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Archibald’s shadowy bulk loomed from the darkness, fast approaching; Circe watched him with a growing sense of giddiness that had no logical place in her midriff. He was just as large as she remembered him, appeared just as heavy as he moved in the dense curtain of dark; the shagginess to his coat and the frost that clung all about them left the impression of cold, the idea of icicles having clung to his hide at one point in this unforgiving winter season. Her eyes roved once upon the entirety of his form, and the shadowmere murmured under her breath as she did, “….trying to make a mountaineer out of yourself.”
The Dauntless asked how she fared—well, there was no question as to that. As the inquiry escaped his lips, Circe averted her eyes from him, reluctant to tell the truth of the matter; it was no pleasant Welcome-Home present. However, neither would she hide from it like a spineless knave and insult Archibald’s intelligence in the doing. It was what it was. “Terribly,” she answered bluntly, a dark humor in the lilt of her voice; she supposed militant decorum was discarded in this private meeting between them, away from their homeland. Little by little, the shadowmere contemplated baring herself to him in full—and realized the thought in bits and pieces. “It’s nothing time cannot heal. It won’t destroy me; I’m stronger than that.” Destroy her no, but it certainly ruined her to an extent. She looked forward to the day where she was no longer broken.
*"She is concerned for you."*
Circe cast her eyes upon Loretta, a soft, smiling, knowing light coming upon her gaze as she looked upon the fawn-red bitch. “Oh?” She inclined her head slightly as yet another firefly untangled itself from her mane, fluttering down to the malamute before veering off and disappearing into the bitter night frost. “I am healing,” she said to Loretta, “but I don’t imagine I’m an easy sight to behold, hmm? I will endure, though. It’s not my job to be pretty, in any case.” As she spoke, her eyes slid from the bitch in front of her upwards into the golden pools of Archibald, her words for both him and his companion. Whatever rational she made in her mind, the girlish giddiness only seemed to swell as she comprehended his worry for her. There was no need for this silly satisfaction; she was his warrior; it was only right he should be concerned for her health and well-being. However, it didn’t stop her from the sudden burst of happiness that ballooned in her chest. It was fool-hardy, but the toxin was in her veins and there was no pulling away from it.
It was this giddiness that propelled her forward a step, and urged a tentative inquiry to escape her lips. “And you? Archibald, how’ve you been...you and Loretta?” She hadn’t set eyes on him since that broken day of early snow, where she gazed upon the behemoth finally brought to defeat; the memory of it caused her gut to twist. “If you don’t mind my asking…Where have you been this past season? I—“ Missed you, the shadowmere ached to finish. She stopped herself, however, suddenly afraid she overstepped some hidden boundary between whatever twisted interrelationship they might have and total insubordination. “….I wondered,” she whispered, finishing the broken thought, her voice growing somewhat small under his scrutiny. Regardless of her revision, it felt like a confession of something deep and dark—something Circe wasn’t even completely sure of herself.
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