skill:

Once, Fable had braved the perils of lone travel in order to find out more about what was happening. She'd been certain that Druid's Rise held the key, and she'd implored him to watch over her girls because of how precious they were to her. He'd told her how precious she was after the gentle kiss she had pressed to his brow. He begged to go in her stead. He'd waited for her to return, keeping vigil over the borders while Epona stayed with the girls. Foxglove had been hyperaware of every moment, it felt, and every little shift of the wind he hoped would bring her scent back to him. The raw feeling of waiting for her ran deep - it felt like his soul was just waiting on its other half to return. He had to wonder sometimes if that was what it felt like when he had been gone to Fable. Had she paced the borders? Had her thoughts ever turned towards him, even while she was lying next to the husband who had emotionally abandoned her after getting what he wanted? Had the opportunity to be left waiting been given to him, too, so that he could know that anxiety the way that she had?

Those were the thoughts that Fox had always tried not to nurture. He had never wanted to listen to those thoughts; they didn't help anything. What had been, had been, and regardless of the things that any of them might have wanted. He could not regret things, not when he was here, and so was she. He loved the girls all the same, after all. Archon had been unavailable, and it wasn't like he could tell those faces no to anything with how cute they were. Besides, he had enjoyed the experiences with the girls as they grew. It had been interesting to him to see how they grew on a timeline he was familiar with - each week that they gained a new skill was so impressive. Seeing them in Talamh, where they had all been human, and learning together at the same time was something that even Fable hadn't been able to experience at the same time as the children. The little huff once he reminded her just how capable the girls were made him grin back at her, and that laugh finally reached her eyes. The worries she tried to carry by herself constantly kept the sparkle from the familiar sage he loved so much.

He hadn't even pointed it out when she reacted and tore her gaze from his. For a wild moment he worried that he had hurt her somehow, that she'd seen him more like family than in any other aspect. It would have been enough. She had always been enough. The conversation between them didn't need to be heard outloud as they tenuously tried to feel out the other's understanding of the situation. The back and forth of their dance had begun the moment that he'd scratched his shoulder on Sneatcha's tree. His thoughts stilled entirely as she stepped forward again, and he let out a shaky breath as her nose traced over the crest of his cheek and he leaned into the touch. What she asked of him was impossible and so purely simple at the same time. Asking him to explain the feelings he had. It was like asking him to write a sonnet in that instant when he had forgotten any sort of grasp he had of language in Talamh. How quaint. Her native tongue had become his native read, and it had helped his understanding immensely.

But then the moment was gone as quickly as it came, and his emerald green was again lost into the silvery green of her gaze. Her eyes were the color of peace, of soft simple joys, of how it felt to stretch out on sun-warmed grasses. She looked so unsure when she started to speak again and her voice broke, making him swallow thickly. He had seen her rawest hurt laid bare before the world in the loss of her children. He had tried to provide her comfort when he could - be it the warmth of shared laughter and tears, the occasional moments of stepping on each other's feet, the nervous flutter of heartbeats, and the tender bump of shoulders against each other. And now, now the comfort that he could offer her was in the realness of the emotional shine to his eyes, wide as they were and almost doeish in his uncertainty. He had never done this before. Beibhinn, nach bhfuaireamar amach rud éigin i bhfad ó shin? (Beibhinn, Didn't we figure something out long ago?) Because he thought he had made his place obvious. It was at her side, it was in her family, and perhaps it was the fuzzy warmth from the flame that made time feel like it slowed.

Maybe it was a little gift that, of all the time they had spent in each other's company, this moment was one Fox felt he could where they both remember every second. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, and his heart pounded in his chest. Since the first moment we met, there has never been anyone who has meant more to me than you. His voice was hushed, and he couldn't help but chuckle, even if only at himself. I told myself that it would be okay, and I was, if that always meant only sharing your friendship. What had spanned between them ran deeper than friendship alone. He only felt like his life really started after he had met her, like he had needed to cross paths with her to find the direction he had been lacking.