hardly difficult for a wolf like fenrir to admit fact. absent of all other things, he is a man of logic. it is his benefit to neirin that the alpha of their four can deal in formalities while his silent black shadow takes in all the other information of the world around them. advisor, eyes, and sometimes fang of neirin, fenrir knows his place well enough and with enough surety that to lie about his pains would only seem a bastardization of his purpose.
she asks if he is hurt and there is no amount of pompousness that he could muster for the sake of preening like males often did. his exploit had been hers, so the victory would hardly be something to marvel at from her perspective. if he were to puff himself up, it would have been for a lone venture and with as spectacular a result. “I had an injury similar to that this past winter. Perhaps a visit to a healer would help ease some of the soreness.” she suggests, but he is too taken in by the flash of a smile to answer swiftly, “It is only because I was overly cautious this time. A repeat of that same injury was not something I wished to repeat so soon.” she finishes and he nods, but looks down to evade the notion of a foreign healer tending to wounds he could tend to himself.
self-reliant, it was necessary for his position amongst his brothers.
“Well I certainly hope she is amenable to his crude comments. It would be a shame if she might tear his muzzle off."” and to that he can chuckle and laugh, can find amusement in her misconception - not unusual, mind - of his red brother. “You are mistaken. i did not defend you from him because you were incapable of correcting him with violence… it is in fact what he most hoped for you to do...” he looks at her with a little warning, a little caution, and a little tension that might have been the wish of a loved one that you tell a secret to and realize that you might have been duped if they had not intervened. “you are a strong woman. he would not take an interest in less… but he thrives on proving his strength when he can. he thrives on the thrill of facing down someone who is sure of their prowess...”
he looks at his paws, trying to fashion a sensible string of words for what he wanted to convey. “the situation was deeper than you think.” and it is not condescension that makes him say so, as made evident by his tone. he is carefully choosing words, not hesitating. “we do not interfere with challenges we are not welcomed into. if you had made physical your dislike, even if just to bare teeth, i would not have been able to come to aid unless you had asked - as he would not have - and by asking me, you would have lost any safety from him in any case.” he looks up again, trying to discern if she understood that the situation was more than just “protecting a lady” and more personal and singular.
“i did not want you to be at his mercy and so i chose to challenge him myself before anything could come of it… you did not know who you would be fighting and i did not come out unscathed having fought him hundreds of times before...”
but perhaps the concern growing in his eyes can be of some amusement, “not that you are incapable....” he tries to slip in, but he looks down sharply and lets out a tense sigh. “i am making a mess of it, do not mind me.” he finally adds as a punctuation to the conversation trail. “It is not every day that my honor is protected by another. It is nice to be appreciated at times.” and that comment is as much reassurance as he needs.
but she is swift to change course at any rate, as if sensing his unrest, “I am glad you visited, Fenrir. Come, shall we sit in the meadow and learn more of the other?” she asks, rhetorical but almost as though she was helping them leave the matter of his dangerous red brother behind by leaving the place where they had only just sat. it soothes him, this change of course, and though she does not do more than brush past him - the sensation of his fur against hers is enough to make him come to his feet and follow to their destination as closely as formalities between unmated wolves would demand.
careful, that is fenrir. always careful.
when they reach the knoll, a small one at the foot of spirane’s namesakes, she lays down and he is swift to follow suit equally as near as would be permitted, as before. her glance to him makes him settle, though his eyes seem never less than watchful and his ears are attentive in their directions. “Have you seen your son yet?” she asks, but the tone is gentle and so the slight darkness of that carefully controlled static bleeds just a little into the deathly pale green of his eyes. “i have no rights to calling him such a familiar term, but i cannot speak to another one that could be properly suited…” he says carefully, almost absent of inflection and just a mite faster than his usual verbal cadence, “i have not seen Taliesin, no.” he answers at long last.
his face is well guarded, so unused to being open when it was not his brothers in the matters that concerned his deeply scarred heart. “his mother and i were imprints since the first grown generation within these lands. i met her much as i met you, defending her from ifrit’s advances - though then it had been an overgrown sense of propriety in defending honor… as back then it was not such an insult to a woman to take care of her, strong or no.” he offers a weak smile at that, saying he did not feel she had been overly sore but knows it to be the truth just the same. “it was love, or so i believed, since back then the imprinting was treated far more tenderly than it is today. it was respected and rejoiced, even amongst the surprised -- which i was. son of the king of bachelors, he had tried to hide me from it long enough to make my decision to be prince and while i took up my duties, she became the first female to receive an open welcome in scotavia -- or what is now taviora.”
the release of the information seems to settle him more, but still he remains primarily unmoved of expression and tone. “many things happened, but we felt our bond sever and i believed her dead until i returned here and we discovered each other once again, our bond fashioning itself a second time--” and then his face falls. “it was grand, our reuniting. she was the color of a peach rose… but she wished to learn of where i had come from and where i had traveled…..”
he sighs, looking out across the landscape and unable to hide how hard it was to keep that stronger face as he spoke, “and i could not deny her. no matter the litter she was to create from our rediscovery...” and he shakes his head, brow furrowing as if struggling with the memory, “and then i knew we could not take them… i am not unknown where we had planned to go and he would have been mating fodder or worse if he had come along without defenses… and i am older than to defy nanruan law… all five of us would have been…. so i could not bear to look on him. she birthed and when she had given him to the king and queen of your country, we took leave…..” he swallows back a growl but his lips raise, “i left him because the desire of my mate, my imprint, dictated i appease her and yet my knowledge of that world was one that did not allow me to offer our son to the whims of a world where he could not thrive…. and my Doe, in fact, did not. she fell to the fangs of a beast who had hated me for my fathers time as usurper of his grandfather’s throne...”