He smiled at her as she bumped her head against him and set off ahead, momentarily lost for words - unwilling to find words - as he gazed after her. She was the only one who could do that to him, who could make him feel that desperate, impossible love that was simultaneously calmer than anything else he'd ever felt in his life and more mind-shatteringly exhilarating; she, with all her senseless violence, was his calmness. He could sleep when he was with her. He could think. His heart could beat, his lungs could breathe. Everything fell back into perspective; no matter what else happened, there would always be her and him.

But as they walked, their sides bumping and brushing against each other with casual, intimate inattention that still sent little sparks of excitement through him - he couldn't imagine a time when they wouldn't - Kier slowly began to worry. He was never one to worry, was always the height of self-confidence and belief in the chips falling where they may, but then he hadn't had a mate when he'd made his deal with Aspenstar. He'd made a choice about his own future when Eris had just been the companion he was falling in love with; now, however new their relationship still was, he owed her honesty, truth, a say in what they did, in what he did.

"My dear," he began, eyes on the moorland grass, and he sounded uncharacteristically nervous. He slowed his pace, silently asking her to do the same. Finally, he turned his head to look at her, his eyes more earnest than they'd ever been. "There's every likelihood I'll be leaving the League soon. Aspenstar of NightClan has offered me a position as her deputy - I had to kill to get it," he grinned crookedly at his own joke, but it only lasted a moment before his expression returned to a more sombre one, almost submissive, like she held all the cards and he was just waiting to accept her judgement, "and I've taken it. I know it likely won't be any different to how things are now," Eris didn't spend much time at the Mansion anyway and was a member of the League only in the loosest sense of the term, and lately he'd spent more time in her lab than he had at home, "but it might be. And if it is - if I become leader in the near future, or if I can't get away - then I... well, I wanted to ask you if might be willing to come with me. Or at least," he gazed into her eyes, "to tell me you're alright with this. If you really aren't, I'll give it up."

And he would. Eris was the only one he would sacrifice his own ambition for. If she told him to jump, to roll over, to beg, to die, he would; if she told him to refuse Aspenstar, he would. She held his life completely in her claws, and it made him happier than he'd ever been in his life. The wind howled over them as they stood silent and still on the bleak, grey-brown hillside, the only living things visible in the vast, empty wilderness. Kier's short fur was buffeted and smoothed along his back, his sensitive ears picking up the shrill howling so acutely that he had to pin them slightly to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the sound. Doing so muffled the world around him, blocked out everything except his mate standing in front of him. And that wasn't so terribly different to how he felt anyway: the world existed around him, going through their meaningless rhythms, but the only thing that mattered, the only thing with any light to it, any meaning, was her. He was completely at her mercy, just a jester in her court. He always was. He always would be. He swallowed as he gazed at her, shoulders slightly hunched as he waited for her verdict, worried eyes blinking erratically like if she struck him, he'd take it. "It could be wonderful," he added after a few long, long moments of silence, voice soft despite the wind roaring over them; it was only for her, "freedom and resources to do your experiments, a Clan to do our bidding..." He grinned, but it was loving. "We could be king and queen."