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Lannon reached out, spread his fingers, hovered a half-inch above the smooth, weathered granite surface of the makeshift stairs and platform, and then finally touched it. And nothing happened, partially to his surprise - but, then, why would it? This was just stone. Just old, ancient rock, hewn and smashed together to create this... site.

This was not something he could record in his journal. This much he already knew. The world around him seemed to have slowed to a standstill, with the wind still blowing through the trees yet sounding as though it came at a great distance, and the birds and insects having quieted down, allowing them the space to think and speak without raising their voices. Or, sometimes, without using their voices at all.

The lynx swallowed and lifted his head from where he sat, there at the bottom step leading up to the platform bearing the rootbound altar. Were he capable of wielding magic any more than seeing and feeling the elemental threads on the air and in the world, constantly teasing and tantalizing, he might be able to track down the path of that root, and find the tree from which it came.

But that seemed like sacrilege, too. His naked ear - almost naked; with the usual healing period after a piercing simply removed from his experience, he often forgot about the circle of bone and amber Sulaya had granted him - flicked, and he looked over to where Sulla stood, facing away from the altar, arms crossed. A moment later the wolf's ear flicked as well, and then that single partially blue eye looked over his shoulder at him.

"Sulla."

He blinked.

"What exactly are we supposed to... do?"

The wolf tilted his head slightly, looked up to the sky, turned to face the path again, waited a moment, and then finally heaved a sigh and turned fully around. Slowly he strode across the clearing and then came to sit down next to the lynx; Lannon leaned in and bumped his muzzle against his shoulder.

"I don't know."

"You don't? But you've done this before, and..."

"And it felt like a completely different life, from a completely different Sulla. Besides-" The wolf poked a finger at Lannon's ribs. "Even if I did fully remember, I'm not allowed to tell you."

The lynx jumped at the touch, then reached to try to seize Sulla's finger. The wolf was too fast for him, though. "Yeah, yeah," he said, a low giggle on his breath, "I know. Utmost privacy and secrecy, so close to heart that not even your own parents or siblings or friends know about what happens here. I know. Practically the closest thing your tribe has to something holy."

"Holy..."

It was odd, then, the mix of thoughts and emotions that Lannon could tell started to bubble in Sulla's head and heart. There and then gone a moment later.

The wolf looked up to the sky again. "I don't know," he murmured. "I thought the gods wouldn't listen to us."

Lannon followed Sulla's gaze upward, towards a puffy cloud passing by over the clearing. His home village had sprouted up mostly outside the influence of organized religion, with the greatest impact coming during the holiday feasts or just as something kept in the back of the mind of his neighbors. It had come as a bit of shock to him, to pass through the great glass pillars and walls of Solm further south, and for the first two buildings he could see to be the palace, strange and otherworldly with its walls of carven granite barely containing the massive tree around which it had been built, the only in the entire vast desert, and then the far-reaching spires of the city chapel nearby.

"I thought your daughter was a goddess."

"Do you still?"

Lannon thought about it. "I'm not sure. What would that make you, if she were?"

"A myth." Answered without a second of pause. "I understand that's what I was, when I was... well, before."

Lannon rested his paw on Sulla's knee. "Yes. That's what brought me back here, across the desert and grasslands, away from my schooling and back here to home. To the real world."

This time Sulla turned to face him head-on, and there around the mismatched eyes Lannon could clearly see his age, the weight of his memories and thoughts, and the burden of everything that had come before.

"I'm sorry you gave up your magic for me."

Lannon also turned to face him more fully, bringing one leg up across his other. "I'm not," he answered. "It was worth it."

"For an old, half-broken wolf who can't remember anything clearly?"

"Yes. Of course." He entwined his paw with Sulla's and squeezed. "Because that wolf is you. When I came back here from my time at the academy I thought I'd be investigating... I don't know. A myth, as you said - I thought it was just a bear or a wild wolf out in the woods. I _knew_of your tribe, and thought it might be involved, but reserved judgment until I saw for myself... and then I met you."

"You did not." As he spoke Sulla looked away again. "You met me that day in the woods, arms and legs bound to the earth and spread out in a ritual circle. Before that, you met the beast that I had become, from my own rage and hate and-"

With his other paw Lannon gripped Sulla's muzzle, gentle yet firm, and forced him to look down at him again. "And your love," he finished for him. Just as Lannon looked back and forth between Sulla's eyes, so did the wolf for his. "I felt Tul, during that ritual. I heard and felt her there, still around, still keeping watch over you. And I saw you speak with her just now, when we first arrived - what did she say?"

Sulla thought about it for a moment. Lannon tried to peek in but found he couldn't; it would make sense that a hunter such as him, having experienced this bond before, would be able to temporarily close off his partner from the link. Some thoughts were indeed too private.

"She thanked me," the wolf went on, voice low. "And told me she was proud of me. That she loved me, and that she would see me again sometime. And then..."

"Yes?"

Sitting here along the smooth granite, ancient altar standing behind them and the rest of the world spreading out from this center point, the greys and browns and slight touches of silver and white in Sulla's fur all sparkled in the post-rain sunlight coming through the space between the trees. He licked his lips, swallowed, and sighed.

"She told me to take care of you, as you would give up anything to ensure my happiness and safety, and that you already have once before."

Lannon smiled, flicked an ear, and then threw his arms around Sulla's shoulders. The wolf seemed startled at first, of all things, then hugged him back. He smelled so pleasant, of the wilderness and forest atop the stronger, richer musk that he had come to recognize as his, so similar to Sulaya's, just slightly different.

After a while the lynx retreated again. He tried to hide a quick wipe at his eyes and nose. "So," he went on. "What are we supposed to _do_here? For the, um..."

"The bloodrites?"

Hearing it made his heart skip a bit. Ritual, he was going to say; bloodrites was something unique and inherent to Sulla's tribe, to this odd offshoot of wolves hidden deep within the woods, living their lives almost completely separate from modern written history, largely unknown to scholars and historians save for rumors and myths.

That made Lannon special. Throughout his journal, leafed between his own personal experiences, his thoughts and dreams, were his observations and theories regarding the tribe and culture, and the little bits of language he had picked up and pieced together from his own prior knowledge. As a language the Old Tongue followed a few specific rules of grammar and syntax, again similar to his own Common yet shifted and tweaked a bit. There were a few odd things regarding possessives and contractions that he hadn't quite figured out, but from what he had found...

The hunters bore a two-syllable name, with their companions bearing one, Su-Lla and Tul, No-Ma and Stike. Sulaya seemed to stand as an anomaly among this, but that seemed to hold true for her being as a whole.

Su-Lla, the beauty of love. Su-Laya, the beauty of life. And here was Lannon, named for a character from his mother's favorite stories growing up. Did that mean more or less than the hunters' simple, representational names? Here was Lannon, an outsider, wrapped impossibly close with this hunter, about to undergo one of the main traditions granting the tribe its unique history and culture.

Right now he was Lannon, lynx, scholar, student. What would he be afterwards?

"Yes," he finally managed. "The bloodrites. I know it's private, but do you at least have some kind of..."

He trailed off. Sulla thought about it for a moment and then stood up, offering a paw down to help Lannon up as well.

"I can't tell you," the wolf replied. "Not because I am prevented from it, but simply because I don't know. It truly is different for everyone, for every hunter-companion... ah... for every pair who undergo the ritual. It's a matter of..." He spread his paws and looked down at them, with the altar just past his fingers. "Of feeling. Instinct and intuition - this is what drives our people, and our power. Doing what you feel and know in your heart to be right. And then, your will be done."

Almost one for one the guiding tenet behind Spirit magic. Lannon was familiar. He remained close to Sulla for a moment, enjoying the wolf's warmth and presence, then took a step away. He swallowed, sighed, closed his eyes, and tilted his head back, again going briefly into one of the novice meditation exercises: he closed himself off from the rest of the world and felt at himself first, feeling the way the wind tickled at his fur, feeling the surface of the granite beneath his footpaws, feeling the texture of his clothes over his body, the ever-present slight twinge of his shoulder scar, the weights hanging from his ears.

He felt Sulla there, deep inside the back of his head and heart, a presence to which he had already grown accustomed. A second bundle of thoughts and feelings and memories. He reached out for that little bundle, brushed against it, felt it spread open to accept his presence and consciousness... and then he knew.

Or he felt he knew, which seemed to be good enough. Lannon opened his eyes, glanced to Sulla, then strode up the stairs towards the altar, placed his paws against the surface - and then without a second thought, used that leverage to lift himself up and sit back along it. Sulla frowned at him, ears flicking back and mouth coming partially open; Lannon just smirked and held his arms out for him.

"Come here."

"Lannon..." Despite his protest, still the wolf obeyed and came forward. The lynx spread his legs to make room in front of him for the much larger wolf. "What are you-"

"What feels right," he answered. Then that warmth returned, his legs wrapping around strong waist, paws settling first around Sulla's shoulders, then sliding in so his arms draped over his back and around his neck. "This is a place of great power," he murmured, breath curling back around the wolf's neck so close to his nose, "and of great emotion. Even without my magic, I can feel that."

And he could. This place, wherever and what_ever it was, stood locked so deeply entwined with the currents of magic throughout the forest, as though almost all of it centered right here within this altar. This knowledge did not come to him easily, though: it was not like the thick cords of Fire he could perceive streaming down from the sun, or the tight knots of Earth webbed throughout the ground. This was a feeling, an _intuition, like how he could feel the wind through his fur or the warmth of sunlight on his brow. It was something Lannon had to stop and focus to pick out, but once he became aware of it, he felt it everywhere.

Sulla leaned in closer. Lannon had to swing an arm back around to keep himself propped up with the way the lupine pressed in on top of him. "What does it feel like?" he murmured, the rumble of his voice palpable through his chest and in the air between them.

"It feels like... like a weight, a heaviness, strung out on the air. Or - not the air, but in the space through which the air, the earth, us, everything, exists. There's something there, but I wouldn't have noticed had I not looked for it."

That made the wolf smirk. With his muzzle so close to Lannon's he could easily feel the little puff of breath. A large lupine paw rested in along the smaller feline's thigh.

"I can see why she chose you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. What do I feel like?"

"You..." With that one paw still behind himself for balance, Lannon traced the other up along Sulla's side, in over his chest, then up his shoulder, neck, and jaw towards the curve of his muzzle. Again he closed his eyes, leaned in, touched his brow to the wolf's cheek, drew his scent in... "Aren't quite the same as you were before. There's a lot of anger still there, a lot of pain, but it's all wrapped together in the love and warmth that's so distinctly you." Lannon smirked too. He hooked that arm around Sulla's neck and then shifted to move his other to that spot as well, hanging off of the wolf to keep him from falling back across the altar. "It's become familiar and comfortable, you know, having this little bundle of you wrapped up in the back of my head."

"Mhmm." One of Sulla's paws made its way down the lynx's back, at the same time leaning him back further as it did pull him in closer to his waist. "You get used to it."

"Do I?"

"You got used to me physically."

"Well, it still takes a bit of preparation and adjustment every now and then..."

There it was. Positioned just right, legs hanging off the altar and half-wrapped around Sulla's waist, the wolf gave a smooth, firm thrust forward, partially lifting Lannon's body away from the smoothed wood - and of course pushing a little breathy sigh out of him.

Sulla licked his chops. "Is that right?"

"Y-yeah. I... ah..."

Do what feels right. This close, constantly touching like this, feeling the weight and warmth of each other's bodies, listening to soft rumble of their voices, wrapped up in their scents already so familiar and pleasant... Lannon rolled his head back and lifted his waist up for the wolf's paw, as it made its way down towards the fastenings of his pants. He swallowed, blinked against the sunlight coming down into the clearing, shifted, lifted up again, then sighed once he felt the surface of the wood against his bare rump, and the gentle fingers of a light breeze as they played through the revealed fur of his inner thighs and below.

Mismatched eyes glimmered up at him, as he had seen them do so many times before. The lynx smirked again, tongue lightly held between his teeth, and intentionally spread his legs and lifted up. He expected Sulla to drop down to his knees again, to slide his large paws up beneath his lower back and prop him up - he expected that muzzle to spread him first, lips and tongue digging and caressing as they were so skilled at doing. Even just the thought of it, and the memory, was enough to make him squirm and thrust into the air a bit.

Not this time, though. Sulla moved with an urgency behind his desire. With Lannon's pants hanging loose halfway off one of his legs, the wolf squeezed a paw in at his ankle while the other moved down to his own front, quickly undoing the knot of the string-belt he wore - it was the only one back at town that fit his larger build, Lannon figured - then shifted those down his legs. Dark fur gave way to partially revealed reddish-pink flesh, also glistening in the sunlight. Lannon swallowed, licked his lips, and looked down, taking in slow, steady breaths... until he finally picked up the scent that he expected and so desired. That, too, gave him another pulse of arousal and interest.

Sulla's tongue lapped out over his muzzle again, barely able to contain his need - that was another part of the entire thing that Lannon had felt, this burning, rumbling desire to be with him, indulged in the mornings along their journey or when they paused for a break, adventurous paws slipping beneath pants or underneath tails or, at one point when they stopped at the river, Sulla taking this same position with Lannon being the one to kneel between his legs... it had been hard not to take note of that in his journal, as it was something he wanted to remember, but the rest of the day was spent with the wolf's musk thoroughly ground into the fur of his muzzle and on his breath. Part of him wondered if Sulaya had been able to pick it up still, upon their arrival.

Gentle paws along his thighs brought him back to the present, as Sulla worked himself into place. No muzzle, but something close: one of those paws went to his mouth and then lowered back down, and then saliva-slickened fingers slid up beneath Lannon's tail, The lynx shivered and sighed, giving a gentle push back against that touch, then reflexively squeezed at the pressure of one of those fingerpads finding and pressing in against his tailhole. Then again, and a third time, and only then did Sulla slide fully up against him, paws moving to grip at his thighs and keep them spread.

Lannon shifted to rest back on his elbows. The heat of Sulla's body pressing up against him drove him wild, their little half-bond burning like a rope dipped in oil. He twitched and shivered, and half-consciously rubbed and grinded down against the wolf's only partially revealed length, tip working forward and back and teasing in at him.

"Is this - acceptable?" he said, a little chuckle to his voice. He patted at the surface of the altar beneath him. "Doing this, here?"

"What..." Sulla reached down, adjusted his angle, gave another push - and then both of them twitched and sighed with that familiar hot pressure, squeezing in and around. Lannon spread his legs a bit further. "_Now_you have a problem with passionate rituals?"

"I didn't... say that." Lannon's breath puffed out of him in the rhythm set by Sulla's hips, the wolf's plump sheath pressed up against his tailhole and working, squeezing, coaxing himself deeper inside of him with each push. "I'm just - ah - curious..."

Something did indeed stir in the depths of Sulla's memory, felt as a distant rumble through their bond, but Lannon couldn't quite latch onto it to investigate. It wasn't that the wolf wanted to keep him out at this point, and Lannon did indeed want to respect his boundaries and privacy, but rather he simply had trouble focusing on anything other than this heat, pressure, and pleasure filling him up.

"A lot more than just curious," Sulla rumbled, his breath wafting down across Lannon's whiskers. The lynx half-opened his eyes: he had shifted down to rest atop his elbows, while Sulla had moved once he had pressed inside of him so that his paws now braced against the edge of the altar, and used his own leverage and momentum to continue driving himself forward and in. This meant that only his hips carried the movement, back remaining straight and muzzle hanging in place above him.

Driving forward and down, again and again, picking up in pace and force, until Lannon had to lower himself down further and again wrap his legs around the wolf's waist. The rhythm of his motion bounced him against the altar, each time forcing another gasp, another moan, another shivering breath out between his lips; he reached up and wiped a paw over his forehead, then ran it down his body, squeezed and stroked his own throbbing hard length, let it go, propped himself up again. Sulla, so focused in maintaining that rhythm and pounding down into him, let his eyes flutter open again - and then met Lannon's.

For a moment he slowed, buried deep inside of Lannon, sheath tugged back past his as of yet unswollen knot, heavy sack hanging down along the base of the lynx's little nub-tail. Lannon bit his lip, rolled his head forward again, swallowed, squeezed around the wolf inside of him, then gave a shaky little laugh. Sulla tilted his head, smiled - though the effort was already palpable on his expression as well, and in the little panting breaths as he moved - and with a paw tilted and brought Lannon's muzzle a little closer to his own.

"What's wrong, little cat?" he murmured, warm breath again tickling at his muzzle. "Are you starting to feel it, too?"

Sulla continued leaning in. Lannon licked his lips again, tilted his muzzle a little further in the wolf's fingers... "I'm starting to feel_something..."_ ...and then met him for a sweet, soft kiss.

Lips met, locked, and then parted, yet remained brushed against one another, as Sulla picked his pace right back up. Then they met again and again - and then sharp lupine fangs tugged in along Lannon's upper lip, and then his broad, flat tongue slid its way into his maw, curling around and over his, dragging up along the roof of his mouth, pressing back down - and then Sulla wrapped his arm around Lannon's body and tugged him up to him, chest to chest, muzzle to muzzle, as he sank into him against the altar, and brought Lannon closer to him.

Ever closer, more so than they had ever been before. More than when Lannon had pressed down onto him in the ritual circle in the woods, entire body shivering and shaking, world swimming around him; more than when they had first curled up on the bed in the hut, Lannon running his fingers through the now carefully-maintained fur of the wolf's chest, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the rhythm of his breath; more than when Lannon had heard his voice for the first time, singing the song taught by his mother, from his father, from Sulaya's grandmother - Sulla's mother.

Closer than anything else. The warmth began in his chest, taking root and holding tight, then blossomed out to encompass the whole of his body until it spread out, met and matched a similar warmth coming from deep within Sulla's being, and there they wrapped and came together into something new, something brighter and more powerful.

During the first ritual he had been too preoccupied and focused to notice, and here he found himself in a similar position, wedged between Sulla's heavy, hot body and the smooth surface of the altar beneath him, living wood seeming to pulse and reverberate with the thrusts and motions and his own breathing. Still, though, he could feel it there as well, so similar to the still-remembered sensation of drawing upon his own source of energy for Spirit magic. Something deep inside of him - he shifted and squirmed again; something else deep inside him he thought he could see pressing out from inside his belly at the end of each smooth, steady thrust - shifted and then locked into place, and from that foundation started to open and spread out.

Mists of memory lingered in the wolf's head, everything about him freely opened now to the lynx amid their passion. Thoughts and impressions, more deeply ingrained into unconscious memory than conscious awareness, of the depth of Sulla's previous bond with Tul, the force of their love, the weight of grief when her life had sprayed out across his muzzle from barely an arm's length away, hung there just within Lannon's reach.

All of this, and then a great passage of time, indistinct and muddled... and then, suddenly, Lannon. The lynx there in the night between the trees, wrapped in his cloak with his magic lantern hovering nearby, feline form wrapped in the thin tendrils of Fire-cast light while Sulla, beast, monster, watched from nearby. There had been wariness and nervousness at first, the same fear that he had always associated with strangers and especially those from beyond the borders of the forest - but then these turned to curiosity and wary interest as Lannon began to seek him out, to call to him even when he hadn't intended to.

Was this what it felt like? Muzzle still pinned against Sulla's, he tilted his head again, messily ran his lips and tongue over Sulla's, and then dove into another string of kisses that seemed to pull the breath out of his lungs. Everything about him, from the wolf's fur against his own, his arms around his body, his mouth against his, his length buried inside of his rump and squeezing, twitching, working inside of him, to the simple fact of having him so close to him, wanted - needed - more.

Again Lannon hung onto Sulla, paws tight on his shoulders and lips and teeth nearly trying to pull the wolf's tongue out of his own mouth. Sulla bent over him a little further to compensate, resting Lannon's lower back over the altar and keeping his back elevated with a paw, while the other spread over his chest, pushed into his soft fur, then slid down. Already the lynx had dripped a little pool of sticky arousal into the fur of his belly, and he couldn't help but twitch and buck at the sensation of Sulla running his thumb through that pool, then down over the end of his fully hard length. Then his fingers wrapped around him, gentle yet firm, and he gave a few strokes in rhythm with his thrusts - and Lannon nearly lost himself amid everything all over again.

And still the flame burned there, the oil-doused rope between them pulling, tightening, strengthening at the endpoints. _So_much like when he cast from his own source, Lannon felt the energy from within, enticed and coaxed out from the passion rippling between them, ripple and stretch its tendrils out throughout his body.

Lannon reached up with both paws and caressed Sulla's muzzle, the wolf standing aside to let him push and poke through those half-formed memories. Even before, Sulla had felt drawn to this strange lynx, a shard of iron tugging towards a lodestone. Try as he might to turn and flee, always he found himself returning to the lynx if even for just a quick glance through the trees or a meeting of the eyes at dawn.

From there the memories took on more weight and substance, either for being more recent or for Sulla intentionally drawing these out. The first time Lannon touched him, both shaky and nervous. Lannon's quiet voice, the only sound there in the night - "hey," he had murmured, his Common tongue even then ringing true in Sulla's head, "you're no monster, are you?"

For the first time since the first ritual he felt himself here suffused with that sweet, tantalizing energy, making his fur stand on end and his skin tingle - and yet he could still tell that it did not entirely come from himself, nor was it at all from his own intent. A portion of it swirled out of Sulla here on top of him, the wolf holding tight to his rhythm and coming so close to his peak, evident in his expression, his breathing, the tension in his body, and the trembling urgency through their link - and then another portion of it, something deeper and less recognizable, spouted out from the altar beneath Lannon, as though it stretched ghostly hands out around his shoulders, his chest, and his waist, and held him tight against the smooth wood surface.

Those fingers poked and prodded at him, finding the subtle, hidden ways into his inner being, his thoughts, his memories, his very self. It was a sensation, a power much deeper and older, more ancient and...

Primordial. Something that had been here, here in the forest, longer than anything else, and now reached out to touch him, and Sulla, and to bind the two together into something greater.

Lannon jerked atop the wolf, back arching and head rolling back. "Gods..." he panted. "Sulla, I'm..."

Back then they had both sought each other out, without the other knowing. Both had felt that same pull, and neither realized it. Lannon coming forward and caressing the wolf-beast's muzzle in his paws, just as he did now; gentle, caring fingers pushing through the matted fur, running over the old scars, feeling at the muscles and twisted bones beneath. Touching him as Sulla could not remember ever feeling before. Curiosity and interest blossomed quickly into something brighter and deeper, little lynx paws becoming more adventurous and confident; digging through his memories like this, Lannon saw and felt for himself what it was like for Sulla to push him down along the bank of the river, much larger body over the lynx's, thrusting forward and down into his spread paws and fingers, intense pleasure lancing through him as he hadn't felt in so long.

Lannon had called out to him that morning at that river, bringing him forward to run a comb through his fur. Again and again the two did this, every time the lynx touched him instilling more of that need in the wolf's body to be close to him, to know him, to feel him. Something had already begun that neither of them noticed or felt; it was the initial ritual that had brought that to the surface and tied it in place, when Lannon had banished the twisted remnants of a festering spirit-wound and thrust Sulla back into his original body. They had struggled together, healed together, felt at their new, slightly-changed selves together.

Then Sulla began to feel the beginnings of the bond-sickness, and he left. Here, deep in the heart of the forest, he met the voice and being that had visited him some number of times before, who had alternately tried to stifle his existence and then bring him forward and further. He recognized her, and knew her, and loved and treasured her. She smiled at him, golden eyes glittering in the sun, and reached down to erase another of his wounds, while at the same time instilling him with a gift, a boon, to be revealed when he next returned here.

A sudden movement, a forceful thrust forward, a gasp from the lynx - and then a sharp yelp trickling into a lower whine, as Sulla suddenly lunged forward and wrapped his jaws around Lannon's shoulder. From that point of leverage, entire body shivering and pulsing with the intense urgency, the wolf drew back, thrust forward, shifted a bit, then pushed, pushed, pushed - and managed to squeeze himself past the knot, locking Lannon tight against him. The lynx jerked with that sudden hot pressure inside of him, claws scraping at the wood of the altar, teeth gritted and breath catching in his throat. He squirmed and wriggled, Sulla's paw still working fast at him, the pleasure rebounded and redoubled inside of him until he felt he might burst - and he swallowed, bucked, bucked again, let out a shuddering moan, bucked one more time, and then fell limp over the altar, chest heaving with exhausted panting. Nothing had spurted out of him; the tie swollen past his tail, filling him with tight, hot pressure, had blocked it all off.

Still that bright, energizing sensation remained inside of him, tickling at the ends of his fingers and through his nerves, sizzling and bubbling into the sharp afterglow. After a moment Lannon tugged himself up, still panting, and wiped the drool off of his mouth. A tired laugh trickled out of his lips; Sulla opened his eyes after a moment and returned his smile, broad tongue lolling out of his mouth.

For that moment the rest of the world fell away. All that remained, all that mattered, was this wolf and lynx, tied here together in this clearing with the depths of nature around them, locked tight within each other's presence and awareness. Still-hard shaft twitching against his belly, and able to feel Sulla's lingering throbs inside of him, he panted, swallowed again, reached a shaky paw up to the wolf's muzzle, and slid into another kiss. There they held for a moment, then drifted out - and Lannon laughed again.

"Did it-" He cleared his throat. "Did it work? I..."

That was when it, whatever it was, finally locked into place between them. The rope burned bright, burst, and snapped, as there was no longer a need for it. Deep inside, that little nugget of awareness that was Sulla had grown and expanded and entwined inextricably with Lannon's own self. Suddenly he felt fuller, stronger, brighter; he could feel the remnant arousal, pleasure, and exhaustion in Sulla's body on top of his own, all of the mix of thoughts and emotions swirling around, melding and weaving in and out of his own, easy to pick around and isolate on their own yet still constantly there.

And then among all of this was Sulla himself, and everything that made him who he was. For the first time Lannon felt the depth of his grief and agony all for himself, the deep wounds buried underneath that he could tell now could never fully heal. A paw went to his mouth and he jerked with a half-suppressed noise of surprise and shock - but just as soon as he noticed these awful impressions were they swept away and overtaken with something else, something more. Sweet, warm feeling, the same blossoming sensation that he had felt blooming in his chest, now wrapping around and holding him tight, lifting him away from the fright and hate and deep into the pleasant embrace of -

Of love. Pure, deep, boundless love, affection, appreciation, radiating out from Sulla's being and into his own, magnified and multiplied by the depth of their now completed bond. Paw still over his mouth, Lannon looked back and forth between Sulla's eyes, now cleanly split between full sky-blue and moss-green.

Lannon had to blink a few times to see those lovely eyes clearly, tears beginning to well up in his own - and in Sulla's, he noticed a moment later. He reached up and wiped at them, then shook with another little sob, then another. Wonderful emotion poured out around him, the ghostly hands from the altar receding and taking their impression of ancient power with him, yet leaving him none the worse for it. He no longer needed it, or his own magic, now that he had Sulla as close - closer - than he had ever had anything else.

This was what it felt like, then. Finally he knew, beyond any doubt since he had put it on during the trek back home, that he deserved to wear this cuff earring.

"Welcome," Sulla murmured. "Lannon." The word came through clear in the lynx's head, as though a product of his own thoughts - but he knew beyond knowing that it came from Sulla's. "You have completed me. Finally, again I am whole, and I would choose none other than you."

_ _

"And I am complete, too," the lynx tried. Sulla's smile, and the warmth radiating through their bond, told him that it was indeed that easy. "Something I hadn't known I'd needed, finally resolved."

Here it was, now - that gift granted to him when he had come here before. Sulla turned his head again and met Lannon in another kiss, this one softer and gentle. It sent a warm flutter down through his chest and body, then bounced back up again and added to the fire still burning inside of him. Lannon felt it there inside of him, something impossible to properly put into words, more of an impression, a whisper of feeling, than anything substantial.

After Tul's slaughter, after the vicious shattering of their bond, after the years of strife and pain and torment, a part of Sulla's self and being had withered and crumpled away to nothing, until Sulaya's touch, word, and promise restored it.

Already you strain to achieve this, she had murmured to him, father's muzzle held in daughter's paws. Already you war with yourself, knowing what you want and need, unable to allow yourself to reach for it. I grant you permission. I grant you that ability.

_ _

You shall love again. Already you do. Go to him. Tell him.

_ _

Sulla rubbed his nose against the lynx's. "Lannon..."

"I know." No longer did he try to wipe the tears away as they came. Lannon threw his arms around Sulla's shoulders again and buried his muzzle in his neck. "I know, dearest."

Whether one, or the other, or both thought of it next, it was unclear - but there in their minds, linked and wrapped together, they remembered when Lannon had come across Sulla already there in the river, prim and beautiful as the morning sun poured down over him, the melody and words of a long-remembered song sweet in his voice, lost for twenty-six years. It was a song his mother had sung to him as a pup, and one that he had sung to his daughter for the two short years he had known her.

The tune was there in both of their heads, and as he listened to it through memory, Lannon felt it vibrating in Sulla's chest as well. A low, soft murmur, barely more than a whisper, lyrical Old Tongue giving the song an ethereal lilt, while his own Common when he joined in made it move and shift and sway, the trees overhead in the wind.

They remembered Lannon's paws, soft on Sulla's waist and coming up towards his chest. They remembered the way Sulla had looked down at him, taking in the beauty of this lynx now so familiar, so close to him. They remembered those last words, sung together in their own languages, somewhat different yet entirely the same.

Never doubt, never fear, for as long as you love me,

I will love you too.