Somewhere in the fog of her post match injuries, medicine, and the alcohol, Sparrow stumbled into unconsciousness. It was deep and all encompassing, a stillness passing over her. Maybe she was finally able to rest after so long of searching and hunting down Recluse's killer. She laid still, not needing to breathe in this space, her body numb from any pains or aches from the battle. The more she thought about it... "Aw shit..." She was dead, wasn't she? Her eyes opened, but not without effort. There was swaths of darkness and pin pricks of light, as if she was in the bands of the night sky. She couldn't find it in herself to panic, she simply didn't want to accept it yet. "Shit."

It had been some time since her last visitor, but one of the strongest tugs pulled Recluse almost violently into full consciousness. Cherry eyes opening to spot a familiar form on the shifting horizon. She couldn't help the relieved joy, her only visitors had been some of her children, her husband? Recluse couldn't know what had happened to him but she didn't feel the pull from him anymore, didn't even rouse when his dreams brushed close. She was so easily forgotten it seemed. She had well and truely loved him, hadn't wanted to hurt him or deny him... She would likely never get to apologize for that. So to have found the wolf that had summoned her back to this inbetween state was her king, the woman she'd adored but had left with nothing but a mess? It was nearly enough to make her cry. "I've missed you, my king." Recluse's voice didn't need much force to carry here and she spoke as she approached, watching the woman carefully. Everyone reacted in their own unique ways and while all she wanted was to press herself into Sparrow's space and remember what it felt like to be held she didn't assume that's what the other woman wanted. Recluse owed Sparrow too much, hadn't done anything but leave her with a corpse and a gaggle of orphans, a poor way to pay back the tenderness Sparrow had given her. "Speech" Think

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As soon as the ghostly woman manifested, Sparrow sprang forward, not waiting for rhyme or reason to catch up with her. Recluse's words drew her forth like a moth to a flame. If she was dead, then damn she ended up in heaven somehow. She threw her head over the woman's shoulder, pulling her as close as she could with her paws. She was here, maybe not alive, maybe not well and breathing, but it was her. She had so many dreams like this, but all too fragmented. This was real. "I killed her, Recluse," she choked out. "I tracked her, and found her, and killed her in front of everyone, and pulled her apart so she'll never be whole again." Sparrow smushed her snout into Recluse's scruff, breathing deep. It was her scent, no blood marred in. Sparrow pulled back only to look the woman over once before pulling her back into herself. "Your husband lives with the bitch who took your pack- he's lucky I didn't off his sorry ass in the process." Sparrow's brow furrowed. Maybe she should have. Sparrow pulled back again, everything she had kept in during those long drunken months pouring out at once. "I buried you in the ocean, the pirate way. I- I know we never said it, but, Recluse-" Sparrow wasn't sure if now was the time or the place, but if she wasn't dead, she'd wake up at any moment. Cold, sharp panic shot through her at the realization. This time could be limited if she wasn't really dead yet. "Fuck, I just... I love you, okay? I think I always have, but I've never been committal, and the Hanako thing, and just... We're both alphas- well, not anymore for either of us, I guess- and I know I never told you, and never made you mine, but damn, I just want to be with you." Sparrow's words came out hurried and hot between her teeth. There was too much to say, too much to recap. Sparrow was always high strung with too much to say, but the wave of everything, all her emotions and thoughts she had tucked away, felt impossible to convey now. "I realized you never put anything on me to be someone I wasn't, and we were both wholly our own selves and- fuck- I just always went for someone I thought needed my help, and I thought that we'd just always keep doing our thing and it would never end and I think- I know- I realize now that I don't think it was casual at all. I really love you. Maybe I'd have gotten it eventually, but, damn it, I realized everything too late!" Her breath was hitching, her words toppling over each other, her eyes everywhere but on Recluse. As much as she wanted to look at the woman and hold her again, she wasn't sure suddenly. They had played and, well, fucked, and surely Sparrow had cared for her in a way that resembled love, but it just never clicked. "You were always the port I could return to, the steady land to rest my sea-weary paws, and like every dumbass drunkard pirate, I took it for granted until I found myself lost at sea without solid ground to rely on." Sparrow wet her lips, finally finding the courage to look at the ghostly woman in the eye, "If you could come back for five minutes, Recluse, I'd give you her head and ask you to marry me."

A surge of emotion went through Recluse as Sparrow wrapped her so easily in an embrace and it took much control not to just melt into the bigger woman's limbs, to keep herself from crying. Someone outside her children had cared. Relief, a strange emotion to feel when she was so aware of her own state. Sparrow so alive and here she was so... Not. She quickly threw one of her own forelimbs around her pirate king nearly as soon as they connected. In her mind the "her" Sparrow spoke of could have been either of the two woman that had taken her life from her, one everything she'd worked for, the other her mortality and in truth it didn't matter to her, not anymore. What use did the dead have for revenge? All that mattered was that Sparrow was safe. Recluse craned her neck back slightly trying to get a good look at the woman, searching for any wounds or scars she didn't remember but Sparrow was burying her face in her fur so her view was obscured. As for her husband. Recluse just sighed and nodded, she hadn't known where he'd gone but considering her own son had chosen to stay of his own volition and that her husband's dreams very rarely brushed close anymore she had assumed that at this point their marriage hadn't meant as much to him as it had to her. Still she couldn't blame him for choosing to stay in a place that some of his kids had been in, at least last she'd heard... Assuming he'd ever actually seen those kids as his... They had been to her. "He's not worth the effort." She managed weakly, doing a less than good job at hiding her own sadness at the news. She was out of practice. And then the words of her pirate king seemed to keep tumbling out even as she pulled away and Recluse bit down on the urge to interrupt until she was sure the other woman was done. Finally Sparrow met her gaze and Recluse didn't hesitate for a single moment. She stepped back into the much larger woman, looking to tuck herself against her. "If I could, I'd do it in an instant. But not for her head, for you." She wanted to cry again. As she knew so well now... She'd always been focused on the wrong things. "I love you too Sparrow." It felt good to say it. "I don't think I fully realized it either, I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for. All my life all I was ever looking for was love, all that pride and ego was just to cover that gaping wound. My parents had abandoned me at so young I would have died without the intervention of... Well he doesn't matter anymore. But it wasn't love, I was prisoner. And I know now my family, the Kleins, never cared either." She'd never shared this with anyone, but it felt right, even if much much too late. "I realize now my children were my way of filling that void, looking for love from whatever source I could get it from. That's not to say I don't genuinely love them, I do, each and every one, and I will never regret their births but... I never wanted them for the right reasons." And she hated herself for that, just one of many regrets she'd so much time to dwell on. As for her husband? Well that hadn't worked out had it? She'd felt care from someone and had latched herself onto him... Maybe she'd blown it up and she'd simply seen affection and assumed it meant more than it actually had. "Thank you." Recluse practically whispered it. "You deserved so much more than what I gave you. But even when all I left you with was orphans and a body you showed me more care than anyone ever had. Had I known I'd have made you a very happy wife indeed." The sadness, the mourning... It didn't suit them. When they were together they were bright and brash and passionate, so with her final words she finally tossed a grin up at the bigger woman. "But perhaps the next best thing is being able to tell others you married a ghost?" Not that that was what she really was, not right here or now. Nor could she blame Sparrow if she'd rather get married to someone, y'know living and breathing. There wasn't much Recluse could offer her now. "Speech" Think

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The first thing Recluse replied to was saying that her husband wasn't worth the effort. Somehow that only made Sparrow want to make him suffer worse. She could make it happen, surely the raiders only needed a vague reason to go raise hell. "I could burn their pack to the ground," Sparrow suggested, and though it came out as a joke, she knew she meant it. Recluse said she would marry Sparrow, not for Ruby's head, but for Sparrow herself. She confessed she loved Sparrow too, and only the fact that she wasn't yet done speaking held Sparrow back from crashing into her and kissing her until they either both faded from existence or Sparrow woke up back in her cruel world. She did move closer, though. Enough that if Recluse inclined her head, their noses would touch. She listened intently, clinging onto every word anew. "You were the best thing to ever come from the Kleins," Sparrow interjected quietly. She hadn't had too much fun with any of the others, but their family seemed more fuckall and talk and mental illness than it was worth. At the end, Recluse admitted about her children and her expression seemed to bitter. Sparrow let herself press her forehead into the pale woman's own and admitted, "I never wanted my kids at all. Didn't know I was having any until they were there." She laced a few small kisses on Recluse's nose. "I could have done better, probably, if they had been born out of love... Still never have slept with a man." She shrugged. It was still weird, but who knew. "I don't know what the 'right reasons' would be." What could the right reasons be? Because you love someone? Why does that have to result in kids? Because you like kids? They grow up? Because you feel like bringing more life into the world? There's plenty. Religion? Pack strength? Sparrow couldn't think of a RIGHT reason. Sparrow snuggled her face into Recluse's as the woman commented that Sparrow deserved more and that she would have made her a happy wife. The ghostly- now in more ways than one- woman finally tossed her a grin and said she could tell everyone that she married a ghost. Sparrow smiled and smushed herself into a kiss with the woman. Then another. And another. She didn't even realize the tears on her cheeks as she pulled away. Was she happy? Was she mourning? She could be both. "Then let's get married." She said, using her paw to pull Recluse's chin up into another kiss. "Who knows how long I'll be here- maybe forever, maybe not- but there has to be others here." Sparrow smiled wide, "It's a nice day for a ghost wedding."

There was a warmth, a comfort Recluse could only vaugely remember, in being so close to Sparrow. The little touches, the comforting weight of a body against hers. It wasn't fair. She wished it felt both more and less real. Contact here still felt off to her, like she couldn't quite make anyone's edges fit right. But somehow it felt so real she could imagine forgetting who and what she was now. Recluse didn't have an answer for what a right reason to have children could be. For her it should have been because, well frankly she had adored being a mother. And no matter what anyone else might say she knew she'd been a damn good one. But for Sparrow? She couldn't know. Some part of Recluse couldn't help wishing they could have done it, that she could have given Sparrow children they both could have loved, lives born of their love, that she could have helped shown the woman what she'd adored so much about being a mother. She couldn't answer how Sparrow had had any to begin with but all her own understanding of the world made that possibility impossible, both then and even more so now. But those thoughts were pushed from her mind as soon as the kissing started. Recluse couldn't help herself, between breathes she giggled. Like she hadn't been too old for that sort of girlish joy when she'd died. Joy. When had she last really felt it? It didn't matter she felt it now. She almost didn't register the words, almost didn't catch that Sparrow still wanted to marry her. To marry a ghost. Fuck. Now she was crying too. She didn't have words, she could only nod, cry and nod. She wanted to marry Sparrow, she wanted it to mean something. Anything. She didn't have many who could feasibly be here for her, her father? Not likely, even if he wanted to be there she'd rather not see him again, would ruin her whole mood. So who else? She'd tried in the few times she'd been conscious enough to find Kali and so far her daughter had evaded her, but she wanted there to be those that loved or cared for Sparrow there. Wanted it to mean something. She finally managed to find her voice. "Wouldn't want to leave you without a story to tell when you get back. Who else could claim they had a ghost wedding?" She was crying and smiling all at the same time, a mix of emotions she'd never imagined she'd feel again, or even could have felt after her death. "I don't know if it's the same for everyone but it seems that I'm usually woken up, for lack of a better term, when someone misses me and wants to see me again. Could be worth a try." She didn't know how any of it worked, if she was the only one who seemed to go into stasis when there wasn't someone who cared drifting close in sleep. Maybe others just got to be up and about. She didn't want to consider the possibility of being alone here. "Speech" Think

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Sparrow couldn't get enough of the moment, even if it had the dreamy, ethereal quality to it that she couldn't shake. Her body felt somehow more... substantial than Recluse's, but she shushed those thoughts and shoved them far back into her brain. She pressed closer to the woman, as if it would help her to become more solid too. Recluse asked who could claim they had a ghost wedding, and Sparrow wondered if anyone would even believe her. Recluse explained how she was 'woken up' when someone wanted to see her and Sparrow smirked, "Well, I guess it's time for everyone to rise and shine, huh?" She wasn't sure how, but she planned to shake out every ghost she could for this wedding. They probably couldn't have food or booze, but they could still throw a party.