Creatures of the Dark

"I'm still not understanding what we - what we are now myself." Alessia whispered a few minutes after the nanny had left. "Tell me.. please?"

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Exes, I guess.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know.”

"So we - th- that's it?"

“It’s that or we don’t give it a label.” He suggested.

"No, no that isn't fair. I need to know if we are in a relationship or not Damian. I - I will do whatever you ask of me from now on but I need to know that. We need to know what we are telling our daughter."

“We don’t have to tell her anything.”

"Yes, yes we do. We were together, and not we are separated. She will have questions, people will gossip. We need to be on the same page."

“Let them gossip, they already know a version of the events anyway.” Damian told her. “He was very graphic in his explanations of what happened, hence why none of them have looked at you since you came here.”

"Mm, the version you believe too. They will think what they want." She swallowed, flinching as she made herself bleed with how roughly she wwe scratching at her skin - as if trying to peel it from herself. Voice sjaking as she stated, "We need to know what we are telling Rose. What we are."

“At the moment…would the correct term be on a break?” He asked. “I love you Alessia, but at the moment I don’t know if I can trust you.” He told her.

"I just don't understand how this is my fault. I - I know its not, and if you think it is then I'm not sure it should be 'only' a break." She swallowed, whispering sadly, "As much as my soul feels shattered, I can not be with a man who hates me for needing to take some air after we are attacked. I can not be with a man who- who does not wish to try and comfort me after I am assaulted but instead insults me."

He looked to her. “It’s not that that’s upset me.” He told her. “I’ve already told you why I don’t trust you Alessia, if you’re not going to listen then what would you have me do?”

"You're not listening either," She mumbled, pulling her knees up to her chest and curling into a ball. Staring silently at the floor.

“You know I’m not getting into this Alessia, nothing is going to change, that sentence is evident I’ve always listened to you, I’ve done everything you ask, but you still don’t think I listen.”

Alessia kept her gaze low, to the floor as the tears began to escape from her eyes once more.  Flinching as her fingernails dug into an already bleeding scratch on her arm. Eventually, mustering the courage to state, "I thought I had a friend, I thought we were going to have another baby. I was excited. But he wasn't, I - I am going to have to ki- kill th- the baby in- in case they are his a- and I have lost you. Ev- everything I-  Everytime I talk to you it comes out wrong. "

____
After half an hour of paddling, the cliffs against the shore towered above them. The waves sloshing against them around a small opening, which Aled's hair grazed the top of as he ducked beneath it and entered into a vast cavern. Rays of sunlight from areas of the cliff had been eroded away trickled in, and made the purples and aquamarine filaments in the cavern walls glimmer. The waters still, area silent other than Aled's breathy, "Here we are... welcome to the Cauldron."

Reagan had done her very best to keep close to him as she paddled through the rougher waters for what almost felt like forever. Breathing quite hard, she ducked her head down as she entered the opening after him into the cavern, wiping water from her face the moment she had a chance and looking around in awe. "Whoa.."

"If this doesn't set your fantasy loving mind wild, Reagan, then I don't know what will." Aled chuckled contently to himself. "There are.. so many stories from this place, centuries old. Civilisations all trying to make sense of how it was formed, why.. all questions we know the answers too now."

“Alessia I love you,” he told her. “Gods new and old know that but I need time.”

"I don't feel safe." She swallowed, casting glancing towards the door where guards waited outside. "I need... you."

“I’m still here.” He told her. “Just not in the way I used to be not yet.”

""I feel sick. Can I go to bed please?" She mumbled.

(( Skip a year maybe? ))

“Of course.” He told her.

((Yeah sure))

A year later, Alessia lay on the bed in her own chambers. Her head resting on the pillow as her fingertips quietly brushed through Rose's hair. Having barely moved, barely left the room over the past few months. Her skin marred with scratches and scars at various stage of healing from where she had tried to peel her skin off, or had sat in a bath so long she had allowed herself to scald to try and feel clean again. An utter shell of herself, even more subdued around her daughter then she once had been. In a crib at her beside, a 3 month old baby with black curls and eyes that matched it slept soundly.

____
Elliott lay in the clearing, arms tucked behind his head as he looked up at the sky. Still unable to access his wolf, and still easily tired by it. However, his strength had began to rebuild, various work with witches quelling whatever deterioration was happening, slowing it whilst they searched for a solution.

"It's beautiful," Reagan honestly didn't know what else to say right then as she was still trying to look around and take it all in.

Aled moved on his board so that he could grin over at her, the light catching his own eyes as he cheerfully began, "Well, Reagan. I think that yo-" A wave. A board flipping, followed by the splash. Somewhere deep beneath the water a large serpent had stirred and darted up towards the surface. It's brown scales hiding it in the murky water as it attacked Aled's paddleboard from beneath to flip it. It only taking moments before red blood began to colour the water.