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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.

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The guilt over the time he had not been here for her still licked at him in his late night thoughts. Things would have come out differently, regardless of where things were now. Fox didn't know if he would have been man enough to resist Fable during her heat if he had been there constantly. If not for the subject of the loss of her first litter, and the fact that Sycamore had been injured, the evening might have played out far differently than it had. But if someone looked at them, had that not been a night where their union was truly forged? In asking about Croí and Rauiri he had reached out to provide her something that her husband had not. Archon had not helped to provide the emotional support through the loss of their first litter, and even though Fox hadn't known that fully at the time it still riled him now. For someone who had acted like some sort of superior knowledge was given to him over reality, Archon had truly never understood what all Fable had tried to hold herself together through.

It was the question whose answer had never changed, not even once. No matter the context, no matter the place, when he was with her, he was happy to be there. Even when it hurt - because Fox was alive and he had been there to see her love focused on someone else - being around her was better than being without her at all. Fox could save all his grumbling for when he was alone in his den. But when they were alone just talking or working on the garden, Archon might not have even existed unless he directly came up in conversation. Maybe he could pretend he was just practicing his acting, trying to spin up his own worlds and stories like Lotte might have. The embrace they fell into was familiar - it felt so good. So real. They'd nuzzled into each other before, they'd hugged, and they'd embraced when reunited - but that was with an element of restraint to each touch. Fox had always been hyperaware, after all. He wasn't stupid, but he had refused to make things more complicated for Fable after everything she'd been through.

The fire was all but forgotten by him; they could have been on the moon for all that he knew, and his heart had not stopped that hummingbird-fast beating. It was like feeling alive for the first time - it was like he had only now taken a deep breath when all he'd gotten before was shallow gasps. It was intoxicating, exhilarating, and was so many things all at the same time that it was hard for Fox to process properly. Her words settled around him, and this time it was not his shoulders that bore the edict. Her words were like a crown placed upon his head, glittering and beautiful and blinding. He shook his head when she said she'd been blind - because Fox didn't see it that way. You followed your feelings; that isn't foolish. He was gentle in the statement because he didn't think she needed to berate herself for the sake of 'right' or 'wrong.' There was never a day when you and I did not give honestly to each other, no matter what else was happening in the world. He never doubted Fable, and he'd never doubted himself either. It was easy to feel confident in a bond like theirs; they did not demand of each other, they had always been safe to each other that way.

She was right in her statement. They'd never been just anything. Fox grinned at her before he leaned close to press his forehead to hers. I want this life with you. With our girls. With our family. Oh, how much Fable had given him without needing to directly gift him with words. You've given me everything in this world that I love. Fox said with a soft laugh. She was so smart, so clever, but she had so many different things she needed to focus on. I owe you so much. You and your family. Her siblings hadn't blinked an eye at him being there, beyond Shiloh, her parents had taught him how to work a farm with his hands rather than paws. They'd taught him stories of the world they lived in, and they taught him the language that was theirs and brought him into the fold. He and the girls had learned so much after all in the time that they had been human. It made him feel closer to his own family's origins with the shifters in a sense too. He had experienced what so few could say - that he had lived two lives, in two worlds, and that they were so vastly different from one another.

Fox couldn't help pulling back with laughter when she pointed out that despite knowing she could see the soulmate's bond pulsing visibly, he had never asked about his. Fox didn't need to. He had never had need of asking her, after all. The quirk of his lips before she was hit with the very smolder she'd been thinking of was as much warning as Foxglove offered her. Oh Miss Fae-ble, why would I need to ask when I already knew the answer? Fox had never really questioned it, after all. They had spent so long skirting the pull they had to one another. They enabled it so long as they were careful - and even though more than a year had passed since she and Archon had separated, he had never needed to push things along. They had their own pace, and somehow the comfort of being together in whatever capacity had been enough for him. He'd convinced himself, after all, that was all he needed to live. Just to be close. I always knew it was you. Fox had just chosen to never tell her. He'd never wanted to hurt her fragile heart after the way he'd found it when he had returned to her. Archon had done so much damage, but so had Fate itself. In the loss of her children, the loss of friends and family, of the Golden Glade itself, she had already endured so much.

Only because he could without worry, he pressed a kiss to her cheek before he curled himself around her closer. His arm curled over hers, paw to paw, before he gave her a little tug to bid her closer. You never said anything to me before.... He pointed out, curious about what made her stay quiet. I thought we told each other all the good gossip. Foxglove teased her gently. He had his suspicions why she hadn't considered anything more between them. The girls, for one large and loud reason, and the complication between the worlds that had shifted. How could he center himself when there was so much more at stake? Say it again for me.