Turtleback Lake [m] crashed my car to feel again

-- Northern shores of TB Lake.

Trigger Warning - post and thread will be M rated, proceed at your discretion.

Rated M for self-harm and what will probably be an unsuccessful you-know-what attempt, but leaving it open-ended for now in case anyone wants to try responding or have their character attempt to “save her”. However, I’m more than content to have it be a one-off if nobody takes an interest within a few days. This was something Cole needed to get out of her system either way.

Again though, proceed at your discretion.

---

A lot was going on, and for most of it throughout the last several months, the ghost had been on the sidelines. In the background, continuing to try to hunt and patrol and just be there, whatever that meant on any given day.

It felt, quite often, like she was just here to be another body, another provider, but not truly desired by anyone. Or if not that, certainly forgotten amidst the births of children and the time that consumed. Not just for their parents but for the whole pack. Colette didn't hold that against any of them, though. She couldn’t, and she never would.

But it didn’t help her. Even focusing on the job didn’t help anymore. Seeing everyone else have things she could never have hurt, and earlier this morning, it was like something inside of her snapped. Emotions; anger, despair, and guilt she’d tried so hard to keep in check finally boiled over.

She’d moved away from the falls pointedly, towards the lake. Only stopping upon nearing the shoreline beside some random, large, jagged stone, which the ghost then proceeded to throw herself into again and again. Until her entire right flank ached and was stained with crimson from the many lacerations the jagged edges of the stone had carved into her flesh.

Anything to distract her from what was going on in her fucking head. But it wasn’t enough. It never was. There was only one way to stop it for good.

Her breath came in low, guttural growls, a mixture of pain and rage, as she turned pointedly toward the lake. Colette moved toward it, leaving a thin trail of blood in her wake, closed her eyes, and pressed forth until the water was over her head and then some.

She held herself under, relishing the stinging in her flank as wounds met cold water. Basking in the painful pressure and fiery sensation building in her lungs as she went longer without air. And when she finally couldn’t take the pain anymore, the ghost parted her jaws and let out a scream, until there was nothing left in her lungs at all. Muffled and drown out by the water that she hoped would take her.

(This post was last modified: Jul 20, 2023, 05:57 PM by Andraste. Edit Reason: added the M tag to thread title! )

tw: self-harm
if you would like me to roll for success or not, let me know, but andy is attempting with her all :)
note: andraste is injured from a recent fight, wounds tbd so vague!

She burned and ached with her own wounds.

Not self-inflicted, nothing like what the woman in the lake dealt with.

Andraste did not know these things yet though. She only witnessed blood and rippled water. The way it bubbled at the surface. Surely no prey had been crazed enough to end itself in wounded state? Or maybe someone had hunted it and driven it into the waters.

No hoof prints pocked the lake's sandy shore.

It was here, closer to its edge, that she realized it was a wolf within. She could not understand that such a thing might be a self-imposed ending. She only assumed something terrible had occurred. She could not say why she bothered with affairs that seemed beyond herself. Then reminded herself she had come here to prove something.

This was another herculean task come to test her.

She plunged in next and sought to grab scruff (or any flesh she could, truthfully) so that she could tug. Wretch them free from water into air. Even when her own jaw and limbs felt they might quake.

--im behind Andy being successful - and possibly dragging Cole back to the shore/whatever she intends. There's pretty much nothing Cole could do to resist atm, so any PP is okay

When the last of her scream had bubbled free of her jaws, there was an even worse pain inside - perhaps the worst the ghost had ever felt. Even the blinding of her eye had been more tolerable. A burning sensation and a sense of pressure so great that she could no longer resist.

Cole tried to take in a breath. Except where there should’ve been air, there was only water.

And it happened quickly after that. Her sense of feeling and control over her body faded rapidly, along with the pain, her consciousness, and everything else.

She was finally free, she had time to think, before slipping into darkness.

Then suddenly, there was light again. And air. And even though Cole was only vaguely aware of it, her body still sought to take in air and to expel the water she’d inhaled through a violent coughing fit. Her body seized, entirely out of her control.  

But why?

She freed the woman from watery depths.

Still she could not fathom the idea that this was anything beyond an accident. Perhaps a fight that had gone worse than her own in the red forest. Yet she thought none deserved this fate.

So still she dragged and tugged that waterlogged body to the shores. Where at least they could lay (or sit or stand, whatever the strength of the woman may be) without being at threat for another drowning, even if the water still licked at the ends of their limbs in shallow ripples.

Yet when they made, Andraste found herself entirely out of breath. Unable to strike pointed questions at the who and the why of this whole ordeal.

Perhaps it was for the best, she had not been born a counsellor.

Let them both heave their water drenched breaths and then, maybe, they would have words.

Light, the absence of water, and pain, lots of it. The last thing was all she could think about for an indeterminable period of time. Her body coughed and seized horribly for what felt like forever, seeming to confirm that she wasn’t dead, as she’d intended. Unless this was her eternal punishment in whatever sort of hell her deeds had earned. Certainly not impossible.

But eventually it started to fade away. The ghost found her breath steadying. Found she could eventually control it, as well as feel and move the remainder of her body and limbs. Her side still ached and her chest felt like it was on fire, but the pressure and water were gone. She could still breathe.

Then, finally, she thought to open her eyes, and found herself still on the lakeshore, lying on one side. Not very far away from the rock she’d thrown herself into, with someone else beside her.

Her apparent savior. Or tormentor, depending on which view she chose. Colette wasn’t sure if she should or shouldn’t know the wolf, either.

”Why?” The single word left her, little more than a weak rasp. Why help, why save her, why risk yourself? There were so many questions.

Why.

Andraste found herself at a lack of knowing. She had not stirred this morning thinking she would end her day a savior or champion of life. Perhaps she could have been cold and cruel, said that now the woman was indebted, but Andraste had not come looking for debts either.

Sometimes things simply happened and there was no grand reason behind it all.

"Why not?"

A question returned with a tired yellow gaze as she forced herself to sit upright. She had not the power yet to summon more of the questions she had earned in this encounter, but perhaps whatever response she was given would gleam insight into the peculiar setting.

Colette looked, or.. tried to look, over at her rescuer. She supposed that was the closest thing to a neutral term she could come up with, for now. Bigger, stronger, probably prettier - if she weren’t soaking wet at the moment. With two functional, bright yellow eyes - superior in every conceivable way.

But she looked tired, too. And perhaps not in the best of health.

Why not? Was her response, answering Colette’s question with another. Touché. Not the response she’d anticipated. The ghost wondered just how much the stranger had seen. For had Cole witnessed another purposefully do as she had, she’d have left them to their fate.

”Not worth the risk,” she murmured back, still as of yet unable to find either the strength or the coordination in her limbs to attempt sitting up. She did, however, at least manage to prop herself up on an elbow.  

She had not been born a counsellor or the coddling kind, but she had learned how to be such over her years upon the earth. As mother, as leader, as woman.

Is that what you think? Yet her voice did not seek to taunt or tease or provide resistance. Instead it was only asked flat and open. I find the risk minimal for the outcome we have now.

A woman saved. Perhaps at the expense of Andraste's warmth and energy, but these things could be remedied easier than a snuffed out life. She might soon need to succumb to help herself and yet for now she did not. She instead sat in her role well as rescuer, as savior. A high position had suited her always and even now in rather private moments that seemed to not change.

Is that what you think? The question sounded neutral and absent any judgment, as if the other was only curious. Then, an opinion. Which, in fairness to the stranger, was probably not a view that was too far off what the majority of their kind held.

Most wolves were good, or at least tended to lean towards that, and were willing to offer help when needed. Had this stranger pulled someone else from the water, even Cole would’ve begrudgingly acknowledged the bravery and heroism in such an act.

But when she was the one being saved?

”It’s what I know,” the ghost breathed back, squeezing her eyes shut again. ”I’m not worth it.”

It didn’t feel like she’d been saved. Quite the opposite, in fact. What would the wolves of the falls think, if they could’ve seen, or known? Did she even want to face them again? Right now, that supposed paradise was the last place Colette wanted to be.

tw: suicide discussions

The woman doubled down on not being worth it.

And at once the scene widened into something clearer.

This had not been an accident or even an attempted murder from another party. This had been self-inflicted with misery attached it seemed. The woman had wanted to stay in those deep waters and not remerge.

Was it guilt the woman felt now? Regret? Perhaps only regret that the act had not followed through and now she must face another in the aftermath.

Did a stranger make it better or worse?

I disagree. Despite her tired gaze, it sharped with concern as she peered down at the woman. A matter of opinions truthfully when it all boiled down to it.

Perhaps others have only made you feel this way, for what else would make you know such a thing?