#(since his soul is still owned by selene they couldn't really do anything to him)

[swiftcast-selene]

30: Dawn

he'd stayed up all night for this. seeing the sun - the proper sun - crest the horizon again... it had all been worth it.

[whispertrolls-archive]

Anchor

Characters: Hunter Wulfen x Skylah Aviana (Wolf Quest)

Mentions: Selene Monark, Vrayan Fennix- @contrastparadoxx and PR0T0TYPE- @sunnetrolls

Synopsis: With their lives so wholly upended, Hunter and Skylah find themselves having to come to terms with old feelings and new beginnings.

Inspo: Anchor- Skillet & Anchor (Reimagined)

Doc for easier reading

The night was quiet. In fact, it was too quiet, Skylah felt, for the thunder in both of their hearts. Their old life, and their old pack, was long gone. It had never really been spoken by the trolls with whom they now aligned, but of course, Skylah knew that they weren’t, by any technicality, alone. It was much worse than that. They were lonely in their new friends' company.

Though both of them had been displaced in every feasible way, Skylah would willingly admit that the loss seemed to hit Hunter harder. She, at the very least, still had her aviary, her birds, and Kyurie. What did Hunter have to hold on to? Just her, and just his adopted son. She was sure that it killed him to leave, but Shadow wasn't safe with the turmoil of the pack building to a head. She was also sure of another, more haunting revelation that plagued her days: Hunter knew what she had done. He knew that her hands were a catalyst in the increased instability, and he knew her reasons.

She believed that that was the only reason that when he lashed out in fury of her betrayal, his jaws clamped down before they reached her throat. She was sure that he would abandon her, shun her as the rest had, but he was the only one who was still here. Perhaps, she inferred inwardly, he had spared her because he had made up his mind that night. His fury was narrowly tamped by his ugly, writhing, deep-seated fear that he would lose the last piece of his past that he had left.

Her own desperation and obsession with atoning for her sins had cost them their lives instead of restoring what she had once taken. Her guilt kept her awake for most of her days, and in many of those, she kept it to herself just how much she wished that his fangs hadn't missed. No, that would've been too easy. She would have to make do with continuing to live, but at least she had him to stay with her. She had his body heat, the gruffness of his voice, and the hardness betrayed by sadness in his orange eyes. He was always one to hide his true emotions, but sometimes, and especially recently, they had shone through and brought truth to the old saying of eyes being windows to the soul. Her heart ached at the idea of him holding so much pain, and Skylah softly sighed as she leaned against his side.

“...Hunter?”

---

Hunter had been staring off into space. Normally, he preoccupied himself watching the land and the skies above for any signs of movement or life, but since the loss of the pack, he hardly looked for anything. He simply kept to himself unless he was tending to Selene or Shadow, or he was being met by Nyctea, PR0T0TYPE, or Vrayan. He took his orders without question and moved on autopilot, as if he was little more than a shell of a man. He was still an efficient killer, an awkward, struggling and confused lusus, and a steady escort, but he had grown quiet beyond the occasional sardonic quip.

Luckily for him, few had attempted to prod him on the matter; however, Skylah had been spending more and more time by his side. She almost seemed stuck to him, and even in his times where he wanted to be alone, he failed to turn her away. What if she left one night, and he was to never see her again? What if a final snap left him with nothing? He couldn't chance it. Even knowing her part in the pack's destruction, he would've rather died than lost her, too. In his own desperation to have someone to call home, he would try to forgive, but never forget.

His stomach panged. He had scarcely eaten, forgetting and forgetting and forgetting again until one of his more persistent companions all but forced food upon him. He had been sleeping, instead, to fill the voids left within himself. He hadn't even said goodbye. He had simply grasped his pup in his lupine jaws and fled, hiding his tears and the sobs that wracked his body and soul to the best of his ability. It wasn't until some time had passed that he had slowly re-emerged, soon to find himself face-to-face with an all-too-familiar white borzoi, a downtrodden beast with matching telltale streaks emanating from his eyes.

In the wake of the chaos that had befallen them, he had followed Selene, paying little mind to where he was going while Shadow trekked behind, and Hunter wondered if the young shifter understood any of what had transpired. It all felt like it had just happened, and yet, like it had happened so long ago.

Hunter glanced towards Skylah as he felt her touch, but neither of them spoke a word. He was silent, and he briefly stiffened before wordlessly leaning against her. He accepted her touch, but he didn't relax. If he relaxed, he didn't dare to consider what he would be inviting.

He felt unsteady. He knew they both did, but he found it difficult to focus on much more than his own pain. He was drifting in a sea of darkness that roiled him about in its unrelenting waves, leaving him feeling dazed and ill. The Wulfeniteblood twitched an ear at the murmur of his name, but he held his tongue as he straightened up, though a world-weary slump melted into his shoulders immediately after as he looked her way.

“I’m sorry.” He had to fight the urge to bear his fangs in a snarl. After all of this, she was ‘sorry’? After betraying the pack, splitting them up, and causing the highest mark to commit an irredeemable sin, that was all that she had to say? He felt his anger ice his veins, and a low growl escaped him. He watched as Skylah flinched away, her eyes wide and fearful before she shifted away from him, putting the space back between them. Hunter immediately felt a pang of regret as she separated herself from him.

“...I don’t care how sorry you are. What I care about is what we lost, because of you.” He set his jaw as cornflower eyes locked with his own, and he met the gesture with a scoff and another flash of agony in his gaze. He’d heard her story. He could understand why she did it, but in the light of those dying embers of that fateful night, he almost wished she would’ve simply allowed Keonin to die.  His healing physical wounds, which Selene had refused to leave unattended even in his own turmoil, panged as if to agree.

—

Skylah inhaled a labored sigh as she lowered her gaze to her hands, which she had placed in her lap. He wasn’t obligated to care. She didn’t even expect him to care. She also knew for herself that he was right. That which they thought had been impossible had been achieved, but the consequences hit hard. She had done what she had set out to do, but in exchange for saving one life, she had endangered many others.

Skylah’s fingertips dug into her thighs as tears filled her eyes. They had been her family, too. She had destroyed them, wronging them twice in an ill-fated bid to make things right. Her expression faltered as she bowed her head. Sky dug her nails in until it hurt, holding that position as she steeled herself. Out of anyone, she was the least of all who had any right to cry.

“I… I know,” she answered around a lump in her throat. There wasn’t much else to say. There were no excuses for what she had done- only motives. She wasn’t alone in grieving how Keonin had only become sicker and sicker since her shifter genes had laid to rest, but she and Lupini were the only ones who dared to take such a monumental risk. Gene therapy was far from a new practice, but the chances of failure were high. Just as she had known that Keonin would refuse it had she been aware, Lupini had also been aware, and their plotting to alter her DNA had begun, discreetly infused within the medications that had, until recently, been keeping her head above water. It had worked so well, but it had ended so horribly that Sky didn’t dare to deem it a failure. If anything, it was a pyrrhic victory.

“I’m so mad at you. I don’t even have words,” she heard him remark, and she could only nod in understanding. She could think of plenty of words that might describe his feelings, but she wasn’t about to speak for him when she could barely speak for herself.

“I know,” she repeated as her fingers unclenched. She almost felt numb, waiting for the other shoe to drop and waiting for her own blood to coat the ground. Even with that expectation, she failed to suppress a scream as he suddenly fell upon her, pinning her against the wall with a near-roar of rage.

“H-Hunter?!”

—

The lycanthrope growled deeply once more as he trapped his smaller companion between his arms, watching her shrink down beneath him like a frightened prey animal. It would’ve been easy. It would’ve taken just a single strike to end her, maybe two, and no one in the nearby cavern would’ve faulted him for it. The killing part would’ve been easy, he was sure, but there was one thing that stopped him.

Well, two things.

“Don’t. Say it,” Hunter snarled between gritted teeth as he leaned in, almost nose-to-nose with Sky as his gaze burned through her. “I don’t. Want. To hear about what you know. I’m not stupid, and you’ve at least got the booksmarts if nothing else to know your place.” She didn’t answer him, but he watched her lay herself low in an act of submission. At least she had the sense not to fight when she knew she was wrong, but in the same thought, he felt vexed by the idea that she had resigned herself so easily.

Both of them stilled, their breaths heavy and chests heaving before he clenched his fists. “You know what makes it hard, Sky? She trusted you. We all trusted you,” his voice cracked as he deeply huffed through his nose. “I don’t know why you didn’t just talk to us. We could’ve helped. We could’ve come to a compromise where we could all be happy! We could’ve…” He trailed off as a familiar sensation hiccuped in his chest.  His ears lowered, and his shoulders followed suit as he leaned further forward, moreso supporting himself on the wall as the strength of his fury ebbed from his neglected body.

It didn’t matter what they could’ve done. No amount of possibilities could change the past. Nothing that they talked about now could take away what had already been set in stone. His burning gaze fell, and Skylah was sure that she had witnessed a final structural collapse into ground zero in his eyes.

“The worst part,” he continued after a moment of silence had fallen between them. “Do you know what the worst part is,” he queried as the volume of his voice fell. He was a broken man, so broken that he wasn’t sure anything could ever fix him, and he hated above all else how obvious it was in his voice.

“The worst part is that I can’t even… I can’t even blame you for it. And what sucks even more is that I’ve never been so angry, but the only one who’s gotten me here was you.” He couldn’t even bring a growl to rumble forth, and his legs threatened to buckle beneath him, threatening to collapse him upon his cornflower companion. Well, perhaps it was a strong term.

“I still hate that I…” He swallowed, setting his jaw. His thoughts pained him as much as pulling teeth, but he was sure that it was going to eat away at him if he didn’t voice them. “I hate that… even after all of this, I still love you too much to lose you.”

—

Skylah sat frozen beneath him. Her gaze fell from his eyes to his fangs and back again. She followed every movement that he made. It hurt to see him in so much pain, but that paled in comparison to knowing that she was the cause of it. It was almost dizzying, and her head ached as her blood roared in her ears. It was deafening, but not enough to drown out the words that she wished she hadn’t heard. This was a kindness of his heart, she knew that well. It was a grace that he rarely gave, but one that she was so undeserving of that she could have spoken in certainty that he wouldn’t have given it if it didn’t leave him alone. Why did he have to love her?

Why did she have to love him?

“...You’re not gonna lose me,” she assured him in a wispy, softened tone as her eyes fell to his lips. She didn’t dare to meet his eyes, but she saw how his body trembled, and she felt no need to look any higher. “Not unless you send me away.” Skylah swallowed again. That lump didn’t seem to want to leave.

“I don’t think it justifies anything, but she was like a lusus to me, too. I just… knew that she missed it, and that her health was getting worse, so I… I did what I knew to do.” She couldn’t even be certain that it had saved her life. She could only theorize that if Keonin had been able to change, then her body could start to potentially heal itself.

“But that’s all said and done. I can’t do anything about it, now,” Sky sighed, looking away from him entirely. “...I wish you didn’t still love me, Hunter… and I wish I didn’t still feel the same way about you.” But they both did, and despite her regret, Skylah was equally guilty and bitterly relieved to hear it.

“...I think you deserve someone better than me, Hunter,” she admitted, frowning slightly as he grunted in reply. “Like… someone who can’t hurt you like me. You just… need someone who can do for you what you do for everyone else.” Her voice rose, and Skylah shifted her glasses aside to rub her eyes. “You’re too busy looking after everyone else. You’re just- you-” the raven sputtered, trying to recall her thoughts as she felt her face and chest starting to tingle. “You are the one who’s always being the rock. You’re the one who’s supporting everyone else, you’re the one who can’t fall or show any cracks, but you don’t- y- ngh!!”

—

“Shut up,” Hunter hissed in reply. He had heard the strain in her breaths. He hadn’t heard her struggle to breathe like that in so long, and he had immediately silenced her with a firm palm pressed to her chest. It caught her off guard, and it hurt enough to ground her from her growing fit. They didn’t need this on top of everything else. Her breathing had slowed, but he could still see her muscles threatening to spasm. He could feel the pain running from the base of his skull down his spine and shoulders, permeating through his back, but he knew that it was no pain of his own.

“Here’s the problem, Sky: You are my rock. You’re my fucking anchor, whether either of us likes it or not, and if you’re going to be selfish, then so will I.” He studied her face, watching her expression twitch, and he felt her body quiver beneath him. It was dangerously close, and he tried not to stare for too long as he halfway closed his eyes. “...It’ll kill me if I lose you, too. You already took our lives away from us, don’t leave me in the dark on top of it.”

—

Skylah felt that numbness slowly crawling, even seeming to radiate tingling in her teeth. His hand on her chest steadied her breathing, but her headache persisted as she trembled. She tried to clench her fists, but it was as if her hands didn’t want to listen to her. She watched Hunter, mentally clinging to his presence. He was her anchor, too. He was everything to her, and now, he was nearly all that she had left. She felt dizzy as her muscles locked painfully tight, and her chest felt constricted. She was stirring in a way that had scarcely ended well, and the Cornflower troll whimpered quietly as a sudden wave of pain tore through her body.

She wished that she could reply, but her voice failed her as even her throat fell victim to that crawling sensation. All that she could do was meet his eyes and hope that he understood.

—

 Hunter felt icy fear grip his chest. It was still coming, but he wasn’t an expert. He didn’t know how to stop it in its tracks. He only knew how to ease the process. She was unstable, like Keonin herself had been, and he knew that her instability could very well kill her. She wasn’t about to die on him. He wouldn’t let her, not after he had just said his piece! 

He looked down, seeing her muscles pulsating and watching as she writhed in stifled agony. He could tell that she was fighting not to give in to it, and the werewolf gripped her upper arms. “Come on, just…”

Before he knew it, he had leaned in fully, pressing his lips to her own. He didn’t have the tools that he needed, but it was a desperate effort to bring her down before it was too late. Even if he couldn’t, even if it came to be the worst… he had at least done something.

“I-I don’t wanna do this alone,” he sobbed against Skylah’s lips as he lowered himself fully to embrace her.

—

It was the last thing she expected, feeling him in such close contact with her. Her awareness had fallen, but the warmth of his touch and the taste of his lips made time stand still. The numbness and tingling had taken pause, and as her acuity slowly returned, it seemed that they were even beginning to rescind. There he was, anchoring her from the brink of disaster. Even in his grief, he was the one saving her.

Skylah’s muscles suddenly released, and her body slackened and fell limp while the symptoms fell away. They were both breathing heavily again by the time that he broke the kiss and released her. She felt weak, but she flexed her hand and was relieved to feel him grasping it and intertwining his fingers with hers.

“...Thank you,” she breathed as she closed her eyes. Her head was pounding, but she believed herself to be out of the danger zone. She listened to the sounds of their breathing, silently noting how they slowly fell into sync. Neither of them said a word as they waited, apprehensive, in case there was another wave, but another long moment passed before she broke the silence.

“...So… did you feel anything?”

—

Hunter wiped the tears from his eyes and snorted in response. That was what she was focused on? Maybe it was more accurate to assume that she was choosing to try to swallow the dread that had wracked them both- not that he could blame her when he was trying to do the very same. “Uh…” He trailed off in thought, pausing for a moment before he drew his conclusion. “No.”

“I didn’t, either,” he heard her wearily laugh. He glanced down as Skylah’s hand awkwardly adjusted itself, freeing her of his hand, but his ears perked as he eyed her index and middle fingers separating and extending as she curled the rest of them into a fist. He blinked, then he swallowed as he followed suit, their fingers together forging the four sides of a diamond. “...Uh… yeah?”

“Yeah,” Skylah answered as she opened her eyes and looked at Hunter’s form bearing down upon her. She felt him nod, and she slowly lifted her arms to embrace him.

“...You’re my anchor, too.”