He pushed her away and she wilted, her whole posture gained a sense of weariness that hadn't quite been there before. Or that at least she'd been able to hide it with all the other emotions shoved on top, a stack that was starting to sway beneath the strain of its own weight. Hanako could understand why he didn't want to go back, in a way her wanderings had been a way of delaying the inevitable, had used the flood as a chance to slip away and hope no one had noticed. But they had- or at least her boy did. It was the cowards way out, but that was very on brand for her, wasn't it? If someone wasn't striving to act on her behalf then her own efforts were half-assed at best.

"I don't want to go back either," she suspected there hadn't been a place for her there for quite some time. Self-imposed for the most part, but there was a shred of rational to her feelings. It was a new Armada with new faces and voices, ones she couldn't say she cared much for. "It was- at first it was about that. I liked that you were a prince and being in your favour made me feel important too." She didn't look at him as she spoke, her gaze on the hanging curtains of willow leaves, as if she expected their past selves to stride through side by side. "But the more I knew you the less that stuff mattered. I mean- I liked the gifts and the prestige of your name, but I liked it because they were things you gave to me."

She wished he'd move closer, that he didn't stay so far away. It wasn't the end, Hanako refused to let it be such.

"Is it stupid I missed the way you used to make this face, like you wanted to smile but you were too seriously and manly. So you'd sort of just grimace through it, like you licked something that tasted bad." She said, before falling quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "I don't know much about stories, but isn't everyone always sort of miserable round the middle? Makes for good tension, or something like that."

Azure, slumped in the grass, absorbed Hanako's words with a mixture of disbelief and despair. He couldn't fathom how his status - the cornerstone of his identity - could mean so little to her. To him, it was everything. The idea that she had come to value him beyond his title seemed almost unimaginable. Silly. Stupid, even. Just lies. His thoughts spiraled, self-esteem crumbling.

After a prolonged silence - broken only by a deep, resigned sigh - Az gave his softly spoken reply. "You're not equipped to be a loner." He admitted, almost apologetic. "You've been alone before, sure, but you've always had somewhere to come back to. Somewhere safe to rest. Somewhere to recover when you took injury, or caught sick. A stockpile of food to raid in winter, when the lakes have frozen over and the fish are out of reach." Az's voice was flat, his words flowing with an ease that spoke to how often he'd run this train of thought internally.

"And tension -" A bitter, humorless laugh escaped his lips. " - tension implies an eventual recovery. What if there's nothing left to salvage? What if it's not the middle of our story, but the end?" Az was nothing; a mere shadow of the prince she had met here. Now he was just another wolf with too many enemies, too many scars, and a trail of destruction behind him.

His tail gave a solitary thump, then grew still and limp in the grass. When he spoke again, his voice was a mere murmur. "I've lost everything that defined me. I don't know if I can find my way back... or if it's even worth the effort." Even his children, one by one, had left him.

"I understand now why my mother did what she did. Why she didn't fight harder. Sometimes, the fight is just too much. She was tired. I'm tired, too." He tried to muster then the faintest semblance of a smile - an apologetic and comforting gesture for the raw vulnerability he had exposed - but even that small act felt monumental. As he tried to curl the corners of his mouth upward the effort quickly faltered, dissolving into a grimace that etched upon his face only pain.

"Speech"

Despite herself, despite what he was saying she found herself scooting closer. Short little shuffles at a time, hoping that slower movements wouldn't make Azure push her away as he had before and probably would again. It felt like a never ending cycle, were they destined to do this dance forever? He'd always made it clear what he wanted from her and even now he seemed to be back peddling on what he'd said earlier, she couldn't see her life without a tangent of it being intertwined with his. And unhealthy and as undeniably toxic as it was, what they had was what she wanted. Why was he struggling so hard, why couldn't he just give in again? It was juvenile to want to toss her head back and exclaim I don't care, but she'd never really matured in the way she probably ought to. Something down the road got bent out of shape and she'd been fine with that.  

"I'm not leaving." She repeated what he'd said earlier, sure of herself, stubborn even. Like a child who refused to be told no, didn't want to let go of their favourite toy."You're usually really good at pushing me away, but I'm not budging this time. You haven't even told me how pretty I still am, which is rude." An attempt at lightening the mood, which would surely fail. Even worse than that, Hanako noted he was starting to sound a bit like her, how woe is me she could get when things didn't go her way.

And she knew she could just wander off and find some other big man to keep her cosy at night, it was a tempting thought, even if she wouldn't say as much to him.

"Tell me what you need." She said instead.

Azure felt the space between them shrink as Hanako inched closer, feeling a mix of relief and apprehension as she asserted her refusal to leave. Her defiance was in full display. "You are beautiful." He offered flatly, automatic. Giving his mate the compliment she'd playfully sought like it were an obligation.

He grew silent then, absorbing her words, his breathing a measured rhythm in the dense air.

“What do I need?” Azure repeated her question, his voice low and almost contemplative. There was a pause, a moment where he seemed to consider his words. What did he need? His paw flexed in the grass, raking a path through the dirt with his claws.

No matter how hard he thought on it, no answer could find its way to his lips. What he needed was for things to go back to the way they once were, to return to a past now tainted with pain and loss. Before his mother had died, before his father had betrayed the sanctity of their family by replacing her. Perhaps it was so difficult because the choice he'd made to stay away was not the selfish option.

More than anything, Azure wanted to go home. His decision to abandon his crown was a selfless one; a sacrifice made for the sake of his family. Az knew himself well enough to understand the destructive path he would tread if he returned home. His first act would be to waltz into his father's den and unleash that rage and grief. Sabers bared, he would paint the walls with the bitch's blood. If Sirius got in the way... well, Azure wasn't a wolf that backed down easily. The resulting battle would change everything.

"I need..." Azure's voice trailed off, a shadow crossing his features. "I need to feel something else. Fuck, I need to hurt something." He closed his eyes, allowing his desperate confession to hang loosely in the air between them.

"Speech"

Hanako was quiet for a moment, a silence fell, but it didn't feel uncomfortable. Azure hadn't said anything unexpected, she knew his true nature and the things he liked to do and perhaps as terrible as it sounded as long as he didn't do those things to her she was willing to turn a blind eye. But enabling it? That wasn't a line she had crossed and yet there she was, actually considering it and weighing up how it would make her feel when all was said and done. She was undeniably selfish and perhaps even a little cruel at times, but this was a step she'd never considered taking before, one she wouldn't be able to take back.  

But Azure was hurting and was it unreasonable to want to do anything to make him feel a little better? One time wouldn't hurt, surely. It'd be able to brush aside, easy to forget.

"Mm." She finally acknowledged his words, glancing over at him through her eyelashes. "I can get someone for you, maybe." She floated the idea, her tone almost casual even.

Azure's head snapped to the side, gaze locking onto his mate with a new kind of intensity. Her words - delivered with such casual indifference - were an unexpected jolt to his system. He was surprised, even a bit unnerved, by her readiness to accommodate his dark desires.  The idea that she would consider such a thing for him, to step over a line she had never dared approach before... it was as alarming as it was alluring.

He studied his mate's slender face, searching for any sign of hesitation or fear, but found none. It was this fearless acceptance of him that both attracted and frightened him. A shadow of doubt flickered across his eyes, a silent question of whether he was leading her down a path too dark. Could she come back from this? Could she ever come to forgive herself?

But the beast within him, starved of release and maddening grief, clawed at his restraint.

Azure pushed himself up from the ground, the movement agonizingly slow.  He closed the distance between them with a few measured steps, his gaze fixed on her, intense and searching, stopping a mere breath away.“Hana,” Her name was a sigh on his lips. “You don't know how much...” The sentence trailed off, as if he was searching for the right way to express something deeply important.

Then, in a moment of vulnerability, he whispered. “I love you.” The words felt strange on Az's tongue, not because they weren't true, but because he so rarely gave them voice. He brought his head lower, seeking brush his nose across her cheek, then gently press his forehead to hers. "But be sure, Hana. Be very sure." The words were a plea, a warning; his attempt at expressing concern for her while acknowledging his own darker needs. "I can't let you do this if you aren't sure." And I want so desperately to let you do this.


"Speech"

Maybe she didn't know how much, a lot of time had passed and things hadn't exactly been going well back then. Sometimes it had felt like the end, a slow creep and a promise he intended to fulfil. Just the way he uttered her name made it easy to forget the hurt and loneliness, that they could just slide back into how things should be, how they ought to have been all along. This was the reaction she'd wanted all along, the soft-spoken reverence, proof that he'd never love someone like he did her.

She shifted then, leaning into his gentle forehead press. Realising that he could break her so easily, if he pleased, but he never did, and she trusted he wouldn't. Perhaps it was foolish or arrogant to think that, she'd pushed at his boundaries time and time again and nothing truly terrible had come of it. Nothing she hadn't been able to forgive, in time. She could have simply shrugged off his words and insisted it would all be fine, it was tempting to, but she allowed the silence to settle again, her expression thoughtful with furrowed brows.

"I mean-I think I'd be okay if I wasn't like, here to see it and you didn't tell me." What she didn't know and didn't think about couldn't hurt her, right? "You don't have to kill them to...vent, right?" She wasn't entirely sure how his brand of violence worked, would probably be for the best if she didn't know really.

She reciprocated his touch, emboldening Azure with a surge of warmth. The biting loneliness that had gnawed at him during their time apart melted more gradually away the longer he felt her touch.  It had been a year since he had felt such intimacy - with her, or anyone else. His head tilted gently, his muzzle brushing past hers in a tender, seeking motion, aiming to tuck her beneath his chin. In this embrace they fit together seamlessly, even now, as Hanako stretched and contorted herself into a shape she was not.

Azure was acutely aware of the sacrifice she was considering; he knew her, knew of her deep-seated desire to be loved even at the cost of her own comfort. A crushing guilt squeezed at his heart. A better man, a less selfish one, would have ended this conversation the moment he'd sensed the conflict. Az yearned to be that man, to rise above his own desires, but each time the words hovered on the brink of his lips... a surge of selfish excitement choked them back.

Gazing over her back as he embraced her, a vivid image flashed through his mind - his delicate, spotted mate, gracefully moving through the willows, another in tow. Another meant for him. The thought was intoxicating, a gift far more significant then any other he had ever received.

But then his eyes slid shut, a heavy curtain falling to block out the inevitable aftermath - the haunted look that would cloud Hana's eyes as she retreated.

"You don't have to kill them to...vent, right?"

Azure knew he could easily answer, to reassure her with soothing words and a gentle touch. The truth was, he'd never gone so far as to take a life for the sake of it. If she had to ask, however, it meant there were doubts; and doubts were a luxury he couldn't afford. Acknowledging this silently, Az chose not to vocalize a response. It wasn't about concealing truths or evading her concerns; it was an admission that if she felt the need to ask, then perhaps the risk was too great.

"You don't have to do this for me, not if it doesn't sit right with you." He murmured, his voice a soft rumble against her ear, striking a careful balance between his raw desire and his deep concern for her well-being.

"Speech"

"But I want to." Did that make her a terrible person? Probably, but she couldn't say she cared about that too much right now, that the things she'd done for self gain always rubbed someone the wrong way. Hanako liked his concern though and appreciated it, her tail thumping the ground in slow strokes. "Considering all the gifts you've given me, it seems only fair I give something back, no?" It felt easier to swallow that way, taking it as an act of reciprocation.

"It-hm, it doesn't have to be a big deal, unless we make it into one." She'd decided, after all she'd spent a large portion of her life looking the other way, ignoring harsh truths that didn't suit her narrative. Was she really so naive to think that her keepers weren't slavers with just a fancier name? It was easier to play pretend, to act dumb and tilt her head all cute like till the matter was dropped.

"I have conditions though," some she'd already touched upon already. "You're not allowed to keep them. Or like them more than you like me. I won't ask questions, if anything I'd rather you never brought it up at all- if can be your thing you keep to yourself. Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose." She shrugged lightly.

"You want to." Az repeated softly, a hint of wonder lacing his tone. He recognized the gravity of her decision, the sacrifice she was willing to make, and it humbled him. She continued by listing off her conditions - all methodical and sensible like - giving this very uncharacteristic agreement a strange semblance of... normalcy? Perhaps it was her way of compartmentalizing, Azure considered, an attempt to mold this offering into something she could live with.

A sigh slipped past his lips, warm breath mingling with her fur as he moved closer. "The gifts I've given you - the things I've done for you - they were never meant as... transactions."  Seating himself before her, he gently drew her in with his paws, craving her touch with an intensity that surprised even him. It was like the thirst of an addict suddenly reawakened, the need for her presence a physical ache.

"Your conditions are simple enough. I am more than capable of keeping this to myself." His voice faltered slightly. "And I have nowhere left to keep anyone, even if I wanted to." The admission felt like a betrayal of self, one painful enough to draw out a flinch.

"However," Azure's tone grew serious, his words underlined with authority. He drew back his head from the embrace, leaning away so he might catch his mate's gaze and hold it. "I am offended that you think I could ever like anyone more then I like you. You are my unparalleled obsession. The mother of my children. My irreplaceable mate. And should you find the task too... difficult.. you only need to say the word. My need for this... 'hobby', will never outweigh my need for you. Okay?"

"Speech"

Hanako allowed him to draw her in, as if this allowance was a gracious act of charity on her end. She'd known and still knew that he got her pretty things because she wanted then, that he wouldn't have gone out of his way if he hadn't felt like it. Even then he'd been good at holding his ground, had pushed her away when she'd acted out in ways he didn't appreciate. The reality of not having somewhere to slink back to hadn't quite set in with her yet, as she was technically a wolf of the Armada, but that would have to change. A conversation needed to be had.

Still, all she wanted from Azure was his attention and affection, something he seemed more willing to give now. It felt like being warmed up by the sun again after being without it for so long, so the thought of turning her back on him now...Well, it didn't even feel like an option to be honest. Preening under his attention, she met his gaze, blinking slowly as a slight smile tugged at the pale corners of her lips. Good, she thought and wouldn't have it any other way.

"Mm." She confirmed quietly, nodding just enough to get the sentiment across. Hanako wasn't the sort to suffer in silence, he ought to know that by now. That the moment she grew tired of the arrangement she'd complain as much, might even stomp her paw a little just to make sure her message got across.

"I must be very special to you." Hanako said, all light and airy, rolling over onto her side, her legs lightly pushing against Azure as if she was trying to hold him at bay. Which of course she wasn't, it was more of a playful gesture than anything else, a sign of her ease. "I understand though, you can trust me I'm on my best behaviour.""

"Mhmm.” Azure murmured, his tone one of deep fondness, yet almost distracted. One glance at his face could tell her where his attention had gone - it had been unfairly captivated by the graceful shift of her body. His piercing gaze drawn to the soft exposure of her underbelly as she playfully rolled onto her side. "You must be very special indeed."

He didn't yield to her playful push; he welcomed it. Her touch only magnetized him, bringing Az to lean into her paws. His movements were steady yet gentle as he countered her strength with his own and slowly, almost reverently, brought himself over her. Engulfing her in his protective and intimate embrace - pinning her with his body weight.

"You on your best behavior - " He teased, the words were softly spoken as he arched his neck downward, his muzzle tenderly brushing across her jaw. Through delicate nibbles of his teeth, he explored her. "- Is something I'll have to see to believe."

Each touch of his lips was an act of both affection and of playfulness, yet beneath it all lay an insatiable longing. It was as if through this closeness - through flirtation and tenderness - he could pour every feeling he had into her. He could transform the painful emotions within him into a focused stream of desire instead. Now that he had her in his arms, Azure didn't know how he was ever going to let go.

"Speech"

Hanako felt a little smushed as he settled, holding her in an embrace that was both caging and secure. Being with Azure always felt like she was flirting with danger, she ought to have grown out of her attraction for bad boys, but could you get any worse than him? Maybe, they were both so terribly bad for one another yet addicted all the same. The sense of risk and reward, the shifting power balance, it was magnetic almost. He'd only been back in Boreas for a short while and was drawn to her all the same, an old cycle destined to repeat till one of them died. She laughed, letting her head tilt back at his open show of scepticism as mirth shone in the ice of her eyes, as earnest as she could manage giving that she was a liar, a pretender by her very nature.

She couldn't even really say when she'd stopped wearing the masks, when the real her forced its way to the surface. All she knew was that it hadn't exactly been intentional, that being nice and sweet had gotten her further in life than this.

"Is there anything else I must know?" She pried a little, pawing at him, seeking even more of his attention. Gods she was clingy, had gotten clingier.

Azure's throat rumbled with a thoughtful murmur, a soft exhale escaping through his nose as he processed Hana's question. The notion that immediately sprang to his mind was one that threatened to send him spiraling once more. He leaned in closer, seeking solace, burying his face in the softness of her fur. Her scent enveloped him, a familiar and comforting presence that grounded him, helping to stifle the anger simmering just beneath the surface.

His tone, when he spoke, carried a hint of annoyance, a raw edge that betrayed the calm he was striving to maintain. "You can't tell anyone I'm back, especially not my father." That confrontation was one Az was not yet ready to face, and perhaps never would be.

As he held her, Azure's muscles tensed subtly, the beginnings of anger - the desire to act - seeping into his movements. Despite this, the act of holding her, of feeling her close, served to contain the fury for now. He clung to her presence like a lifeline as curiosity gave rise to a question. One that had been gnawing at him for days. "Do you know anything of the bitch he's taken to bed?" Az whispered, the words barely audible, yet dangerously edged. The implication was clear. As he waited for her response, Az tugged her closer. As if bracing for the impact of her words, whatever they might be.

"Speech"

Hanako understood that, and it wasn't like she'd had a proper talk with Sirius in...forever really. The isolation was self-imposed and the old man had a pack to run, a new woman to warm his den, she'd only ever really been at the centre of Azure's attention, no one else. She hummed softly in confirmation, if she ever did swing by the Armada she'd made sure to rid herself of his scent well before that. But honestly, it wasn't as if she had any real desire to go back, at least not until she worked up the nerve to talk to Sirius, asked to leave like she probably ought to have a long while ago.

At his next question she sighed, her shoulders slumping. Not because she felt any real way about Sirius' new woman, but because she knew the same couldn't be said for Azure. She'd never gotten the impression he'd been close to Zee and Hana had liked her well enough, but to see her replaced like that? She scooted a little closer to her mate's chest, offering what little comfort she was capable of giving without empty words or promises.

"Not a lot, no." She said, making an effort not to sound blasé or flippant. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't care. "For the most part they've accepted her, I think. I mean, no one's kicked up a stink about it, that I noticed. Just seems weird to me." In a way she supposed she'd never imagined Sirius getting with someone else after Zee. Isa felt tacked on, almost, a placeholder. Like if Zee could somehow come back, how quickly would Sirius ditch the new for the old?

Azure found a bitter solace in the fact that Hana knew so little of the woman who had replaced his mother. The memories of his parents, the depth of their shared history, and the abrupt manner in which his father had moved on after her death - these were wounds that had never truly healed. If Hana could give him the answers he sought... well, Az didn't want to think of what he'd do with that information. The fear of knowing the bitch was the one thing keeping him from the Armada, after all.

"It's not just that he moved on." Azure's voice broke through the quiet, rough with emotion, answering a question his mate hadn't even asked. "It's how quickly he did it. After everything that happened, you'd think..." His voice trailed off, leaving the thought hanging heavy in the air. He did not need to speak aloud the trials Sirius and Zee had gone through together - the whole pack knew of them. These struggles were natural, when you had been together nearly your whole lives.

A moment of reflective silence passed before he continued, his tone infused with a mixture of reverence and hurt. "My mother and father, they were together for a lifetime. To replace her in just a year..." His teeth grit, his voice growing hard. He did not know whether his jaws in this moment were aching to taste his father's new woman, or his father himself. The pain Azure felt went beyond personal hurt alone - it was the pain of disloyalty, of a son witnessing the diminishing legacy of a parent he had once revered.

He shifted slightly, lost in memory. "You remember what happened when she and I went missing, when we were presumed dead? He was quick to move on then, too. Went back to Deathbelle, as if my mother meant so little." A bitter laugh tore from him, his attempt to conceal the tremor in his voice. By speaking these thoughts aloud, Azure felt he was reliving the pain all over again.

"And now, to see him do it again... it's like a mockery of everything they had. My mother would be devastated. Broken. She fought so hard to come back to us, only to be so easily forgotten." His head lowered, resting gently against Hanako's fur, seeking comfort in her presence. "It feels like a betrayal, not just to her memory, but to everything they built together. And for none of my siblings to care, to accept this new woman without question? it's as if they've forgotten her too."

Each breath Azure took required effort to steady, his chest rumbling with each exhale. "If she could see this, Hana, it would destroy her all over again." He looked down at his mate, seeking a flicker of understanding in her pale eyes. "It feels like I'm the only one who remembers, the only one who cares. It's like I'm mourning her all over again, alone."

"Speech"

Hanako had thought so too, that it felt like he'd moved so quickly to fill the void Zee had left behind. She probably wasn't the person to judge considering what she'd done in the past, but it did feel wrong. Like watching water flow upstream, or if the sun were to set in the east. It wasn't right, she agreed with that sentiment and to hear he'd gone back to Deathbelle that time too, it seemed as if it was a trend almost. Was it love or obsession, a need to covet something, to have someone by his side? It was hard to say and even if someone were to ask Sirius she wasn't convinced his response would be the entire truth, that flayed truths like that weren't so easily given. Lying to oneself came so easily, for the longest time Hanako hadn't even noticed it was something that she did, that everyone did to make life a little more manageable.

She leaned into him, a sympathetic whine passing her lips.

If anyone truly didn't approve then none of them had the nerve to say as much- at least to the extent it was made no secret. It made sense as to why he couldn't return to the Armada, to see that woman strolling about with the crown on her head- it was an offence he would not take lying down. And who would?

To rise such a height, only to be replaced by someone who Hana-maybe unjustly assumed-did't deserve it.

"But you never betrayed her, not for one moment." Did they even deserve the Fatalis name if this was how they disrespected her memory? "The Armada isn't what it used to be and I don't think it will ever reach those heights again. Recluse was killed and did the empire go to her aid, or even make a show of strength? And Valta is just as insignificant, what are they even doing over there? " She huffed, letting her rant putter out for a moment.

"You're right, Zee deserved more. But what's back there, it's unworthy of her."

Azure's body tensed as Hanako mentioned Recluse's death and the lackluster response from the Empire that had followed. His muscles coiled tightly, the news igniting within him a fierce indignation. "Recluse, dead? And they did nothing?" He growled. "An empire that does not protect its own is no empire at all. It's a farce, a gathering of sheep masquerading as wolves." His head shook, exasperation and disgust bringing the skin upon his snout to wrinkle.

Shifting his weight slightly, he eased off her without breaking the close contact - a subtle readjustment to allow them both a bit more space while he stewed. "Perhaps it's a good thing I'm not there." The brute mused, anger giving way to a cold, hard resolve. "Being surrounded by such complacency would only piss me off even more. Better to be apart from it, to remember the Armada as it was, not as it has become."

His eyes slid shut, a frustrated sigh bringing his chest to rise and fall heavily. "But then where do we go from here?" It was not easy, giving up the legacy he had been born into as a member of the Ashen Empire. But what other choice did he have?

As she spoke of Valta, Azure's gaze drifted, reflective. "Ah, Valta... my brother's realm." Pausing, he turned over the current political landscape in his mind. He'd nearly forgotten Kotori's pack had existed at all. The thought he gave to it was brief, the consideration mostly given out of respect for Asla and Indigo, his littermates who had made a home there. "Joining them isn't an option. Nor is Ashen. I can't stand under the rule of my little brother, nor under the shadow of what could have been." If Az had been made Venom's Emperor, he sure as hell would have ensured that a leader's death had consequences.

Azure's gaze softened as he turned to regard his mate once more, offering a rare opportunity for her input. "What do you want, Hana? Where do you see yourself... see us?" It was uncharacteristic of him to solicit her desires so directly, but in this moment, her thoughts, her needs, mattered deeply. Especially when Az considered the sacrifices she had made... and the immoral gift she had offered him.


"Speech"

Hanako didn't think Azure would be pleased, she wasn't aware of their deal and most certainly would have thrown a fit if she knew, so perhaps it was best he kept that to himself, eh? Though perhaps the sting would be less since she was dead and all, a rotting corpse couldn't pose much competition. It wasn't as if Recluse was going entirely unavenged, Sparrow for one reason or another had decided it was her cause, even if Hanako couldn't fathom why. It was old history, but she did agree that empire was only that in name- that they weren't the great bastion of power and unity as they had once made themselves out to be. Too much had changed, or maybe it had just been empty promises all along.

His question was a heavy one, not just with expectations but the sense of the unknown. The world was as vast as it was dangerous, Azure was right in saying the loner life would probably not suit her as well as she'd like to think. Her knee-jerk reaction was to be a bit clingy and wax on about as long as he was by her side she'd be alright, but was that really true? She leaned into him, taking a moment to stew in the silence, to let it settle, like a racing heart given a moment to ease into a slower rhythm.

"Honestly, she threw her tail to the side, letting it thump against his ribs. "I don't know enough about what the current packs are like to really be able to say." She'd been out of the diplomatic loop for so long, packs fell and rose, and the political climate was nothing like it had once been. "It'd be nice to have somewhere we could crash when we need it. Food to fill our bellies. Furs to borrow and pile high in our den. She pressed a little firmer against him, head tilting in a playful manner.