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The Pain of Abandonment

for Catsithx

by Draconicon

Aydeen was only half-welcome in the forest, she knew that. The deer side of her heritage made her feel at home there, while the other side - the dragon - always felt out of place. It was not meant to rest beneath the boughs of the forest, nor to wander the wooded paths or the deep places of the woods. It wished for the sky, or at least the open air of the plains adjacent to the forest, where it could see the clouds and sun and sky, to be beneath the moon and stars rather than beneath the trees.

For the moment, it would have to settle for the open part of the clearing that they stood in. The dragon's power was all she had for the ritual, and if she did not make use of it here, here, where her dead beloved's spirit was strongest, then the ritual had no chance of working.

The dragon-deer hybrid knelt at the edge of the circle, slowly pulling her head up from drawing the lines for the spell. The work of hours had gouged out the ground, creating a layered crater that centered on a satchel of old fur that she had brought specifically for this. Her fur, barely lit enough by the moonlight to show the soft purple stripes of her dragon heritage through the tans and creams of the deer side, was matted with sweat and pulled down against her flesh. She could barely breathe through the pounding of her heart, the grief that echoed and screamed through her head.

He's gone. He's gone. He's not coming back. The gods turned you down. He is not coming back.

The words of all her friends, all the different members of her family, echoed through the back of her mind. She knew that they would think she was crazy, coming here, doing this, putting everything that she had towards a spell that would probably never work. Even a full-blooded dragon would have thought twice about this, and she was barely a half-dragon, barely possessing a portion of that power.

But she had to try. For him, she had to try.

Aydeen pushed herself upwards slowly, feeling her legs shaking under her as she got her hooves under her. The meager leathers she wore for clothes slid along her shoulders, falling off her, drifting to the ground. The night's chill didn't touch her as she began the slow process of walking around the spell-circle, taking in the details and double-checking her work. The slightest error would kill her, draining her of all life, and it would not bring her beloved back.

She almost hoped it would. If the spell didn't work, if it couldn't bring him back, then there was no point in continuing on.

As the hybrid walked the circle, she had to force herself to keep moving. Hours of digging out the earth, of cutting through soil and grass to make the spell-forms stand out against the earth itself, had tired her. She stumbled, her tail barely catching her on a tree nearby. Longer than she was tall, her tail pushed her back to her hooves when she was able to let go of the tree, and she kept moving.

For you...for you...

That was the whole reason she was here. For him. For him.

She would not go on without him. Not anymore. Not after the devastation of losing him so soon.

Aydeen drifted, as she had done so often of late, back to her memories. The feeling of them, the sensation of being surrounded by their pleasant emptiness, was better than being in the current moments of agony...

She met him at the edge of the forest. White-furred all over save for a half-head of black locks, the wolf had been a man of power and strength, someone that she almost couldn't believe was real when she first met him. He'd carried an entire tree over one shoulder, and had done so with ease. It had felt like meeting a spirit of the wood rather than a living person, and Aydeen had been smitten from the first moment.

She expected to be hunted, and she was, but not out of malice. She had followed him along the edge of the forest, watched him take his tree to a campsite. He had laid it down, and then turned to her, revealing that he had known she was following him the whole time. They had shared a look, then he had smiled. He did not chase her in predatory hunger, but in tease, following her through the trees, chasing her at the edge of the forest, keeping pace with her as she ran through the grasses.

Aydeen learned later that he could have taken her at any time, that he had held back to make the chase more enjoyable for both of them. That wasn't what had been in her mind then, though. She had been entranced by the hunt, something in it speaking to the ancient blood deep in her veins. The dragon liked the feeling of near-flight that the long run gave them, and the deer loved the chance to leap, to push itself...and the blissful excitement of running from the predator.

He had caught her eventually, of course. There was no way that he wouldn't, that he couldn't. Leaping from the trees hours into the chase, he caught her by the leg and carried her to the ground. They both lost their breath for a moment as they thumped down, her legs entwined with his upper body, his nose nearly pressing beneath her loincloth at the time.

Was she offended at the time? Only playfully. She accused him of being a pervert, that he had chased her merely to have his way with her. Instead of blushing, he had lifted his head and given her that hungry stare that had been missing mere hours ago, laid his clawed fingers on her thighs, and growled.

"I am...just as you are a pervert that teased me the whole way..."

Aydeen didn't deny it, though she did blush from him seeing through it and telling her something that she hadn't actually known until that moment. She chuckled, then, and rolled onto her side. Her tail flagged to the right, lifting her loincloth, showing off the curve of her rump. The wolf pulled himself upright, and they both had a chance to see the other.

She knew that he liked what he saw. His sheath was full, and rising fuller, and the smell of him was thick in the air. She reached back, using her dexterous fingers to tease him further out. She smiled, showing a dragon's fangs rather than a doe's smooth teeth. She looked up at him.

"Do you have a name?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"Let's see how we get along first..."

"A gentleman would tell me."

"A gentleman would hardly hunt you..."

"This is true."

"And no matter your fangs...you are prey..."

"Mmm..."

She laid herself on the earth, spreading her legs slowly to show everything that she had to offer. He must have been very hungry indeed, for he lunged for her.

His first thrust showed his strength, for he slid in from tip to hilt in one thrust, pushing her across the earth with force. She gasped from the heat of him, moaned from the sheer girth that he offered, and the feeling of his sac against her rump. He held her down, his strong hands pulling hers over her head, tangling them in her hair. As he ground against her, the hint of a knot was already grinding against her as well, reminding her of the future ahead. The hunter would bind her to him, and she would enjoy it.

She looked forward to it.

As she rolled her hips against him, a teasing smile on her face, he leaned in and bit her. Not hard, but firmly enough, enough to make her feel it, enough to make her gasp and clench. He growled into her neck, his hips already moving back, already drawing his shaft from her -

"AH!"

Only to ram in again hard enough to leave her gasping. Her teasing smirk slid from her lips, replaced with a gasping huff that refused to leave her with any dignity.

In, out, in, out, the humping started, and every little push, every harsh thrust, every slow grind was accompanied by its own sort of pleasure, giving her a reminder of what she had become, what she was to him.

Prey.

Pleasure.

Something to be fond of.

Something to enjoy.

Something to use.

Something good.

Their romp, as unnatural as it was, continued with ease. They found their rhythm, and they fell into it with all the pleasure that one could imagine. In and out, forward and back. It didn't take long for her legs to spread further, only to wrap around his hips, pulling him closer. Her hooves ground against the small of his back, trying to use her legs to pull him in, to keep him hilted and deep inside of her. Suitably, perhaps, the predator refused to be caged, refused to be imprisoned, and her legs were a token gesture at most around him.

Despite her pride and wish to show him that she could keep up, Aydeen couldn't. She huffed and puffed against his growing knot, against the biting grip that he had around the side of her neck, but even as tight as she held herself, she couldn't hold out against the humping, the grinding, the thrusting that he was putting her through. Eventually, as his knot started popping in and out, sucking against her pussy every time, the hybrid lost control.

"Ah!"

She moaned against him, grabbing him with her arms as futilely as she had with her legs. That climax was the first of several, rolling out into another and another as her eyes rolled into the back of their sockets, unable to keep staring forward as he rutted her mercilessly, beautifully, wonderfully.

In, out, in, out.

The popping sound of his knot was more than she could take, only adding to the feeling of it going in and out of her. It should have been too much, too big, but that was what the dragon blood was for. It was tough, strong, and it made her outlast it. She came, again and again and again, each time feeling her body trembling from head to toe from what the wolf was doing to her. What the nameless wolf was drawing out of her.

His teeth clenched as he suddenly popped in one last time, and she felt the points on the verge of breaking through her skin. The feeling was so intense that she was left a shivering mess as he pumped into her, the warmth of his passion spreading through her insides. To her womb, to her inner walls, to everywhere that it could reach. The knot trapped it inside of her, the feeling of his seed spreading, soaking, drenching her insides.

She slumped back, and he held her. Slowly, he sat up, and he dragged her with him in the process, allowing her to take a seat on his thighs. She was barely able to breathe, barely able to focus on him through the tremors running up and down her body.

"N-n-name..."

"Heh..."

"I want...your name..."

"Is a name so important?" he asked.

"Yes...I need to know...who is this good..."

"Cyren. My name is Cyren."

"Aydeen."

"A name as gorgeous as its owner."

She didn't hug him for the flattery. She hugged him to keep from falling over, to rest against him, to recover.

But the flattery didn't hurt.

#

She was too far gone to really feel arousal from the memories. They were passionate, lovely, wonderful, and Aydeen had enjoyed herself to them more than once when Cyren had been away, when he had been deep in the woods hunting for something or other while she tended to their house on the plains. The memories were good, loving, passionate and erotic, but they were not the memories for the moment.

Save for the fact that they called him to mind at his most primal, at his most pure. He wore civilized garb from time to time for her, when they were away from the forest, but -

But it was never him. This was always him.

Aydeen stumbled again, and this time, there was no tree to catch herself on as she went down. She thumped to her knees, groaning as they clicked beneath her. Thankfully, she managed to keep from falling into the circle.

Her hand went to her stomach. That rut would have given any wolf-woman a child. It would have given them a litter, for that matter, but she hadn't been ready for it. The potions hadn't been taken. The time hadn't been right. There were endless reasons for there not being a child from that coupling, and none of them had been worth it.

Not when he got sick.

Not when the healers couldn't help him.

Not when the gods denied her succor and comfort.

Aydeen felt the tears coming again, remembering years after their meeting, when they were finally getting settled and happy. She remembered what had happened, the sickness coming suddenly, and -

The hybrid slumped forward, falling to all fours as the weight of the memory came crashing down once more.

"Cyren...Cyren...please, Cyren, say something."

The soft wheeze of his breath was all that answered her, the same as always for the last week. The healers had come by, saying that there was something in his lungs, some vile thing that had taken hold and robbed him of his breath. No matter what herbs they burned, no matter what teas they forced down his throat, the great white wolf refused to heal. The deep black of the fur along his head had gone gray, and the same ashen color had spread along the edges of his muzzle as he grew old and grizzled before his time.

She sat beside him, her hands folded as she looked at his closed eyes. He barely breathed now, his chest rising and falling by the scantest of measurements. Every breath had a rattle that might have been the last, and there were moments when there were more than four of her own breaths between every one of his.

He was barely alive.

She wasn't even sure that she could call this living.

Aydeen lowered her head over her hands, another whispered prayer to the gods leaving her lips even though she knew that it was folly. They had ignored her so far, but she was desperate, hoping that someone - whether the gods of the forest, the sky, or the earth - might take pity on her. She was connected to the gods of the plains, the sky, the stars from her family's split bloodline; surely one of them would take pity on her.

The hours went by slowly, and bit by bit, her beloved's breathing slowed further and further. Her hands split, no longer holding the position of prayer. She squeezed his hand instead, the tears coming fast and free as her voice cracked.

"Please...just say something...please...Cyren...I love you..."

Her voice cracked as she leaned forward. She wanted to rest her head against his chest, just one more time, just to hear his heart beating against her one more time. It had been so long now, but she dared not touch more than his hand. What if she was too heavy? What if she crushed the air from him, and his weak lungs couldn't push out again? What if her selfishness killed him before the disease could?

But she could not stop begging. She could not stop the little whisper that escaped her.

"I love you, Cyren...please...just let me hear you say it...please...please..."

There were no words for her. He was too weak, and he was getting weaker. The seconds ticked by, then the minutes. His chest rose and fell, and at the end of hope, did it again. And again...and again...

Until it rose no longer.

Aydeen wailed, throwing herself against him. She tried to find his heartbeat, but there was none to find. His body, ravaged by the disease, had finally given out. Even as she slammed her hands against him, even as she tried to beat his heart to start again, he refused to follow.

His final hunt had begun, and he would no longer return.

As the hybrid wailed to the heavens, she heard the healers coming, heard family and friends rushing to their hut. They would know what had happened, and she knew for a fact that they would be unable to do anything. Their prayers, their platitudes, their comforts would be offered, but it wouldn't mean a thing.

She had lost her husband, her mate. Her world was gone.

And there was nothing, not even the child that they had so long wanted, to actually remember him by.

Aydeen dragged herself from the ground again, pulling herself to her hooves. She shook more than she did before, her eyes filled with tears. That had been four years ago. The death, four years ago, and she was still no better than she had been that night.

No, that was a lie. She was better. Because tonight, she would bring him back.

Four years was a long time to spend learning the very basics of bringing the dead back, but it was the only way to be sure that she was doing it right. And it had taken four years to find those that were willing to teach her those magics, those forbidden teachings, rather than leaving her out in the cold.

They told her that she risked death by doing this. She told them that she didn't care. Either she brought him back, or she would go with him. Either way, it would be better than it was now.

The circle was complete. There was no turning back. She knelt at the starting point and laid her hands against the circle, breathing in and holding it. The power that she had learned to summon came at her call, and she felt it tingling at the edges of her fingers. She held it there, making sure that it was ready, and then slowly pushed it out of her hands.

As the circle began to glow with magical power, with the light of her soul, the air went dimmer than before. The whole of the forest seemed to hold its breath as she forced the magic into the patterns that she had carved from the earth, making it bend and quiver beneath her.

Come...come back to me, Cyren...

Her thoughts cast themselves across the void, seeking the wolf's spirit. If he was there, he had to hear her. She extended herself further and further, feeling her soul pressing into the magical circle. This was how it was to be done. The more that she poured herself into the magic, the more powerful it became. She could open a portal to the other world, and if she could hold his name, his self, in her mind, then there was a chance that he could come through.

And if she failed...

If she failed, she would die here, and be sucked through herself. Already, she could feel the breaking down of her spirit, the deterioration that came with holding a spell this powerful open for this long. The sensation of her soul shattering was painful, as she imagined a piece of parchment would feel if it was held over an open flame. It burned slowly, cutting through her, slowly sweeping through her sense of self and her sense of who Aydeen was.

But she could almost feel him. The scent of him, the soft, musky scent of forest with dirt and bitterness and rain, was all there. She just had to hold it open a little longer.

The padding sounds of a beast walking by distracted her. She turned her head and saw a great gray wolf walking through the trees. It glowed with all the energy of a magical being, and she knew that this was no mortal, no mere hunting beast. She turned her head from him.

"Leave me be."

"You're risking your life, mortal."

"You made it my only choice."

"Not the only choice. You could move on."

"You cannot move on from perfection...from love."

"You speak as only a mortal can. Let him go."

"I can't. Not yet."

"You will die."

"I can accept that," Aydeen whispered.

"But can he?"

She didn't know. If it meant that she came to him in the afterlife - and surely she must - then would it matter, truly? Would it matter if she did not come to him normally, but merely through the effects of the spell?

It wouldn't matter to her. She pressed her hands more fully to the earth, giving herself to the spell. Her skin ached, her bones hurt, and she knew that she was slowly coming loose from her body. There was still no sign of Cyren. But one way or another -

"This will not be worth it," the wolf god said.

"I asked you. I asked them all. You all denied me...don't deny me again..."

"We cannot -"

"You have! You brought others back. If you won't give me this...then I will take it..."

The wolf god wouldn't stop her. She knew that for a fact; the gods would not interfere in the lives of those that they didn't have domain over, and she was not part of his pack. No matter how long she had been mated to a wolf, no matter how many times she had run with him and done the things, she had never been accepted. Well, that was his fault; if he had, then they would not be here. She would not be here. She would not be alone.

Her hands felt like they were plunged into fire, and her tail as if she had been dipped in ice. Her life was leaving her, slowly pushing out of her hands and into the circle. The spell linking her to the afterlife glowed with a green light that was slowly going from bright and vibrant to weak and sickly. Her soul was dying, and -

"You always were stubborn to a fault, little one..."

She looked up. There, in the circle, in the afterlife, was her mate. Cyren looked out at her, the black back in his fur, the deep darkness around his eyes that she had loved staring into so often; it was all there, all him. She wanted to cry. She wanted to lunge for him, but she had to keep the spell open. Nevertheless, she wept, a smile creeping up the sides of her face.

"Come on...come...I have it...I can hold it for a little longer. Come, Cyren...come to me..."

"I would if I could, my love, but you are all but dead already."

"I can hold...I'm strong enough..."

"Nobody is strong enough for this," he whispered, shaking his head slowly. "Let me go, love. Let me go, and live."

"I can't. Not without you."

"My prey...my love...you always were strong."

"But you..."

No, no, this couldn't be happening. She'd found him. She'd done this, opened the portal, found him, she was talking to him. It couldn't come this close and fail. Aydeen whimpered, feeling the heat in her fading, the cold spreading from her tail up her spine and down her legs. She screamed, her tears going from joyous to anything but.

"Come through. Please! PLEASE!"

"My life is done, love. Let me go."

"I can't...I can't..."

"You have to. Not forever...but for a bit longer."

"I came so close...please...just let me...just give me this..."

"You'll die if I do. That is the cost. One person may rise, and the other must fall."

They had told her that, said that it might be. Aydeen hadn't believed them, and had found those that were willing to tell her otherwise, that there were ways to bring someone back without making an exchange of life. She had been sure that they were telling her the truth, that the others had lied to keep her from having what she had earned, from going back to a life that they disapproved of.

Were they the liars?

Was Cyren?

No, Cyren had never lied to her, and she had no reason to believe that he would do this now. He was telling her the truth, and if that was the case...

Then the only way for them to be together...was when she died. She would have to live without him until the end came, alone...so alone.

She wanted to scream again, but her voice was trapped as her throat clenched down on itself, trapping all words, all voices inside of her neck. Aydeen wept, slowly sagging forward, unable to break her hands from the magical seal in the ground. The portal continued to drain her.

Then...he touched her. His hand on her head, slowly lifting her to look him in the eye. She stared at him, her mouth hanging open as she looked into his dark eyes. His other hand rested against her heart, and he said the words that she had wanted to hear since he was on his deathbed.

"I love you, Aydeen."

"I love you. I love you so - so much. I love you, love you, love you. It's not fair. It's not fair; we were supposed to be together until both of us went gray. It's not fair!"

"We will see each other again. One day. But you have to live. And you have to live for as long as you can."

"I don't...I can't..."

"You have to try. And for that...I give you a gift...one I wish I could have done so long ago..."

He rested his hand against her, and she shivered. Something, something between them passed, and she felt a hint of him. Some touch of his spirit, some touch of his soul...

And then he pushed her. The seal broke, and the portal closed. The wolf god was gone, and so was the portal to the afterlife. Aydeen had a moment to realize just how close she had come to both death and to her love, and then wailed herself to sleep.

#

Four months passed, and Aydeen didn't go home. She could have, she supposed, considering that there were those in the old village that would have been willing to welcome her back, but after so many years abroad, she could not bring herself to settle back where so many old memories waited. She would die under their weight, and despite the aches that she carried, she took Cyren's words to heart. She was to live, to find a way to hold herself together, and only come to the other world when it was her time. She would not kill herself, nor allow the world to find its way to do it for her.

To go home would be committing suicide in its own way, so she didn't. Instead, she went to the people of her husband.

The wolf tribes wandered the forest, some of them living as nomads, others sticking to certain hunting grounds. With her knowledge of the forest and plains, as well as the bits of magic that she had picked up besides necromancy, she was a surprisingly talented healer, and the various tribes were always happy to host her for a night or two, allowing her food and shelter while she worked her power over those that needed it. She became a small legend in her own right over those months, traveling from one tribe to another, putting together those that were injured and curing those that had been poisoned or sickened.

It was not enough to take the pain from her heart, but it was enough to give her a distraction and a purpose. Some days, that was all she needed. Others...

Well, she ensured that she was around those that would not let her go too far when it came to her own grief and self-pity.

She approached a new tribe, one day, and the shaman was the first to greet her. The older wolf looked at her oddly as she approached. At first, she thought that it was because of the dragon blood she had, in the long tail and the great mane and fangs. But no, he wasn't afraid, nor angry, as that might have sparked. Instead, he looked at her with a curious stare, something that made her feel as if she was some oddity that demanded an answer.

She stopped a few dozen paces from him, the rest of the wolves that he led standing another dozen paces behind him. Aydeen offered a faint smile.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"You are...the healer?"

"I am she."

"I did not know that you..."

"That I what?"

"...Don't you know?"

Aydeen clearly did not. She cocked her head to the side. The shaman looked back at her, and then slowly smiled.

"The father must."

"...You - what?"

"You carry a child. I did not know that the legendary healer had a partner...nor that she was brave enough to venture through the forests while carrying one."

Aydeen barely managed to keep a straight face as she heard him. Her hand went to her stomach, resting over it. She wasn't showing - but yes, there was something. She had passed it over as a part of the summer glut, that she had merely been putting on weight from gorging herself at times, but there was more than that. Her stomach had pushed forward more than mere weight gain would account for, and that meant...

That meant...

I give you a gift...

"Cyren..."

His name fell from her lips as the tears started falling from her eyes. For the first time since the spell, for the second time since his death, she did not cry tears of grief, but rather of joy. He had gifted her something, alright, something impossible, but something that might just give her the reason to keep on living.

The shaman stared at her as if she had gone mad. She waved her hand, shaking her head.

"No, no...I...You've given me...you've given me good news. More, you've given me hope."

"Hope?"

"I...It is a long story."

"Would you care to tell me? We are about to stop for the day."

"Let me...let me do my duties first...and we may speak after."

There were many wolves that would likely do with some help from her, and she needed time to process the future. She had been given a gift, again, something that she had been hoping for since she and Cyren had decided to stay together. She had given up ever having a piece of him again, but when they had connected, something must have been allowed. Perhaps the wolf god had had pity on them and given Cyren some power from beyond the grave, or perhaps her mate had always been special beyond her knowledge.

Regardless, she had a chance to live again, to raise a piece of her mate once more. Her son would not be him, or her daughter, or whatever her child would be. It wouldn't be Cyren, but it would be a continuation of him, and she...

She could be responsible for that.

She could raise that.

And it would give her purpose for a while longer. Enough to make it to the end of her life. Enough to make someone else happy, and enough to bring her happiness again.

She cried as she stepped among the tribe, but kept it quiet. She would explain later, but for now...for now, Aydeen had work to do.

The End

Summary: A simple story of grief and love.

Tags: M/F, Hybrid, Dragon, Deer, Doe, Wolf, Hunt, Vaginal, Teasing, Passion, Orgasm, Cum, Pleasure, Sadness, Ritual, Necromancy,