A couple of days after his return, he made his way to Ignitas den alone. He needed to speak to her about the both of them choosing a place to love together. This den, that she was accustomed to, or the one he had once held where he could watch over the whole pack. He stepped into the familiar space he shared with her, while Ignita herself was busy with a large influx of new supplies to sort. It would be hours before she popped her head back out of her work.


He moved slowly through the space, eyeing the natural shelves In the stone where she stored things. Their bedding, the fireplace. The many knocks and crannies filled with parchments, gifts from him, and other bits she had accumulated since joining the Armada.


He went through the shelves first, looking through every scrap of paper. He found her sketches of the warriors, the different movements of muscles and defences. Who had she been studying so closely? Perhaps he should be glad for her learning, but instead he wondered who she had been watching.


It took him half an hour of gentle poking, leaving nothing disturbed before he found the herbs. He stopped there for a while. Pulling them out onto the floor and staring at them in confusion. She had hidden them? When? The betrayal stuck to him, and he started his search anew. He pulled apart her den, tossing items to the ground as he searched every hide hole, every space. He shook out her bedding, he looked in the binding of her notebook. When his search was complete, he knew he had left no stone unturned. He took the herbs, and dumped them straight into the fire, tossing the bag to the side of it. When he called for Ignita, it was a thunderous thing. He didn't care what she was doing, or how busy. She would come. Now.

The hunters of The Armada had certainly been prolific! The influx of hides and prepped meats had reached levels she had not seen before! Must be an influx from the season change! While she was sorting things out properly she was also mentally going over how the warriors held themselves when they braced. Their pose when they began a battle.

She used the sorting as a way to check her reflexes, dashing about the storeroom trying to get each piece into its place as quickly and neatly as she could. Something she had started when Bas was gone.

She smoothly picked up a smaller fur and in one motion moved to throw it into its proper place when her name ripped through the caves from across the col, echoed off every sheer face of the mountain, and struck her like a slap across the face. It threw her aim off entirely and the small fur hit a large stack of paper, which toppled it into another stack of items which then dominoed down the shelves.

Startled and stricken to her core she wobbled to the door of the storeroom and peered out with one eye. She leaned out cautiously into the Col until she could see the titanic form across it, glowering at her from around the obelisk. Her heart was in her throat, pounding pounding pounding.

She peered around to see if anyone else dared to poke their head out of a den. She had never heard him so angry yet. What had she done? Why would he be... so angry?

Her breath shallow and trembling she shrank and skittered across the Col toward him, her head low, her ears down and her paws moving quickly.

She entered the den.

Suddenly, it began to dawn on her as her eyes darted about at the mess. Her things spilled on the floor.
A tiny satchel close to the fire, the smell of burning herbs...

He had found them her stash of contraceptive herbs!

She froze, her breathing shallow. Then she drew in a meditative breath, and slowly, tremblingly she started to pick up the mess, silent, not looking at him.

"Speech"

She appeared quickly, head ducked and pose submissive. Like a meek little thing, someone you'd expect to be innocent of the crime he was about to label her with. The scent of her fear and shallow breathing did nothing to calm him. If any other wolf raised their voice to her, moved a paw against her… he would rip them apart. But he raised himself up, towering above her as she moved to clean some of the mess he had scattered about her den.


Leaning forward, the enraged warlord pushed a paw through the flames.  Feeling the fire lick up his paw as he shoved the ashen remains of her herbs from the flaming wood. Scattering it onto the stone floor between them. “Betrayal.” He said, the ice in his tone a contrast to the heat roiling through his body. “I expect it from my family, my pack.” He snarled, running a scorched paw across an old wound. “I didn't expect it from you. You hid this from me!” His voice raised, and he leaned over the flames. Closer to her. The urge to hurt her struck him he stepped over the campfire. Closing the distance between them as he pressed a paw onto her shoulder. Digging his claws into her fur like a cage. A monster. Her monster, through there was no affection in his eyes as he watched her now.

She froze and watched in mounting horror as he reached into the flames, grabbed the remains of the herbs, and scattered them on the floor before her.

The ice in his tone as he practically spits the word at her fills her limbs. She backs away as he begins to close the distance, beginning to scramble, and whimpers as his claws dig into her shoulder painfully.

"You-!" She choked out, not used to even having a voice in this instance, she curled her lip and pined her ears against her skull, a flash of anger overcoming her fear.

"You decided to test me! You decided to make-" She struggled, and huffed, "I didn't betray you!" She yelled back with a weak fury, she didn't see it as a betrayal, she saw it as part of the game they had been playing!

"Ignita"

He snarled at her defiance, through some not-small part of him enjoyed the bite in her voice. “I took them away! You went behind my back.” He snarled, tightning his grip in her coat. Perhaps he still considered too much of her to be his. Parts of her were a separate entity, but for so long she had been his slave. Loyal, obedient. Even as he sought to build her up, this defiance drove in him a desire to crumble it all back down again. 


He liked the way she jumped when he told her to. What would her slowly gaining strength and independence mean for them? When one small push sent everything scrambling?


He raised his other paw, leaning on his hunches as he dug this one into her other shoulder. Pushing her down into the ground. “Have you changed your mind then?” Everything about his voice and body told her she stood on dangerous ground. “Decided not to bear my children? While I've been travelling to the hallows, planning--” he cut himself off, breathing heavily.

Her brow furrowed deeply, her golden eyes dancing between his, trying to read him, trying to ascertain exactly what this part of the game was. But as he dug into her shoulder and ground it into the dirt she gasped! She choked back a tear from the pain, and stifled a sob.

He raised his other paw! She cowered trembling, bracing for the inevitable smack. A whimper again as he pushed. She looked up, so confused.

"No! I haven't changed my mind! I promise! I just! I didn't want-to-get-pregnant-until-after-your-tests!" She said rapidly. Scrambling from beneath his paw, trying to breathe, trying to push his paw off her.

"They'd be mine too!" She snarled out!

"Ignita"

Her defiance grew even as he pushed her into the ground. Her words bold despite her fear. He could scent it, see it in the wideness of her eyes. “My decision!” He roared into her face. A towering giant, a monster. Warlord and dictator. He released his hold on her coat suddenly, smacking a paw into the ground beside her. He leaned back, breathing quickly and trying to pull this burning anger back inside. 


“Our decision.” The thought of ignita betraying him had clearly almost pushed him over the edge. But he as he tethered there for a moment he remembered something else. That he loved her. “Talk me through it, Ignita.” He said softly, sitting back on his hunches. “You killed our chances while I thought we had even odds.”

She cowered, her ears flat and her face hid as he bellows at her. The tears come silently, the beast towering over her, casting a shadow as deep as the gaping void. Suddenly she gasps as she is released and she pulls herself, scrambling small into a corner, hiding.

Her breath shuddering against the walls she closes her eyes as he pulls back, reframes his statement, and gives her back a personhood with his softer words of realization.

She desperately tried to pull in her breathing but it shuddered and hitched and hiccuped in her ribs. She slumped against the wall, her shoulder aching and burning where his claws had dug in and the pressure clamped on.

She faced the empty wall, clutching her shoulder. She finally heaved a steadying breath, her cheeks wet, her jaw clenched.

"I thought it was a game. I thought I was moving the pieces right along with you." She revealed to the wall, "It wasn't going to be forever! I just wanted to have some..." She shook her head. Some modicum of choosing for herself.

Then her head twitched suddenly as she realized something, she spun to look at him, her own accusations in her eyes,
"You hide things from me! All the time!" She hissed at him.

"Ignita"

Control… that’s what it all came down to, didn’t it? He felt his control over her slipping, even as she scrambled for some small measure of it. He rubbed a paw across his eyes, feeling suddenly tired. The anger fled him, and in its absence, exhaustion flooded in. “Some time. Some control. Iggy.” He muttered softly, lowering himself slowly to the floor. Looking at her as if afraid too much attention on her might break her.

“I just want them now… push everything else aside. Who and what we are, the whys, everything. I just want to grasp that future. I thought you were taking something from me.” he admitted. As far as apologies went, it was lacklustre, but it was all he had at the moment. “What have I hidden from you Ignita? What do you want to know? Ask me.” He thought he’d been rather good about sharing with her, when sharing had never come easily to him.


"Basilisk"

She huffed through her nose as he finished her sentence for her. Control. What else would a former slave try out for herself? How far would his words of release give her? He didn't trust her, and no, hiding the herbs didn't help any of it. But she wasn't as aware of that implication.

He wanted them now... Of course, he wanted them now, a very large part of her did too, but as it had become very obviously evident she wasn't truly unshackled, would her children play a game and be accused of betrayal?

He asked her what he had hidden from her as if she would know! She turned away from him again, sick of the sight of her things scattered on the floor around him. As soon as he had asked the thought escaped from the tip of her tongue and now she couldn't recall it clearly at all.
"Grra! It was right there! I had it and it's gone. But you do! You did!" She kicked the wall both in frustration that her brain couldn't hold the thought long enough and frustrated at the whole thing.

"Why were you in here anyway? Were you looking for something to accuse me of?" She asked the wall again with a scowl, still a burning venom on her lips, wiping away another tear. Was he looking for proof of a phantom betrayal in his mind like her crazed not-mother back in the desert? Smashing Ignita's inventions and ripping her notes because she fantasized Ignita's betrayal? The girl had not been able to do anything then except cry and clean for days. She had been barely a yearling when it happened.

"Ignita"

Hmm… he watched as she vented her own frustrations. His iggy of the past wouldn't have dared hit the wall, or faced his rage. She was growing. Older, braver  as he had intended with his tests. “Ask me a question, and I'll answer no matter the cost.” He told her softly, a gift. An apology. For the rage he had flown into and the fear he had put her through. 


Why were you in here? Yes. That was something else they needed to address. “Is this your home or ours? We will need to decide which den will be our home, and there's.” Was she accusing him of being a guest in the den they shared and made love in? A more tyrannical part of him wondered that she would claim he did not have the right to enter any den. This land they stood on belonged to him. “I did not disturb your things at first. But I looked. I wanted to see what you had seen, felt what you had felt.” He wanted to know everything about her, his love for her was undeniable, if a little twisted. Did it frighten her to know she was beloved by a monster?

Her breath came hard as she glared at the wall. Unable to face him, a shield of her back gave her a semblance of safety that fed her bravery, more than she certainly had before.

Ingita ground her teeth as she felt like every word now was a dangerous trap. Obviously whatever den he was in was his, but... these were her things! Stuff she had kept just for herself, a palace of her mind, a library of notes, anecdotes, references, journals, sketches, and books! Precious memories that her mind could never recall on the spot. And he just rifled through them and threw them everywhere! Now she'll have to reorganize them and try to remember what every piece was about!

She drew in a long breath. He didn't know what he'd done or why it had hurt her so so much. But it was inevitable, it was who he was. If she was going to lead, if she was going to carry both their children, they were going to come to some kind of agreement.

She gathered her paws under her and pushed against the floor. Her face was still hard, she didn't know if she had it in her to explain.

She drew her head up to look at him with great effort. Anger, no fury, was still flaming behind her eyes.

"When I left... the desert, by accident. I left... everything. Everything. All of my notes, all of my inventions, I've lost and left more there than I can ever remember." and of course, now it was going to hit her like a ton of bricks, the accumulated knowledge she carried in her head was nothing without her notes and references.

"Bas, this-" She pushed a paw out to the scattered scrolls, bits and bobs, and items, trinkets, stones, bags, satchels, papers, sticks, "This. is. me. Every item I keep... is a memory, a thought, a note, a remembrance, knowledge... me. I am-" Her voice hitched as she choked, fresh hot tears started to crack through her fury, grief.

"Without any of this I am nothing." She said, "I don't mind where I sleep, though I definitely prefer in your arms. Wherever you are! But these..." And she flung her paw out again, setting her rump heavily down finally gazing about at the destruction. She choked on a sob.

She chewed her lip, "Don-Don't... Please, don't do this again." She finally forced out, not able to meet his gaze. This was more than just breaking shelves his grandfather built from her haphazard climbing, this was more than just effort. Each item held a part of her soul and collectively they were a part of her.

"Ignita"

Her focus wasn't on the question he had offered, or even their argument itself. It was on the items he had left in disarray around the room. Her distress was clear as she spoke of what she had left behind. That each item was a thought, a moment in her life. The last of his anger fled him as confusion took its place. He seated himself a little more firmly on the ground beneath him. His burnt paw throbbed, but he pushed the minor discomfort aside. His brows furrowed as he looked at Ignita. “This is just… stuff.” As she had struggled to put it into words, so did he. “Things can be replaced, people can't. There will always be importance in items. Survival, and comfort.” Ah, but he wasn't a sentimental wolf. He had never owned an item he loved enough to cry over. Never owned an item his father wouldn't have confiscated for training if he had shown enough interest in it. 


He stepped closer to her, though he did not know if his presence would be welcomed. “Things don't matter to me, but if this is to work I need to understand what matters to you. I will take more care and consideration with your things.” He promised her. A careful promise, one that did not promise not to pry. He was not a trusting wolf, the Warlord.

At first, she thought he was about to brush it all away, tell her to discard it all, he would invalidate their importance to her. The things WERE the people! Her memories of the people were IN the things! She couldn't discard them because without her things... she would forget the people too, who they were, and what they meant to her... How could she explain-

Her fur bristled with a renewed sense of fear, suddenly he wasn't Bas coming toward her, promising to respect her things. He was a palace guard coming to rip her papers out of her paws! She scrambled for her papers suddenly, the whites of her eyes showing briefly. Her words half shouted, "No! Please! Tell her I put them away! Tell her I don't have them anymore!" in another motion she backed up to the wall she had kicked earlier, her paws full of half-crumpled papers, then suddenly she stopped and blinked. He was Bas again. It was just a flash of a moment.

She looked up and recognized him again, her face then contorted into sobbing grief. She pulled her paws up to cover her face, the papers fluttering to the floor. A part of her had heard him, and she ran to him, burying her tiny face into his chest as hard as she could. She wanted it all to stop.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt... us, with the herbs. I'm sorry." She cried, shaking her head. Her mind jumped topics like a dragonfly over the ripples of a pond. She could connect them, she could... just maybe not out loud

"Ignita"

Basilisk may enter her threads without warning.

When new fear sparked across her face he froze. Regret surged through him now that he was calm, and she was looking at him in fear. He hadn't meant, hadn't wanted… but then her actions and words clicked and he realised she was having an episode. One that his actions had sparked. Something her old alpha had done to damage and frighten her. A new surge of anger flooded his system. This time at the actions of wolves in the past. made before she had been his, but it was inevitable that she would be his. If he could reach through the stream of time and strangle the woman that had ‘Raised’ her, he would.


He didn't move again until the upside had past. In her first one she had sought out the comfort of him. But he had the feeling that this time he would make it worse.


But then she was springing forward into him and he wrapped his paws around her. Pulling her into him, breathing in the scent of her. He kissed the top of her head, cradling the smaller wolf I'm his arms. “Shhhh, I'm here Ignita. It's okay, it's okay. I love you. I'm sorry, I didn't understand their importance, I'm sorry.” He said into her coat, holding her to him as if letting her go would destroy him. “Think of something else, Ask a question, have some control, little love. Let me help.” Some way. Any way.

The smell of him brought her back further. The way his fur felt on her face and his soothing voice over her ears. The way he kissed the top of her head as she cried into him.

She breathed, she stopped her shaking and she pressed her forehead into him as she cleared her nose and breathed. She let her mind scramble to the sense of calm, serene flow she had practiced. Her shuddering stilled, and eventually, her tears quelled. Think of something else.

She sniffed, then pulled her face up to look up at him. Another glistening tear left her eye, it was impossible to stop it all instantly.
"The Hallows..." She rasped, her question a breath behind it, "You're hiding why you went to the Hallows... So... that's my question, what was the reason you went?" He had been brushing off his reason since before he left and was extremely vague about it when he came back.

"Ignita"

Basilisk may enter her threads without warning.

Ah. He hadn't expected her to ask that one, through perhaps he should have. It was one she had asked and he had dodged not that long ago. He brushed her fur gently behind her ears, as he thought. Her strength had come from a desire to fight for and protect children not even conceived yet. He had been working to carefully craft that motivation to fuel her training. He had hidden the truth from her for a reason, though he had longed to share the truth. He didn't want to damage the road she was pathing to strength. But he had promised her an answer, and he wouldn't deny her this.


“I went to the Hallows to ask Artorias to marry us.” He said, but there was so much more to it than that. “I went to the wolf who's pack is renowned as a sanctuary to any who need it, to a wolf who would take you from me in a heartbeat if he thought you were not entering a marriage by choice. So that when we marry”-as if there was no doubt that it would be so “-you will understand that it was completely and utterly of your own volition. I went to Artorias, who's position as a Lord in these lands and kin to me validates both your position in this marriage, and your claim to my throne as my spouse.” There. That was the whole of it. His plans laid bare. The only thing left was the necklace, and the proposal itself. Those truths he didn't have to give her yet. He fell silent, letting that sink in.

"... to ask Artorias to marry us." She blinked. Frozen. As he continued she slowly leaned away from him, not as a rejection, but more so they could look at each other without hurting their necks. Allowing the gravity of the purpose to sit between them.

He laid it out so succinctly that it left no room around it for her to ponder implications, or guess between the lines.

Her head turned away from him, stunned. Shocked even. The roller coaster of ups and downs and ups again... She drew in a breath, her mind had stopped. It just stopped, her head subtly shook back and forth.

"I..."

Her eyes now held a vacant stare. She got up as if robotic and walked back to the wall she had kicked and pressed her head into the cool stone wall. She nearly walked out to get some air, but that was the last thing she should do to him.

She swallowed. Her mouth went dry, her paws felt like someone else's, and her fur felt like it was encased in itchy sand.

She placed a golden paw against the stone and pushed against it, to look at it. To observe the golden details of her own tiny, agile, roughly hewn, dirty, paw. Who's only worth was in what she made. Her heart sank.

She finally turned to him again, "Is that... why you wanted pups now? Would you love me if... we couldn't even conceive?"

"Ignita"

Basilisk may enter her threads without warning.

He watched her take it in. He wasn't offended by the silence, he knew well that he was putting her through the ringer today. From fear at his explosive anger, to understanding the depths he would go for her.


She pulled away from him and he let her go, when his instincts were to hold on tighter. He watched in silence as she approached the wall where she had let out some of her anger earlier.


When she turned back to him, he closed the distance between them again. To hell if it was the wrong move, he wanted to be closer to her. He pressed a paw lightly against the side of her shoulder. “If we can't bear children, I'll be heartbroken. But I don't love you for kids. I want them now because I'm an impatient asshole Warlord. Having them or not doesn't change how deeply I want to tie you to me. And me to you.”

She jumped slightly at his movement toward her, her nerves frayed as she swallowed back her fear at his sudden closeness. His paw landed lightly on her good shoulder, was that the burnt one? Or was it the other? Her other shoulder still ached.

And then he said all the right things and she laid her cheek gently over his paw. She couldn't help the weak incredulous chuckle at his labels for himself but sobered as he finished his words. She sighed, and sank into him.

But a thought drifted through her evanescent mind and she nearly gasped with wide-eyed alarm, "Spider! None of this-! None of this deposes them! Or-or Wylan! Our children don't threaten their places, do they? I can't remember if we talked about it!" Suddenly panicked and looked wildly around but then she slumped against his arm with a sigh, completely spent. Not quite fainting but her eyes drop heavily and she becomes weak in his arms. She moaned exhausted,
"I need a nap." She admitted faintly.