Work Text:
Spring.
Nostrils flared as the scent of wilted flowers hit his nose.
Tonight, it was a slow torture, and Valko didn’t need to look to know the truth. His heightened sense of smell caught the decay from across the room. The sharp and bitter tang of rotting greenery felt like it was suffocating him. The lilies of the valley were completely wilted.
He reached out, his finger gently nudging the browned bells. They used to be as bright as the fullest moon you watched together. You had loved them because they promised a return of happiness. You promised they meant spring would always come back to him, no matter how cold his winter in the forest felt.
“They’re beautiful, just like you,” you had whispered as you had gently tucked a freshly plucked stem behind one of his wolf ears. The moon had hung low, and his bushy tail had been draped across both of you.
But you were gone now. Buried in the cold earth, where his senses couldn't reach your scent anymore.
His wolf instincts went rabid the moment you were taken from him. He wanted to run through the woods, to sniff until he found you again. But how? There was no trail to follow.
He remembered how you used to giggle when one of his ears twitched. When you brushed his tail and scratched him behind the ears. Where is all of this now? Why did he feel as if you had simply run through the fields and never returned?
Whenever he rested, he heard phantoms of your presence. And the worst? He hated that his body still remembered you. His ears still turned toward the sound of footsteps that would never come. His tail still curled around the empty space beside him at night, searching for warmth that no longer existed beside him. He had spent so long believing that if he followed your scent, he would find you again.
Valko closed his fist, letting his knuckles brush against the dry petals once again. They crumbled into worthless dust beneath his touch. A quiet, hurt whimper escaped his lips, his lower lip trembling.
Spring returned every year, blooming with colors that no longer mattered to him. Carrying on as if his life had never changed. But to him, spring was dead. To Valko, it had died the day you did. There was no happiness to return to.
Because the lilies carried your scent.
And his heart knew it wasn't you.