✦✦✦

Her eyes opened on the edge of a cliff. It's surface was rough and rocky, the angle dangerously sharp. Below her was a large, hollow stump, half splintered to bits by the rocks clattering into misshapen piles at the base. They dug into the pads of her paws. She thought she smelled blood.

Her heart was in her throat and there was a voice in the back of her head, fading and desperate.

I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry!

Bragi blinked. It was hard to breathe.

What, she gasped, did you do.

There was no response.

She sucked in a single, shaky breath and tried to see past the heart hammering in her ears. A tree trunk, a landslide, a body.

A body.

There, partially buried under some rubble, was Apollo. He wasn't moving.

She might've screamed. It was hard to tell. All she knew was that she was suddenly at the base of the cliff, sporting several fresh cuts and bruises, trying desperately to clear the rocks and bark and debris from around his broken form.

✦✦✦

Sindri didn't have a heads-up. Perhaps there had been a scream, perhaps she'd been too lost in her own thoughts to hear it, but of all things that might've summoned the evening rose.... it was simply the faint smell of blood and the clacking of shifting rocks on an early morning walk. Confusion warped the calm, drizzly morning, and the short yearling blinked as her senses struggled to piece it all together. Her paws carried her faster.

Her charcoal gaze fell on Bragi, sweet, poor Bragi... digging.

She couldn't tell if the smell of blood came from the sister, or her nephew... who should've been right there, standing beside his adoptive family.

Where was he?

A quiet, strangled wail left her, and she sprung forward to help clear the rubble. She didn't say anything -- what could she say? Asking questions didn't help move the stones from his body. Knowing how he got here was, for the moment, irrelevant.

Even Astraios fluttered down with a distressed screech and clawed at a few small pebbles, very helpful indeed.

「 Skill Point ― n/a 」

Asgeir could not sleep that night, the moon above beckoning him with its silver lure. The boy was towards the north of the incident when it occurred, the collapse of the earth that thundered through the valley. Perhaps it was morbid curiosity that drew him to them, but the scent of blood was what caught in his throat.

Bragi, mask lifted, digging.

Sindri, shrill, digging.

It roused something within the golden boy that made him squirm, discomfort clawing up his spine. He made no sound; he did not need to announce himself as he drove forward and joined the pair in removing the debris. Asgeir focused mainly on stopping anything from falling back down on the small body they uncovered, using his body as a brace to the loose gravel and soil.

His eyes darted between Bragi and the child silently, a solemn swallow bobbing his throat.

✦✦✦

If she had felt any modicum of relief at her siblings' arrival, solemn as the body they were helping to excavate, she didn't show it. She didn't even acknowledge them. She just kept staring straight ahead, mindlessly moving rock after rock until her limbs burned and her paws bled and Apollo was, finally, fully visible from beneath the rubble.

I'm sorry, the voice in her head kept repeating, distantly, like a dream turned murky and incomprehensible in the light of the day.

He was older. His limbs were long and lanky, his face sharper and more defined without all the puppy pudge she'd worked so hard to put on him, his rust red fur turned rustier with blood. She'd lost so much precious time.

Bragi stared long and hard, until she saw the first shallow rise and fall of his chest.

✦✦✦

✷

---

6 months

"Where're we goin'?"

"I'm going to get some fucking peace and quiet."

Apollo grinned, though his ears still rotated backwards atop his head as he trotted merrily along at Bragi's heels. She'd been in a... strange mood ever since the Midsummer festival. She got mad more easily, over little things, things she would've usually just sighed and brushed off. And she'd forget things, too, like the stories she'd always tell him of gods and monsters. He'd try to remind her, but usually she'd just tell him to shut up, or forget it.

But that was okay! Sometimes people just had bad days. Or bad months. Apollo had lots of bad days! Bragi got mad at him a lot because of it, but that just meant he'd have to try harder to be good. Then she wouldn't be so angry all the time.

She glanced back over her shoulder at him and his ears pricked forward, his face lighting up expectantly.

"You're not invited," she snapped.

Oh.

His paws stuttered, and slowed, his tail waving limply at his heels. He turned to look out over the cliff, at the sprawling island far below. A memory tickled at him, and his tail began to pick up speed.

"Hey! Remember that story when—"

"Will you SHUT UP—!"

Bragi had whirled to snap at him, and he'd flinched backwards. His hip hit the edge of a fallen tree trunk. There was a shift, and an awful loud rumbling, like thunder. There was Bragi's wide-eyed expression, and sky — lots and lots of sky. There was rocks, and a sharp pain in his leg, and then there was nothing.

unconscious, skippable

Grief echoed in the silence around them as her anguished note fell away. Asgeir joined them, rigid, and they all moved the rocky pile with all the strength they could muster. It might've been hours or seconds, all she knew was the frantic thunder of her heart, the gentle patter of the rain, and the gods forsaken clack of the rocks.

But eventually, her sisters golden ward. Sindri’s little self felt bruised, and her claws were broken and frayed, pads bleeding, but she had never let her size stop her from keeping up and she couldn't let it keep her from helping Apollo now. She wouldn't.

It felt even quieter as they stared at the boy, hoping; relief flooded her as Sindri, too, caught the movement of a breath. He wasn't gushing from anywhere, but he wasn't conscious, either. For one panicked moment, she debated telling Astraios to go find the healer, but she didn't know if Lilja would appreciate the owl waking her even if he understood and could find her on his own.

He'll be okay, she uttered to Bragi, urgent and desperate, I'm going to find Lilja. Don't move him!

The tiny evening rose turned and sped off, Astaios fluttering to the sky and soaring after her hastily with a squawk.