early in a cycle, dead of winter, because that's just the torchbearers luck, he loses clancy, watches him be pulled below the frigid water of the lake as the frozen ice gave under the weight of vetomos mount and they couldn't do fucking Anything about it, she was gone by the time torch hit the water, and now its just weeks later and he'd felt the pull and followed it, boots on coat on out into the wilds in the middle of the goddamned night, hoping jen would understand his leaving without notice, would grant him just that bit of ease this time around, and the magnet tug is keeping him moving, keeping him warm despite the falling snow, and hes miles into it, hours through the dark, the world tinged gold through his animal eyes, and he catches something in the air, a smell like home, like life, and he almost growls, almost purrs, takes off at a silent run, fast as fire, nose up and teeth glinting, and suddenly hes seeing spots in the snow, bloodblack in the moonlight, steaming against the freeze, and hes panting, hoping, and there he is, there's clancy, collapsed against a tree and still wearing his fucking deacons robes, eyes wide with prey-fear as torch descends because clancy doesn't recognize her, she never does, but it doesn't matter because she's there and she's alive, torch can smell the blood moving slug-slow in the frigid air as fight drains from clancy's face so he scoops them up and it's back to camp and dripping the whole fucking way, and there's no words between them, not for this, not when torch can feel their jacket getting soaked through with what's inside clancy and not when the camp is subdued under a layer of winterdeath but his own tent is warm, thank trench, thank mark, who was the one responsible for the coals in the coalbox, knowing torch would come home, knowing she'd have something broken and half-dead to bring back to life, and the medic is asleep because its the end of the world out there, well past midnight, so torch strips clancy down to her boxers and practically licks away the blood pooling from his ribs, his wide canine mouth as efficient as the rag he wields in his nearly-human hands, and then clance is clean, and there's broken ribs and deep wounds, sure, and they're unconscious, sure, and there's absolutely no doubt that in the morning when clancy wakes up near naked and wrapped around the torchbearer for the bodyheat that he'll hiss and bite and freak the fuck out but my god, my god for now clancy isn't a water-swollen dead thing under the lake's surface she's a slow-buzzing body in torch's tent and when the sunlight catches and spins to the ground in the whirl of the snowflakes at dawn every single one will be singing with the breeze, whispering stories of seeds trapped deep in the winter soil, whispering about the forest fires that will thaw the ground and crack their cases come spring, whispering blood bonds, whispering home.
