In the end, they considered, it was at least quick.

One moment, spinning to yell for Nightjar to go, to never slow down, to never look back. Seeing her terrified, tear stained face crumple further, and having to drive her into a run with a great, slicing snap of his teeth. Pivoting back to catch the first blow with their face, the next with their chest. The faces were those they knew, each one stained in their memory with sun-washed sepias. Brothers, once. Friends, lifetimes ago. Enemies tearing through their flesh, now.

Geraint’s blood was crimson staining the highlands’ snow, blooming around them like poppies. Their brothers, crunching through the snow back the way they’d come. Their sister, the one they had tried so hard to protect so fiercely, looked to them with some kind of pity, but she followed behind. They were alone. Every time they breathed, they tasted the blood that leaked sluggishly past their tongue, air that never made it from their lungs to their mouth. Every ragged gurgle brought blood bubbling from their throat, until they could no longer even gurgle. Dying light in their eyes caught a blade of snowy grass, a droplet of their blood waiting to fall from its tip.

Their eyes closed right as it dripped.

Then, there was nothing.

---

Geraint woke with a flower up their nose and a shiver working through their body. Snow draped over their back like a cloak, muddling the colors they didn’t recognize. The area was unfamiliar, their body even more so. They could taste the air through the gap in their lips, allowing for the end of their protruding upper canines to appear. But none of that mattered.

Nothing mattered when the wind shifted playful around them, bringing them a scent they’d almost forgotten. But they could never forget it, not really. They would never forget him, had made that abundantly clear from the moment they’d learned of his demise.

Nothing mattered because they smelled-.

Nightingale?

---

Nightingale

Nightingale had woken up similarly, confused in a field of flowers blanketed by a layer of soft and fluffy snow. He sat up and immediately started looking for something familiar. For the lake with the hill that rose over it. For the forest that surrounded it. Hell, he even looked around to see if he could find his parents. The woodland here was beautiful, and reminded him of the glade along the lake he'd settled in with his family not too long ago. Except much more floral.

He was beginning to think he was utterly alone until he heard the faintest voice. What direction was that? The snow dampened the sound and he froze, breathing in heavily in short sniffs to figure it out. He turned about, casting his gaze through the trees as he pushed towards where he thought it'd come from.

It had sounded like them... They'd left, though. Gone somewhere without him for a while. He hadn't understood it. How had he even come to his place?

Ger? his voice quivered as he stopped in his tracks. His blue and silver eyes casting everywhere, even up in the trees, as if his other half would materialize from the branches above him. He'd know that voice anywhere. The scent that drifted through the trees.

I'm not dreaming, am I? because only that could explain such a bizarre happenstance.

The sound of their own voice startled them for a moment. It had been so long since they’d heard it, they were surprised they could even still use it. They used a paw to touch their throat, then hauled their body upwards. They stumbled, regained their balance, and looked up just as that voice reached them.

Nightingale! They half bellowed, fighting the dizzy swirl of being standing so soon after-. Geraint put off thinking about what happened to them until later, plunging through the trees. Maybe it was reckless, running headlong towards a scent that so reminded them of their other, better half. But, their nose proved true. Crashing through the final distance, their head as high as they could throw it, Geraint caught sight of him.

They stopped, breath curling snowy from their nostrils. They didn’t trust their voice, even as they licked their lips, swallowed thickly.

Mo ghràdh? (My love?) Finally croaked from their throat.

The bellow bid him to pause and his head snapped in the direction Geraint was coming from. They were nearly tumbling towards him and Nightingale bounded across the snow with heavy breaths. Steam rose from his gaping maw as he collided (gently) into his mate and his voice warbled with emotion as he spoke.

Oui, c'est moi, mon cœur, (Yes, it's me, my heart.) he responded in French. They had each worked on teaching each other their languages but he was so unsure still of speaking Ger's native tongue wrong. At least they both understood one another.

He was trembling from emotion, his concern palpable as he began to inspect Geraint head to toe. Looking for signs of fresh injury, his own body well and healthy and plump. He hadn't seen Geraint in so long, he wondered what had happened to his mate and now he wondered still how they had both come to this strange snowy meadow full of dried wild flowers.

He couldn't find words because his heart was too much a lump in his throat. Instead, he sought to plant his nose in the soft fur of Geraint's shoulder.

It was him. It was him, and Geraint prayed to every god they did not believe in as Nightingale barreled into them. Tears gathered, then streaked down their cheeks. It was impossible. It shouldn’t have happened. And yet here his most beloved was, in front of their eyes, whole and hearty and hale. They couldn’t help the whimper that escaped them, nor could they help the tears springing to their eyes.

I thought you were- Gone. That was their last memory of Nightingale. Being told that he was gone, and nothing after. It was like a black hole had eaten away at most of what they knew and remembered. Geraint pulled back to look over Nightingale in the same manner as he looked them over. With every glance, they found they couldn’t believe their eyes even further.

I can’t believe it’s you. They whispered, fighting the urge to sob openly like a child.

Both wolves were in disbeleif it seemed. The softness of Ger's fur was in contrast to the scars that riddled their body. Those had never concerned Nightingale, no, if anything it helped solidify that this was a reality in which they stood in. Some sort of singularity that had brought them to the same place again. He didn't have a concept of death, only of the longing he'd felt for companionship again.

It's okay, I'm here, he reassured. He was hesitant to break their embrace, instead greedily keeping himself close, though still his eyes moved as he continued to take in Geraint as if he'd never see them again. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe it was a fantasy, a daydream while he slept on the grassy gnoll overlooking the reservoir.

Then he noticed the emotion in Geraint's face and his own face scrunched a little, tears welling up in his eyes. Had his parents ever felt this overwhelmed with one another? He reached his nose to press it against his mate's.

It's me, Ger. We're together. It's gonna be okay.

Both wolves were in disbeleif it seemed. The softness of Ger's fur was in contrast to the scars that riddled their body. Those had never concerned Nightingale, no, if anything it helped solidify that this was a reality in which they stood in. Some sort of singularity that had brought them to the same place again. He didn't have a concept of death, only of the longing he'd felt for companionship again.

It's okay, I'm here, he reassured. He was hesitant to break their embrace, instead greedily keeping himself close, though still his eyes moved as he continued to take in Geraint as if he'd never see them again. Maybe he wouldn't. Maybe it was a fantasy, a daydream while he slept on the grassy gnoll overlooking the reservoir.

Then he noticed the emotion in Geraint's face and his own face scrunched a little, tears welling up in his eyes. Had his parents ever felt this overwhelmed with one another? He reached his nose to press it against his mate's.

It's me, Ger. We're together. It's gonna be okay.

Geraint

He was here.

You weren’t. It came out as a rasp, the final grasping of his composure failing. Geraint tucked Nightingale close to his chest, feeling the tremors of emotion like a hot iron poker in his chest. He dragged in a breath that sounded more like a sob.

T-They told me you were gone. A deer. I couldn’t-I didn’t-. Tears finally spilled out of green eyes, no matter how much they hated the emotion. But Nightingale was here, and they could feel his breath against their chest, ruffling the fur there. And when they looked down, they saw the cheery gold brown of his fur.

And Geraint couldn’t help it. They sobbed, tucking their face into Nightingale’s fur. It had been so long, so very long, lonely nights and days filled with nothing but the endless walk of someone who had little else to live for. Until Nightjar, who they missed, but she would be fine. She always was.

I couldn’t stay there. Not without you. Never without the other half of his very soul.

Nightingale felt his throat tighten. Words didn't come. Lifting a paw to hold Geraint closer as he began to tremble and sob. His ears shifted to airplane mode as his eyes veiled.

A deer.

The memory hit him like... well, a deer. A massive buck slamming into him in a failed hunt. He could feel the tine digging into his chest, into his ribs, could feel his lung seize. His heart raced and he clutched Geraint tighter now, as if one of them might evaporate as the memories flooded in.

Oh, mon cœur, he murmured, his voice softening as he just held his mate, burying his face in the other's fur and breathing in his scent.

Is that how I got here? Are we both... is this heaven, or hell, or something in between? I can't imagine anything but heaven would bring you back to me. and Nightingale believed it, with all his heart and soul.

Geraint didn’t even know why they were sobbing. They weren’t the one struck down, they didn’t even find him. It was just words, at the end of the day. Words that had torn out their very heart, left it dangling out of their chest to drag in the mud until it hardened to stone.

They were far from the stone heart now, snot bubbling from their nose, every limb trembling, holding Nightingale so close if they got any closer they’d meld into him.

I don’t- They swallowed the damning crack in their voice, nevermind the tears still staining their cheeks. It was a vulnerability they had only ever shown to Nightingale, the heart their mother wished they didn’t have.

If it is heaven.. I shouldn’t be here. They didn’t say it, but it hovered like a storm cloud over their head. Every blink felt like their eyes were made of sandpaper. What if this was a hell? A hell where they’d have to watch their husband leave them, over and over again? What cruelty could come to them in a field as beautiful as this one?

A creative sort, if the devils had any sense of humor.