Dead Empress Backwater stories of old

RE: A meteor shower overtakes the sky!

She laid out in the open below the stars.

The summer had brought heat. A harsh addition to an already failing body. Most days she did not move. At least not very far. She sought the shade or the waters that the Backwater provided. More often than not she prattled on to herself regardless on if anyone was around. She scolded children who were not there, clicked her teeth at the wind.

Most things like her did not last nine years. Yet still she remained.

Anyone who monitored her health would have noticed the gradual decline over the last few weeks. Her joints ached even with the warmth and offered limited mobility when she did move. The lack of appetite prevailed most days. The constant elevated anxiety in all of her actions. Always fretting over something.

So perhaps someone who knew her (especially these last few weeks) would be surprised to see her so peaceful tonight.

Curled near the base of a tree, entirely unaware of the slow start of the meteor shower overhead.

Modesto did not leave the land of the swampy backwater territory too often. In fact, she had not left it at all since she had reunited with Vayko and Viorel. Though half these lands were covered in water, some not so clear due to being 'backwater' and all, Modesto had called this place home now. Begrudgingly, given the fact that it was not like the beach and sea, but it was home still. While Viorel and his women were taking to meeting the locals, scowering the lands, making allies... Modesto, uncaring of the world around her and only of home and of the family name, had remained.

This night, she returns home with a silvered fish in her jaws. She loved sea food and though this did not carry the salty flavor of such a thing, it would have to do. This time however it was not for her, but for her mother. Modesto and @Sita were her only two children which now were together with the lot of Valles and while Sita was busy tending to pup from man #3, Modesto kept her eyes to their mother.

She comes to her now, rested at the base of a tree. She is quiet, not ranting to herself-talking to shadows. Modesto comes to her mother's resting body and settles the fish before her. Whether she would take it or not this day would be up to chance. "Mother, look!" She speaks with a smile, hopeful to push her mother into good spirits as she lifts her muzzle to the heavens. "The stars are falling..." She muses, turning back down to Katna. "Remember seeing them before?"

(This post was last modified: Aug 25, 2021, 06:40 PM by Modesto.)

Sita may have thought herself an alright mother. But she had proven to be an awful daughter. She loved her mother deeply, but a deep anxiety clawed at her insides at the thought of the dangerously old woman. Afraid to see her in such a state. She'd already been going when they'd been seperated. It was worse now. All of the talking to nothing and restlessness. No one wanted to see their mother dying. Is that what was happening?

But Sita pulled herself together tonight as the sun set. A rabbit was held tightly in her jaws. Clamped, really, all of her nerves going into her teeth. Though, when she found Katna, Modesto had come across her first. The air smelled of fish and Sita felt silly carrying a rabbit along with her now. Perhaps an offering to Modesto instead.

"The sky is amazing tonight, isn't it?" Sita smiled at the two older wolves, dropping the rabbit at her own paws as if she needed permission to join them. She still felt a bit as though she needed the reapproval of her family in these times.

currently travelling with walleye

She livened into a hum at the sound of Modesto's voice.

It seemed so much to process at once. The familiar scent of fish (although it lacked the salt of home, of her empire) and the declaration of the stars falling. Accompanied by the arrival of another voice.

Girls.

Her dear girls.

"Come, come now." Mumbled dry and weary. Had she more strength she might have tried to rouse them into being right with her. At least Modesto was close enough for her to reach out and offer a gentle lick to.

"Did you ever," Slow breath in and out. Matted sides heaved. Ailments of old age and nothing more. "Hear the tale of the first time I witnessed the sky fall?"

Surely they had. At least as children. Oh how she had thought the world was ending the first time she had seen them. That everyone was doomed and the sky would be upon them soon.

katna is showing signs of mental decline
as such, she might be unreliable or confused

Skull lifted as she heard another's arrival. It was her thick and curvy younger sister, Sita her very self. Modesto's expression was questioning, as to what she was doing here after having seemed to of kept her distance for such a long stretch. It was true, their mother was weak, likely more so mentally then physically still. Katna did not supply the pack much which normally Modesto would have sneered and lifted her chin at. Modesto's mother was a soft spot for the woman, much as her littermare and the children she bore were.

The woman's hard stare was removed by the sound of her mother's voice and the lick which came there after. There is a rumble in her throat of wordless agreement to the aged Matriarch and she comes to settle down in a sit next to her. With it, she accepts Sita's arrival here though focuses her attention on the eldest majorly. I have, She admitted to Katna, But that was some time ago... She added, inviting her to give her story again.

Sita smiled at Modesto as she was noticed and remained paused there. It was sad, seeing her mother like this. It had been sad months and months ago in their original home. It felt...worse now, somehow. Perhaps the change in circumstances, realizing how much she'd missed all of this had made her more sensitive to it all. Sita carried the rabbit to her mother's otherside, settling there quietly, not feeling much like eating in this moment. She let her eyes take in every detail of the sky, only her ears turning to absorb each word the elder woman spoke.

"I don't think I have," Sita answered, tilting her head down to watch Katna expectantly. Perhaps it was a fib. But she wanted to hear it.

currently travelling with walleye

"I had tagged after...my father. A night owl he was." Some faint look of fondness on her face. So wishy washy to recall details. Who knew how many times the finer things of this story had changed. Mother, father, brother.

"I remember following him into a clearing. Overlooked the sea...I noticed then that the sea was not the only thing that...moved. The stars they came down. Big streaks in the sky." A slight wave of her muzzle as she tried to imitate the motion. "I was so scared!" She croaked with soft laughter. Leaned into whichever daughter was closest to her.

"I thought...I thought - !" A bit breathless. There would be a break as she tried to stabilize herself.

katna is showing signs of mental decline
as such, she might be unreliable or confused

It was bitter sweetness, these moments, what little would be left before her mother's inevitable death. Ten. Ten winters her mother came upon. The powerful tawny woman now frail, grayed all over. A once sharp mind gone hazy with cloudiness. Modesto, though phase gray naturally had even more silver upon her face and limbs then once before.

Her mother laughs, but her voice caught as she tried to continue her story. Modesto takes a breath, Both beautiful and terrifying, I'm sure.