Kingsfall Don't Say A Word

It still haunted her the scene of her mother's death, everyday she saw the cougar attack her mother. The blood running out into the ground covering her dark fur before it washed away down the river. Her mother's face had not faded from her memory and all she could be happy about was that she and Kisla had reconciled before her death. She was glad she would not have to be haunted with her mother's disappointed face for the rest of her life.

The man was a stranger to her having never met him before but he didn't feel so much a stranger as they shared in their grief over Kisla. Lorcan had comforted her the best way he could in the situation. This was the comfort she needed, someone that understood what she was feeling and could offer her words she needed to hear. He told her not to think like she was and perhaps she was right. Constantly trying to save her mother in her dreams would only eat at her and make it harder for her to accept that her mother was gone and not coming back. It had been different with Maksim she had not seen his attack so she couldn't torture herself with trying to come up with new ways to save him that never succeeded.

He was right she couldn't have known, Inna knew that, she hadn't even known it was happening until it had already begun. “I know you're right,” she whispered, “But my mind keeps playing these scenarios over and over. I don't know how to make them stop.” Maybe with time it would get easier? Inna could only hope. She didn't want to remember her mother's death, she wanted to remember the strong woman that Kisla was. The kind mother and steadfast leader. Inna could only ever hope to be like her mother in that way. She knew that she was like Kisla in many other ways that she wished neither of them had to endure.

It was her strength that Inna wanted most to share with Kisla, she wanted to have the strength to raise her daughter and care for her pack. She didn't think she had that kind of strength especially after recent events. Ice’s words struck something inside her that maybe she hadn't realized before. “Thank you, I hope she would be proud to know that.” To know that her daughter was strong and that she had raised her to be. Maybe one day Inna would follow in her mother's footsteps but now was not the time. Now she needed to concentrate on healing after losing Kisla.

Inna had made a connection between her half brother and sister and the man before her. The questions about their well being and now their names only helped to solidify what she thought. She wondered if he thought the same as she did about Kisla's most recent litter. If she was right then she felt he deserved to know about his children just as Lorcan deserved to know about Oksana. She didn't come out right and say that she thought he was their father but she didn't see any harm in him knowing their names from her. “Kisla named them Matheo and Risaela.” Inna couldn't say where her mother had gotten their names but she could only assume that Risa’s had come from past family.

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He wondered if that was what he had looked like, after Marsh's death; sort of hollow and beaten, chewing up himself. A ghost. It was disconcerting to see it mirrored in the black female, as if the proof stood right there that if he'd just stayed, maybe he, too, could've been fixed. And none of this would've happened. He would've still been there when Kisla met Maksim, would've watched her grow—been the kind pseudo-grandfather to Inna that he could've been. Slowly, Ice blinked, and let his gaze slide to the forest surrounding them.

“I know you're right,” she whispered, and he thought of Fenru. Something had happened within the boy when he saw his murdered sister, something he hadn't been ready, or willing, to share. Perhaps this was the nightmare that had haunted him—the nightmare that had haunted all of them. "It's not easy," he replied, his voice still low, careful, pained. Only an hour ago, he'd been expecting to be greeted with bared fangs and good news, not.. not this. It was too sudden. "You try to keep busy, or think about the good things, only, they hurt so much—and then one day, you realize that, gradually, you've stopped trying to save them in your mind as often. Day by day, the guilt loses its hold..." Until something happens to set it off, and you're faced with the error chain pointing back to you. And then, you regret it all over again, blaming yourself until you think you'll sear the skin from your bones.

"Letting go is the only way to survive, but it takes time, and you'll never be the same," he finished in a hollow voice.

“Thank you, I hope she would be proud to know that.” Ice didn't know what to say; he was positive that Kisla was proud of her daughter, but doubted she'd think much of Ice's opinion on anything. Maybe, if they had been given more years, he could've fixed things, but as it was—they had parted as cold strangers, and that was how their story ended. Brutally, mercilessly. For a moment, his breath trembled in his chest, but then it steadied.

Matheo and Risaela. Matheo was a foreign name, one he had never heard, but Risaela—it was a Tainn name, crafted from little bits and pieces of the past. Rihael had been Kisla's litter-mate after all. He felt a small smile blossom, a subtle curve of his dark lips. "They are beautiful names," he said with a kind of pride he couldn't quite identify. It wasn't so much that he was at least partially responsible of their creation, but something to do with Kisla as well—the woman she had become, when he'd been away all those years. Corinna would've been proud, he thought sadly.

let the stars above shine in your soul

Inna knew she would always see the day her mother died in her mind. It would last longer in memory than other parts of her mother like her voice or the way she looked. That day had been so traumatic to the Raven that nothing could take it away. She could only hope that her daughter would never have to be witness to something so horrible, that she wouldn't have to live with the guilt everyday.

She knew he was right and that there was no way she could have known mother was going to be killed by a cougar. It was just like she hadn't know how sick her father had been while she'd been away from Hearthwood. Even though she knew he was right she also couldn't help the feeling that there was more she could have done. Like with her father, there lived the guilt that she should have been there for him more than she had been. She shook her head as he spoke saying it wasn't easy. It wasn't, she had tried over and over again. As he continued to speak she knew his words were true as she had gone through that after her father's death, “It never stops,” she spoke whispering again, “Even when you think it will and you will be okay.” Some things had clicked in her mind then about what she'd tried to do to cope with her father's death and even now trying to do the same after her mother's. Ice was the only one that had expressed what she felt inside so perfectly.

She nodded understanding what he spoke about letting go. Something inside had told her that was the case but she knew that she was far from ready.

When asked about the names of her brother and sister Inna gave them not seeing the harm it. She saw the smile that crossed his face and heard the pride in his voice. “They are,” she agreed, “Do you know why she might have chosen them?” She asked. Maybe one day when the pain of losing their mother wasn't so fresh she could tell her siblings how they had gotten their names like she once had been told about hers.

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“It never stops,” the broken girl whispered, and Ice wanted nothing but to fold her into an embrace; his thick neck over her black one, his heart close to hers—but he didn't dare. He was still a stranger here, some wraith that had happened to drift onto their doorstep and claim ties to a dead woman. All he did was whine sympathetically, his tail giving a sad little wave. He had never lost his parents, aside from walking away from them, though he doubted they still lived. He had lost others, though, and.. things happened to trip you up all the time, but death, the permanent loss, marked you in a different way.

"I think," he said, slowly, not quite sure of what he was going to say until the words had already left his mouth, "that we somehow expect to go back to what we were before. Like we're..permanently broken because we've changed, but how can we lose someone dear to us and not change..?" He swallowed, ears flitting back against his skull. Maybe, if he had allowed himself to grieve for Marsh, and had allowed himself to change.. but, no; it was too late for that now.

It still felt so unreal. Kisla, dead—it should've been impossible, as impossible as Cori dying. They were just too strong to be killed by anything.

"Matheo.. I don't know, it's too unlike Marsh to be homage to him. Perhaps it's something she picked up after I..disappeared." He hated talking about that. He hated saying it—I was a wreck and turned out to be unreliable and left the ones I loved for years and then came back and kept letting them down. "Risaela sounds very much like a Tainn name. Her brother's name was Rihael, after one of their uncles, I believe. She also had a sister by the name of Rissa. It's just, it's just got that Tainn sound..."

let the stars above shine in your soul

Do you want to start wrapping this one up?

Her mother's death was taking more of a toll on her than her father's had. Inna didn't know if it was because she was older or that she had a closer relationship with her mother than her father. She knew that the loss of her mother would change things for her and they would never go back to the way they had been before. Her orange gaze went to the older wolf as he whined in response to her words. She knew that at the end of the day he could only do so much, the rest was up to her.

He spoke again and all she could do was nod because she felt exactly the same way. She knew something had changed inside if her and it would never be the same again. “I don't think we can because their loss takes something away from us and we have to learn to live without it.” She felt like he was the only one that understood this about what she was going through. That no one else could see what was happening to her and could not help her get through what she was going through.

She was curious about the names Kisla had given her most recent litter. Did they have a special meaning to her like her own name. Matheo it seemed didn't have a special meaning to Kisla or if it did she'd taken that to her grave. Risaela one the other hand could have been named for two of her mother's siblings. “Tainn, is that my mother's family name?” She asked, “I've met Jessie Tainn she's in Wild Rye Fields. She knew my mother.”

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Maybe it's about time?

“I don't think we can because their loss takes something away from us and we have to learn to live without it.”

And that was what he hadn't wanted to do. Things had built upon another, one loss after the other, until in a final, cruel twist, Marsh had been taken from him. Ice had had enough, and he had broken—and his return.. foolishly, he had hoped to be spared from further cruelty, but it had been in vain. And now.. he was getting older. His friends were getting older. Naira's mind was collapsing, Triell was troubled by his shoulder... and Kisla had died.

"It is," Ice replied, somehow glad to focus on something else, something tangible, a time burned into his mind with such fervor he wondered how he could ever have forgotten about it. But, to his surprise, she spoke of Jessie as a Tainn, and his brows furrowed. Jessie was a Swiftpaw, wasn't she? She most definitely was not a Tainn by blood, but something lurked on the edges of his mind.. something about Hotei, Kasai, whoever the burnt wolf had been. Ice let out a slow sigh.

"Her mother was Corinna Donata, her father, Indru Tainn. Indru left when she was a little over a year, and it prompted her brother, Fenru, to use the Donata name instead. My sons use it, too. Jessie.. Jessie is a Swiftpaw by birth, but it's possible she picked the Tainn name up through a mate..." He shrugged, lightly. "Jessie was with us for a long, long time. She joined when we still lived in the Sacred Grove, and moved east with us over the mountains. She stayed at the Bend after Kisla left, and I think it's only been a year or so she's been at the Fields."

let the stars above shine in your soul

Fade and archive with your next post?

With her mother's death still so fresh for the Raven she did feel like something was missing, a part of her. It had been the same when her father had died and she knew that she hadn't gotten it back and wouldn't get what she had had lost with her mother's death either. Sometimes even with those that had left her she felt like a small piece of her went with them, it left her wondering if there would be anything left of her if wolves kept leaving her. What would she become then?

She wasn't expecting the information that came when she'd asked her question bit that didn't mean she didn't appreciate it. She had already knew her grandmother's name, she was named after her. Now she knew her grandfather's and more of her aunt's and uncle's names. Ice knew Jessie too and how she became a Tainn. “Thank you Ice I have always wanted to know about my family. Mother and I never really got the chance to talk about it. You are right about Jessie and Wild Rye, they have only been there about a year now.” Maybe now that she knew a little more about her family she could start to find out more once she was off her punishment. It was something to look forward to at any rate.

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You can archive if you'd like, but I'm leaving it open in case you want to get a last post in <3

He could've gone on, and on, expanded upon the story of the Tainns—what he knew of the wildfire that had claimed Inna's great-grandparents—and Swift River. It would've been a relief, almost, to spill the story, to give it to someone else. Inna could carry the torch, be a keeper of the memories, let Swift River live on.. because with Kisla's death so fresh in his mind, there was no way he could turn away from the knowledge that one day, and not that many years away, he would die. And all that he knew, the lifetime he had lived, would be lost, aside from what stayed in the memories and spoken words of others.

It was chilling and frightening and so complexly alien he wasn't sure how the concept of it fit inside his skull. It was beyond what he felt was possible, simple creature as he had been for so many years.

He looked at the girl, then; how old was she? Two-three? And for all those years, they had never really had the chance to speak of Kisla's childhood..? He suddenly felt guilty about staying on the borders for even a second longer, overcome with a need to find his son and hold him tight and whisper into his scruff how much he loved him, and talk of—everything. Ice, Swift River, Serach's time in Oak Tree Bend when the Aesir male was gone—before it became too late.

"Jessie's a good wolf," he said, glancing in the direction of the Fields. He would've liked to visit her too, but he was burning up with the need to go. He closed his eyes, and touched his muzzle to her cheek again. "I'd love to tell you more some day, if you want to know. But.." His ears flitted back. Kisla hadn't wanted him here. "I should go, now. Thank you for telling me, of Kisla and the children. Stay.. stay strong."

And with a quick, fatherly kiss to the side of her muzzle, the great white wolf turned to head back south, back home.

He wouldn't make it.

let the stars above shine in your soul

Faded and archived.

Inna was sure there was still so much that she could learn about her family but she was also aware of her punishment. She was already going against Lachesis by being there and to remain any longer and she might find herself with a worse punishment. Inna didn't fancy that but she was glad to have this opportunity to speak with Ice. She was glad to have met him and she hoped that she'd see him once again someday.

For now she had to accept what she had learned and take it to use to find out more. “Jessie is a good wolf,” at least she hoped the woman was and that she could tell Lachesis the truth of what happened. Then maybe he would start to believe her again. Inna stepped forward and brushed the man's cheek with her muzzle. “It was nice meeting you Ice and you take care of yourself. I hope that we can meet again soon and share some more stories. I would love to hear them.”

“Thank you,” she said as he placed a kiss to her cheek before he turned to leave and go home she assumed. Back to Oak Tree Bend where he would deliver the news of Kisla's death.

Fade

(This post was last modified: Feb 18, 2018, 01:40 AM by Inna.)

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