Kakariki

[aristastarfyr]

"Your mom found our home."

Those were the best and worst words she could hear. And they came from Raphael himself. For a long minute Wren stared out over the gently sloping hill, listening to the birds that suddenly sounded mournful. She needed that minute to feel her heart break and her brain had to pick up the pieces.

"That's great!" Fake smile. Fake relief. Fake, fake, fake. "When are you guys going?"

Raph's eyes were harsh and piercing as they stared at her. He knew she was lying. Yet she still smiled. Still tried to be happy. "In a few days. They--Leo. He wanted to go now but I asked." He moved to sit beside her, hugging one knee to his plastron. "I half thought he was going to say no because we've been here so long."

"Must be his way of trying not to be a dick about things. You know." In a few days, he was going to be gone from her life. Wren felt his arm surround her and she leaned heavily against his side, almost wedging herself between his shell and plastron. Then she was being moved and found herself straddling Raph's lap and encased in his arms.

"I'm going to miss the fuck out of you, Birdy," he rasped heavily, eyes still locked on hers.

Wren quirked a smile as she tried to put a humorous twist on his words. "Miss fucking me?"

"No. You." One large thumb tenderly drew down her cheek and along her jawline. His eyes softened as he saw the crack in her walls and her eyes welled up.

"Don't you make me cry, Raphael Hamato," the warning was broken up with the wavering of her voice. "I promised myself I wouldn't. It's not like I-I didn't know this was going to happen." She could feel her shaking in his grip.

"Same here." He started to sound froggier the more he spoke. "So. ....So let's take an hour, alright? Just one hour." Just one hour to mourn and then push it aside. Maybe he'd harass Leo after. Or take a couple laps on that I-beam. But he knew as he felt her break apart he wasn't going to be able to hold himself together. Not when such a warm, vibrant, precious thing was cracking apart. He could feel her tears on his scutes as she clutched at him. And his own tears dampened his mask first before reaching her hair.

They both cried together, sharing the grief and feeling the pain slowly released from each other. It was something Raphael didn't share with his brothers and tried to hide his emotions through aggression and bravado. With Wren he was freer, relishing in her unconditional acceptance of his feelings as she returned them to him, finally reaching up to pull off his mask and kiss the wetness off his face. He huffed softly before sniffing. "You're so weird."

"'M not." Her tone was raspy and petulant. "I love you. I want to show you in any way I can."

"By cleaning my face with your mouth?"

Wren pulled back far enough to look at him. "Yes." She kissed another tear away, then moved to his lips. There was no drive or desire in it, just a heartfelt adoration that wasn't driven by physical needs. Raphael tipped back against his shell and she shifted just as easily, moving fluidly with him. For a long time they stayed there in each other's arms, basking in their own affections for each other. When she started telling him all the things she loved about him, he thought he was going to start crying again.

"I don't deserve any of this, you know that, right? I don't deserve you, how you feel about me or anything."

"I don't do this because you deserve it or not." Her teeth very lightly grazed his jaw, making his breath shiver. "I do this because I love you."

At the admission, he held her all the tighter. "Love you too, Wren."



She didn't ride those days and spent them with the guys. Each one she spent a little time with, sharing in their joy and excitement that they were going to go home and see their friends and father once more. Michelangelo was the most excited one out of all of them, telling her about the sewers and their adventures and how much fun it would be when she came and visited. He was going to show her all the cool places to hang out and treat her to pizza gyoza and let her take a lick off of ICK. That's when he realized she had zoned out. He stopped, stared at her and then crouched down.

"You're...you're not going to visit us?" The silence was telling. She pressed her lips together hard, glancing back up to Mikey before looking away. "But--but you gotta! You and Raph are a thing! Dude, I've never seen him so attached-not even to Spike!" He stopped again, watching with a shocked horror as Wren sniffed, quickly rubbing her face with a hand.

"I-I don't know if I can, Mike."

She always called him Mike. Always.

"Why not! Your mom knows how to get there, right? All you need to do is just ..." That was when she broke down and Mikey scooped her up. "Shell. I'm sorry! I'm ... so sorry." He felt her tears and pain as she clung to him, trying hard not to cry and yet it slipped through. "Please don't cry."


The last night Raph and Wren slipped out and no one said anything to them. Leo watched with solemn eyes and Raph didn't even bother to look as he held Wren's hand delicately in his own giant one. Her silver eyes lifted up to meet his and he caught the pain there. It felt like a physical blow and he inhaled sharply. No. They needed to go home. Everyone knew that but it didn't mean it didn't hurt any less.

Out in her father's garage they came together, striving to push the other higher, to drown in each other's scent. As the sun came up she dozed with him buried inside her, feeling loved and cared for as he held her, waiting for his heart to slow. He leaned his head back against the arm of the couch, eyes tipped to the window to watch the sun rise.

Standing out on the grass, the two families looked at each other. Wren managed to keep herself in check as she said her farewells to each of them. Standing in front of Raph, she was silent, her head tipped back and eyes wide. He too was silent, looking down at her with a somber expression. Then he reached behind his head, untying his mask and draping it gently around her neck, letting his fingers linger for as long as he could. It was at that point that Leonardo stared at the scene without really looking at it, trying to turn away and allow them privacy in such an open place. He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced over to Donnie as his lips pressed together tightly. His younger brother voiced Leo's fears in a nearly silent whisper.

"I think, out of everything, this is going to break him."

Raph didn't see Wren fall into her father's arms at the last moment. Leo did. Raphael had turned away as soon as the portal opened, marching through not entirely maskless. The blank expression on his face was mask enough. He was happy to see his father and part of him was happy to be home. And then like that, he turned after five minutes and ensconsced himself in his room, refusing to leave it for three days.

Splinter had caught the scent of a female on his second eldest child. It was strongest on Raphael and when he saw his passionate son again, it was gone along with a specific sparkle in his eye.



A year had passed. And with the fall of that following year came carnage. Wren didn't know what it was at first but she knew something spooked the horse under her so deeply that it ran without listening to her, flew without paying heed to anything other than getting away from the fear that chased them. And it wasn't going to turn away from the ravine. Her heart leaped into her throat as she tried to pull the horse away from the blind stampede and at the last moment leaped away, crashing to the ground and trying to roll with the momentum to avoid breaking bones.

It was the scream that made her want to get up and follow that horse.

Wren had never seen a full bodied dragon. The pictures in the caves did not do the beast justice. The feeling of such a creature in the flesh was nothing like her father. She honestly believed she was going to die of fright right then and there but all that came out of her was a squeak. In the distance she heard a BOOM and smoke billow out from the direction of where her home was.

"NO!"

Something smaller than the dragon and much, much faster flit by and she screamed out in pain, feeling a heart beat later the fire in her thigh from claws raking through her flesh. She knew she had to flee but her own two legs-even when uninjured- would never allow her to escape. Another streak flashed by, this time something familiar and dark and filled with a Wild Fury that she almost shied before reaching out to grab mane and hoist herself up as the Black slowed just enough to let her settle on his back. A moment later it galloped off, fleeing away from the smoke and the dragon and her family.

"We have to go back," she yelled, knowing that this beast would do what he wanted and no amount of direction from her would sway him. "Mom--"

"Your mother sent me to get you." The not quite equine beast muttered in her head, still dodging trees and feeling very much like a shadow slipping around them. "I am to bring you to safety."

"The mountain?"

"...No."

"It's not safe? Has it been ambushed too? Black, what's going on?"

But the Black didn't answer her and all she could do was follow the motion of the steed and feel the magic of shifting surround her.