Drooping Willows I don't understand

because I am the worst. Super backdated thread set after this one. For @Sven only please.

we're not broken, just bent

Attica Grace Archer

Everything was a blur as young legs carried her further and further away from the sad scene left behind but it wasn't enough to get the smell out of her nose or the image of the back of her eyelids. It wasn't like she hadn't seen dead things before but this was different! This was someone she had seen every day! And without warning... Why did she answer the call at all? Her stomach gave another heave and the girl tried her best to ignore the burning at the back of her throat, stomach contents long since expelled.

There wasn't enough strength left in her limbs anymore. She didn't even realise she'd long since left the safety of Willow Ridge borders. It wasn't until she collapsed among the leaves that she even realised that none of this was familiar. The dark girl tried to steady her breathing, pale eyes trying to track which way she had come from... but there were no visual cues. Fighting down the panic that was eating away at any rational thought the girl might be able to muster, she tipped back her muzzle and called for her brother. He would find her and make everything okay again. She was sure of it.

touch my mouth and hold my tongue

When that first howl went up, he could have sworn his heart stopped beating entirely. It was a labor to get his legs working again, but once they were he was flying, across the Rise and toward the frozen willows. There was no mistaking what the brokenness of those notes meant, and all he could think of was Isolde and her corpse. Of how he had taken sick assurance from their misery. Now it would be his turn, wouldn't it? Was it @Elettra, stiff and cold on the ground? Or was it... was it...

His breath came out in ragged gasps, his lungs burning with each frigid intake. He couldn't move fast enough, and even as his nonna's mournful song whipped through the wind and past him the relief was nonexistent. If wasn't her, then who? Isolde morphed in his mind, her fur darkening until it was unmistakably--

Attica.

Her distressed howl hit him with all the force of a lightning strike. Breathing came easier but in deep bursts, because she still needed him, he wouldn't change speed, just direction. But she was alive, alive, alive...

Sven smelled her vomit and the salt of her tears as he descended upon her, draping himself around her as the barrier he'd always strove to be between herself and the cruelties of the world. What had she seen, that he had been too far to protect her from? Who had passed, and what had taken them?

"Shh, shhshhshh shhhhh..." he breathed against her temple, a paw pulling her closer to him.

"I'm here, Atty. I'm here."

i'll never be your chosen one

The minutes stretched by until they felt like hours, she could see her brother coming, but he was moving in slow motion. When finally he wrapped around her she drew a shuddering breath, her sense of betrayal clear in every word she spoke "Why did I have to see that?" She turned her head to bury it in her brother's chest, her next words muffled by the thickness of his fur. "Why did he make me come?" The experience was enough to make the girl second guess ever answering a summons for the pack again. The back of her throat still burned but it wasn't enough to distract her from the lingering scent of decay or the still way Adele had been laying there, blank eyes staring forever...

Her frame was wracked by hiccups, her shuddering breaths barely enough to get the oxygen to where it was needed most. She took as much solace as she could from her brother's warmth but it wasn't enough to wipe away the image that was burned onto the back of her eyelids. What would they do with her? Would she just have to avoid that section of the Willows until she rotted away like the discarded carcasses of prey? All bloated and wriggly and full of bugs? Oh she was going to make herself barf again. She had never imagined a wolf that way.

 

A lynx has left behind the remains of a deer. +5 Health

lol sorry, neither sven nor i am good with these kinds of things

His ears lifted to catch her words, and the question was surprisingly difficult to answer. Why did they always howl the moment they discovered a dead body? Wasn't there a more collected, considerate way to announce a death? Especially when, in this pack, it was more than likely a blood relative that lay frozen in the snow. He couldn't think of a single good reason, and so he just held her. Dearly he wanted to ask who it was that was now gone, but that seemed a highly insensitive thing to do at this moment. All he needed to know, truly, was who it wasn't, and he already had that assurance that his two favorite wolves were safe and sound.

It was, in a way, difficult to relate. The only other death he had known had been Isolde's, and he had felt nothing but satisfaction from it. There had been no disgust, no grief, no empathy. Yet he knew pain, and that Attica was feeling any sort of it hurt him as well. He gave her the time to cry, a moment of silence falling over them, disrupted only by her sobs.

"You'll be alright, Atty. We're all going to be alright."

He wondered too, if perhaps the death had been more violent than his age-mate aunt's. Maybe it wasn't just witnessing the loss of life, but carnage that had his sister so shaken. He wished he knew, but again it felt so wrong to simply ask.

Her brother didn't have the answer and it made the girl pull away, a new fire burning somewhere in her chest. How could he say they were going to be okay? Almost all the wolves that lived with them were old like Adele had been. What was to say they wouldn't all end up the same way? Attica didn't know much about seasons, all she knew was that it was green and warm, and then it was not. Soon there would be snow which would only worsen the chances of the elderly but she didn't know that, all she knew was the world was growing colder, and her along with it.

Her young imagination was running away with her, like a child that had snuck out of their room late at night to peek at horror movies between the banisters on the stairs. "I hate him brother. I'll never listen to him again!" She couldn't trust him anymore, couldn't trust that the next time he called it wouldn't be her nonna or brother dead on the ground. How did they know that Nicolo hadn't been the one to kill her? How could any of them trust him after this? "I don't want to stay here." She shook where she stood, shock coursing through her veins. She wanted to run, run and never look back.

 

His pale eyes sought hers as she moved back, and he recognized the look within him. She doubted him. The clench of his heart was a dull pain, for he could not blame her. So many times he was forced to compare his childhood experiences to her current life, and at that moment his recalled his father's assurances that Piety would be found. At least he had tried to comfort his son, however. That had mattered, and so Sven did not regret the promise that he could enforce.

His brows knit together with concerned empathy as she raged at Nicolo, recalling how all it had taken for Angier to earn his rage was one slip up. Maybe it was fair, maybe it wasn't. He would not bother to judge either way, because Attica should know that their uncle was still family, still a pack mate, and that was a bond that could not be forsaken. Despite how disgusted Sven had always been with Elettra's mate, he would have respected the sacred ties that kept them together under the will trees.

Then she said that last sentence, and his wolfish brows shot skyward before arching down and in, sternly. It was not anger that next directed his words, but they were more firm than he had ever used with her before.

"Leaving won't make it go away, Attica. Leaving is the coward's way out, leaving only passes on your problems to everyone else so that you'll never be rid of them. Real Archers don't leave, no matter how tough it gets."

Maybe it had just been said in the moment, a sign of her age, something not even truly meant. She had to know though. Attica couldn't become one of them.

"You'll never know how sorry I am that I can't make the world perfect for you, Atty," he continued, his voice thickening now with emotion, "but it can still be good. This, though... death is part of it. Sadness and pain are part of it. Mistakes are definitely part of it. The best we can do is to keep moving on, to keep trying for better."

The pack knew never to allow two litters again, to watch the children more closely than they had Isolde. Whatever had taken their most recent packmate would be a lesson too, something they would strive to guard against, possible or not.

He didn't know what more hope to give her.

Real Archers don't leave. Well that wasn't what she had heard. It seemed she had no shortage of uncles and at least one aunt out in the wilds somewhere, not to mention two parents to which the girl was still oblivious. "Well maybe I'm not an Archer at all!" She spat full of venom, and who was to say otherwise? It had always just been her and Sven, where did she even come from? She couldn't remember anything before the willows and her brother, but a sinking feeling somewhere deep down told her there was more. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to remember, but all that did was leave her with an awful stabbing pain behind her eyes.

Maybe there wasn't more to her story? Maybe she just was.

All these big emotions left the young girl feeling rather unwell. There was nothing left in her stomach to bring up anymore, or maybe that was the real source of the hollow ache down deep inside, but the thought of tearing into flesh only made her stomach feel worse.

 

Her queasy look couldn't be concealed as guilt consumed her. "I'm sorry." She finally offered, full of remorse as wide grey eyes sought out her brothers. He really did try to make everything better for her all the time. "Do you think there are any berries left nearby?"

 

(This post was last modified: Mar 15, 2017, 10:36 PM by Attica.)