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[ukan]

This is Lark Tennant, leave a message.

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[ukan]

"No. He's a soldier...he's felt all his life that he was only going to last a little while. I don't think he expected to see twenty-five, let alone thirty years." A wistful fondness in his eyes. "So he soaks up life. He's ravenous for it. It's what I first loved about him. I try to change things; he just enjoys them."

[anti_altruisms]

Archer’s eyes crinkle a little at that, though he doesn’t quite smile.

“We could both stand to be a little more like him, I think. I never planned to live to a ripe, old age, but I didn’t enjoy my life, either.”

He finds himself feeling happy now sometimes — most often when he’s with Godric, Lark, or doing simple things he likes — but it’s still a foreign feeling.

[ukan]

"Do you wish you hadn't lived such a long life?" Lark wonders. "Wolves don't really get the option. I didn't plan to live past forty, if I was lucky. I had moments where I wondered if I'd run out of things to do if I lived too long, and then I worried I'd leave so much undone that I'd spend my dying moments feeling bitter."

[anti_altruisms]

Archer lets out a short, humorless breath of a laugh.

“I didn’t live a long life, Lark. I’ve existed for a long time, but servitude in death isn’t anything like life at all.”

It’s just death. Death stretching on forever in every direction.

“Do you still feel that way?”

[ukan]

"I'm sure I'll be angry when I die," he says, smirking. "But I don't want to die early. I don't want to be resigned to it anymore."

Lark Tennant, when determined, tends to get his way. He isn't sure how to fight death, though.

"If you went home, would you be trapped in servitude again?"

[anti_altruisms]

Archer falls silent for a moment. His answer, when it comes, is soft and solemn.

“Yes. If I leave here without my deal, I will return to that.”

A beat, then-

“I don’t think I’ll ever go back to my world, though. Not even with my freedom intact.”

[ukan]

"Is it so bad there?" It sounds complicated to put it mildly. "Where else would you go?"

[anti_altruisms]

Archer closes his eyes for a moment and suppresses a sigh.

“It’s not that it’s so bad there. But returning to a place and time where people I know actually live would also mean existing together with…a past version of myself. Apart from the fact that it would be awkward, he should have the freedom to live his life without my presence hanging over him.”

That boy would undoubtedly be a fool in every timeline, but ultimately, the choice should be his.

To the other question, a faint, melancholy smile touches his lips.

“I haven’t decided yet. I doubt it’ll be for a while, though.”

[ukan]

"You're welcome where I am. Even if it's just a visit." Lark loves his city. He's territorial as all hell, but he is also eager to show it off to his friends.

[anti_altruisms]

He smiles again, a touch warmer this time.

"I may take you up on that. Not necessarily to stay, but certainly to visit."

[ukan]

"You're about the only person who's welcome to visit me when Alec is around," he says, clearly pleased about it. He might not be capable of attaching as strongly as other wolves, but he still has that natural urge to gather people around him.

He told Godric that he was protective of Archer, simply because Archer is one of a handful of people Lark genuinely considers a close friend, and he's reluctant to lose it when he leaves here.