the women that the fantastic four men chose seemed to have one thing in common. a considerable lack of trust in what the men had offered them. for natu, it was doubt that fenrir could withhold judgment for her request to contemplate his offer. for everlyse it had been the doubt that ifrit was the one should should seek out when seeking him out was precisely what she needed, though not what she wanted. for church it was the doubt her mate was as understanding and in love as he claimed. for alice, it was doubt that she felt anything it all it seemed. doubt. it was rampant in the women of moladion and the fantastic four, very much through Seamus, could understand why.
he can see the doubt in her now, and he strives to quash any amount of doubt in him in one fell swoop. he wants nothing more than that easy camaraderie from the hill in spirane beneath the open sky, him the night and her the lustrous moon. it was a glorious memory, her subtle and kind diversion of answer perfectly acceptable. he imagined he was not her only suitor and that she had much to consider since her child was alive and still in her care in the mountain kingdom.
so as he looks on her now, as he considers her and speaks, he leaves no room for misunderstanding that he does in fact still hold her in the most heartfelt esteem as he had ever done. she had been on his mind as he had been on hers, though he does not yet know how much he had been on hers. to him it was not that she sought him so much as stumbled upon him, glad of it but not realizing the implications that came with his proximity and her believed haphazard discovery of him. “Thank you,” but as we all know, he is not one to talk, really. silence was his ever-companion, and so her thanks earns a kind nod before apologizing for coming to call on her liege lord and perhaps stirring up a world of bias and hurt that might have hindered rather than helped her.
“On the contrary, I thought it quite... bold of you, and brave. It cannot have been easy to face your son once more and yet you did so anyways. I am proud of you.” and he tilts his head as if he didn’t understand her pride in so simple a thing. “for all that he thinks it, that the queen thinks it, i do not fear his dislike so much as the rottenness i have seen such a thing make in the soul-- and my brother has insisted to meet the boy. as for pride, choose something that was more feat than folly for it.” and there is a small, shadowy smile at the corners of his mouth--
at least until she steps forward and coils herself round about him.
his death-pale green eyes widen and he freezes as their hearts beat chest to chest, his a flurry like a freedom-mad canary in a blackened steel cage. “ don't need you to chase anything away for me, Fenrir, because you have already done that. You have chased the darkness from my heart and I think...” while she trembles, he is utterly still. he remains as still as the grave as his body warms and is warmed by hers, “I think this is me calling on you if you are still willing.”
and there is a slow, painfully slow, wrap of his own neck about hers as the sharpness of his eyes fade and glaze in something not unlike shock and yet so much deeper. he is raw in his entire being in the loss of his imprint over and over again and the filling of it once more is just the worst kind of pain. pain of knowing there was again something to be lost, and yet… yet, there is a turn of that searing, burning, scorching sensation as it fills him and then all seems to swirl and drain into the hole that had been like stone, ice, for so long in his chest. all that burning dread turning, draining, into the black hole of his heart till suddenly he gasps and he can feel it-- he can feel how the burning turns to a conflagration of purpose in his heart.
his growl is one of possessiveness, of victory, of promises that need no words to depict their meaning. a growl to the world, daring it to test him now, daring it to try and take her from him -- a mockery that it had not won and he was again made whole in a way that fate must not have expected to come to pass. “my heart is yours. my paws are yours. my every sense is in your service. my teeth will defend you and my body will shield you. i name you life-bond, my purpose and prize in one.”
and it sounds formal, archaic, because it is. nanruan life-bond known to be the heart’s own imprinting. it is a forgotten fact in moladion - their last visit so long ago that many seemed to have dismissed it. the imprint of the heart instead of the soul - one bond only, not so fickle a thing as an imprint. he binds himself to her in the way of his adopted peoples, his leader’s and subordinate’s people. imagine the strength that would come from choosing an imprint, of finding yourself bound by heart instead of force. stronger, fuller, with power of knowledge instead of the power of instinct.
“i have not chased darkness away, natu...” he corrects, however, voice soft and yet deeper than one should fathom, “i have simply become it for you so you can embrace it rather than run from it.”
FENRIR
the dragonborn ; of scotavia
male | 17 years | 37 inches | 150 pounds
tactician of the fantastic four | fond of natu
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