Drooping Willows i realized it was only just a dream

@Eskil One more sad thread before Asha leaves for a bit
Backdated to May 6th

Two days had passed since Asha had given birth. Two days since the most painful, miserable, sorrowful experience of her life. She'd spent the entirety of the day after Eskil had taken Elle curled around her son's body and covered in her own mess. It had been about midday the day after that she'd finally just gotten up and filled in the den with dirt, effectively burying her puppy and the evidence anyone had ever given birth there in the first place.

The monochromatic woman had washed herself off in a river not far from the densite, and had gotten herself a much-needed drink. She still didn't feel hungry, though her skin was hanging limply from her once-swollen stomach and every bone she had was pressing through her fur like it wanted to escape. She just felt numb - number than usual. She supposed that was natural for her, especially after her outburst before. But there was one thing that she couldn't numb down - her need to know if Elle was safe.

So, the silver wolf had hung around the edges of Willow Ridge's territory all that day, waiting desperately to see if Eskil might show up so that she could beg him for information on her daughter - if she was being cared for, if Enoki would keep her, or if she was even alive. She prayed that the alphaess was as kind and fair as the large man had proclaimed, and if she wasn't, that Elle had not been thrown out like trash. Because, if she had, then there was simply no point in Asha's existence at all, and the once-robotic wolf would just let herself starve to death, too.

Finally, tired of waiting, Asha decided to take a chance on him being close and let out a soft, quiet howl for his presence.

It was a strange past two days to say the least. Eskil had never expected to come across Asha practically on his doorstep with her cubs born. He hadn't expected that she would leave her only surviving child behind, and he hadn't expected she would leave him, again. Perhaps it was foolish of him to think that this time, she might stay, after having left him not once, but twice before. Maybe... Maybe if he'd said something different when she declared her love for him, perhaps things might have turned out better for all of them. Perhaps if he said he loved her, he could have convinced Asha to stay with him in the Ridge, maybe her son would have lived, maybe she wouldn't have abandoned her children to Enoki's care. But to wield the word 'love' like a tool to bend others to his will was not something he could do, especially if it wasn't true. Even if it might have helped Asha in the end. 

He still couldn't tell how he felt about her. She dragged him back and forth, ran hot and cold, claimed to love him then left him three times now. Was there something terribly wrong with him? What did the Asurns have that he did not? The answer was obvious in a way he didn't like. Eirian had given her cubs, something he could not do. Asha hadn't known at the time but the thought was still there, the insidious inadequacy. Or was it his face? Were his scars too gruesome?

Whatever pushed Asha away from him time and time again, he didn't know. It wasn't the best foundation, and he certainly couldn't explore his feelings if she kept disappearing. And yet... yet here he was sniffing around for her. The guilt that there was something he could have done wore at him, as he wondered just what Asha could be doing now. He hesitantly ventured out to the site of her den, a heavy weight settling in his heart to find the den simply erased like it had never been there. He might have thought it was all just a dream, were it not for Elle now situated alongside Enoki's offspring. He was sniffing the recently turned earth for the lingering remnants of her scent when he heard her voice softly calling through the forest nearby. He huffed and shook his head, was he finally losing his damn mind? But sure enough it sounded like her, and hopefully not some hallucination or fever dream. 

With haste he made his way towards her, green fronds of newly sprouted ferns rustling against his flanks as he moved. As his evergreen eyes made contact with her almost ethereal grey form he held back a gasp, stopping in his tracks just a few short lengths away from her. There wasn't much left of her.

"Asha," He breathed, dark spruce eyes pained and confused as he continued to stare. She looked like death warmed over. Had she changed her mind and decided to stay after all? He tried to squash the small seed of hope before it could sprout; with Asha nothing could be that simple. "You're still here...?" He said, not sure himself whether it was an observation or a question.

It didn't take long for him to come to her, and her throat went dry the moment he came into view. Normally, she would have greeted him calmly and placidly, with a level head. But this time, though there were conflicting desires to run from him and also embrace him, there was a much stronger need - to know the welfare of her pup. So she hurried forward, blue eyes wide and desperate as she approached him, stopping just short of physical contact. "Is Elle okay? Did your leader take her? Is she being fed? Is she even still alive?" she begged, her body quivering in fear for her daughter.

She barely registered that he'd asked a question of his own, as she was far too overwhelmed with the desperation to know how Elle was. But then it clicked in her mind that he had spoken, and she tried to swallow and soothe her desert-dry throat. "I'm sorry," she began, averting her gaze in shame for the embarrassing levels of her emotions she had been showing lately. "You must think I'm so weak. But I am weak, and I need to know how she is. It's... it's why I'm here," she told him, in response to his question. She was planning on leaving immediately after getting the news of her daughter's health, and she looked up at him with wide, vulnerable blue eyes.

Asha was grateful he'd taken the pup to begin with, and she felt terrible for putting that burden on him. But at the same time, Eskil was kind and understanding, and she was more thankful than he could even start to understand. So whatever happened to Elle, she wouldn't be mad at her friend - at the man she loved. She wouldn't even be angry at the alpha of the pack, for not taking Elle in. If there was anyone to be angry with, it would be Asha herself, for giving into her springtime lust and satiating some sort of physical want without regards to anyone else's feelings or futures.

She was so selfish. But that didn't stop her from loving her daughter.

A thousand questions came flooding out of Asha all at once, so quickly Eskil hardly knew what to make of them. Well, maybe not a thousand questions, and the purpose of what she was asking in so many words was quite clear. She needed to know how Elle was doing. He should have expected as much, that she at least wanted to know what had happened to her daughter. He'd told himself not to get his hopes up, but it hadn't helped any.

"I understand." He said wearily at her explanation of why she lingered like a ghost unable to move on. She was Elle's mother, of course a mother would want to know what became of her baby. How Asha could leave Elle, he didn't understand, but that was not something she needed to hear from him. Eskil would have moved heaven and earth to have a child of his own. His muscular limbs shifted uneasily beneath him, more and more he felt like he was walking on eggshells, afraid of taking the wrong step. 

He cleared his throat before he continued. "Of course you want to know, you deserve the peace of mind, at least." Eskil gave a small nod. "Enoki did take her in. She is safe and healthy as can be." He explained simply.

Relief melted the silver-coated woman, and she dropped down into an exhausted sitting position, her bony shoulders rising and her head dipping down. "Thank god," she breathed, her eyes beginning to burn with emotion. She didn't want to tear up, but after two days spent worrying and mourning, and hardly sleeping, most would claim that she was entitled to be a bit of an emotional wreck. The life that she didn't even know that she wanted had just went up in smoke, and she stood before a man that could have, perhaps, eventually been her lover. One child was dead already, and the other was caught in a place that her mother could not follow - at least, in Asha's mind.

"Thank you so much, Eskil." The words were raspy and quiet, but heartfelt. "She'll be better off here, with you and your pack. It's better that she not even know I exist at all." Self loathing dripped like venom into her tone, and she pinned her ears to her head. "A mother who whored herself around, and then claimed not to want her, and then couldn't even provide food when she was hungry? Elle would only grow up despising me."

She shook her head slowly. "It'd be better if I just... didn't exist. I've done nothing good in my entire life; I've killed and I've fought and I've mindlessly obeyed orders. The one time I bring life into this world instead of removing it, I can't even care for it." A ghost of a smile crossed her lips - sorrowful and knowing. "It would seem that I have no purpose whatsoever, except to destroy what I don't care for and abandon what I love. If I'd known how this would have ended up, I would have let myself die a long time ago. I'm so sorry for all the trouble I've caused you." She looked up then, trying to meet his gaze and show him how genuine the apology was. It would have been better if he'd never stuck his head in her den, and if they had never met at all.

For him, at least.

She was glad to see his assurances offered the mother some form of relief. But even that was tainted by the shadow in her words, so much self loathing packed into each and every sentence that left her mouth. It was like a poison that seeped through her, so thick and heavy he could almost taste it.

"Asha, don't-" He began before he caught himself. He knew it was no use to tell her to stop speaking of herself in such a way. The scene was too familiar, and yet again there was that word he detested so much; whore. She was still dragging herself through the dirt, but this time it wasn't the result of his own boorish actions. 

Wherever she had been before he'd met her, they had done a number on not only her body, but her mind. He couldn't believe he was hearing her talk about dying so easily. Though a faint smile painted her lips, his own maw was pulled in a slight frown, his brows knitted in worry.  He shook his head, he didn't understand, not fully. But he couldn't let her go on thinking like this. 

"I've done terrible things I regret- worse yet, no one made me do them. I wasn't a mindless killer, I knew exactly what I was doing." He said carefully, not sure if Asha knew that side of him. Maybe she would want to take Elle with her after all. He was a soldier, true, but he could have easily stayed at home guarding the territory or followed the route of a medic. Nobody forced him to kill, and yet he'd snuffed out lives for the only crime of getting in his battalion's way. And he did it in the name of what, power? Prestige? Sure, he'd enjoyed the ranks and promotions it earned him, but it never gave him what he truly wanted, a family. Perhaps that was why he was so desperate to find his sister, she was seemingly his last chance at having some semblance of a family. But he'd failed in that, and had been forced to find some other way.

"But that's why I'm still here. I can't let death be my only mark on the world." Whether he would find any sort of atonement with the Ridge, it was too early to say. But he couldn't let the only legacy of Eskil Whitebark be that of a killer.

There is a moose carcass that has been scavenged by coyotes nearby. +15 Health

For some reason knowing that Eskil had killed was nowhere near as bad as having killed, herself. Eskil was good, and that was all there was to it. "At least you chose," she began, turning her gaze up to meet his. "I had never chosen anything before I left my home pack. If I had, then they would have slaughtered me for sport before the alphas. I could have chosen to disobey, but instead I let them make my choices for me. It was only recently that I left, after I watched them kill my mother." The words were spoken in monotone, emotionless, so that she did not have to revisit the memories she'd kept buried. If they were just words, there was no harm.

"Then I met you." She smiled then, her voice changing into something a bit more colorful. "You're the first friend I've ever had. I was scared of you at first, but then I realized how wonderful you were. So I chose to be with you - the second choice I ever made." The smile vanished. "But then I chose to leave you - the third choice. That was my first wrong choice, and every choice after that followed. I thought I was doing the right thing, at the time, so that I didn't have to make you... dirty, because you're so much better than I am." Which, in her mind at least, was completely and utterly the truth.

A sigh left the young woman's maw, tired and worn and heavy. "I want to stay with you and Elle, more than you could possibly understand." Every fiber of her being was calling her toward the willows - her instinct and desire and heart. But those had led her astray before, and she had no doubt that they would again. But, for this moment, at least, they ruled her. "I don't want to leave, Eskil..." She trailed off with a sudden, pained sob, and squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the flow of tears that threatened to spill forth. "I'm so scared I'll leave, and Elle won't ever know I existed, and you'll find someone else and forget, and it'll be like I was never here at all." 

She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, hoping that he could offer her some sort of answer.

Eskil gave her a sort of sad, confused look. In what universe did it being his choice make it any better? Those awful things he had done, that was a part of him, while Asha was an unwitting victim in whatever terrible machinations her pack worked towards. How could she have been expected to make any sort of choice when a punishment like death was on the table? 

Wonderful was certainly not an adjective he had ever expected anyone to call him after revealing what he just had about himself. He was glad that he was some sort of positive force in her life, but he was still as confused as ever. He tried to be better a better man, but he certainly wasn't the angel she thought he was. She didn't know him at all, and yet she claimed to love him. Did she love the man who enjoyed the feeling of another wolf's blood spilling over his teeth? Or the rattle as a life faded out between his clenched jaws? Was that the man she loved? Or did she only love the side of himself he chose to show her? His ears folded in a rare show of irritation.

Damp blue eyes were expectantly directed at him as if he could decide her life for her. She didn't want to go, and yet she was leaving. He liked her, he really did, but how much longer would he let himself be dragged to and fro. If he could get her to stay, would he simply wake up one morning to find her gone? He didn't want to send the grieving, starving, broken woman off into the wilderness alone to fend for herself. But he wasn't sure how much his own heart could take of this, especially when she loved an Eskil who chose to kill. 

"Asha... I can't tell you what to do. It's your own choice, and it will always be your own choice. Whatever your pack did to you, you are now free to make your own decisions." He sighed, feeling tired and clearly feeling in that moment the two years that stood between them. "For better or worse, life is dealing with the consequences of our choices, whatever they may be."

(This post was last modified: May 17, 2017, 05:22 AM by Eskil.)

That was absolutely not the answer she had been looking for, and now his ears were pinned back and she understood that to mean that he was angry with her. Her own ears flattened to her skull and she lowered herself, her eyes round as she watched him carefully, waiting to see if he would act out in aggression. She didn't understand why he was behaving the way he was - had he misunderstood what she'd said? Because, essentially, she had spilled her heart out to him, and hadn't berated him for his past. The way she saw it, he'd shown nothing but kindness to her when she'd been so terrible, so that meant he was good. After all, he'd shown her nothing bad. All he'd expressed negatively were words. She'd done plenty of bad things to him. But she hadn't here - not now.

So why was he angry now?

"I-" The word came out in a hoarse, tight, choking whisper. Her throat was too taut to raise her voice any higher. "I want... to stay with you. You and Elle..." Her breathing started to come out in tiny puffs of air through her nose, panic speeding her heart rate at the idea that he'd finally had enough of her and wouldn't want her with him. "I didn't mean to hurt you... I wanted to be your friend and not a.... a fuck-buddy for the sp-spring... I would-wouldn't have gone away if you hadn't left me..."

It was true - when she was in heat, she left because she didn't want to tempt him into anything more than friendship, and she felt so disgusting by wanting something more than that. Besides that, he had been the one to walk off. She'd been tempted to run off after him and beg for him to stay, and she was feeling the same fear of being abandoned once again. Perhaps if she begged, he'd stay with her this time.

Her tail started to tuck between her legs and she edged forward in an attempt to press against his chin and lick at his muzzle - submissive and shaking. "Please," she begged, her voice a trembling whimper. "Please don't go away again. I want to stay with you, please. Please." The words were quick and fraught with underlying panic, her breath still stuttering and hitching, and the tears in her eyes began to slide down her cheeks.