I wish I may, I wish I might.

^^

If this was the afterlife, Harper didn’t ever want to leave. If she could have it her way, she’d never leave Ichorwood, either. Elysium was great; her sister was there, and their pack was there, but there was just something about Ichorwood that made her feel like breathing was a little easier here.

Was it Crux? Glancing down at his sleeping form, Harper smiled with the tilt of her head. She didn’t want to know how things would have been for her here, had she not found him. The true angel. Heck, it even looked like he came from the stars. She bent down to kiss his forehead.

And then she would leave. Not leave for Elysium, but leave to explore, in the middle of the night. She liked the way the air felt at this time of night. The way the earth stood still, and it felt like only she existed right now.

Only Harper and the universe.

So she would find the biggest hill, with the biggest clearing, so she could gaze up into the goodness of the night sky, which was beautifully littered with stars and the moon. One day, she dreamed of climbing the tallest mountain, just so she could stargaze on the perfect hill.

Perhaps she’d take Crux, or even Hawking; perhaps she’d take both.

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 Mordecai didn't often have troubles sleeping but today he certainly did. It didn't help that Harper had come home with them so instead of being able to talk to Crux about the horrible mishap between them, he had to keep it to himself.

 And boy, was it eating him alive.

 He tossed and turned in his den. The surroundings air conspiciously quiet when normally the rotund warrior kicked up quite the noisy atmosphere when he slept. Instead he just couldn't get comfortable. It felt suffocating. Especially when he knew that the newlyweds were asleep not too far away from him.

 He had to get out of here. Maybe he could sleep somewhere else. He knew of a clearing that wasn't too far away, maybe he could fall asleep there?

 The large man would heave himself from his den and make the long trek towards that very cleaning with his head down. There was a lack of pep to his step as he trudged there. He was hardly paying attention to where he was going, let alone what he was smelling. So it wasn't a shock when he was nearly up the hill, when he finally looked up.

 She was there.

 He was fully on alert now. Ears leaning forward and then backwards as he felt first a jolt of joy which was heralded by that infatuation to this woman but then that was quickly shot down by the feelings of dread and then guilt as he gasped and stumbled backwards. Except, he was only partly up the hill so he tripped and rolled aaaaalll the way back down with a few "ows" and grunts of dismay.

 Finally, once at the bottom --and with a fair amount of ruffled fur and grass sticking everywhere-- he scrambled to hide behind a rock... a very small rock that only served to hide his face.

 Smooth.

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^^

She wondered if this was something that Crux would even be into. She could picture taking Hawking to look up at the sky, and having a blissful, intelligent conversation about this and that in her mother tongue. Wouldn’t that be something?

Yet, she could not picture doing the same with Crux. Perhaps it was because she felt like she was staring at the sky when she looked at him. Perhaps it was because she didn’t know him at all.

The winds shifted and brought to her a scent that was both familiar and not. Like the feeling of deja vu, to which she knew the scent, though almost vaguely, and could not - at least, not in this moment - place where she went it from.

She turned around to find a familiar canine rolling down the side of the hill with a chorus of grunts, and ows. She took two steps into his direction, concern written on her face. “Oi, are.. ” Harper allowed her voice to fade into the darkness, concerned features fading into hurt.

Was he hiding because he was ashamed or embarrassed of their time together, and now did not want to be seen by her? Of course he was. What else could it be? The realization of this hit her features rather hard, and - wincing with a whine, - Harper turned away from and ran into the forest.

You're not ugly.
 

You are not ugly.

 

You were never ugly.

Crux's words, that were meant to calm her, caused this hurt to transform into a wave of sadness. You'll never be beautiful. This had been meant to be a good time. This was her honeymoon, and all she'd wanted was to get to know Event Horizon like she knew Elysium. She came to a stop behind a tree, because suddenly she couldn't breathe. Het stomach tightened in a series of aggressive twists and turns, and with a whimper, Harper vomited. 
^^

 

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 He didn't know how his actions would be read. How could he when he was hiding his face? So, when the face of Harper contorted into those anguished emotions, the man had no clue. He only heard the telltale signs of feet padding away in a run. He figured it was because she hadn't wanted to meet up with him and was turning the other direction. Whelp, maybe he should skedaddle too. Ichorwood was a big place, he was certain he could find somewhere else to sleep. Maybe in a hole, up a tree, somewhere where no one would think to look for him. That guilt and embarrassment flared up all at once as he too ran off... in a random direction. He wasn't really smelling again, moreso thinking 'shit shit shit!' over and over in his head again. It also didn't help that he hadn't seen where Harper had run off to.

 He was just running.

  And running.

   And running.

    Until.

 Smack

 Pell-mell, he'd run straight into her. Whether they toppled over or he kept going or he was stopped in his tracks. His frazzled brain couldn't figure that part out yet.

 Maybe he hadn't even run into her.

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^^

For a long time, Harper stared at the very disgusting pile of whatever-the-heck she’d just thrown up, trying to convince herself that this was fine. It was, wasn’t it? She was on her honeymoon, she was happy.

She was also wondering why it mattered so much to her if whateverhisname was hiding from her or not. It didn’t matter. He was just some member of the pack that Harper could totally avoid, right?

So she stepped out from behind the tree, tilting her head to the sound of - what was that? - oh, someone running towards her. It didn’t click until he was literally coming at her. Harper didn’t even have time to look at the screen and say oh bother.

Harper flew into the air and hit the ground as though she had been backhanded by a certain villainous creature. Did he keep going? Did he stop? Harper didn’t know. She remained there, closing her eyes, and allowing the darkness to take her.

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 He'd smacked straight into her, sent her flying, and managed to go airborne with her as they both crashed down to earth. It huuurrrrttt but he'd faced worse...

 Physically he had, but the emotional turmoil? That was decidedly new.

 Of course, he wasn't so guilt-ridden that he wouldn't check on her. That would be so far out of character that it would be impossible. Right now he couldn't run from her again. Not while she was lying there with her eyes closed.

 His face contorted into worry; mouth pulled back into an upset grimace that exposed his fangs as he stared down at her. From on top of her.

 But that part hadn't registered in his mind yet.

 "HARPER!" He panicked, lowering his head so that he could peer at her with one brown eye that stared directly into her eye... or where her eye would be if it wasn't closed. "OH MY GOD! ARE YOU DEAD?! I KILLED YOU! OH NO! I'M A MURDERER!"

 Great... he'd banged his best friend's wife and now he'd killed her!

 Wait.. no...

 His head lowered towards her chest so that he could listen to her heartbeat. Dead things didn't have heartbeats.

 OH THANK THE HEAVENS ABOVE!

 He raised back up so tha the could try to peer into her eyes again and then bellowed out, "ARE YOU OKAY?! I'M SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO TACKLE YOU IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Everything was an accident... this entire situation.

 Oh, he was starting to feel like pure garbage again.

 What if she didn't wake up? How would he explain this to Crux?

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sweeps in as requested <3

---

 Crux was out and about doing whatever it was that he did on a daily basis when he heard a commotion. He wandered closer and saw the strangest scene.

 Harper was lying on the ground and Mordecai was standing over her, yelling into her eyeball? No, he was looking into her eyeball while yelling. A look of concern broke across Crux's face as he hurried closer, seeing the brown male putting his ear to Harper's chest and then yelling even louder.

 “Mordecai, what's going on?” he called, hurrying closer and a moment later he was with them, nose at Harper's face as he sniffed her for blood or any injury. She wasn't pregnant so this wasn't as if it were some sort of weird pregnancy thing - so what happened? That question, he asked a moment later, “What happened?”

 His eyes were on Mordecai, alarmed but not angry. Confused.

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^^

Maybe if she pretended to be dead, Mordacei would leave her and someone else would find her in the morning, but it seemed that time stood still as Mordacei had come back for her, after hiding from her and literally running into her.

No, wait. He hadn’t come back, because he had landed on her and was now… yelling at her. Making it very impossible to sleep. She wouldn’t have minded him on top of her - not like it would have been the first time - but the screaming?

C’mon, it was the middle of the night and folks were trying to sleep.

Her head was spinning from an invisible injury caused by her head slamming into the ground upon impact and it felt like the ground beneath her feet was spinning, too, although she hadn’t moved.

Mordaci was screaming about killing her - not the best thing to do if he actually had - and for a moment, Harper might just let him think that. If she was dead, he would leave her alone, and she could get some sleep. And then he put his head on her chest, and started screaming some more.

Sigh, there went that plan, huh? He was going on about tackling her, and how it was an accident, and part of her clock out. She just… tuned him out and would have likely continued the facade of playing dead up until she started snoring.

And then Crux’s nose was in her face. When had he called for Crux? She barely opened an eye to see nothing but a pair of really long fangs and a volcanic eye as he had turned to question Mordaci.

If she wanted to fuck up his life, she could have. But instead, she chose to close her eyes and attempt to sleep despite the concussion that had already begun to develop/form.

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 Just when he thought everything couldn't get worse... it did. Not only had he nearly killed Harper but now Crux arrived on the scene. He stopped his loud frantic efforts to rouse the dark woman when his friend came over. All he could do was stare, horrified, as he tried to figure out what had happened. His heart hammered loudly in his chest, beating a frenetic rhythm. Could Crux hear it? Or smell the fear that had blossomed from the man? He felt like there was a spotlight washed over him.

 He couldn't breath, he couldn't think. All he could do was frantically puff air in and out of his mouth in a horrified pant. He felt faint...

 Somehow he managed to stay on his paws and then scrambled backwards off of Harper, landing firmly on his ample rump with a painful grunt. Everything kept rushing around in his mind. This thing, that thing. It was all screaming at him, telling him how guilty he was, how horrible he was, how clumsy and foolish.

 Tears sprang into his eyes as he stared at Crux and sniffled. "I'M SO SORRY!" He bellowed, lifting a paw to wipe his streaming eyes and nose. "I SLEPT WITH YOUR WIFE!" He fell onto the ground, feeling smaller than an ant. "And now--now I've nearly killed her by running into her! I didn't mean to!" He crawled over to Crux, right to his paws and threw himself there. Groveling and begging for mercy. "I know you're rolly-polly but it don't feel right! I'm a terrible friend and a horrible wolf and--and--and is she going to be okay? I don't-- hic" And he stopped as he started to get hiccups and feel very lightheaded again. "I swear I didn't know it was her... I swear..." His voice was tiny and quiet as he lay there, next to Harper, at his friend's paws.

 He expected Crux to tear into him, if he did the earthen wolf wouldn't fight back. He'd accept any punishment that Crux deemed necessary. He tightened his eyes shut, expecting to be berated and clawed and beaten for his royal fuck-ups.

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 He didn't see her eye, didn't see that she was awake - but did it matter? He set a kiss upon her cheek and then turned to listen to Mordecai as he spoke of all his sins and crimes. There was no anger upon his face, only an occasional nod. To say he wasn't surprised would be a lie, but the man wasn't angry in the least. To the contrary, he was quite happy that his best friend upon reaching this world had finally found someone to, at the very least, let off some steam with.

 Though, recalling the wedding ceremony and the nickname his wife had given Mordecai, he supposed he should have known better.

 At the idea she might be nearly dead, he turned to press his nose to the side of her snout, looking at her eyelid to see if she would flutter it. Was she awake or still unconscious? He knew nothing of caring for someone with an injury that caused them to sleep but he could feel her breath. Nevertheless, he looked back at Mordecai.

 “Mordecai, breathe.” he said before stepping closer and offering a nuzzle. “Harper is welcome to sleep with whomever she wishes and you are welcome to sleep with whomever, even if it's her.” He'd offer a smile, then would give a wink and turn his eyes to hers with a sidelong glance. “She is pretty sexy, isn't she?” He'd sit, looking his poor pitiful friend over with a concerned frown. “I don't blame you, either of you.”

 In fact, this was making him have a ponder over something he hadn't thought of til this very moment. He shook it off and looked back at Harper, coming to rest on his elbows and nudge her gently with his nose. “Are you alright, my dear? Can you hear us?”

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Harper was trying to sleep off this headache that she’d gotten after Honey had decided to play Thomas the Train and run her over. That plan was failing pretty terribly, especially with all the screaming, and then came Honey’s little confession that wasn’t very little at all.

He bellowed it out, for all the gods and the undead to hear. Harper wondered, in that moment, if even her sister had heard. She had already known from the wedding that he had a nice set of lungs on him, but holy shit, he knew how to scream. She winced, even in her fake sleep, her head pounding as if Hulk himself was pounding on her head.

The inspections from Crux caused her to turn and devour his delicious, spotted face with her tongue. She’d make out with him right then and there, if he’d allow, before tearing himself from him to allow him to finish speaking with Honey, who was actually Mordecai, all along.

“How managed to forget what powerful lungs you has, is anyone’s guess..” Harper chuckled, slowly taking her head as she slowly rolled over and stood, leaning her weight against her husband as she eyed the brown man that was riddled in guilt.

“You want second?” Harper asked, almost innocently, as she slowly (and with a wince) tilted her head to the side. And while it may have sounded like she was asking for another go with him in bed, it wasn’t quite what she’d meant. But she’d not elaborate, allowing Honey to figure that out (or not) himself.

“Am ok! Head hurt, much. Was try to sleep off but..” Harper slowly glanced over to Honey with an arch of her brow, then back at Crux again as she leaned in and whispered: “Verrry powerful lungies.”

^^
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 Breathe? Was he going to ask him to calm down before taking a chunk out of him? It didn't make sense but maybe it was some sort of anger-game? There were a few heartbeats where he tried to calm his loud panicky breathing but ultimately failed. It reached a crescendo when he felt Crux touch him--

 But it was with kindness and not anger.

 He looked up, blinking through tears as he focused on Crux's face and listened to those words of salvation. He sniffed and then let his head fall to the ground --nose-first-- in relief. He wasn't angry, he wasn't being blamed for anything. Fresh tears bubbled out of his eyes as he sobbed but this time they were from relief and not sadness or fear. "She is very pretty." He admitted with a relieved laugh. Thank the heavens above he wasn't going to die today!

 It was the slurping next to him that made him turn his head. With his breathing in order once more --though tears still ran tracks down his brown face-- he was able to properly focus without a haze of panic and dizziness clouding his vision. A second? What did she mean by a second? He squirmed away. Oh no no no, he was not ready for any seconds! He knew that Crux said it was okay but he still didn't feel right sharing his best friend's wife. Nope nope nope, he was good, thank you.

 "Uh, no no, you're, uh, still, awful real pretty but'uhm... no no thank-you!" He said with a toothy grin as he sat up --realized he sat up too fast and nearly fainted-- and then fell back onto his stomach. Oof. "Sorry for runnin' into you an' all that. 'An runnin' away from you... 'an yellin' in your face." Wow, he was stacking up on all the offences wasn't he?

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 Crux chuckled as he was kissed, glad to see that she was indeed not dead or very injured from his understanding. He wondered what had happened but would not inquire, knowing that it was likely a source of embarrassment for them both. His wife mentioned Mordecai's powerful lungs and he chuckled, nodding. Yes, Mordecai had won the singing competition after all, alongside a woman he suspected was the Elysium queen's mate.

 Mordecai seemed relieved in abundance - he was glad of it, the man had appeared almost ready to place his own head on the chopping block.

 No such punishment would occur.

 His lips tweaked in a smirk as the man apologized to Harper for various things, such as bulldozing her. Oh, so that's what had happened, was it? “Would you like assistance to the den to sleep off the headache?” he asked his wife, brow raised and glancing at Mordecai. Perhaps his friend would feel comforted in assisting with healing the damage he'd inadvertently done. Either way, the king wasn't angry.

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^^Before right now, Harper hadn’t realized the truth behind Crux’s words. It was one thing for him to call her beautiful and sexy, but to watch as Mordecai became aroused by a simple look? She wondered, in part, if she had this power over Crux, if she so wished it, or if there was something more to it with Mordecai.

She would have been in content with Mordecai’s rejection, had it not been followed by this; this, which was hard for Harper to ignore. The idea of having the both of them, at the same time, was absolutely thrilling. “Would love for you to help. I has dis… tingle that needs to be addressed. So mayhaps we can help each other, yes?” Harper gave a slow, though seductive growl with the lick of her lips. She thought for a moment to just help herself, but alas, she wanted the brown man to desire her on his own terms, especially now that he realized who she was. She nodded towards the den with a wicked grin, turning to smirk at her husband, but taking an extra measure to check him out, just like she had upon their first time together.

“Deewishus.. (Delicious)” Harper would mutter with another lick of her lips, as she brushed up against him. “Best you lead us to the den before I pounce you right here, hm?” Or perhaps that was the motivation that Mordecai needed?

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 Poor Mordecai. Poor sweet, well-intentioned Mordecai with his weak-will. He was like putty with all of the positive attention, washing away his previous fears and troubles. He was all too happy to revel in both of their approval, to forget there was ever any problems at all. He would draw up to them, hesitation briefly coloring his steps before he would come up to Harper's other side where he would be showered with affection.

 He would grin at Crux, finding himself nipping at the man's retreating tail as he lost himself a bit in that heady feeling in his loins. He would attempt to plant a lick on Harper's back, nibbling and kissing as he followed.

 Was he going to do this? To involve himself in this rolly-polly life?

 The fronds tickled his back as he made his way into the privacy of the den. The intoxicating scent coming from Harper, just as it had before, had him giving a firm "yes". He would... try this.

 He would step over to Harper, standing above her as he kissed the top of her head. He would glance up and see Crux, not only admiring Harper but himself. He blinked in surprise, not quite understanding at first that his friend might be interested in himself.

 The thought of another male liking him was so far out of his mind that it was almost a foreign concept...

 But it was not an unwelcome thing just a thing he'd never thought of.

 He stood there, in his fully aroused state, looking over Crux with his star-studded coat and roman nose and volcanic eyes. Masculine but, yes, beautiful in his own right. There seemed to be a light coming on in his eyes as he finally realized that males could be looked at in the same manner as he viewed some females.

 Oh jeez, this was all so much. Females were one thing but males? How would this all work out?

 Should he try to kiss Crux too? Or should he just follow along? Or...

 So, there he stood just about short-circuiting as he tried to figure out what to do. A follower in all things, including this.

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