giving birth to your children, and this-"

He thought she didn't love him. Did Sparrow lie about that too?

"You're enough. You know you are, I've known it since the day we met. If I didn't love you I wouldn't be so-so angry, we wouldn't be fighting if I didn't!"

Azure drank in the puffed up hot fury of his mate, allowing her rage to fuel his own, to validate how he felt so he could dare to escalate it further. The furs fell to the floor in what was likely meant to be a dramatic move, but nothing Hana could ever do could be portrayed as truly violent; they barely made a noise as they tumbled softly to the floor and scattered. Her shrill yell echoed through the den, sending a wave of sharp, cathartic pain through the side of his skull as his maimed ear twitched against the volume. Still he did not waver, his lip peeling to reveal more of his teeth as she met his challenge head on. Denying it all. Playing the victim again and again until Az wished he could show her what it truly meant to suffer.

“Oh fuck off!” He spat. “You admitted to me yourself that they treated you well, Hana! Offering you food and companionship that you chose to reject; you don’t even have a single scar! If you were prepared to fight her then why didn’t you!? How could you have possibly been content to sit quietly, never knowing if you’d ever be released!?” Her story did not line up and did not hold a candle to the paranoia-driven narrative Azure had built for himself to explain her absence. There was no doubt in his mind that her story was lies upon lies, deception drowning in a shallow pool of half-truths.

Hana swatted the ear off the shelf and drove the bloodied and brown flesh into the floor of the den, leaving Az to wonder if it was out of hatred toward Sparrow or rejection of the trophy that he had torn from her skull. “If you love me then prove it.” He demanded, stepping one thick limb forward to place his paw heavily down upon her own, pinning it in place before him. “Admit to me what you won’t admit to yourself - Sparrow has always been between us. She has been an option in the back of your mind since the day I returned and she was an option there, in her cavern, on her beach, and in her bed. You were content to have your decision made for you; to be held by her under threat of force because it meant you didn’t have to choose! Admit you enjoyed belonging to the both of us, enjoyed getting to be an evasive, noncommittal, and selfish bitch consequences be damned - because when have you ever fucking cared about those?”


"Speech"

[/color]

Hanako flinched, like a kicked dog. Like a dog that had been abandoned in a backstreet out in the country, eyes glazed over as doors slammed closed, the car fading from view till there was nothing left.

Why had she waited? Because she wanted to be rescued, to be saved like the damsel she was. Which wasn't to say she hadn't considered trying to escape a few times, but it was far easier said than done, being locked in a room with only one way in or out. And the only time she'd had a taste of freedom it had been on a leash, with only a few steps she could claim as her own, before being tugged in a different direction. Her wants and desires not even taken into consideration.

She went quiet, the anger and viciousness torn from her like her freedom. She wasn't sure why everyone treated her like she was the villain of every narrative, everyone had their demons and hers were just...more front and forward than most. Easy to spot, not hidden behind doors or claims of friendships and alliances. Hanako sensed it didn't matter what she'd say at this point, he wasn't listening, wasn't capable of it. Didn't want her love or her words but was so angry, so possessive over things she'd gladly give, if only he'd accept.

At least she wasn't being yelled at on a beach again, very thin silver lining?

She glanced up to feel the weight of his paw baring down on hers and she felt a spark of panic as he held her in place. Not because she disliked his touch, but because he was heavy, that it hurt under the strain of it all.

But he was right, in a faint and distance sense. It hurt to choose, like bending a joint in a way it shouldn't be bent. Flexing a muscle that hadn't been used...ever. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that, knew who she was and how she'd been raised, what had been expected of her all those years ago. But she should have grown as a person, shifted into something else, something better. But she hadn't quite...

Tears streamed freely down her cheeks, her breathing choppy with hiccups and shuddering sobs.

"I liked it when you made choices for me. And you're right I made a game of it, I liked being fought over. Wanted, like-like I was important to you. There was a lot I should have done before all this, should have spoken to her when she came for me. Told her to leave, that I didn't want her or whatever she offered. But I-"She liked the attention. "But I swear this time was different, I wasn't playing around or whatever you think of me. I-"

noncommittal, and selfish bitch

That was too much. A sob wretched itself from her lips as she attempted to scuttle away, but his paw was holding down her own, pressing down with claws raking into the soft pink of her flesh as she attempted to pull back like a mouse caught in a snare. Fresh blood permitted the air, heady and coppery but Hanako didn't feel register the pain. Her senses overwhelmed far too much going on at once, the little mouse going into shock.

Her anger changed, flitting between panic and pain, sadness and shame and all Azure could do was absorb it, keeping his dispassionate gaze upon her as she cried, admitting her past faults but still swearing he was wrong. ‘This time was different’ was a sentence he knew low lifes would attempt to use to excuse the inexcusable, but hearing it from her only brought his ire higher. Az felt her paw begin to retreat and clenched down on it to force her to remain - to bear witness to his anger - but beneath his claws bone and flesh slid. He had not anticipated that she would risk the pain to escape from his hold.

“Then let me make the choice for you - the next time you see Sparrow or anyone else you feel inclined to entangle in your web of insecurity, you will make your disinterest exceptionally clear. I don’t care how much it hurts or how hard it might be, or if you have to bleed to get the message across. I bled for you willingly and would do it again, it is your turn to suffer for this bullshit you call a relationship. There are no more games to be played, accept the loss and move on, start acting like a mother and a wife and less like a petulant child. We’ve played cat and mouse too long and I am growing weary of the chase.”

The fire in his voice was dwindling, the exhaustion of the argument and his yet-to-be-tended wounds washing away the adrenaline and rage. With an abrupt turn away from his sobbing mate, Azure moved to stalk from the den. He entered the adjoining hall and moved past it, intent on moving as far from their shared bed as possible to find a quiet (and solitary) place to finally rest.

-exit-


"Speech"