The old Wolf Tribe merchant was tired after the day’s travels, but he needed to fulfill his promise to an old friend and make the effort to stop by. It had been… two years since his travels had last taken him through the Lion Tribe? Rogue’s wife had been deployed at the time — the Lion Tribe soldier. Yansu still wasn’t sure how Rogue and Callida had managed to become a couple while fighting on opposite sides of the Great War, but he was one of the very few who’d been there to witness the beginning of their relationship.

Yansu’s relationship with Rogue was unusual. Rogue was sort of like an adopted nephew, but also his former camp leader and Alpha wolf to his wolf spirit under whom he’d served as a functional Beta — the second in command — obviously minus any romantic implications. Breaking from Rogue’s pack after the Great War ended had been… challenging. Reintegrating into the Wolf Tribe with the Alpha of the Blood as his new Alpha had also been uncomfortable, and then visiting Rogue two years ago after successfully making that transition had been awkward. Honestly, sometimes being a wolf spirit host was annoying with all the mystical ins and outs of packs and loyalties. It was just wolves too, at least, Yansu wasn’t aware of any other tribe with similar issues.

“Papers?”

Ah, yes. When visiting someone on the palace military base, you have to pass inspection at the base gates. Yansu produced his identification papers and commerce license, and the guards jotted the information down on a ledger of some sort.

“What are you here for?”

“Visiting an old friend at the Lion General’s estate.”

“Mn,” the guard hummed to himself and added an addendum to his logs. “Right, well, you’re clear.”

Yansu was looking forward to sitting next to a warm fire. It was getting dark out, and the new year had brought with it a healthy dumping of snow. Incidentally, that’s why his caravan had been hitting the more southerly tribes. They at least had less snow than the Bear Tribe and their neighbors.

The butler (or whatever fancy title they called him) answered the door when he knocked, and Yansu gratefully accepted residence in the parlor next to that fire he’d been daydreaming about.

“Yansu?” That was not the voice he was expecting, but it wasn’t unwelcome. Yansu stood up to give a respectful bow, and Callida swept into the room to… hug him? That was a new one. As much as he liked her, he wasn’t exactly close with Rogue’s soldier-wife. The hug was awkward. “Yansu, how are you? What brings you here? I’m assuming you’re here to see Rogue. He’s not here though,” her voice grew hard. “If you want to see him, you’ll find him in the tavern nearest to the base.”

“Let me get my bearings,” Yansu grumbled. “Wait. Rogue’s out drinking?”

“Yes.” Yansu took a moment to study the soldier-wife. She looked unwell, but Yansu couldn’t quite identify why she looked unwell. More interesting to him was the way she spoke about her husband: willfully neutral and guarded. Before he could form a cohesive enough thought to say anything, Callida was talking again. “Do you want to meet our sons?”

His brows raised in surprise. “You’ve added to your family since I was here last?”

“Rogue didn’t send word? No, of course not. Why would he? When you see him, he’s going to tell you they’re not his.” Now her tone was distinctively bitter, and the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.

“I’d love to see them.”

She smiled, but there was something terribly sad in that smile. Despite feeling as though he hardly knew her, he felt a certain compulsion to comfort her — a compulsion he brushed aside in favor of not making things any more awkward. Yansu was shown up the stairs to a nursery where three infants had been carefully spaced across a carpet near the hearth for warmth while they looked around and grabbed at each other. They were too young to be mobile yet. Yansu sat down next to their play mat and picked them up in turn, looking them over, asking their names, passing one of them off to their mother for cleaning.

The boys looked undeniably like Rogue, and Yansu hummed in thought. “I don’t mean to pry, but why would Rogue think these boys aren’t his?”

Callida sighed and sank to the floor with a freshly changed Tiaki. “Because they’re not wolves.”

“You mean, they’re not hosts?”

“No, I mean, they are hosts, but they’re not wolves.”

“Then… what are they?”

“Oh, Primordials. You’re going to think I’m crazy.” He waited patiently, and the soldier-wife eventually continued. “They’ve been identified as a black lion, a black snake, and a black shark.”

“Two of those are lost tribes,” he observed, a quizzical brow challenging the statement.

“I know. I know it doesn’t make any sense. I can’t explain it.” Still holding Tiaki, the soldier-wife hugged the baby to her chest, her face pinching and then methodically relaxing into a blank expression. Yansu felt uncomfortable knowing that she was getting emotional.

“Well, if Rogue isn’t here, I should probably take my leave,” he said and stood up.

Callida set the baby down with his brothers and also stood to send Yansu off. Her blank expression had completely hardened and closed off. “It was nice seeing you again, Yansu.” He’d been dismissed. Yansu tipped his graying head to her and left.

He spent the walk back through the military base and along the road to Astu Centralis pondering. It had been a while since Yansu had thought about his “pre-bandit” life, or in other words, the time before he and Rogue had joined the Resistance out of desperation. In some ways, it was ancient history that simply didn’t come up, but it was also painful to think about. Before the Resistance, Yansu had lived in a colony, the Yudha Colony, named for its leader and Rogue’s father Chikitsak Yudha. Yansu had been twenty-something when Rogue was born and in his thirties the night the colony had been attacked.

That night was a blur of terror. Someone, he couldn’t remember who, had told him to take Rogue, then a ten year old kid, and run. As far as Yansu knew, he and Rogue were the only two members of that colony to make it out alive.

While he and Rogue struggled to find shelter and eventually found place amongst the refugees of a wandering tribe, the speculations of why the colony had been attacked and everyone who lived there slaughtered was a matter of heated discussion for years afterwards. Unlike the wandering tribes — victims of the conspiracy behind the Great War — the Yudha colony had no enemies. An extermination force simply showed up in the middle of the night and began murdering people, but it was commonly accepted that the colony had been destroyed because of the mythos surrounding the Yudha name. Then starving and struggling for basic survival for both himself and his unlikely charge, Yansu couldn’t be bothered with the rumors, but now….

Yansu entered the tavern, locating Rogue immediately in a corner, the only black head of hair in a room full of blondes, and took a seat at his table.

“Yansu?”

“Rogue.”

“Are you really here, or am I already drunk?”

“What are you drinking tonight?”

“Beer. The hangover is less awful than with the heavier stuff.” Yansu stole Rogue’s cup and took a small swig, his nose curling in disgust. “You get used to it.”

“I talked to your wife.” Rogue responded by chugging the rest of his beer and ordering a refill. “I saw the babies.”

“They’re not mine.”

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“She said you’d say that.”

“Because they’re not.”

“Are you so sure?” Yansu challenged, and Rogue started chugging again. “Manasik looks exactly like Lianmin did at that age.”

Rogue’s tumbler slammed against the table, inadvertently triggering Yansu’s old habit of scolding him whenever he was acting like an idiot — prerogative of being the Beta. “You’re going to side with her?!”

Yansu waited for Rogue to finish his round before speaking again, carefully planning out the most impactful way to lay into him. “Rogue, have you stopped to even consider that maybe you really are their father?”

“Because one of them looks vaguely like my dead brother?!”

“No. Because Callida is their mother. It’s why you fell in love with her in the first place, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Her ‘uncompromising moral high-ground’.” Yansu waited for the statement to sink in, and Rogue started on yet another drink. At this rate, it wouldn’t take long for him to become sloppy drunk, and Yansu was cognizant of the urgency to make his point before then. “I seem to recall a time when you felt the need to prove yourself to her because ‘her respect was worth earning’.”

“What’s your point?” Rogue snarled.

“Have you considered that maybe you are the reason those boys aren’t wolves?”

“How so?!”

“The Yudha colony was destroyed because someone feared the fulfillment of the Great Prophecy.”

“You don’ know that.” Rogue was beginning to slur.

“You don’t either. But what if it’s true?” Yansu argued. “Combine the legend of the Yudha name with the mysticism of a rogue Alpha wolf?” Rogue actually set his drink down to consider what he was saying, and Yansu continued, feeling self-satisfied. “The restoration of the Lost Tribes, Rogue? That’s straight out of the prophecy.”

“I’m not the Great Unifier!”

“But what if you’re supposed to be? And even if you’re not, there isn’t a man in this world who could father hosts to three different species of animal spirits without sleeping around, and you know Callida would never compromise her honor by doing the sleeping around. Are you willing to ruin your marriage over something you can’t explain?”

“Wha’ d’ya mean?”

“Think it through, Alpha. Keep this up, and you’re going to lose her. A woman as independent and capable as Callida doesn’t need the dead weight of a drunken no-show holding her back. Actually, she doesn’t need a man at all, and that’s just a plain fact. Either be the man she deserves, or get out of her way.”

After a silent moment, Rogue rose to his feet all at once and collected the cloak draped over the back of his chair, leaving without another word. Yansu watched, invested to know which direction Rogue’s drunken backside would choose to turn on the road. He turned right, toward the military base, and Yansu slouched smugly into his seat, taking a swallow of what remained in Rogue’s cup. It still tasted terrible, and Yansu shoved it aside. Good luck, Alpha.

***

Callida was mostly asleep kneeling on the floor next to the boys’ bassinet, her hand and forearm a heated, weighted blanket across their swaddled tummies. It wasn’t comfortable, but Callida was tired enough that uncomfortable sleep was better than none, and this was the one thing that seemed to keep them down. She startled when a body staggered through the hallway: Rogue was home earlier than had become his habit, but he was obviously drunk already. She did her best to settle again, her head lulling against the bassinet.

But the knob of the nursery door rattled, followed by the uncontrolled swing of the door, and Rogue barreled through the entryway. “You in’ere C’lida?”

Now she was very awake. Blessedly the boys were not. “Rogue!” she whispered, reluctantly removing her arm from the colicky tummies to intercept their drunk father.

“C’lida, I need’a–”

“Shh!!!” she hushed him and began shoving him out of the room, somehow making it to the hallway without waking the babies. “Primordials, Rogue! Just how drunk are you?” she accused in a whisper.

“I need’a talk t’ya, C’lida. Id’z all my–”

“Not here, Rogue,” she cut him off and resumed shoving him, this time toward the bedroom he’d taken over. “You need to sleep it off. If you want to talk, we can talk tomorrow.”

“I need’a tell ya b’fore I ferget.”

“Rogue, not now.” She’d made it through the door despite Rogue being difficult. “Get some sleep.” She turned to leave, and Rogue caught her wrist.

“Don’ go. C’lida….” The fire in the hearth provided just enough light to let her see his face — pained, scared, softened. It was different from how he’d been looking at her for the last month and a half. She studied him, even as his alcohol breath drew ever closer. She watched him lean in, watched what she could see of his face as he kissed her, watched him pull back to adjust. His hands rose to cup her face and steady himself against her, and she was careful to observe every shift in his expression. “C’lida, ‘m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Thiz iz my faul’d. ‘M sorry.”

“Rogue, what do you m–” She could taste his beer, and, Primordials, he smelled awful, but she couldn’t bring herself to push him away. She watched him kiss her, eventually closing her eyes and kissing him back. Rogue staggered forward, shutting the door by knocking Callida against it, and one of his hands dropped to her hip, anchoring himself to her. She knew where this was headed.

“I’m not ready for this yet.” He didn’t seem to hear her. “Rogue, please. I… I haven’t healed all the way yet.” His kisses remained undeterred, and Callida was left to reason through her options with a sleep-deprived brain. Push him away? Let him continue? Maybe there was a third option, but she couldn’t come up with one. It was stupid how badly she needed this though: his affection and attention; the rest of it her body wasn’t ready for, but she was starved enough for the former, that she found herself rationalizing making concessions for the latter.

And she wanted to believe him.

She wanted to believe that he was sorry, because, if he was sorry, then things could change. Maybe she’d be able to talk through things with him. Maybe he’d believe her. Maybe he’d come back.

So she let him continue.

***

Rogue woke up with his usual hangover and the vague memory of his former Beta sharing a drink with him, but, honestly, as reliable as his memories were these days, it seemed much more likely that he’d had a dream of Yansu meeting him at the tavern for drinks. He shrugged it off as such and got up unwillingly, disgusted with himself that it was already past noon but also resigned to the routine of misery he was spiraling in. He washed up in the dark afforded by the heavy drapes, put on fresh clothes, and returned to sit on the bed feeling useless and worthless and damaged.

And the worst part was, there was no end goal. What was he going to do? Drink himself into the grave? Just the thought of her had him counting down to a socially acceptable time to start drinking again. He didn’t want to think about her anymore. He didn’t want to think about her sons or how they’d come into existence. He didn’t want to think about how much he missed her and still wanted her. Come to think of it, he simply didn’t want to think anymore. Or feel. Or breathe.

Rogue sighed onto the sheets and spent an unknown amount of time staring at the ceiling, entirely disconnected from his mind. Simply not thinking was only sustainable for so long before errant brain activity became distracting from the nothingness. When he reached that point, Rogue grumbled and rolled over to instead stare at the sheets.

The sheets with blood stains.

Rogue frowned. He didn’t remember there being blood stains on the sheets when he’d stared at them yesterday. Had he come in with a bloody nose or something last night? He hadn’t noticed any blood when he’d washed up that morning. Huh. How odd.

And then he returned to contemplating the nature of a void.

***

Hopeful for change for the first time in a month, Callida found a way to rearrange her schedule to get home early. She wanted to connect with Rogue, follow up on last night and really hash things out. She had spent most of her day’s mental energy imagining what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it, and now she was fit to bursting with all the things left unsaid over the weeks. She ran home.

“Celarus, have you seen Rogue?”

“Yes, General.”

“And…?”

“He went out about an hour ago.”

It felt like a punch to the chest. She felt winded. “Did he say where he was going?”

Celarus shook his head. “The usual… I assumed.”

“Thank you,” she barely breathed and turned to head into the parlor and collapse onto the nearest chair, her mind stalled but racing — her heart broken all over again.

“General, forgive me if I’m out of line, but… is there anything I can do?”

She looked up. Celarus was offering her a handkerchief which she accepted numbly. “Thank you.”

“Mn. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Dismissed,” she said automatically when she couldn’t even process his question, and Celarus left shaking his head and sighing to himself.

Callida wiped her tears and went upstairs. She dismissed the nurses with as much awareness as she had Celarus and shut the doors of the nursery behind them. The boys were lying on the carpet near the fire. Probus was sucking on his fist and Tiaki kicked excitedly when he saw his mom approaching. Manasik was on his tummy, lifting his head and doing his best to draw the longer fibers of the carpet into his mouth.

They were so perfect. How anyone could reject them…. It was her fault Rogue had rejected them. Really, he’d rejected her. She dropped to the floor next to them and bawled, feeling like she’d failed her sons for failing to persuade their father to be the dad they deserved. All three boys reactively started fussing with mom crying, and Callida did her best to comfort them as she was unable to quell her own tears.

“I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry.”