Kingsfall Don't Say A Word

Aponi had taken the Bend pups on a trip up the mountain, going to see her daughter Kyna—the daughter who left shortly after Ice joined. He didn't have any clear memories of her, but he thought she was black, like the rest of them, and had, probably, been opinionated. As far as Ice knew, she had gone on to found a pack up on the Serpent, and that was why they had gone on their little field trip. Ice had weighed his options. Either he did what he should've done, and accompanied Aponi, keeping them safe, or, he did what he could do: go visit Kisla and Jessie, because the pups were safe and the packlands almost emptied, so he had no reason to stay and hunt.

It hadn't been a choice, really. He couldn't do anything but go north, so a couple of days after Aponi had left, Ice did, too.

He couldn't wait much longer. He was trapped between not wanting to bother Kisla, and wanting to show her that he still cared, that he meant it, that he wanted to know how she was. It didn't matter who the father of her children were—they were hers. They had been hers right from the start, at least, on his part. It wasn't about the cubs. It was about her.

It took a couple of days, but then the now familiar, painfully so, redwood forest rose around him. It started slowly, a giant of a tree here, another there, but before long he walked the silent spaces between them. His heart was hammering in his throat. Last time, he hadn't exactly received a warm welcome, but he wouldn't let fear keep him away any longer.

The pack's borders came close, and he stopped. He could barely smell Kisla on them, but that wasn't strange—she was probably busy nursing and caring for her young. Ice took a couple of minutes to catch his breath, then tipped his pale head back and called out for her.

Guardian Dem 1/3

There were times in Hearthwood when everything felt like it was weighing down on her but it wasn't such a constant thing for her. The trip to visit the rye wolves had helped, to get away for a few days and not have it constantly biting at her heels. She knew she still had a long road ahead of her before she could be in the same place with Kisla's death as she was her father's. It had been over a week since her mother had been killed and Inna had done all the laying about and moping that she would allow for herself.

It was a slow process like after Oksana had been born but she was getting back into her duties. Hunting, patrolling and even a few short trips outside the territory to get into shape. She wanted to be a scout and after her trip to the rye she knew that was what she was meant to do. This day however required a different set of her skills as a call came from the borders.

As always the Raven didn't waste any time getting there and when she came to the treeline she paused to observe the man at her border. She could see he was much older, even older than her mother. She had yet to meet someone like him but that didn't have her rushing out to greet him. Instead she came into view slowly with tail and head raised, this was her home and she would protect it if need be. Though her posture spoke of her new position as second she was also friendly as she spoke. “Hello, I’m Inna Baranski second of Hearthwood River. What brings you to our borders?” She asked taking in his scent as she did so. Inna did not recognize it and hoped the man would enlighten her to his origin.

~Table by Jacqueline

(This post was last modified: Aug 09, 2017, 10:47 AM by Inna.)

Please see Kajika's OOC profile for OOC preferences, thank you.

 

His call faded into silence, a mere memory between the trees. His heart beat too loudly in his ears, a strange and constant rhythm accentuated by the singing of birds—they had quieted as his howl rang out, but picked up their tune again. It was beautiful. It reminded him of home—Swift River—because somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of rushing water. The Bend's creek was too placid to bring to mind the same sounds, and he found himself missing the Sacred Grove more and more with every day. It wasn't that he didn't like the Woods, for he did, and it was where his family was, but something in him gnawed with growing urgency. He wanted to be there, because his mind had begun to tell him it was home. It was like he expected to be there, but he wasn't, and it was doing things to his head.

No call answered his. No ice cold, stern order from Kisla, asking him to turn back, or rallying the pack to drive the intruder from the doorstep of their home. It was just the silence of the forest, heavy on his shoulders. What did it mean? That she was coming alone? That she was ignoring him? Would he be left to stand there for hours, waiting on something that was never to come? He chewed on his lips, and pawed a little at the carpet of leaves and needles and yesteryear's old dead things. It wasn't like a lot of time had passed anyway, but this particular encounter.. it ate at him.

When someone finally arrived, it wasn't Kisla. It was a young female, black as the night, her posture proud. Ice stilled, and he dipped his head politely. His tail pointed down, but gave a few tentative half-wags. He had no idea who this girl was, but she smelled of the River, and she wasn't here to eat his face, so at worst she was here to tell him off on Kisla's behalf.

Inna Baranski—that was Kisla's taken name, no? So, by every bit of logic he knew, this was one of Kisla's daughters. "Ice," he replied, wishing he could skip the pleasantries and just knock her over, like he had done with Triell, and yell where is Kisla?! in her face. Not that Kisla not being here was her fault in any way... that was all on him, he suspected. "Of Oak Tree Bend. I'm—I'm here to see Kisla. How is she doing..?" Did the rest of the pack know she had turned him away, the last time he had come looking? Had they been warned about him, somehow told to turn him away if he came looking, or.. was he just a stranger to them?

Anxiously, he waited.

let the stars above shine in your soul

Inna knew she wasn't supposed to be there, Lachesis had made it very clear her punishment was to stay away from the border. She wasn't even support to leave the territory, all of it just made her feel like a pup again. A punishment she would give to her daughter for straying too far from home. She was subordinate though and had to accept it even if she didn't completely agree with it. It was all just so much and as bad as she had felt the night before she'd hoped a secret border patrol would help her to figure things out.

Everything seemed different since she had returned from her trip, Lachesis, the way Hearthwood felt to her. All of it and the longer she walked the border the border things did not become clearer in her head. Her mother's death, the meeting could they have caused all of this to happen? What she did know was Lachesis wasn’t upset that they were late but their behavior while they were away. He didn't even know the true, just some lies told with just enough to make it believable.

It was just her luck that someone would come calling at the borders while she wasn't supposed to be there. She couldn't just let it go, return to her den before someone showed up and saw her. It. She hoped it wouldn't be Lachesis that showed up after he told her not to greet visitors the previous night. She went and she greeted the visitor as she should, how she had seen others do. Then she waited for him to tell her who he was and why he was there.

She didn't have to wait long as he stated his name before telling her that he was here to see her mother. He was from Oak Tree Bend the pack she wanted to visit once she was off punishment, they needed to know. It seemed that Ice had been sent at just the right time. Right or wrong Inna was glad she was the to meet him. Her whole posture dropped at the mention of her mother, this was going to to be hard but it had to be done. She met the man's silver gaze that struck something in her, she'd seen them before. The words she'd heard her mother say before she died coming back to her. “I'm sorry that you have to find this news out this way but my mother is dead,” she finally spoke before going silent allowing him a moment to process what she had told him.

~Table by Jacqueline

(This post was last modified: Aug 25, 2017, 02:19 AM by Inna.)

Please see Kajika's OOC profile for OOC preferences, thank you.

 

Something was wrong.

Something was oh so very wrong, that feeling in the air congealing in his blood, freezing over—a dull-sensed youth grown into something older, more sensitive, more aware, and now it pummeled him full force. His own restlessness, the agitation over this inevitable confrontation, met the cold dread of certainty: something was wrong. It gripped him, held his heart in an icy claw, robbed the breath from his lungs and nearly forced him backwards even before her eyes met his.

It was as if the birds themselves sang off-key, as if the sequoias stood guardian over some secret, a fallen hero—heroine, laid to rest with flowers and a sword on her chest. For she had been a fighter, just of a different kind. He had chased tangible demons, hers had been whispers and nightmares, a haunted forest.. for a moment, he saw her in the black face, in the amber eyes, in the harshness of the expression—not angry, not cruel, just hard and strong. Moonlit steel.

Don't say it. Whatever it is, don't—

But she did, and the words fell like a blow to pierce his heart. “I'm sorry that you have to find this news out this way but my mother is dead,” Kisla's child said, and he didn't know if he was breathing anymore.

He felt a prickling in his heart, his throat constricting for a moment; he had felt it before, when he'd gone looking for her, when she had closed the doors to a future where they could be something, like a torn muscle but in his chest. It flared bright for a moment, then faded to a dull, throbbing ache, pulsing in the emptiness of his mind. It was a vast vault, a lonely, dusty place, full of memories and bones and graves he visited—too many, too often. Was he always going to be too late..? Were they all going to die without him? No goodbyes. No comfort. He had no chance to tell them how much he loved them, how much they mattered. Corinna, dead in the snows, after all she had built, all she had endured, and he had let her down. She had given him everything he still held dear, and he hadn't been there for her.

And now, Kisla.

.. my mother is dead. How could it be? How was it possible? She had been so young, too young, tried and tested and broken and fused back together again—she had been warm, alive, there. It didn't matter that she had left him cold and alone in the morning, for she had, if but for a moment, forgiven him long enough to take something from him. Confused, Ice found that he was sitting down, his gaze glued to the leaf-littered ground.

I'm sorry, he wanted to say, but what did you say? I don't think I quite heard you right, I thought you said, she's dead, but she can't be, she can't be, she fucking CAN'T BE—

"Indru," was what he found himself saying, the name thick on his numb tongue. "What did you do to us, Indru..?" It seemed every evil came from him, because it was so much easier than seeing the evil within himself: how he left and he left and he left and he never saw enough, too blind and wrapped up in a world he could tear apart with his teeth.

But there's no beating death. "What..." he swallowed, and forced himself to look Kisla's daughter in the face again. "What happened?" What could break that unbreakable wolf, what could kill something so strong, forged from so much ruin..? What was terrible enough to kill Kisla?

I'm sorry, Corinna. For everything. For not doing more to keep her safe.

let the stars above shine in your soul

When she'd gone to Wild Rye Fields to tell them of what had happened to her mother Inna hadn't had to find the words. She hadn't had to figure out the best way to say it or suffer through the pain of saying it out loud. Jessie had already known and saved her from it but now as she stood in front of the man she had to. He wanted to see Kisla and Inna couldn't lie to the man who had traveled to see her. She didn't know how far Oak Tree Bend was from Hearthwood, all she did know is her mother had been gone quite a while when she'd gone to visit. Inna also didn't know if maybe this man was some relation to her mother and if he was he deserved to know that Kisla no longer walked among them.

There was also something Interesting about the man's eyes, they seemed so familiar to her. The words her mother had spoken just before her death also came back to the Raven then. It left her wondering if she wasn't talking to the friend her mother had spoken of, could she be looking at Matheo and Risaela's father? Now wasn't the the time to find out the truth, she had to deliver the news of her mother's passing. Already her heart was tightening in her chest. She knew it to be true, she'd laid by her mother's dying body while she took her last breath. Even still there were times when it seemed like a bad nightmare. She felt that saying it out loud would make the nightmare become more than that, it would be tangible.

She couldn't keep the truth from him forever so she said those words and at the same time felt like a part of her had died too. The Raven felt it was a miracle she even got them out, she'd tried to be as gentle as possible but how could you with such news? It was the harsh reality that she had to live with everyday and try to get through one day at a time.

That had been easy when she’d been out looking for Risa and watching the rye borders. She'd had one concern, her sister and getting her back. Returning to Hearthwood, being confined to the territory and not feeling up to patrols or hunting she was forced to face the fact her mother was dead everyday.

Inna watched the man closely while she waited for him to process what she'd just said. The Raven gave him the time he needed to compose himself or wrap his head around it, she didn't know. It wasn't her business how he was taking the news but she didn't feel as though he was taking it well. There was a part of her that was curious what was going through his mind in that moment. Like her however, his thoughts were his own and she wouldn't pry as she wouldn't want anyone trying to find out what was going on in her head either. So, she remained quiet to see what he would say next because until he spoke she had nothing else to say once she'd dropped her boulder of news. She kept her orange gaze on him as he wanted up in a sitting position just before he finally spoke.

Finally he did speak a name causing Inna to work her about Indru but like the question about him being the father of her half siblings that could wait too. His next vocalization was a question that struck the Raven as odd but once again she kept her maw shut. This she would have to ask about later.

Then he said one word before he stopped, for what reason she wasn't sure but he did finish it. A question she would most certainly ask herself if the situation was reversed. “She was attacked by a mountain lion, it came out of nowhere. My mother and sister tried to fight it. Everything happened so fast before I could do anything the cat had done its damage. My mother couldn't be saved.”

As she told the story sparing him the terrible details flashes of what had transpired that day had crossed her mind. By the time she had finished tears were streaming down her face. The pain she had felt the day she had lost her mother had returned just as strong as they had been as she lay at her mother's side. She met the man's silver gaze, “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

~Table by Jacqueline

Please see Kajika's OOC profile for OOC preferences, thank you.

 

He wasn't supposed to outlive them. He was supposed to watch them grow, come into their own, like flowers blooming, whether by sun or moon, and watch them disappear to build their own lives—watch them as they watched as he did, and before any of them wilted, he would've. He should've been dead and cold in the ground with Corinna, just bones like Slyscar on the Mosses, but instead he sat there with his heavy head and heavy heart and was told that Kisla is dead. It tasted bitter in his mouth.

A mountain lion—he closed his eyes. So it had taken much to fell her, then, much to end her, and as he sat there he touched it with his mind: you will never see her again. It felt.. unreal, as if it wasn't true, as if she was just away, would be back in a few months—not forever out of reach, walking among the stars with her dead mate. Perhaps it was because he had never seen their bodies, but all of them lurked there in that not-quite-place, marked "missing", not "unreachable". Marsh, dead somewhere far away, the only proof in Triell's words; Corinna, dead while he was elsewhere, the only proof in his son's words; Kisla, dead while he was elsewhere, the only proof in her daughter's words.

He believed them, but he could not live it. They couldn't be permanently gone—silent minds, silent hearts, just gone...

But they were, and one day, he, too would fade into a blackness so absolute he would not know he had entered it. There would be no waking from it, no knowing it, a state of simply not being so profound he couldn't wrap his head around it.

Ice forced his eyes open again. How long ago had it happened? Somewhere between spring and now, but—when? And did he have any right to sit at their borders, the breath robbed from his lungs, when her daughter stood before him, crying? Reliving what she had, obviously, witnessed? She had lost her mother to violence, to the Donata fire which demanded they protect and sacrifice, and he had stepped into her sanctuary, bringing it back.

As if that kind of thing ever went away.. he knew what it was like to lose loved ones—every day he had drifted as a ghost, mourning the wolf he had loved, until it had driven him away.

Hesitantly, Ice rose as she whispered an apology for something she had no power over. Their eyes met again, his sad, hers wet, and slowly, the pale wolf made to cross the distance between them. If she let him, he would touch his nose to the tears tracking down her cheeks. "It is not your fault," he rumbled quietly, unsure of what to say, what to do—something was coming undone in his mind, something was falling apart, but he couldn't quite pin down what it was. It was unsettling. "I am sorry for your loss—for our loss. Kisla.. she..." His jaws worked, but no sound came out, until he sighed and dropped his head. "She was just a child when I first met her, only half a year or so. And now..." Helplessly, he gestured with his muzzle, unsure of what he wanted to impress on Inna. Unsure of what he felt, besides deep, profound loss.

And, recklessly, he decided to forge on, to at least fulfill the reason for his visit—to receive something to hold on to, because dark winds were howling in the back of his skull. Quietly he asked, "and what about her children?" Had she even had time to give birth to them, or had she died before they were due..?

let the stars above shine in your soul

It wasn't easy to relay the story to Ice of her mother's death but she knew she had to, at least enough that he would know how she died but that she'd gone out fighting. That was her mother though, she was a fighter. She'd lost her mate and most of her children but she’d kept going. Inna knew she had to do the same for herself and Oksana. Ice needed to know for when he returned and the others wanted to know how it had happened. He needed to be able to them them because they needed to know.She'd thought before that it would be easier but she'd been wrong, pretending she was okay wasn't anyway to deal with such a loss. She'd been stupid to think that she was able to do such a thing, to allow herself only a short time to grieve for her mother.

They'd had their ups and downs but at the end of it all her mother had always been there for her and she deserved so much more. Reliving her death in the telling of it had brought back the emotions she’d felt so strongly and still did. She'd pushed them down so that she could go on and be strong for the pack and her daughter, it was only now she knew she couldn't continue to do that. She had to give herself to the grief and let it run its course and then one day when she could feel a small sliver of hope again she would know that slowly she was getting better. It could not be rushed or forced it had to have it's time and now she would give it all the time it needed, she needed to be well for her daughter and for Lorcan.

She just hoped that everyone could understand that she needed to do this but she worried that they wouldn't. They had not consider everything she had lost in the past year and the effect it had in her. More and more she felt like her mother's life reflected her own and she worried that one day Oksana would leave her just as her siblings had done to Kisla.

The man standing in front of her, Ice, Inna's orange gaze rested in him once more as her tears still streamed down her face. He had lost Kisla too and he hadn't had his chance to say goodbye to her. The Raven could see it in his reaction to the news, his face as she looked across to him how much he had cared for her. She wished there was something she could do to ease the pain he felt but she couldn't even ease her own so how could she his. All she could do is offer any information that might help him with his grief. She hoped that that much would be enough but she knew that it wouldn't, it never was. She had learned for her father's death that it didn't matter nothing was ever enough and the pain never completely went away.

She watched as he rose to his feet as she spoke her apology for not being able to do more to save her mother. Their eyes meet for a moment before he closed the distance between them, she didn't stop him. Then she felt his nose on her cheek as he spoke telling her it wasn't her fault. “I should have ran faster to get to her, maybe I could have kept it from happening.” She admitted. It was the thought that ran through her mind every time she replayed what had happened. Inna brushed her muzzle against his cheek in an effort to comfort him, “Thank you and I am sorry for your lost too.” He spoke of when he'd first met Kisla but stopped, “It's hard for me sometimes to imagine her so young but she was a strong woman and I can only hope to be just as strong.”

Inna saw the gesture of his muzzle and let silence pass between them not wanting to break the moment. Thoughts of Kisla she was sure went through both their minds and then he was the first to break the silence. It was a question about the children that Inna couldn't answer fully but she spoke with the information she knew. “They are coping though it can't be easy for either of them.” Since she hadn't been able to see Risa she couldn't be for sure of how she was doing and she had never been close to Matheo but she remembered how he had been at the meeting

~Table by Jacqueline

Please see Kajika's OOC profile for OOC preferences, thank you.

 

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity

Her black cheek was wet beneath his cold nose. She smelled vaguely of all the things Kisla had smelled of that spring night—the giant redwoods, a blend of individual scents, the rich, earthy smell of water. Kisla had smelled of spring and new beginnings, Inna smelled of fall, and the death of things. Salt. Slowly, his eyes closed, listening to the guilty survivor—a sentence he had thought a thousand times himself. What if they had moved the pack faster, across the mountains? What if they had reached the glade with the oak tree before the stranger had found Marsh and Triell, and they had left in pursuit of him? What if he had managed to return—would Corinna still live?

What if they had caught up with Rissa's abductors sooner? Perhaps they wouldn't have had to find her corpse, mutilated and frozen and laid out for the crows. Perhaps, they still would've had that exuberant, talkative, silly little girl with them.

"Don't think like that," he told her gently, his eyes reflecting all the loss he tried to tell himself he couldn't have prevented. "You couldn't have known it would happen." Her muzzle brushed against his pale cheek, and a small, sad smile curved his dark lips. The white hairs on his muzzle were peppered with coarser silver ones, testament of the age creeping up on him—just like that thing coming lose in his mind, like a sore, infected tooth finally letting go. It disturbed him, but he tried to shove it aside, and not to think about it.

“.. but she was a strong woman and I can only hope to be just as strong.” Slowly, Ice pulled back a little. He had never met Maksim, and he had rarely known Kisla in her adult life; he had disappeared long before that, a ghost lost in a world of snow and reindeer and memories. "I think you are," he said, regardless, his deep voice quiet, for it was not a conversation that needed loud voices, but rather the kind to be spoken softly, lest they break more. He swallowed a little. Was it just a trick of his mind, that he saw something of Kisla in the black-furred female? Wishful thinking? Her eyes burned orange and amber, nothing at all like the green of Kisla and Corinna, but maybe, maybe, vaguely reminiscent of Indru and Triell...

He tried to put it out of his mind as his heart picked up its pace, afraid of what he would be told. She answered him evenly, though, and without the scrutiny he had feared—after all, what business did he have, knowing that Kisla had been expecting..? He let his gaze fall again, unsure of how to go on. "I, uh..." Kisla had made it so clear she didn't plan on telling him anything, but.. he closed his eyes. She was gone. He still couldn't believe it. And poor Serach... "What's.. what's their names..?"

let the stars above shine in your soul