Riddle Heights death wheeze

I'd like for this to be an opportunity for Elettra to have a meeting with someone she has not in awhile (or at all) so that they can get closer? Idk. @Morganna, @Asriel, or even @Skana? Multiples would be alright too!

Though perhaps her search had been temporarily cut off, it had, not at all, ended. The day that had never come, a sheet of bitter and utter darkness, she had kept willingly to the side of @Angier within the heart of her home where it was safest. It became more and more clear the dire nature of the winter. She had not experienced such void nothingness before within the winter and it seemed Angier's words of 'nothing to worry about' had perhaps jinx the Willow Ridge wolves and all within the Lore. For certain, the herds were gone. They had only but what was left in their caches before starvation would take its toll. Their meals had been reduced to a bear minimum, much going to the children for their own survival. Semananti had recently died of bitter cold and injury untreated. Food was not the only thing scarce, but their herbal supply all the same. They had lost many within their group already - Calla, Muerda, Tempest, Narcissa, Semananti... She worried of them, wondered of them and yet, as horrible as it was to say, perhaps it was best they were gone. Bodies would do well within the winter if their was food to find, the numbers taking down anything and everything they could. But with no food, they had less to eat and with such a small pack, perhaps they would make it yet... Elettra had not given up on Narcissa, the last of her Scouts to yet be confirmed dead. She had sought out beyond her pack territory for the second time whilst the snow was only a delicate fall and the breeze was not so bitter. She moved to the edges of the Heights, just east of her homes willow landscape. Any scent would have been long gone though her determination pushed her still. Perhaps it was luck, perhaps it was destiny or the god's hand at crude humor, but within the snows, Elettra Archer finally found what she was looking for... Narcissa Thanos. Only seen due to the early morning winds uncovering her just enough, her dead, sunken and frozen body was no mistake. Elettra pauses as her breath catches, her throat tightening and her stomach knotting. Heart shatters for her. She burned with rage, with pain, with sorrow. She wanted to scream out to the havens and curse them. And she did! Her cries shouting out loud, powerful and heavy with woe for her fallen friend as she, too, falls in the snows at the dead woman's side.

(This post was last modified: Jan 08, 2014, 07:12 AM by Elettra.)

An anguished howl bounced from mountain peak to valley, catching Skana's notched ears in between. She lifted her nose from the snow to listen, snout dusted with it from searching for any vermin that may have burrowed beneath. Immediately she could tell it was Elettra, with a mourning tone to her voice that made Skana's heart fall. Several of the Ridge wolves had gone missing, and if Skana was honest with herself the oncoming of the worst winter she had seen made their survival unlikely. Only recently had Semananti's corpse made an appearance at the border, the life sucked right out of her and into the frigid surroundings. Who would it be this time?

The rough edges of the height's foothills were dulled by the deep and steadily growing layers of snow, and Skana carefully balanced her wide bony paws as snowshoes over the surface. The scent of death, cloying and stale, but familiar, wafted towards the advisor who nervously quickened her uneven pace. Squinting against the vivid glint of the snow, she could see two dark shapes set into the white, blurred and indistinct. Elettra was easy to distinguish by scent, and the frostbitten, dead musk was recognizable of Narcissa in life. Skana sighed and slowly approached her leader and the cadaver. It wasn't clear whether it was cold or starvation that took the scout, but it was the same icy tooth of death that hung over them all, just waiting to fall.

"I almost didn't want to see who it would be this time," Skana quietly admitted.

He'd never heard his mother cry out with such a voice before- or at least, he couldn't remember hearing her sing like that. Having been perusing the borders at the time when his mother's voice caught his attention, Asriel had already been out and about when he decided quickly that he must find his mother at once and console her. Something was wrong- and he felt at once that someone had died. There were few doubts in his mind that it was something she knew and loved, and for some reason, a particular name came to mind. The one she'd asked to scout with her. The one who'd been missing for some time now. The one who'd intrigued him so very much.

Narcissa.

It was with deep regret that he approached his mother, who had since been joined by Skana, to see the body in the snow. He did not draw close, and avoided looking at what had once been Narcissa's face. All he could remember were her striking green eyes, and the way they danced with light, the soft tone of her voice and the merry sound of her chuckle. Narcissa had been very kind to him, and he felt sad to lose her. He tried not to make eye contact with his mother, and felt his shoulders stiffen. He didn't know how to grieve. But he wouldn't cry- he wasn't a baby, nor was he female. And it was unacceptable for a man to cry, in Asriel's eyes. He sat down, then, and stiffly leaned his head back, to utter a howl, one to Narcissa. He was at a loss as to what else he could say or do, and could do nothing but say goodbye to his friend. " "

Avatars by Allie <3

There was a blinding sadness which came over Elettra, once which she had not felt in some time. Of course this pain did not compare to the pain of being betrayed by her first love. Did not compare to the pain of watching each one of her pups being taken away from her to be killed. Still, the pain struck her, shuttered her to the bone. She remembered the anguish she had felt when she had found one of Jaysyek's pups dead in the fall foliage. She remembered the rage she held for Borden when the second pup fell and she could do nothing for him. The ferocity which she had taken out on @Ruiko because she could not take it out on the pathetic excuse of a father. The sorrow she felt was so very similar now and her paws dug deep in the snows as she lay next to Narcissa, while all stressed out and no one to choke.

Her clouded attention, threatened with tears batted away as she caught Skana and Asriel's approach. Her advisor and her son came to her aid though more then anything Elettra wished to be alone with her fallen friend. "Don't go dying on me too..." She whispers to the old woman, her silver attention fleeting over Skana before meeting her son. Silence takes her and Elettra's throat tightens, fighting off the high whine. Instead, once more she howls out, singing with her child in mourn for Narcissa Thanos, the pack's Scout and her dear friend.

Skana shifted to allow Asriel a place, feeling pity that this was the first winter the child had to experience. A small voice in her whispered that it could very well be his last, but she choked that thought down to the back of her mind as Elettra's whisper caught her attention. "I..." 'won't' she nearly said, but stopped herself. She knew it would be a lie to say such a thing. Everything died, and while winter could kill indiscriminately and arbitrarily, it was a fact that Skana's end was so tangible she could taste it.

Watching her leader practically caressing a body that would never again take breath made her feel ill. Skana shuddered, it was too familiar, too much. Once Skana had cried out in such a way, but she did not understand Elettra's grief now. Narcissa's death was indeed sad, a disappointment in seeing life cut short too soon, an aching empty socket where a part of the pack missing. But now, Skana did not kick and scream and rue the earth. She was uncomfortable and unsure whether it was her leader's unbridled reaction or her own subdued one that was incongruent. Feeling she was seeing something that she shouldn't, Skana turned her head in an averted gaze. She intently watched eddies of frost spiral over the heights as if they held an answer for her.

Asriel did his best not to look at Narcissa's body. Now that he was older and knew himself better, he knew that he'd once been attracted to her- as much as he could have been, when he'd been more immature. He'd liked her- she'd been kind to him, she'd been intelligent enough to earn his respect, and she'd been loyal to his mother, all the way to her death. Why she had to die was beyond him- he'd never seen her in weakness or ill health, and finding her dead foiled him. He did not know what to feel, but he felt claimed by shock and grief. He said very little, and once he'd finished his song, to which his mother lent her voice, he remained silent. He looked over to the two women only when he heard his mother's voice, sad and quiet. A tiny, vulnerable question was asked, but wasn't given a clear answer and Asriel looked at Skana, surprised for a moment. He wanted her to say that she wouldn't- he wanted her to reassure his mother.

But she couldn't. None of them could promise that they wouldn't be found a victim like Narcissa. If it could happen to her...It could happen to any of them. This was something that he was going to have to understand when he was older, but for now it was an intangible enigma. The loss of a soul while the body stayed behind and decayed. There was something about it which felt unsettling and he didn't like it. He didn't understand the feeling of death, what it meant to be no longer living. There was no return, and no way of knowing where the soul went- and he didn't like having these questions which couldn't be answered.

He could see that his mother was upset beyond his consolation, so he stood and neared her so that he could softly and sweetly kiss her cheek. With a tender breath fanning along her cheekbone, he uttered a wordless aspiration with which he could have said something- but he had no words to say, nor did he feel that any words he could conjure would ease his mother's grief. Having said his goodbye to Narcissa and attempted what he could to console his mother, the young prince sauntered off with the intention of finding somewhere that he could rest in private and contemplate life and death in peace.

It was over. Their song ringing out into the open, chilly air. Her head lifted, muzzle moving to that it would work along the edge of her young son's cheek as he took to her own. He was there to comfort her in her sorrow over the death of a fallen friend and Skana's silence and lack of health would only lead Elettra to understand that one day too she would be resting at the side of her corpse. The deepest of sigh takes her, watching as her son makes his retreat to which he came. A silvery pale attention drifts to Skana, wondering if she too would leave the scene. Elettra had no intention of being alone here, wasting time cradling the body of a woman that once was though now was no more. She lifts then, her limbs at first shaky and hesitant. She willed herself not to look once more at the corpse that lay next to her, unwilling to allow herself to remember Narcissa in this light. Without another word or another look to Skana in any acknowledgement, Elettra too leaves the scene forever behind.