bullet-catch

March 5th; Just before sunset; Clear; 1° F/-17° C

Angier was confused. He knew he shouldn't have been but whatever it was - Lust? Desire? Longing? Anxiety? - that had been brewing and bubbling up in his throat and chest had turned sour. On top of the still unavoidable pangs of hunger, it had felt as though weights had piled into his ribcage and his limbs had been fashioned from petrified wood and opal. As a Leader it was his duty to fulfill the needs of his partner... his fellow Leader... and mate. If Borden had been able to find happiness in his life through Jaysyek, then he, Angier, could possibly find the same in @Elettra, right? The idea set into motion the countless butterflies that had taken up refuge in his lungs.

He had traveled well away from Willow Ridge as to break free from the several overlapping canopies, but soon enough he felt vulnerable and too exposed, and sought cover beneath the familiar trees. Some of them, mainly the ones that made up the tree line that marked the beginning of the grove, had begun to sport little green buds and regain color in their whiplike vines and predominantly gray trunks. Only when he touched his nose to a singular sprig of green did Angier realize why he felt this way... For the past five years he had been able to push down the onslaught of lechery that overwhelmed him each spring, but now... for the first time in his life he was actually capable of acting on those feelings and, for once, pursuing his dream of having a family of his own.

The thing was... how did one initiate these sort of... things? His father had never been an affectionate man or, well, he might have if only behind closed doors. Angier wasn't sure, but what he knew of love and endearment were shallow concepts. Cast upon a soul as powerful and influential as Elettra, he was sure he needed a different sort of approach. But... what? Or... how?

Much too caught up in his worries, the Lyall had curled up at the base of a willow tree, tail tucked up to his stomach from between his legs and head propped up against both the hard-packed snow and the frozen willow roots. He should have been more observant when his brother was still around. Borden might have lost Jaysyek once and separated from her for some time before being reunited with her, but at the very least Borden would have known more than anyone what it was like to play up to a more dominant significant other.

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She knew what time of year it was. She had been victim to it a time or two before, once of her own dominant force and one of another and less so willingly... The obvious need and craving to breed twisted in her gut, causing to mingle nauseously with the emptiness of hunger. Two years ago her pack had formed just beyond breeding season, sparing her the need of reproduction that she most definitely had not been ready for. Last year was a moment of power, lust, the need to take control...and she had. Elettra Archer was both lucky and proud that all of her litter had survived up until now, with Spring surely soon to come, though Winter still clung on with harsh bitterness. Now she did not sit alone on her throne. Now she had a Leader at her side once more, someone she could call her mate, for surely Angier had already given the title to her. She needed not hide during the breeding season any longer. Needed not to worry over keeping her placement as Leader, worry if she would go through parenthood alone once more. She had him and he was hers.

Her bitterness hid her sadness. She had stalked around these lands with a stick up her ass for far too long. No one bothered question why she was so angry, for most of them knew. Winter had been quite harsh for Willow Ridge and although the children had survived, two others had not amongst countless others who had up and disappeared. Surely her members felt for their Leader whilst the two newest likely left uncomfortable and confused...Elettra had yet any shits to give. At this point, Elettra would do anything to move past this winter and leave the many losses to simmer into the depths of her mind.

In her strides of isolated wondering, she would find him. He was perched under a Willow Tree as she had been introduced to him time and time again. She would always remember Angier like this, circled in a lay under the Willows of her homeland. The smallest of smiles touches her expression, but it is brief before fluttering away. For now, she is content to stand there watching him from the distance and silence.

For what seemed like hours - in reality, it had been only mere minutes since he had settled down to think - the tawny Lyall remained in silence underneath the umbrella-like tree. Several times over his whiskered brows drew together before returning to their usual positions above his eyes. Yes, Borden would have known, the lump in his throat threatened to choke him alive. Instead of hating his brother after all these years, he found that he should have rekindled his relationship with him much further than he initially had when they had reunited as Leader and subordinate in Grizzly Hollow. He was grateful, however, the fact that Borden had still loved him as a brother, protected him as he had his own flesh and blood.

He tucked his limbs closer to his abdomen and torso despite realizing that he could not become any smaller with such a bulky, barrel-like build. He was about to tuck his nose between his forelimbs when he noticed her there against the twilight behind the veil of willow branches. A dark shadow against sunset-tinted snow. His tongue curled over itself in his mouth as he pressed it against the ridges in palette. She had found him... and he still had not come up with game plan.

Lift your head, Borden's voice filled his ears as his breath caught in his chest. The butterflies taking flight once more only to smack every which way into the sides of his ribcage and set his heart into a terrible and frantic rhythm. Say hello... The corners of Angier's lips began to twitch as his nose quivered. Was that... Was that a smile? He resisted the urge to squint and try to make out the expression on her face, and as modestly as he could manage, he flattened his ears as a gesture to acknowledge her presence.

Say hello, Angier...

His chest felt as though it ballooned twice its normal size when he inhaled. He should have seen this coming, but the winter had done well in pushing nostalgic things away from the forefront of his mind. It seemed that Elettra would never fail to find him there, at rest beneath a willow tree while he continually waited for her to come to him... and, perhaps, this was how it would always be. A strand of his confidence was recovered, if only by the familiarity of it all.

"Yer welcome to rest a while with me," he murmured.

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He is silent for some time, staring into her direction as he had done time and time before. She could only stare back, pale eyes of grey staring into that of pale golden. A direct contact, though the expression drawn and tired with the wear of winter and lacking the threatening, dominant display a direct stare would have otherwise entitled. She moved only when he spoke, her long powerful limbs carrying her on easy steps into his direction. Each sway of well-rounded hips bring her closer to him and all the while she is silent, unsure of what to say. Today she does not hold any snotty or teasing quips. She only takes to his words and moves to situate herself under the willow tree as well and followed by a deep sigh. She would sit there only for a moment until she slides down into a lay, stretching out the length of her body along his side. It is without any doubt that he would know her depression. Semananti's death hit her hard. Narcissa's death hit her harder. There was a fear there, swirling in her gut that more and more were yet still due to parish before winter was over and there was one wolf who's horrid health struck out the most, leaving her further worried and stressed. The tension in her bones was obvious even as she lay at his eyes, her eyes lost somewhere, fixing out on the lands beyond their territory as though searching for a way to end her pain.

Much to his surprise, she closed the distance between them and she, too, kept quiet... as if the atmosphere was much too fragile. As if the slightest utterance of wrong words could shatter everything that had yet to happened between their impending encounter. He watched as she settled down at his side, sitting at first before reclining down into the snow. Half a sigh lifted from his nostrils and, though he was scared to touch her at the start, slowly reached over to preen the back of her ears with his teeth, smoothing the stark black fur with the tip of his tongue a few times before he truly began to worry about the rigidness in her posture.

A smile dared to tug at his lips and his tail finally freed itself from being pinned between his ankles, but it gave way bit by bit the longer her read into the expression on her face. She seemed lost... and if Angier was going to admit it to himself, he was going to accept that a part of him had become scared of the idea of a "distant Elettra." For as long as he had known her, she had always known what she wanted, who she was, what she felt...

Perhaps... Perhaps she had felt vulnerable today, too? Maybe... Maybe today had been just one of those days...

He could just imagine Borden smiling at him, urging him on. He withdrew his muzzle from her neck to look her over in the day's last light. "Nothing smart to say to me today?" he wanted to tease. "No words of ridicule for bashfulness?" He bit his tongue and grazed the length of his muzzle across the underside of her chin and throat. Surely that would provoke something from her? Oh, he hoped it would.

"You aren't yourself... Dear," he half-jested, quietly smiling down at her as he braced himself for a form of backlash on her part. The smile ebbed away again much quicker than it had the last time, a look of genuine worry settling on his face as he cooed, "If you're going to weather this 'storm' with me, ya can't be th' only one subject to it..." He sat up slowly so that he could gaze fully upon her and move to nudge her other ear with his ice-covered nose.

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A lynx has left behind the remains of a deer. +5 Health

His licks and nips of social grooming soothed her, causing her eyes to momentarily flutter to a close and her head to fall, allowing it to rest on the outstretched limbs before her. She was fine here, laying in this silence as she had been for some time. Though she knew herself better then that. She could not avoid speaking to Angier forever. Could not avoid speaking to her pack, her children. As her eyes once more fluttered open and her head lifts, taking in the delicate glow of the coming morning, she would see the smile of Angier Lyall in the corner of his expression. She was only left to wonder what he was so happy for, why? The pack was starving, the lands were dead, wolves were dead and the true question was 'Who's next?' Still Angier smiled and she would have never bothered to think that he smiled due to her own presence...

His touch stirred her. His muzzle moving under the length of her chin and throat, causing her muzzle to dip down so that she was draping it over his own. A fleeting smile is fought over his features once more, if only to sooth the worry she was sure he was now feeling for her. He sat up then with his words and she stretched out further lazily at his feet, her lips forming in a hard line before speaking. "Too many have been lost to us this year..." She speaks simply, sounding her distress as her mind yet brewed over the events of this passing Winter. Semananti and Narcissa's deaths were the worst of it, of course, but countless overs had vanished - Calla, Tempest, Muerda, Kasai, ...

Elettra sprawled out further before him, and Angier watched quietly as she slowly came to. "Too many have been lost to us this year..." she finally spoke. He had to take a minute to consider what she meant, to count in his head just how many faces and scents he could recall from the past week alone. Calla, he had known, had been gone for months now; the reason why, he hadn't been able to pry from her, but he had assumed that she had gone to the east in search of her missing sister, the niece Borden had remained behind for. Tempest, Muerda, Kasai, he remembered being gone for a while, but to suddenly realize that he had not seen Semananti or Narcissa suddenly caught his attention.

His head tilted curiously as he blinked down at her. Was this the reason she had been so distant lately? He frowned briefly while he counted the pack members he had scented on the borders and around the pack den in passing. He had just seen @Guiness the other morning before they set off on different paths. Skoll and @Asriel, he noticed, had been spending time together a little bit more than usual and when they weren't together, @Morganna was usually with one of them. @Senka and @Adelaide, he had just seen a few hours ago before he originally set off towards Fireweed Rise. He thought to have seen @Skana a few days ago when he was traversing past her part of the territory, but he wasn't quite sure.

Altogether, the pack still consisted of at least nine, albeit starving, members. Compared to what his own parents had had control over - five kids, an age mate, two rogues, and a set of aging parents - Angier felt that Elettra was still doing fine. What could possibly be wrong? Unless... He shook his head for a short moment. To delve into her relationships with those who had left would be intrusive, and he had every desire to continue to be blind and oblivious to the significance any of them held to Elettra. They had been her members, her family, and pack... Having been one of the newest among them, Angier believed himself incapable of truly seeing Narcissa or Semananti for who they were, which was a shame, really, though he understood enough that they were respectable women in Elettra's ranks.

"Maybe," he whispered, lifting a paw up and over her figure so that he could crane his neck down to continue tidying the bits of fur she could not groom on her own. He grazed his tongue over the backside of her ear, keeping his lips close to it as he reminded her, "You do still have your children. All three of them, too... And Guiness an' Skana." A chuckle attempted to bubble up into his throat but he was able to detain it by playfully nipping at the tip of the ear he smoothed out. "And, well... me."

His tail swung about in a wide curve behind him as he straightened himself, sitting properly now without hovering over her. He scooted back before he laid back down beside her, nuzzling the side of his face to her shoulder. He rested an ear to her ribcage, his ivory snout angled up along her shoulder blade. "Your heart sounds like it's beating a bit too fast," he hummed, looking towards the back of her head.

(This post was last modified: Mar 07, 2014, 09:42 PM by Angier.)

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Surely he had heard her sorrowful call? Surely he had listened to the goodbye song both she and her son Asriel had sung out over the skies of above Drooping Willows. They had mourned for both Semananti and Narcissa and it would be a shock to her if he had not at least known of them having gone missing, if not knowing of them having died all together. Loosing a member because they just decided the pack was not for them, were only passing through, or because they wanted to build a family of their own was different. Though having her pack-mates, trusted friends and allies to her, die under her watch as a Lead of this pack was far different. Perhaps this did not plague him the way it plagued her. Perhaps it was simply because he did not know the two women who had died the way she had. Surely, she would get over their loss, if only in due time. ...If only due to something else taking over her mind as time passed on without them.

She finds her eyes closing once more, head laying yet again a moment to enjoy the grooming which he offered her, followed by some words of comfort. Elettra Archer had been spending too much time thinking over what she had lost and not thinking enough on what she still yet held. Nina had lost a child already. Unknowingly to her, Narime had too lost a pup, her only daughter out of the group. Elettra was very proud that all three of her children were alive and well, or at least well enough they could be during this harsh winter. That and a few of her most faithful remained - Skana, Guiness, Angier, as he would not allow her to forget.

Once more a deep sigh takes her, trying to relax herself as Angier's words slip through her mind. She leans into him, her eyes still closed as she allows her other senses to take over. She smelt the familiarity of his dominant scent. The touch as his muzzle grazed along the length of her shoulder. His voice, delicately pleading to her... "Angier..." She breaths out his name nearly hesitantly. She knew all along it would come down to this very moment and this 'beating around the bush' was driving her to further madness. "I want to love you as you love me. I want to be yours, as you are mine." She shifts then as her eyes open once more, dancing over the sky as it began to light for a new day. She falls away from him and onto her side, so that she may see the expression over his face - the reaction to her words. "Make me whole again... Give me something new to live for."

"Angier."

The utterance of his name made his ears perk up and he lifted his head as his curiosity piqued, a low whine emitting from his snout. Yes? he wordlessly pleaded. His tail dragged itself through the snow and back against his side. "I want to love you as you love me. I want to be yours, as you are mine," she revealed, turning back to look over at him. His pale eyes intently focused on her face, attempting to pull from her more than just her explanation. She indulged him.

She wanted him to make her feel whole, to give her something new to live for...

"O' course," he answered, hesitating only a few seconds to fully understand what the motive was behind her words. It took a couple more moments for him to get past the idea and embrace it. If Elettra had wished it, she could have had asked Guiness to attend to her... But she was here, now, with him... and, she had asked him... if he was hearing it all correctly. "An' what would you 'ave me do?" he asked, unable to stop staring at her now that she had rolled onto her side to gaze at him. What do you want me to do?

While it had occurred to Angier exactly what she was proposing, he still had himself elbow-deep in the fear that had come from his ability to successfully woo her. He shuffled forward on his belly and elbows, forcing himself to smile through the nervousness that had begun to claim him again. She had given him an opportunity and he was going to try hard not to bomb it. "If you wish it of me," he pressed his lips close to her ear. "Then you are equally mine." Despite the partial confidence in his voice, his anxiety coiled in his core; his olfactory senses reactivating as he filled his airways with air predominated by her scent. There was more to it than the willow bark and the maturing shoots on the vines of the willow trees, something - in all its enticing and seductive notes - further coaxed his primitive state of mind from its hiding place.

As slowly as he was able, he stood up, and in gazing down at her he waited for Elettra to reciprocate. He was by no means a true dominant male, but for Elettra Archer, the woman who had always had the means to ensnare him beneath the canopy of a willow tree, he was determined to be what she needed or asked of him. Just as he had before, he stepped over her, "pinning her" between his two ivory forelimbs before lowering his head to place kisses to her cheek. Unlike her previous suitors, he would not be over-assertive and selfish. Nor would he be too submissive and reliant on her commands. Since his arrival to the head of the pack, he had only ever wanted to be Elettra's equal, and for as long as Elettra approved, he would also give and take... Anything to make the Archer matriarch happy.

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