ooc: set after her thread with Roman when she gets her tribal mark thing on her hip Vereux was gone. He had simply left and now he was gone. Athena had spent the last several days making herself accept this fact, forcing herself to think it and mumble it to herself several times a day. She kept herself from leaving the borders of Regium despite her urge to keep looking for him. Slowly the urge faded away and was overtaken by the dull, painful emptiness of loss. She had so much love around her from her children and from Amalia and from her other family members, but some how Vereux's disappearance had made her loose sight of all that love. The loss of her husband had hit her harder than she had ever anticipated. She wove her way through the trees of the Red Forest, finally feeling the smallest bit excited and hopeful. It was the best she had felt since she noticed Vereux's absence. She glanced back at the fresh mark on her left hip and gave a small smile. It was like the symbol of a new beginning. Turning her split-tone gaze to the bracelets that jingled gently around her forelegs as she walked she sighed, the memory of finding them with Vereux coming to mind. Part of her wanted to be rid of them. They only reminded her of Veruex and their father. But... no. She had grown quite attached to them and perhaps one day she could think of those men that had impacted her life so seriously and think of them fondly. The Regium heir arrived back at the den that she shared with her children and Amalia and was surprised to find it completely empty. The pups were surely out on another adventure. That made her a bit wary considering the state that she, Amalia, and Talvi had found Vitus in not too long ago, but she wanted them to learn and grow and one of the best ways to do that was from experience. With a soft, thoughtful hum she turned so that her back was to the entrance to the den and sat down just outside of it, gazing out into the trees while she thought of her beautiful wife and wondered what her little, russet-faced woman could be up to. "Talk" "You" Think

Amalia was tired. Her whole body reeked of vomit and blood, none of it was her own though. She had been so wrapped up in healing Arietta from the poison that had taken over her body. It was the first time she had done any major healing since she had been given her rank, and she didn't have a history of purging it from wolves bodies. But the thing that scared her most, was to think of where that could have happened to the woman. Had it been something that she ate? Something that her children could get into? With that in mind she let out a whine, picking up her pace as her small body cut through the snow. Goodness she smelled terrible, perhaps a good roll in the snow would do her well. But the worry was too thick on her mind, the concern for the little ones all she could think about. As she neared the den the form of Athena came up, and the woman noticed something strange on her lovers hip. Letting out a gasp she didn't stop in her rush forward, not until she skidded to a stop beside Athena. Dipping her head down she sniffed at the mark, her nose turning up. "What happened?" she whined, not knowing that this was an intended mark. She had thought that it was a wound, but on closer inspection she saw that it was not bleeding, but rather pressed on like some sort of marking. Blinking her cyan eyes in confusion, her red face pulled back to look up at Athena. She didn't always have this marking, did she? Her head spun, as she raked through all the wonderful memories of this woman, but she didn't notice the marking... But had it been there all along? Flopping onto her rump her brows furrowed, trying to decide if she was dreaming, or just simply crazy. "Talk" "You" Think

Like she had been summoned by Athena's thoughts, Amalia appeared in her line of sight and a huge smile came onto Athena's muzzle until she saw the worried expression creased across her wife's face as she hurried toward her. Athena frowned with confusion and let her gaze follow Amalia as she went straight for the new mark on her him, sniffing at it and questioning how it happened. Now understanding Amalia's concern, Athena smiled and chuckled. "That is a tribal mark that Roman gave me, like the ones she has on her hip and above her eye. She offered to give them to anyone who wanted to show they were loyal to Regium at the last meeting and... well, I wanted to show my support for her. I'm sure it'll look a bit weird for a while till the dye really sets in, but I kind of like it." She pulled herself up onto her paws and turned to face Amalia, seeing how tired her girl was... and the smell that surrounded her. Looking her over she saw the blood and bile that stained her pale coat and her dark-tipped ears flicked back with worry. She knew Amalia had gotten more and more into healing recently so it wasn't a surprise that she had been busy with that, but who was all of this from? Were they okay? "Lets get you cleaned up a little bit," she said gently, giving Amalia a smile. "You've clearly been very busy. I think it's high time someone take care of you for a change." Athena settled back onto her haunches beside Amalia and started carefully scooping up small paw fulls of snow and placing them on Amalia's coat, letting them melt and begin to wash off the remnants of whoever she had been healing. "What happened?" she asked as she worked. "Talk" "You" Think

Her lovely Athena laughed, which drew her blue eyes up from her rump up towards her face. Head tilted to the side as she listened to her words. As she began to understand her mouth opened to form an 'o' shape. It was kind of cool, now that she knew that it wasn't a strange scar or something. Letting out a breath she stood up to full height, relaxing a little bit more. She was going to relax into her side, but remembered that she was quite smelly at the moment. The lovely silver woman came over and started to clean her up, rubbing snow into her pelt. It not only cleaned the bile and blood off of her put soothed her aching muscles. A content sigh slipped out of her maw, she wasn't used to being taken care of. Perhaps that was one of the biggest downfalls of being a healer, she was so used to taking care of others and getting nothing in return. Not that she minded really, Amalia loved to help out.

Once her coat was all clean she leaned forward and nuzzled into Athena's cheek, greedily drinking in her scent. They had been away from each other for so long, and she hated it. "I've missed you," she whispered softly, trying to close the distance between them so that they were standing chest to chest. A flush grew hot under her red cheeks, bashfully she blinked her long lashes at the taller woman, picking up her left front paw and aiming to draw it up and down Athena's own left foreleg. A soft rumble sounded in her chest, her head pushing its way under her chin. For the longest time she had been apart from her love, she had been so content on finding her husband. Ears pulled back against her skull as she tried to push away the thoughts, wanting to instead focus on this rare moment alone with her mate. Usually there was a kid or two between them. She loved those little buggers with all of her heart, but it was nice to have a bit of alone time once in awhile.

Athena had asked what had happened, and ever so slowly she pulled her head away. She couldn't very well ignore the question, but it erased the smile from her maw. "Arietta was poisoned," she whispered, a bit of fear tainting her usual sing-song voice. "I had to purge it from her system... but I don't know where she got it from," she wasn't even sure if Arietta herself knew where it came from.

When she had finished cleaning off her love's fur, Amalia pressed into her and pulled a delighted murr from Athena's chest. "I've missed you too," she whispered in response, more than happy to have her wife with her again. Little sparks danced across her skin at Amalia's touch and she leaned into each one. She tipped her muzzle down to nuzzle her face into Amalia's scruff, breathing in her scent as well. It felt like their alone time was so precious now with the boys almost always under toe so now that she had it she wasn't going to waste it. Amalia pulled back so she could finally answer her question about what had happened and Athena's dark ears fell back against her head with worry. Arietta had been one of the first wolves Athena herself had accepted into Bevroren seasons ago and still considered her one of her own so to hear she was sick was troublesome, even worse to know she had been poisoned. "I hope she gets to feeling better soon... And that she remembers where she was poisoned so we can clear it out before someone else gets sick as well." She didn't know what she would do if one of her boys or Amalia ended up in that state. She could deal with physical threats, but things like sickness terrified her because she was helpless against it. Just like when the epidemic had struck while she was an heiress. Pushing those thoughts away she sighed and leaned into Amalia's form once more so that she could slip her neck around hers in an embrace. She placed tender licks to Amalia's scruff, right between her shoulder blades, while one of her paws came up to brush against Amalia's foreleg like Amalia had done to her moments ago. She suddenly felt terrible for neglecting Amalia like she had recently. She had been so caught up in trying to find Vereux that she hadn't gotten to spend much quality time with Amalia. Her poor girl had come back to find Athena pregnant and married and even now that the boys were born Vereux had complicated things. "I'm sorry for being so distracted lately," she said softly as she lifted her head so her split-tone gaze could find Amalia's beautiful blue eyes. "And thank you for being so patient. There's no way I could have done all of this with Vereux gone and the boys being the handfuls they are." She smiled and pressed her nose to Amalia's cheek, hoping her girl knew just how much she meant to her. "Talk" "You" Think