Round Stone Crest Though Thunder Explodes

Draven Lagina
I won't stay small forever

Featuring Draven's RE: "Draven, take shelter! A sudden thunderstorm is about to roll your way." Click here for set music. Backdated 9/26, mid afternoon; let me know if the date needs fixing.

The days were blurring by around him. The piercing, icy grief from that night had at least thawed somewhat, turned into something a little easier to bear than the stabbing ache in his chest. Things weren't any better; they were just a new kind of normal. Everything was dark, now. Nothing made sense anymore, and he didn't really notice his pack mates going or coming. He only paid attention to whether @Kino or @Ari were near, and only so that he could make himself not be near them if they were. The nights were cold and the sunlight was dim and dreary during the days. He didn't even really know who he could talk to anymore. Would anybody want to listen? It had been made awfully clear that his grief made everybody else feel worse. He hated Kino for saying it and Ari for agreeing, but had they been wrong? He remembered things weird from that night. Had he started crying first? When had he seen tears on Calanthe's face? Had there been sadness in... in the black behemoth's voice when he called everyone to Minka's side?

He didn't know. Probably they were right, and he was bad for feeling anything. He should have stayed shut up so that he didn't bother anybody. He was bad because he had cried. He was bad because he had made other people hurt when maybe they wouldn't have otherwise. Maybe they weren't sad about Minka at all, because maybe that wasn't how normal wolves reacted to dying. Maybe they were really just upset because Draven had made such a big, unnecessary fuss over nothing. Death happened, didn't it? Minka told them it had happened to his father, Tokino. Maybe death happening so much meant that only weak, stupid people ever got sad about someone they knew being dead. It made sense when he thought of it that way. Maybe Kino and Ari were better than him that way, and maybe he shouldn't have felt anything at all about seeing--

The sky seemed to growl at him, and for the first time in... forever, he guessed... Draven looked up, just in time for a big, fat raindrop to hit him on his nose. There were thick, dark, ugly clouds overhead, and off in the distance he thought he saw some of them light up for a split second. Black ears flattened against his head, but that was mostly just on reflex, probably. He wasn't afraid of any dumb storms. They couldn't wash away what had happened. They couldn't wash away the hurting, or make him be somebody who didn't hurt other people by feeling things. All the storm could do was maybe wash dumb little Draven away, and maybe that was a good thing, because according to two of the wolves who probably knew him best he was useless and selfish anyway. So probably nobody wanted him, and he should just sit here and see if the storm would prove that by making him go away so that everybody else could be happy again without him around to upset them.

Then it all went wrong.

It had only been a day or two since the children's whole world had come crashing down. Hardest hit, or in fact, hit at all were Kova and Draven, though Raela fretted more over the younger of the two. At the time of the incident with his siblings, the poor cub had been so heartbroken and consumed in sobs she dearly hoped he had missed their horrid, hateful words, but it was unlikely. The urge to console the boy was strong as anything, and most of the new Alpha's time was thoroughly devoted to checking up on him, and ensuring that his demon siblings stayed the hell away. If they didn't they'd answer to her teeth. She was still plenty angry with them both; infuriated that Minka's own blood could even act in such a way. The poor woman would turn in her grave; and oh how their real father would have bellowed. 

She strode along their small mountain with energy; having noticed the approaching storm before her hunt was even over. She hoped this gift of hers; a delectable and plump hare fresh off of summer's bounty; would be enough to make the child feel even the slightest bit better. He was the only one she even bothered bringing food to these days. Kova was old enough not to worry about and @Marianna and @Kino could dig through the caches like the filthy vermin they had so clearly proved themselves to be for all she cared. At least Draven had even had the decency to mourn at all. She simply couldn't allow the dark pup to feel like those two had been right. He had to know she was on his side; they all were.

He wasn't too hard to find; and she breathed easier upon realizing that the other's scents did not mingle with his. He was alone. Good. The rumble above only hastened the new Queen's pace, bringing her upon him just as the rain had started to fall. It was a cold, autumn rain that spoke of the coming winter. Draven's first. The poor child was already something of an orphan and now even nature was bearing down on him. A loud whine passed through her filled jaws; muffled by the fur of her catch. Golden eyes appraised him quickly until she was at his side. Nothing seemed to be wrong... except everything.

She dumped the present on the ground at her feet so that her soft tongue could run itself sympathetically over his cheek and neck a couple times. Then the woman drew back, trying to meet his emerald eyes while her own swam with concern. She offered the child a final nudge to his fuzzy neck before managing to speak. “You're gonna get really wet out here,” she started, her voice rising in pitch. “You wanna go find somewhere dry and have some food?” Her head tipped to the side. It was much more a genuine question than a command. She didn't have the heart to “command” him to do much of anything right now. She just wanted to help. 

(This post was last modified: Oct 05, 2015, 09:55 AM by Raela.)

            

ooc: @Raela if you wanna post next you can. Dravvie's more or less just gonna... follow. Song referenced is "In My Life."

---

The sky had grown darker and drearier as the day had aged from dawn to mid afternoon, the wind growing soggier and chillier as the air had gradually grown heavy with the looming threat of a violent autumnal storm. It seemed that the cold season would be make an explosive grand entrance this year; considering the blow the pack had already suffered and the simultaneous barrage of emotions that had run the gambit from sorrow to terror to rage to indifference, Calanthe thought the weather rather seemed to be working towards acting as a backdrop for the loss of their now eternally sleeping Queen. She very dimly appreciated the gesture on nature's part; for things to be sunny and clear after such a devastating blow to the pack would make the whole thing seem like some gruesome amphigory.

The pale woman had already begun the long trek back to the den site by the time the horizon line began to light up with far-off lightning and the first bout of thunder had begun to roll across the land like a low, rumbling growl. Here and there the first few fat raindrops splattered to the ground, and more than one of them landed on her back and the top of her head as she wove between the trees. Some of the fur along her spine pricked at the slight electrical charge that flitted through the air; one deadly aimed bolt of lightning could bring an even greater tragedy down upon the heads of the Crest wolves. The idea was spine-chilling; after Minka's passing, Calanthe didn't know what to expect anymore. There were so many questions and answers that somehow seemed wrong, now, and all the world was spinning off its axis.

As she moved, she began to pick up the scents of two of her pack mates. Though they were diluted by the increasingly heavy rain, she recognized them as belonging to Raela and Draven - and momentarily felt a twinge of guilt at the flash of relief she felt when she realized certain others were not present. They had brought that dislike on themselves with their behavior; Calanthe shook her mane out and trotted on towards her pack mates, her tail and head lowering in respect as the came into view. It seemed as though Raela had been hunting prior to running into Draven, and the prince himself... well, he seemed just as lost and downtrodden as ever, his fern green eyes flat with disinterest as Raela tried to urge him to seek out shelter with her.

"There's a rocky alcove not far from here that might work," Calanthe suggested, her own voice flat and hollow. "If nothing else, it would work as a barricade from this rain." A drop landed in her ear as she spoke, sending the woman's head shaking violently in reaction to the sudden cold, wet tickle. "It should be big enough for the three of us; if you'd like, I can show you where to find it."

(This post was last modified: Oct 06, 2015, 02:55 AM by Calanthe.)

ooc: Song referenced is "Empty Chairs At Empty Tables."

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Draven Lagina
". . ."

Raela's arrival was a surprise, but only a very small one. He accepted her onslaught of affection with barely anything more than a nudge of his head towards her. He appreciated the effort, really he did, somewhere down under all of the hurting and the darkness, but it would be too much to really voice how much he appreciated it. It would hurt too much more. It was a grief that couldn't be spoken - a pain that went on and on, and sometimes, like now, he was afraid opening his mouth would send all of it tumbling out again. For the moment, anyway, it was safer to take refuge in alexithymia, and barricade his thoughts behind a wall of careful quietness.

Just like it had last time.

“I don't mind,” he said in response to Raela's comment. Water didn't bother him. It felt cool and nice as it started seeping through his thick black fur; he didn't know when he had started feeling hot, but he was pretty warm now, so he wasn't even lying about not minding the water. But Raela did seem to mind, and with a flinch at a new growl of thunder the former prince decided he didn't really appreciate the rest of the storm so much. The wind was blowing his fur the wrong way, too, which wasn't really helping matters at all. And he guessed he was kinda hungry.

Calanthe showed up around the same time he decided that maybe shelter wasn't such a bad idea, and he had to admit her idea sounded pretty good. It wasn't the den - but then again, the den was probably where Kino and Ari were. Best to avoid them as much as possible, since forever was too much of a stretch. Shaking his head against the falling rain, he cast a quick, mildly disinterested glance at Calanthe as he mumbled, “I guess that sounds okay. Raela?” he added. He wouldn't ever make himself the center of attention again. Not ever. If Raela thought it was a bad idea, he would hear her out and maybe go with what she wanted, instead.

The slight change in direction of the child's fuzzy head was more than enough for her. In his all-consuming grief he could have ignored her; or even pulled away and rejected the gesture on the grounds that he thought she was trying to replace his Mom. Her ears leaned forward well past their usual position as the youth's meager voice sounded between the angry rumbles of thunder. “I don't mind.” They fell, sliding down the sides of her head at his obvious sadness and apathy. She was quiet then, unable to bring herself to push him any more. Instead her golden eyes trailed his body as he flinched; and then stared accusingly at the clouds for making the boy's life that tiny bit harder. 

Before she could say anything more Calanthe was on the scene as well; which Raela hardly found surprising. Calanthe had been just as diligent as she in keeping an eye on the lad as she had. She glanced softly at her subordinate; inwardly appreciating the respect but making no move to assert herself and rise to it. The female's eyes spoke of her troubles with getting the pup to safety; to sanctuary in the face of the storm, and Calanthe quickly took up the challenge. Again she turned to watch the boy for a reaction; and this time he was equally as downtrodden, but at least it seemed he agreed with them. Despite the cold drops falling on her own mottled hairs she held still; meeting the boy's glance with her honey orbs. It was without so much as a second thought that she replied.  "Of course Draven," she spoke, moving to collect her gift and follow the tawny woman to this spot she'd found. 

At least there was no danger of running into the other runts while it was stormy out. She had half a mind to mention that he and Calanthe ought to stay here instead of in the main den to prevent further altercations. Once they'd all slunk into the shelter's confines and the rabbit had been set forward for the boy to enjoy at his own leisure; Raela stretched down onto her belly and appraised the child with earnest. She needed to speak with him about all of this; but rather than try to drag out his pain by discussing the grief she first wanted to touch on the anger surrounding the whole thing; for there was no doubt all of them shared it. Once there had been a few seconds of relative quiet; save for the rain and thunder, she began.

"Draven," her soft, low tone beckoned his attention gently. "I am appalled with what your brother and sister did to you the other day," She was all seriousness, looking down at him to make sure he was getting it all. "and I know I am not the only one." Her eyes flicked once over to Calanthe in acknowledgment. None of the adults could excuse this. "They were wrong and they were incredibly cruel to you. I won't let them do it again," she added, drawing back slightly. "If they ever try to mess with you again I want to know about it. The pack will protect you, and they will not get away with it again." Her irritation was plain in her voice, and once her slow words had come to a halt she softened considerably. "I knew your mother; she wouldn't have stood for that," Raela added in direct contradiction to what had been said before by the insubordinate youths. "Your father wouldn't have it either and your Dad will not allow it to continue, I promise." She said, pointedly referencing the man who had been the only one to take Kino on physically and actually manage to shut the brat's rancid mouth. She was glad for it; glad that someone had seen the injustice and put a stop to it. 

            

There is a rabbit\'s nest nearby. +1 Health

Draven was definitely not faring very well; between the hollow look to his eyes and the slight touch of... it almost registered as fear driving his hesitation. Between those two things, Calanthe was half tempted to drag the pup along by the scruff if she needed to in order to get him out of the rain. Fortunately that didn't wind up being the case, because Draven trotted placidly along behind her as she led him and Raela both to her hideaway. It was much less cramped than the shelter she had once shared with Raela during a similarly ferocious storm, though any more than the three of them would have changed that significantly.

Calanthe herded Draven towards the back of the little alcove and laid down between him and the entrance, shielding the darkling boy from what wind and rain managed to bluster its way past the entrance. As the rabbit was set down in front of him, Calanthe ran her tongue along the boy's shoulder and neck a few times, trying to brush away the worst of the rain dampness as Raela settled down across from them. Her movements slowed and gradually stopped as the agouti spoke, touching immediately on what had been perhaps the single most disgraceful moment of Minka's death and burial.

Her eyes were hard for once as she met Raela's glance and nodded once and sharply in agreement. When Raela had finished, the pale woman was quick to add her own support: "If Raela or Gent aren't around, Draven, don't be afraid to seek me out, either." She gave the boy a gentle bump with her head as she added, "I know they're hurting, too, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to treat you - or anyone else - the way they have been." Then, more softly, she added, "No one deserves to come under fire for grieving the sleeping."

Draven Lagina
". . ."

Draven let Calanthe herd him towards the back of the shelter, still too exhausted to argue much. It was warmer here, which he guessed felt nicer than the cold and the wet - and it felt safer here than he supposed it would have if he were closer to the entrance, even if the roof did angle shallowly downwards as one went farther in. Calanthe's shelter sort of reminded Draven of trees he had seen with chunks missing out of them: sturdy, but not whole anymore.

He shied away from that thought, instead laying down and pulling at the rabbit Raela presented him with. It was wet and a starting to cool from the weather it had been exposed to, and he felt a twinge of guilt about that - she must have worked so hard to catch this for him, and he'd let the rain and the wind get it all soggy. The idea leant him enough energy to dig into the creature in earnest; his hollow stomach was a good motivator, but eating could be such hard work sometimes...

He paused halfway through tearing off another bite as Raela began to speak, his ears pricked at the mention of those two. What Raela said was so wildly different to what they had said and managed to convinced Draven of that it took the black-furred boy several moments to truly process what she was saying. Wrong? Even his thoughts were sluggish, almost slurred with shock. They were... wrong? About what? What they said was wrong? How could it be wrong? I made people cry, didn't I? And they didn't cry... How could they be wrong?

"I knew your mother."

Mother.

Momma.

Whatever else Raela and Calanthe said faded away into the thunder, and the thunder got louder and louder until it hurt Draven's ears to listen to it and the rain falling outside turned into thousands and billions of rocks hitting bigger rocks and turned the thunder into a quite background noise in comparison. And the world began spinning uncontrollably, and now it was Draven that was at the center of the spinning and he didn't know how to make it stop--

He feel his body tighten down around itself, or his muzzle scrunch up until his eyes were squeezed shut and his teeth were laid completely bare. He didn't hear the high, strangled whine that dragged itself from his throat as he fought and immediately lost a futile battle to keep silent. He didn't realize he was sobbing, not yet, anyway. He broke too fast to realize he was breaking. Even if he had, he couldn't have stopped it. The barriers and dams and walls had all shattered outward, and there was no stopping the torrent that came in the wake of their crumbling.

(This post was last modified: Oct 08, 2015, 07:29 AM by Draven.)

Even as she spoke she could see the confusion on the boy's face. Raela wondered if it was part puzzlement and part fear; that perhaps her tone was making him worried; but nonetheless carried on with these very important messages. As she mentioned his mother the look in the beryl green eyes she had cared for so dutifully up until that moment grew distant. She had already finished; and the woman's eyes grew soft as she watched the child utterly crumble at her feet. The anger inside her melted away to make room for her vast supply of empathy; eyebrows drawing up with concern. His face contorted itself in pain, and though her own tongue wanted to ask his name and verify his condition it was all to clear. She had said the wrong thing. 

He curled down with a heart-wrenching noise that forced the tawny Alpha to shuffle forward. There were no second thoughts. His sobs pinned her big ears back as she reached out; desperate to do something as the prince succumbed entirely to grief. Wordlessly her soft muzzle was pressed firmly against his neck and shoulder; tucking down toward the dirt and his paws. She felt his trembling, gasping sobs and the woman's own eyes pinched shut with pain. Why did this have to happen to them? Why did not only the boy's father, but his dear mother have to pass; leaving the eldest whelps to pick on their little brother when he was already in so, much, pain? She hated the lot of it; the universe, the kids, all of it. Why did it everyone have to pick on the broken souls?

Her muzzle wrinkled in the female's own kind of grimace; Draven's weeping seeping into her core and unearthing anguished memories. Her tail curled around her sides tightly as moisture formed beneath her lids. She had to speak. She had to say something. There was of course the urge to tell him that it was “okay,” that everything was alright or would be, but it was a lie and she knew it. Nothing was okay. Nothing would be okay for a long time and he deserved the dignity of not being lied to. Instead her lips opened in a small, breathy gasp. "You can cry," she whimpered feebly; her voice trembling. Other words and other sentences tangled in the back of her throat but that was all she could say. "You can cry..." Tears began to wet her face and in turn his fur as she stayed there; doing her best to support him.

She would sit with him; cry with him until he couldn't do it any more. Nature was crying too and it wailed around the trio. He needed to cry. No one would ever deny the prince that ever again. Her own tears flowed anew; her own body weeping quietly, softly against him as she remembered his very situation and her brother Tolas. She would tell the boy about him; he would know all about the man that had saved her life and died at the teeth of the loveless. But not now. Now there was mourning, and if no one else would do it with him, she would. 

            

Calanthe silenced herself abruptly as Draven... shattered. There was no other word for it, no other way to describe the way the boy went from distant and distracted in one second to actively sobbing again in the very next. The change was so sudden the pale woman didn't know how to respond - what had happened? What had the trigger been? Had it been something Raela had said, or something Calanthe had given voice to? Had it simply been that he was holding back this entire time and that barrier had failed him just at this moment?

Raela had already curled around him by the time Calanthe moved forward - that didn't matter. Calanthe pressed herself as close to the weeping young lad as she could, her own yellow eyes watering as she slid her muzzle under Draven's head, cushioning him at least partly from the hard, rocky ground they all laid on. "You can cry," Raela told him through tears of her own. Calanthe squeezed her eyes shut and stifled a whine of her own. Let the world turn its back on her; let every wolf she knew before be dead and left to rot away in the barren land she left behind, but to take away Draven's mother? To give him two siblings who could not see fit to allow him to grieve without demonizing him for it?!

She wanted to say something of her own - anything, anything at all that was neither a lie nor an empty condolence. She couldn't bear to see him in this kind of pain. It was too much. He deserved better than to suffer and feel alone as he did. What could she say? What could anyone say that could possibly begin to soothe the bleeding hole where his heart had once been?

"If I could close your wounds with words of love..." Tears ran down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut and again choked back a quiet cry of her own. "I promise you, we won't desert you now..."

The words were paltry. They meant nothing, they were broken, they were useless, nothing more than sounds strung together in patterns anyone could recognize... and they were all she had to give him. She was no great nurturer. She was no caretaker like Raela, no powerful guardian like @Gent, no leader like Minka had been. All of these things that Draven needed, she was not... all except for one. She could be here.

She was content to remain here. She was content to buffer him from the ground, from the wind and the rain and the thunder. If that was all she could do - if a shoulder and a wall to hide behind were the only things she could provide him - then she would do exactly that as long as he needed her to. If his family insisted on continuing to fail him, Calanthe would take the burden of his grief on her own shoulders, or at the very least share it with Raela and whoever else had enough within them to tend to the broken ones within their reeling family.