Quaking Vale North

Trigger warning, parent death. Also a general sad post ahead

Laurel wondered what he'd done to deserve the life he'd been given. His heart ached, which only seemed to make him more angry at himself. He was stupid for wanting more, stupid for thinking that he had deserved any sort of love. Most of all, he was stupid for coming back here, for coming back to this place. But he'd had nowhere to go, and had maybe thought that seeing a familiar face — if even just the glaring orange eyes of his father — would somehow make things a little better. He'd thought he'd had a home, but Laurel had not even deserved that.

He stared at the remains of his father and didn't know what to feel anymore. Who could he turn to for answers, but to the birds that mocked him? He had no mother or father, he had no friends, he had no home. Laurel had only been able to turn to himself. But he was young still, and his answers were not good ones. He did not have these things because he did not deserve them, and he did not deserve them because he was poison, somehow. Larkspur's body had been frozen during the winter, but the man's body still wasn't in great shape. He had not known his father, and could only go off of what @Sahalie and @Kino had told him. Both of their opinions on the man were conflicting, and even today the young Ritter couldn't know where he stood. He wanted to be angry at the dead man, but instead he could only feel more hollow, more helpless.

Laurel took to the task of carefully dragging his father's body to a new resting place. It took him a long time, if only because the young Ritter was not strong. Ribs showed on his sides, his fur stuck every which way. He had been hungry for weeks now, struggling to catch anything worth satiating his hunger. But eventually he got the body to the right spot: an old, fallen down tree. It had been hollowed out somehow, and while Laurel knew little about his father, he knew that the tree had been his favorite place. He carefully lay the body in the log and stared at it.

The young boy didn't know much about death or burials, but felt the urge to say something. He sat down, the words not quite coming out the way he wanted them to. He tried to think of something profound, but could not. He did not know what Larkspur liked, or what he disliked, and only knew that he was dead now, and that he slept often at the very tree he was now resting at. Sahalie had never really talked much of an afterlife, so Laurel had no real concept of it. He had never even really considered it before now, and only could discern that Larkspur was here, but not here. Almost as if he was sleeping, but fading.

"I... don't have much to say about you," it was weird to talk to someone who couldn't listen, even if they tried. "I'm sure you had wolves that loved you... and I'm sorry that the only one here is me." Laurel's throat felt like it was closing as he tried not to cry. "I hated you, but.. his eyes were blurry with tears. There was a strong, painful grip around his heart as he sobbed. "I never wanted you dead, I just wanted you to love me," he sobbed out the words, and hearing them only made him feel more worthless and stupid. "And I don't have anyone anymore, and it's all because of you! Why!?" it was pointless to yell at a dead wolf and a part of Laurel knew it. Yelling didn't make him feel any better, either. It just made him want more answers, answers that he could not possibly have. "Why did you hate me? Why does everyone hate me??"

No one was around, so Laurel was free to sob his heart out. He wished someone were there to comfort him, someone there to lean against and tell him it would be alright. Quaking Vale's trees shivered and the crows mocked him. Laurel continued to sob until he couldn't feel much anymore.

He breathed in, then out, and did so a few times to compose himself. When he was able to think a little more clearly, he stood up. He glanced at his father's body once more and nodded his goodbye. He looked up at the trees of his old home and felt no attachment. There was no one holding him here now, and no one holding him much of anywhere.

With no family, no home, and no purpose, Laurel thinks of only one direction to go.

North.