Tanusha Kyrano wasn't one for sitting on the beach, staring at the stars, but tonight called for it. The moon was a stunning white globe rising slowly over the murmuring ocean. The breeze was soft, but cool and it caused goosebumps on her bare shoulders.

The day had been a bad one. It had called for sacrifices she hadn't been willing to give. One leg throbbed angrily under its glowing white bandage and a good part of her discipline was deployed to ignore it.

Palm fronds whispered in conversation far above her head.

She didn't hear him. She never did, but she knew he was there. His presence detached from the deep dark of the landscape and moulded into his familiar great shape, the huge black wolf swaggering onto the beach beside her.

Nothing was said, but his eyes reflected the moon in all its brilliance, sparkling as he turned to gaze at her.

Her lips thinned and she turned back to the ocean. The sand was cold under her buttocks, the creeping absence of temperature leaching her body heat away.

She shivered.

He reacted immediately sidling over in a very uncanine-like manner until she was faced with a wall of thick black fur.

Despite herself, she leant into his warmth.

A huff of hot breath, a whine and he curled around her, resting his head on her shoulder.

She found her arms involuntarily returning the embrace, her fingers clutching thick coat. A scrunch of her eyes and she buried her face in his shoulder.

Another whine and a massive paw gently landed on her leg.

He knew what he was doing. Despite knowing that this great wolf was her husband, there was some primal incongruity, some inability to see beyond what she saw that allowed her to express to him in this form what she could never were he holding her in his human skin.

A fist full of fur. A heart full of ache. His breath rippling her hair.

A soft whine of a query, deep in his throat.

"It shouldn't have happened. I had that line secured. I triple checked it." She refused to acknowledge the breathlessness of her voice, the weakness it illustrated. "She shouldn't have fallen."

An equally soft growl.

She answered it with a sob that surprised him as much as it did her.

He moved. His great head lifting and turning until his eyes, barely more than glints in the darkness, caught hers.

His image blurred and she scorned herself.

A soft nudge at her cheek as his muzzle brushed away a stray tear.

"Tanusha." Her name formed by a larynx morphed by the lunar cycle was deeper and rougher than she was used to, but it was still beautiful.

Her hand reached up and brushed the shorter hairs of his face, the bright light of the moon sketching out his darkness in shades of midnight and the long-forgotten dusk. But it all came back to those eyes, barely visible, yet so Virgil, so strong, so loving, no matter their form.

Another soft whine and he nuzzled her cheek again.

She closed her eyes and just felt his warmth.

"Love you, Tanusha." Hot breath against her ear.

She drew him in close and buried herself in his fur, his comfort and his love.

-o-o-o-