Saga just wanted a nice peaceful nap, was that so much to ask for? Her life was dramatic enough without believing in the end of the world, but it was harder to do so when great glowing blue fissures sprouted in their home and nearly swallowed her daughter, amongst other irrefutable proof she noticed in the world itself the longer she bothered to look. But what was she supposed to do? An answer came with the dream, at least. A choice.
But Saga wasn't a judge, and she wasn't a fighter. She wouldn't know the first thing about battling spirits, especially! Her heart ached for the One Left Behind, felt it eat away at the cover hiding an all too personal feeling of staring through the flames, watching her Mother stare her down and demand her to ’walk, or burn, I do not care’ despite the choking flames having consumed the path. But she hadn’t been chained and used as a magical battery for… gods knows how long. What happened when a beast like that was set free?

Saga was a coward. She left him behind, too, hoping someone else would discover what she could not face herself.

That left the first portal, bursting with the sound of hope, the first hint of sun she had seen in… months, now. Did her children even remember the sight of the bare sky? Were their memories filled with a bloody moon and a constant cover of cloud? Saga hesitated only a moment before trotting through. The cold, icy blast that greeted her rocked her on her scarred paws for a moment, but she forged on until she saw...
Jaxxon?
Her heart soared, and she bounded forward to press herself against his side.

The silver woman tipped her head back and sang; together, they'd bring back the sun, stop this storm, fix the world for their kids and their future together.

Raisa's life continued to morph and change, and hope was finally a bright light on the horizon wrapping her in the warmth of a new day. A new life. Newer lives. But the plague still blocked the way to her peaceful existence, and while she'd felt largely unhelpful for much of it save for the drive that kept her providing for her people in the darkest of times, she couldn't ignore a direct call for help. Even laden with pups, sides swollen, she moved forward on tingling paws ready to fight for their right to be here in the only home Raisa herself had ever known. The spirits were attacking the very womb that gave her and her siblings life, that brought Wardruna's children into the world, that fulfilled the dreams and filled the hearts of probably many people who couldn’t otherwise reproduce.

Didn't the part of Mythris in them mean anything?

Maybe it meant too much.

For them, for Bo and their unborn, for Sera and Carnifex, for all of Northfall and all of Mythris, Raisa would not back down! Her children had a right to this land, she had a right to this land! Wherever her ancestors were from before that, admittedly, she didn’t actually know, but she had been born here. She had grown up here. Her whelps, they would be born here.

She would bleed for those right, here and now, and nothing would stop her from protecting what was hers.

She strode to the door without hesitation, teeth baring in a snarl.

'Raisa?'

She froze in place, tail twitching higher. Don't, Bo.

'Raisa!'

'Don't!' he echoed her thought.

Except… perhaps, for Bogart, worried for the very pups she yearned to protect, worried for her. It was an affront to everything she knew, everything she was, to back away from this chance. Resistance reared its ugly head, but not even the imperious sapphire tigress was willing to turn her back on her partner as he called for her to wait. To reconsider. He admitted, heart-wrenchingly, that he wasn't interested in figuring what life was like... without her. She wanted to argue, the words sizzling on the tip of her tongue and brows furrowing, but found she just plain fuckin’ couldn’t. He'd convinced her even before his last, desperate attempt to sway her with the whelps' safety, but it wasn't a bad idea to drive the point home. She knew it wasn't a lack of faith in her or her abilities, just...
Choosing her. Above all else.

Damn this man and the way his softness disarmed her so readily. Damn him being just plain right. Fuck, she muttered under her breath with an exhaled rush of air, frustration coloring her features just a moment before smoothing.
He would not ask this of her if he didn't think he had to. That, Raisa was certain of. And... who was she, to inflict the worry of being left alone upon her dearest heart? No, that wouldn't be her. Couldn't be.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you Bo. Always with you, sweetheart.

And she smiled his way with a defeated, amused air about her and nodded, willing to be led away from the door. It rankled her pride, to be sure, but a conveniently timed kick reminded her that he was right and he didn’t even have to say it; protecting the lives in her own swollen belly was desperately important, and she could never forgive herself if going into war for them would steal them away from her. If it would steal her and them from him. Wasn’t that just her luck?

Thankfully, there were other ways to help. Raisa leaned into Bogart's touch and followed him through the first door.

The chorus of other voices was so loud the Rodion laid back her ears, but the sizzle of hope running through the air, electrifying her, was infectious. Bo's first notes touched the sky first, and Raisa was swift to follow in harmony with the melody of her own song.