She walks in starlight in another world.

While Reiko caught up with her wayward son, the druid accepted her offer of hospitality and took some time to rest in the Empress' chamber. It'd been a long night to return Haruki to her, and although his heart yearned for the closeness of his snowflower's own, he could not linger forever. With Ira's litter so young, he worried that they may have need of his skills. The last thing he wanted was to frustrate his Queen by prioritising another task over his duty to her children.

Not wishing to stay for longer than he had to, Quicksilver prepared to depart Shiroshika's silver mountains. He gathered to his paws and stretched the long, stiffened muscles of his back before shaking out his furs and stepping toward the mouth of Reiko's hollow. Snow continued to float gently down from a pallid sky and he lifted his muzzle to regard the weather and fading daylight with a sigh, before he paused at the threshold to await the dove's return. Quicksilver did not wish to leave Tsukiishi without seeing her once again.


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When she did come to him, the druid gathered to his paws. He dipped his muzzle politely and respectfully to the Empress. Quicksilver had never been one for formalities around her, but it only seemed appropriate while he visited her territory - and rested in her own den, of all places. She was royalty, as Ira reminded him back in Vanderfell, and the memory of how small that comment had made him feel nudged its way to the forefront of his mind.

It did not stay there long, for he would not allow it. Not now. The silverwhite lifted his head again to look softly at his snowflower as she eased her pace before him, and as she turned her gaze away shyly he felt his own ears splay sideward. “Hmm, I...” a nervous breath of laughter spilled from his lips in a plume of white smoke, one that tapered into the cold air before his snout, “I would do anything for you.”

Reiko knew, already, what she meant to him - he did not feel the need to bleed those wounds again.

She did not know how to repay him, words familiar from that very morning when Haruki uttered them to him for his guidance - like mother, like son. Quicksilver didn't really understand that unwritten law, the way wolves did something for others and expected something in return. Had his own High Queen not expressed that same expectation when she found him in the blizzard? It'd been such a long time ago that he could barely recall those initial days, plagued by exhaustion and trauma and loneliness. When he did something for someone, he did it only because it was right.

“You don't owe me for this,” he said, and paused - hesitated. He wanted nothing in exchange for his effort in returning her son to her. The only thing he did want was her, every day, for the rest of his life... but her love was not something he would ever be willing to bargain with.


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... but I want to.

Quicksilver didn't know why, but his breath hitched. He held it in his lungs and blinked down at the pallid Empress, confusion swimming in the powder blue depths of his irises and ears twitching with uncertainty.

Somehow.

The druid didn't know what that was supposed to mean. Was she... offering something?

Someday.

...

The tip of his tail curled, awkward, at his hocks. Oh, he realised, and tufted ears flew forward. She was offering herself. At least, that's how it appeared to him. Quicksilver had seen Reiko look his way with so many different emotions, but nothing quite like how she regarded him then - with the undeniable glint of mischief in her azure eye. He felt something swell in his throat and he swallowed hard, forcing it away, and he turned his face to the side briefly to cough. “No, it...” he laughed a little, for felt the skin of his cheeks flush crimson, and he dared to peek her way again and took note of the challenge in her smile, “it won't be... necessary. Really, you-”




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He wanted to be close to her, yet keep her at arm's length all the same. Reiko's initial spurning of his soft confession all those weeks ago still weighed on him haunted him - regardless of her changed feelings. Quicksilver gritted his teeth to think of it, to consider the possibility of her previous romantic interest returning to seek her affection once more, the chance that he might sway her in his favour. He had lost her once before and couldn't bear to face such a fate all over again.

Damn, he mused sharply, because he couldn't think straight - as was always the case when Reiko was around.

She hovered before him, snow settling on her lashes, and that scent! It filled his senses, overwhelmed him, reminding him how he could never seem to get enough of it. The snowflower was right there, right beneath his snout, lingering - testing! And oh, how he struggled.

Quicksilver wanted to kiss her, right then, and as she parted her jaws to speak, he interrupted with just that. Roughly he slid his nose along the length of her snout and pressed his lips to hers with a croon, something akin to desperation in the urgency of such a gesture - as though he'd waited his whole life to experience it.


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Reiko did not reject him, and the panic that'd mounted within him dissipated. Quicksilver's own eyes fluttered closed again and he leaned firmly to the snowflower, welcoming her to him by raising a slender forelimb so he could hook his paw over her narrow shoulders. The skin at his own shuddered at the suddenness of their contact, the excited anticipation, and he could hear nothing more above the strong sound of a heartbeat that thrummed loudly in his ears.

No words. No need for them, not there, not when their bodies spoke for them. Quicksilver sidled in closer, as close as she would allow, to arch his neck and reach to pepper kisses across the snowflower's nose, her velvet cheek, her eyelids, her ears.


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He felt his head spin, the frantic beating of his wild heart within his ribcage, the sway of his body as he fought to ground himself. The way that Reiko made him feel, as though he was about to float off - it was both the greatest and most terrifying thing he'd ever experienced. Quicksilver hated that things had been made so complicated but, in treasured moments like this one, he dared to be hopeful that things would be alright between them - that they could be better.

Feverish, the druid ceased his affections for fear that he might spiral out of control. He removed his paw from over her shoulders and lowered his crown with a contented hum to press his head firm to Reiko's brow, eager to maintain some sort of connection to her. “I thought-” was it wrong to speak? Quicksilver paused in hesitation, and his eyelids twitched open to steal a glance at the vivid azure shade of the Empress' lovely gaze. “I was afraid, when... that the river would take you from me. Then you had to leave, and I -” and I felt like I'd lost another part of myself. “And I realised that I don't ever want to feel that way again.”

He exhaled, breath shaky on her pale cheek, and he closed his eyes to slacken once more.

“... forgive me.”

For all that I was, for the hurt, for my wrongdoing, for the uncertainty,

For everything.


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She assured him that there was nothing for her to forgive, and Quicksilver's lip quivered as he thought about challenging that claim. Deep down, he knew that she was wrong: the idea of them being together was magical, but the slim possibility of his choices coming back to haunt him threatened to stomp on the glimmer of happiness he'd found in this moment with her. How could she ever live contently with him at her side, knowing of his prior interest for Izumi - the fondness that remained, their tentative friendship that each wished only to mend? Would she use it in ammunition against him, should ever a disagreement arise?

He swallowed, knowing it was wrong to think of the crane when it was Reiko pressed herself willingly into his embrace, no matter what capacity. The dove deserved his full attention and not small parts of him, but the concern was clear in the whine that strained through gritted fangs.

She was having none of it, however. Instead of reaching to know of his worries, Reiko moved against him. Every woe he carried was promptly cast aside at her ministrations. She touched her nose to the underside of his muzzle and trailed careful teeth from chin to jaw, to throat. At once, pleasure bloomed in the pit of his abdomen. The silverwhite canted his head back with a to grant her access to this delicate area where no one had ever caressed, and a shiver picked its way slowly along the length of his spine as a rumbling growl begged for more.


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