Drooping Willows Why is everything so heavy?

For @Eirian, set directly after Asha's birth thread

She had scattered willingly enough from the scent of birth and blood, wide eyes taking in the landmarks that defined the den (although, she should have written it off as a lost cause from the moment the ignorant bitch refused to acknowledge her own failings). There was a wildness to her eyes, lips almost permanently peeled back from teeth, though her legs buckled to hold her body low, a wounded snake slithering through the sparce undergrowth, a predator in search of prey.

She heaved a rattling breath, it would do her no good to be seen in this state, the careful, harmless exterior so carefully constructed could be shattered with a glance. She shouldn't have stopped here, she should have kept on going, stayed a loner, tried to find @Eirian, or Nalda. @Nalda, the girl had so much promise! Why did she ever leave her behind? ...because that was what she did, she supposed, but this was no time for self-psychoanalysis. She had to come up with a plan to save the poor child before it was snatched away from her forever... Just like all the others...

A sob caught in the back of her throat, the strangled sound breaking the silence of the willows around her. This was no time to go losing control, and yet she found she could no longer move, paws rooted to the ground as her body began to tremble with tears that wouldn't come.

(This post was last modified: May 27, 2017, 10:42 AM by Eek.)

Cream limbs glided over the still ivory painted ground and its small splashes of green where what little warmth had managed to filter down from the sky managed to melt away the snow and allow fresh blades of grass to grow in its stead. Coal black nose lowered to hover above the earth in search of Asha's scent. His usual vacation from the monochrome woman's side had expired and once more he ventured toward her last known location to care for the heavily swollen woman that was ready any day now to birth the children he had cursed her womb with to carry. 

Pausing, citrus irises lifted from his nose's failed attempts along the ground of tracking the woman. Gaze studying the gentle sway of the newly budding willow boughs in the fading pale moonlight that flooded the world below in preparation for dawn to arrive. He knew that the silvered woman had to be close because how far could a mother due any day now travel, but where was she? He hadn't this much trouble finding her any other time he paid the woman a visit. Huffing in frustration, a moment later his focus was robbed from finding Asha by the sudden sound of another's sobbing.

Russet ears pricked at the sound and a curious head tilt followed shortly after, eyes narrowing curiously. Could that possibly be Asha? There was only one way to find out and cream limbs were set back into motion wandering toward the strangled sound of sobbing, but what he wasn't expecting was to find the familiar ebony and tailless silhouette once he rounded a willow trunk. "Eek?" He spoke softly, almost unbelieving that after all this time he happened to stumble upon her like it was nothing, but... Why was she crying?

A rare moment, the copper man didn't hesitate to approach the trembling woman. The top of his snout brushing along the dark fur that lined her cheek as if he was trying to comfort the poor woman. "What happened?" He spoke, the hint of a growl beginning to build behind his words, but not directed at her. Eirian Asurn would be damned if someone dared to hurt his precious @Eek or Nalda. The only wolves in his entire existence to ever earn an emotional response from the typically cold-hearted man. 

Eek hadn't heard him call her name, nor recognised his approach through wide, sightless eyes, her ears filled with deafening distant roar as her world became a single blade of grass, so fragile. So breakable and fleeting. His touch sent a jolt through her body, instinctively bringing teeth to bare as her head swung with a feral sound, gnashing teeth failing to find purchase on more than fur before the familiar scent washed over her and her legs began to shake. Another wordless sound left her chest as her legs slid out from beneath her, nose pressing into the cold earth, cutting off her own air supply, save what she could suck into her lungs between frantic gasps, but she didn't particularly care anymore. What was the point of breathing if you were never truely alive to begin with?

But he had bought her back again, and so she forced her chest to rise once more.

Her eyes were dry, crying was never quite something she had been able to manage properly, but the searing pain in her chest was more than real enough. Was this how Erebos had felt, when he took his final breaths? She managed to summon a bitter bark of laughter. Was this karmic retribution? "That girl is going to kill her child, if the bleeding doesn't end her first."

Eirian remained still, whatever air that remained in his lungs trapped for a second longer as if exhaling too soon and allowing the breath to stir the tiny hairs on her face would give the woman reason enough to actually tear into his flesh instead of falling short like they did now. A simple tug to his fur all the copper male could feel while half expecting to feel the pinch of teeth sinking in. Had she did it wouldn't be the first time he had gotten on the woman's bad side, a fatal comment made long ago in anger about removing what little remained of the stub where her tail should be warranting a squabble turned physical to occur. 

Still the man remained rigid in his place as citrus eyes watched the ebony woman slump lower and lower on sprawled limbs until her nose lay pressed to the cold earth underfoot and a series of frantic gasps left the woman looking like a furry, beached fish rather than the woman he had come to know since they had met back in Magnolia Glen. Then all at once, the sounds ceased to give way to a bitter bark of laughter that puzzled Eirian, his facial expression contorting to reveal such. Cream brows furrowing together. 

And then she spoke something about a girl possibly killing a child if the bleeding didn't first, Eirian's head tilting further at the vague details he was granted. "What girl and what child, Eek?" Could she possibly be referring to Asha and his child? Eirian couldn't imagine there happened to be a smorgasbord of females in the area popping children out. So who was this mystery woman and child? "What did she look like?"

There is a deer that was killed by a lynx nearby. +10 Health

What girl? She was slowly coming back to herself, though a feral light was clearly reflected in her eyes beneath the moonlight. "The silly silver bitch with no milk to feed her child. Her back half was covered in blood, too much... The child was crying for food she didn't have..." Her head turned with a tilt of her chin, that way she wordlessly gestured.

"One of the other Willow wolves seemed to know her, maybe its his..." but even if it was, he couldn't provide what the child needed most, and she hadn't dared to get near enough to the Enoki to judge just how soft-hearted she might be when it regarded children that weren't her own. Building up that level of trust took time Eek hadn't been afforded, and Ravenna was never far away.

She exhaled with a click of her tongue, this was what carelessness got her. She should have laid low, watched closer, instead of just crawling up to the borders like a fool. She gathered her legs beneath herself, rising back up with a shuddering breath. For a moment, she looked towards the mountain, wondering if perhaps her time among these trees was already drawing to a close.

A silver bitch. All it took was that single key description to convince Eirian that he was on the right track to finding Asha, the ebony woman providing the right direction he was to go with a wordless gesture of her muzzle after lending more information that truly had the man worried not for the mother of his child, but the child Asha apparently couldn't care for. The child was crying for food she didn't have... echoed in his thoughts and for a moment the newly titled father wondered where he had gone wrong in all of this. Despite her purity in blood, she too had proven herself to be as weak and useless as the abominations he traversed amidst. 

But what Eek went on to say afterward caused a feral rumble to begin forming in the depths of his chest. A verbal mirror to the feral glint that reflected in the moonlit, mercury hue of her eyes. "One of the other Willow wolves seemed to know her, maybe its his..." Before she could say more his growl became amplified, his curt words seething between exposed teeth at the audacity of the woman thinking that other male who had been paying visits to Asha could possibly be the father. "It's mine." He declared, locking fiery gaze onto that pale counterpart she held while her body steadily began to rise on a shuttered breath.

"The child she has belongs to me. She's ours." The emphasis on ours an attempt to recall the promise he had made to her long ago. If she had forgotten, she would suddenly be reminded for an Asurn always kept their promise. "I made you a promise that when spring came I would grant you a child, but you made no specifications on how I was to fulfill my debt. That silver bitch was desperate when I came across her in the woods and I saw the perfect opportunity so I fucked her." Of course, Asha hadn't been informed of the details when he agreed to take care of her problem. That any children she would have from his seed had already been promised to another, her actions a deal made with the devil himself.
 

It's mine. The words echoed in her mind, causing silver eyes to narrow to slits as she regretted not taking the chance to grab the girl by the throat and choke the remaining life right out of her (of course, if she had managed to catch wind that there was a dead child in the den with the screaming one, only one of them would have walked away, intervention from the silver man or not). It had been months since her fight with Iopah, but she was no less willing now than she was then to put her life on the line to get what she wanted. What was hers.

His emphasis on ours was enough to loosen the tight lines around her face, her shoulders dropping as she stepped closer to lean into his chest for just a moment, yet she wouldn't dare to let herself think it felt like home. Eek wasn't even sure there was a word to define what they had, with their take, and take, but never giving. Whatever it was, it was all she had for now. She even managed to ignore the twist in her gut when he spoke of how he found the girl, convincing herself it was just her own lack of sucess in snaring anyone to even try for the second year running that had her so morose. Perhaps her cracks were showing?

"He might take them to the Willows, I don't know the leader well enough to say how she'll react," but he seemed like the do-gooder sort and maybe, just maybe, it wasn't worth sticking around to find out. After all, there were no shortage of children at this time of year, but she might as well at least show him the way. With a turn of her head she began to pick her way between the trees, back towards the den she had been chased from, trusting that Eirian would follow, if only to see with his own eyes what a mess his surrogate had made.

The realization came slow for the woman, but it came nonetheless. Gradually, the narrowed pools of mercury softened a tad, the tightness that kept her face taunt loosened now while her body moved to press against the broadness of his chest. Eirian willingly allowed the brief physical contact, his head lowering to wrap around her neck and press her body closer in what could only be defined as a wolf's attempt at a hug if such a thing could exist in Eirian's world. It was in the bloodline that coursed through his veins that barred him from forming any type of emotional connection, any type of genuine relationship. Whatever it was he shared with Eek and Nalda was something he couldn't put a name to. There simply was nothing conventional about what had developed amongst the trio.

The movement against his chest caused the man to relinquish his makeshift embrace, russet-hued ears pinning forward to listen to the hypothesis Eek proposed about the fate of his children. Immediately the idea of another man and possibly a mutt leader; knowing how filthy and infested these lands were with impurities, trying to determine what was best for his brood had the fur along the back of his neck bristling, a quiver to his lips quickly smoothed out once his citrus gazed followed the ebony woman and her steps through the trees. Needing no further prompting his own paws began to fall in stride behind hers, curious to see for himself just what kind of state Asha had managed to find herself in and who this man was Eek had mentioned. "If he does take them to the Willows keep an eye on them. When the time is right I'll be taking our children back." 

He glanced sideways to Eek, curious how the woman would take this. If the Asurn could he would take his children now, but he knew he could not provide them with the nutrients they needed. Taking them would result in certain death for the cubs. Patience would be the key component and if need be he would slip back into his disguise as a doting member of society and play nice with the Willow wolves in order to keep a closer eye himself.