It was cold, colder than she had ever felt, colder than she ever thought it could be. The surrounding world was blanketed in a layer of white — so starkly different from the vivid shades of green it had been some months ago. So different from the shades of red she had grown up surrounded by. The crisp air felt clean and sharp in her lungs, tasting nothing of Saboro's rain and humidity. It felt fresh. Good. Weight momentarily leaving her chest with every cloudy breath. And in her somber awe, the Sovereign pressed dappled paws into the soft white, crumbling it between her toes, and a single giggle escaped her. It tasted lonely, longing, the white reminded her of little Ori, of Alec's little blaze, of the dapples around Francisca's eyes.

Her world was quiet here. Serene in ways Sol Katti never imagined possible. The ancient willow tree she had carved a temporary home was a silent but comforting presence, only ever sighing lightly with the undecipherable whisper of the wind. She loved it here, and so she would leave. It was time to return to Saboro.

Because Sol Katti had always loved the colors. The intense greens and vivid reds and cool blues. She had to, it was all she knew, wasn't it?

The snow kissed forest said nothing to her. The trees and wind did not speak to her here, leaving the Sovereign to her own thoughts. "It's time to go." To live the rest of her days in her homeland. To watch her successors rule from the shadows. To find or mourn her missing king. "Goodbye." To her little home, to the wise willow tree. She would plant a piece of her heart here — a piece that though frozen was still somehow pretty. This place would nurture it, maybe one day let it bloom. 

The wind and trees did not stop her as she began to walk away. No whispers of her name or titles. No push or pull. Only silence, watchful, quiet. Warm. 

Like a farewell, the flakes of snow pressed tears to her tattooed cheeks. The icy breeze kissed her nose, and despite its silence, it carried something familiar. Pressed it against her heart, and it hurt. Sol Katti turned, foxlike frame whipping around to stare into the white coated woodland. "Are you... really... there?" She called, her voice a choked plea of hope and fear and longing. Without her consent, paws began to stumble forward, stilted and mechanical, chasing the wisps of familiarity to its source. 

Her titles crumbled to the floor, her thoughts of home abandoned in the snow. "You're alive." She didn't look back, only ran closer and closer. A glimpse, a confirmation. It was all she needed; please, don't run, don't go.

Lithe frame stumbled and collapsed in a graceless heap into the snow, and there, Sol Katti sobbed, frozen tears biting her cheeks and icy breaths piercing her lungs. Seafoam eyes held tightly shut. Don't look, her heart wailed, could not bear it to look and only see an illusion. "You're alive. You're alive." Her repeated mantra gasped between her sobs, clutched closely to her chest in a white knuckled grip as though it would all turn out to be a lie if she stopped.

"You're alive."

There had been many left behind when the volcano erupted and Saboro's very lands were shaken to the core. A splintering had begun, and it started with Sappara and ended with Zasha. A family was torn apart by the carelessness of a brother and the unhappiness of a sister. There was nothing left for us there. She had reasoned, or at least tried to. There were many nights she found him mulling over and pacing back and forth with the idea to return and every night she stopped him.

It wasn't just Coven that his heart sang lonely cries for, but another.. a flower. He had left her too.

They'd only been out of Alteron for a couple of days, traveling within the winter was always a troublesome task. He never thought fondly of the cold, it only brought on more of the same feelings, and those were never pleasant.

Finding shelter within a small cave, they set up their camp. Zasha, however took it upon himself to look around this area, all the smells piqued his curiosity. Trudging through snow, there wasn't much for sounds besides the crunching of it under his hefty paws. A dusting of it coating his head all the way down his back and to his tail, shaking did little as the snowflakes fell upon his steadily.

The tired faced male turned his attention to the sky, a milky white in color like everything else in the wintry forest, save for the dark bark of the slumbering trees. A crow's caw caused his ears to flick forward, body tensing if only for a moment, it came again. What the hell are you doing out here, Zasha? The voice spoke from the white noise of his mind, and the Ex-Hawkeye merely grunted to himself.

A dark figure standing in alone in a snowy forest, old king crow. Fun, it was like he didn't even know himself these past few months. An old tool looking for a purpose, he'd been out of Saboro for so long he'd forgotten what it was like to have a meaning. Alteron could never properly replace his old life, there were still pieces of that jungle nestled so deeply into his being.

The sudden fluttering sound of frightened wings and angry caws, the rushing sound of paws struggling to run through snow, and that voice.. A haunting sob that gripped him and yet he turned all the same, he turned like he always had. His body tensed and his eye wide and wild, the pupil shaking and his breath hitching within his lungs.

You're alive. You're alive. You're alive. You're alive.

That familiar feminine form crashed in a sobbing heap into the snow, the vibrant yellows catching his eyes before the pinks and deep oily black. She was just as much a mirage to him as he was to he, and for a moment his feet where planted and the wind howled against his back. She's come back, back to hurt you, no never to hurt you, but yes to hurt.. NO, never to hurt.

A flower would wither and die in the winter's cold on her own. Move, one foot after the other, before his large figure towered over her. Jaws quivered with a word, a name. "F-flower." His inside burned as he looked down to the sobbing woman, YOU LEFT HER. YOU HURT HER. "Katti." He said softly, head lowering and hesitating for a moment as he brushed his muzzle against the top of her head, there was no fear of the possibility that she might lash out at him. She had done it before, but this time was different.

She was real, she was alive, and she was here. Her chanting was a cacophony of sounds, but somehow it still sounded sweet. The Sabora had always sounded sweet. She still was as pretty as the day he lost her, Zasha however... with his face and body mangled with scars, and a missing eye. He wasn't quite as beautiful as what she'd once remembered.

"Zasha..here.. K-Katti. Zasha, sorry."

I won't be late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life

      He murmured her name in that familiar voice — but it was tired now, weighted with the burdens of time. You did this, a part of her snarled. She had chased him away with snapping teeth and furious snarls and a shiny new crown perched too big upon her head. Do you remember, Zasha? What this queen had done, what this Sabora had done? Sol Katti didn't deserve it, she knew she didn't, and yet like a child she searched desperately for the warmer tones, the energetic joy. She shifted frantically through the notes of his voice for everything it had once been. It's gone now Katti. He left. Everything is different now.

And she should be angry with him, the lockbox within her chest rattled with demanded justice for his betrayals. He left! Her heart wailed. He promised to always be there, to hold and protect! LIAR LIAR LIAR, It shook and clattered and yelled with all the fury of an ignored child, with all the fury of a Sabora. HE LEFT YOU, HE LIED TO YOU! WHAT HAPPENED TO ALWAYS? DON'T YOU REMEMBER, SABORA?! But Sol Katti denied it, fiercely shoving Pandora's box away as she reached for something that felt like promise.  "Where have you been?!" Her voice trembled with the broken shards of anger, but it crumbled to harmless nothing in her throat. In a clumsy shuffle of her small frame, the dappled Sovereign would press forward for her head to slot perfectly in the crook of Zasha's neck. 

For just a moment, the selfish parts of her heart whispered. Just a moment, because here if she just closed her eyes she could remember simpler days. Before kings and crowns and rumbling volcanoes. Back in the poppy field, when she had been Flower rather than Sabora. "I missed you." Memories of red fields faded away to white winter lands, and with that Sol Katti withdrew — no more than a few inches away as though afraid he would disappear any moment. Seafoam eyes would wander over his face. He had changed, and a piece of her was disappointed, but another part shook with relief. He was not the same and... Neither was she. Gently, the dappled dire mix would brush away dark locks to reveal his missing eye, and her heart would twist. "Zasha." She couldn't breathe. "Zasha." His name repeated through a rising sob, sweet Zasha. Good Zasha.

What has fate done to you? She wept for him. For her. For the loved ones they've lost. Sol Katti had always been a whirlwind, a thundering storm of emotion. But here, the breakdown was quiet. Somber. Subdued in the quiet chill of winter, under the watchful eye of ancient trees.

He pressed his muzzle to her head, left a kiss in the form of an apology where a crown had once sat, but Sol Katti shook her head, pulling away from him even as her heart wailed to return to the offered warmth and familiarity. "I don't want it." Sol Katti cried, her melodic voice broken and lilted with tears. "Don't say you're sorry." But as though drawn by a force far stronger than her, Sol Katti would sink back into his larger frame, head buried into his chest, shaking in continuous refusal of his apology. It wasn't his fault. "I was a good Sabora." She had been what Saboro demanded of her, and she had hurt him.

"I don't know how to be anything else. But I'm... I'm just... I'm just Sol Katti now."

She remembered little Ori and Alec, the sweet little boys who looked at her with bright eyes and called her Miss Katti. She remembered Tyrfing, his warm smile when she was so small, Silly Katti, chidingly, lovingly. She remembered Romula, her voice uncertain but soft nonetheless Sol she had called her, it had been genuine, why hadn't she realized it then? She remembered Dexus, the pride in his voice when he called her Katti, when he said she had done well. She remembered Coven, before her coronation Katti, his rumbling voice such a comforting sound. She remembered nights spent lazing together in Saboro's heart, minds anywhere but the throne. She remembered Franky, patrolling borders together, when that had been all she could ever want in life. Sol Katti Franky had called her that night with such strength and dedication, it had made Katti's heart soar. She remembered Zasha in the flower fields, Flower and Katti chattered in joyful songs with promises of always that made her heart feel warm.

Sabora. The jungle had chanted back then, insisted with greedy hands morphing the letters of Sol Katti into Sabora.

But the forest was silent here, the willow tree only sighed.

"I want to be Sol Katti — just Sol Katti."

A quiet admission, pressed against his heart. A question. A plea.

Please stay. Even if it's just for a little bit.

At one time there might have been a sinking sense of danger, the fear of her ripping opening his face and screaming like she was known to do, like she had done to so many others. She'd torn into him one, maybe she was back to finish what she had started, and that was the part of him that never wanted to him to forget that, but it was also the part he ignored at this moment. There was so much to feel, and hatred and fear toward this tiny Queen wasn't one of them.

She hadn't a kingdom to rule anymore, but he still felt like a subject governed under her.

Where have you been?! He'd hear her cry and his ears would pull back at the shrill and sudden noise and he'd frown, obviously guilty and remorseful. All the world he'd want to answer her, be able to look her in the eye and tell her how he felt, that he missed her, but Zasha was Zasha. A manufactured error, a brute. His heart would bleed  for Katti and he'd whine a low pitched cry in response.

The feeling of her small form against his own, her head buried into the plush winter coat of his neck fur, and his legs shuddered. The male would move to hold her to him, an embrace of sort, nostrils flaring to take in her scent and his mind would drift to home. Saboro, the humid jungle and all it's strange inhabitants. No matter how far she and her heart wandered, she'd never be able to shake off that smell. She was Saboro, she had always been.

They were quite unique in the affection that they shared for one another, it had survived many trials, time being the longest. Yet, he still held her close to him. Even against the warning and the poison, she was a sweet love and his was a stout one. I missed you. His heart did backflips within his chest, wheezing and trying to steady his breathing to make actual words. "Zasha miss you too, so..much.. so so.. much." They met each other's eye then, brushing away hair to reveal a grievous wound and the phantom pains that followed as the winter wind brushed against the scar tissue.

In his shame, he'd realized that she was staring at his missing eye, whispering his name and he'd turn his face trying as quickly as he could to hide away that ugliness. It's not right, it's not right!! Don't look, please don't... He remembered the babbling of 'Can't see Can't see', and then nothing. "It... hurt. It ugly." His fur bristled at the word, a mother used to describe him all the time, with disgust. Zasha would've said it with as much bile and malice as Natala.

The spotted woman pulled away then, a rejection of his apologies as she shook her head, and the Ex-Hawkeye felt his legs tremble with the ghosting motions to be nearer to her. I just wanted to be near you, his heart cried. "Please, Katti." Don't go, but she sank back into him and Zasha found himself curling closer around her. A blossom surrounded by a mass of oil black. I was a good Sabora. I don't know how to be anything else. But I'm... I'm just... I'm just Sol Katti now.

That lone red eye of his would blink at her words, she was what Coven wanted her to be, he'd seen two Sabora's before her. The soft little cloud that played queen and then ran when things got harry, and then the snarling red cloud, she had swiped him from the borders as a child and tossed him in among the rest. Saboro would pick and peel away at everything and everyone, their monarchs suffered the most. "Katti good, yees yeeees." He said softly as she shook against him, his shrill voice trying to sooth her. The once queen didn't have to be anything other than who she was now. "Always loved, no matter what. Katti don't have to be anyone. Katti just be Katti." The words were hard to form, but the idea was there. I love you all the more, my darling.

Sol Katti, Sabora, Flower, she was all of those things, even when she claimed no subjects anymore, even if she was plucked from the soil too early. Sol Katti, the girl he had met in a field of flowers, who had been swept away in the tide of a new and better Saboro. She had always been right under his nose, and Zasha was never able to say those words, not then.

Falling against the snow with a grunt, still curled around her, his head resting upon her soft speckled fur. She just wanted to be Sol Katti, that's all. "Zasha love." He murmured against her fur. "Zasha love Katti." He always had, his own body shaking as sniffled back tears. Zasha's love for Avery was one out of admiration, for giving him a chance. His affinity toward Azuhel was a mutual respect. His love for Katti was deeper, it's what love truly felt like, was affection could be.

If she left, god.. as crushing as it would be, she deserved the world and more. She deserved a life, a good one, and yet Zasha still found himself pleading to her. "Don't go, don't go, don't go. PleasepleasepleasePLEASE."

      If time could freeze, she would want it to cease here. In this winter world of their own, a snow globe with them and her willow tree as its centerpiece. A lovely thought — a selfish thought. Sol Katti clung to this remnant of her past (a whisper of her future) with all she had and willed him to stay. Zasha miss you too, so..much.. so so.. much and her breath hitched once more, relief and regret and hope blossoming in an array of watercolors in her chest. He missed her too, despite it all this saccharine love of hers from long lost simple days cared for her. Sol Katti withdrew, only slightly, and the urge to see him overwhelmed her. To take pictures with her mind to hold onto for as long as her life would allow.

He was not as she remembered him to be, the happy sweet smiles gone, the joyous babbling gone, the bright eyes full of life and endless possibility gone; You did this, Sabora her heart continued to insist.

It... hurt. It ugly.

He turned away from her, and the former Queen's heart seized. "No, no, Zasha, don't say that." Sol Katti insisted softly, leaning closer once more for her muzzle to press firmly to his, aiming to nuzzle her nose gently to the edge of his scars. "You're beautiful, don't you know that? You've always been beautiful." Like Francisca, his scars only spoke of beauty to the dappled Sovereign. Both blue beauties were works of art, crafted in porcelain, the cracks and fractures sealed in gold. She would press a kiss to his nose. To his cheek. To his forehead. To the scarred tissue. Scars are beautiful, she had once said long ago when the inner rings of Saboro had been nothing more than a distant dream. It had been for Romula, for Hysteria, for Flynn. Later it had been for Coven and Franky.

It was for Zasha now too.

Katti good, yees yeeees. Always loved, no matter what. Katti don't have to be anyone. Katti just be Katti.

Slowly, she shook her head against him, but said nothing to refuse him. It was the selfish parts of her again, clinging to his kind words, dreaming they could be true despite their fallacies. She was a Sabora. For a long time, Sol Katti had never known the difference, had believed that to be Sabora was to be perfect which was to be good. A good Sabora and being good were vastly different things — little Ori had shown her that. The kind child had been good in ways Sol Katti never would be, had never dreamed of being. Poison ran in her veins. It was her nature and inheritance. It always had been.

Eyes drifted close as the dainty woman continued to savor this reunion, she could had comfortably drifted to sleep here despite the frigid winter air. For the world was silent except for their breaths and Zasha was warm, he was always warm, and Sol Katti was content. But Zasha's voice drew her from her daze. It was a soft thing, quivering beneath the sound of tears.  

Zasha love. Zasha love Katti.

Sea foam eyes widened, and in a quick fluid movement, the Sovereign leapt to her feet, sending a flurry of soft snow into the air. The words sounded almost foreign to her. Don't go, don't go, don't go. PleasepleasepleasePLEASE. Sol Katti remained standing, her lithe frame looming over Zasha as snow drifted down around them, landing in her eye lashes and melted drops rolling down tattooed cheeks like tears. "You love me?" Her voice didn't sound like her own, soft and dull, the sound of a broken bell. Had anyone ever spoken those words to her before? Looked her in the eye and said they loved her. It had always been unspoken and assumed with Coven and Francisca. Spoken through kisses and warm nights spent curled together.

But never had such a declaration been presented to her. Laid so honestly and vulnerably down before her.

"You... You can't."

She remembered days in the poppy field together. She remembered how he'd promised to protect her. To keep her safe. To love her — but it had been different then. She had demanded it then, had demanded any rendition and forgery of the word so long as it looked enough like love for her desperate heart to cling to. She had always called them liars despite her demands, but desperately clung to the lies anyways.

Her love was poison. Tyrfing, Romula, Sanguine, Maesa, Francisca, Coven —

"You shouldn't."

BECAUSE SHE LOVED ZASHA AND LOOK AT EVERYTHING SHE'S DONE TO HIM. LEAVE HIM BE, KATTI. GO AWAY AND LEAVE HIM BE. DON'T POISON HIM TOO.

"I'm scared, Zasha."

Frozen tears stained her cheeks, head bowing to press her forehead against his. She should walk away, but Sol Katti was lonely. Sol Katti was selfish. Sol Katti was weak.

And Sol Katti loved Zasha too. From simple days before titles weighed them both down. When he had laughed and cooed and called her Flower. Katti loved him too. She loved and loved and loved. Silly, greedy little Katti.

But the ancient willow said nothing. It only sighed in the chilled breeze, as if to say; Go on.  

"Do you think I can be just Sol Katti... and Flower too?"