Skill: Heartbroken 1/5

Dated to 6/17, open for all of Elysium. no real post order, though I likely won't post until siblings post.

Fleetwood hasn't come for him.

He's been on the edge of the territory, not bothering to venture in towards that accursed lake. And Fleetwood's visited him whenever she could, but he'd watched her eat away before him. She loved him, and yet she would not hear it when he said they should leave. Dimitri had left. Spider had left. If she loved him, wouldn't she come with him? Sure, he was old enough to be on his own, strong and brave and powerful, and yet.

And yet.

This land is so dead. This isn't the home he grew up in, the only home he ever knew. Fate's Respite has always been a beautiful place, a land of beauty and wonder. And Pinesprings doesn't want to see it this way, doesn't want to exist in this space.

He smells them before he sees them. A rotten stench, waste that shouldn't be there. Not around his parents' bodies. Not the way they hold each other now.

They aren't breathing. He touches them. They're cold.

The sound that erupts from his mouth is not a howl, but instead a primal scream. Loud as a howl, it's likely all within Elysium would hear it.

Ranger

They've been gone for so long.

Not only that, it had been a miracle and a half that Verbena had remembered how to find the way home, after following Pennyroyal on his manic search for the runes, coming face to face with another area of the plague and it's effects.

She could still see the memories of war...slaughter...as if they were her own, could still feel the blood in her teeth, even after they had placed that stone tablet together with it's brother and fixed something wrong in the world. But after that, Verbena needed to go home.

They both did.

At least, for a little while, enough for the pair to rest and for herself to get her strength back up. To take comfort in their parents embraces.

It never really occurred to her that her parents wouldn't leave for elsewhere, or stay on the borders, that they would willingly stay in this hellscape after all the prey around them had died.

But when the wandering pair had finally reached the end of their journey home, the screech that reached her ears was enough to abandon Pennyroyal in her sprint towards the source.

It sounded like Pine, and it brought ice into her veins, the girl for once having worry on her features when she got closer and burst through the bushes. She hadn't even noticed the fresh stench of death, Elysium had smelt that way for...so long.

Verbena sees Pine first, going on alert for the danger, before seeing.....

Them.

And she just stood there, staring, processing.

She never said goodbye.

Death.

It drew the youngling like a moth to a flame. Achlys knew not why his limbs carried him toward the scent. He only knew he must follow it. The cry, raw and blood curdling might make another wolf move in the opposite direction, but it only made his long inky limbs carry him quicker. Go. A sense of urgency tugging at the fibers of his soul pushed the youth, narrow head ever arched toward the earth slowing only as the scents of others beside the sweet stench found his minds eye.

There was ginger, rich but biting; a sharp orange─and something softer, blue and blacks of raven feathers. These were what he pictured when he breathed in the Elysiums scents. The boys movements drifted into lingering but confident motions; like he belonged here.

And then at the edge of the scene he sat proper, front paws tucked tightly against his body between his rear ones,  ❝ Dazhe v Arkadii... ❞ (Even in Arcadia...) he murmured, head tilting slightly at the way the lingering scents of death; the same, but different intermingled with one another in a final embrace.

─
❝ speech ❞

The dreams were terrible.
Nightly, even sometimes in his waking hours when the world around him was still and quiet, it was hard to push aside visions of war and destruction, imagining all sorts of horrors that must've plagued the land before. Was it all the same things: poison snow and water, terrible angry mists, or was it something else entirely? Could the Nightshade kids fix things before it got out of paw? Surely others were out there on the search, too -- they'd witnessed the man in the room with the table -- and helping.
Surely?

Penny didn't know how to be confident about much.

Thankfully it was easy enough to get home: simply following after highly capable Verbena, who had not yet failed in her duty to love, feed, protect, and guide him on this perilous journey she'd only barely signed up for. Sure, she could've let him go, but every Nightshade in the unit would've known that spelled disaster and Nemean probably would've come to drag him home quickly. Nothing would've been accomplished but self-humiliation, and even stuck in his half-obsessive state, he knew he would have to find a good and proper way to thank his sister.
Starting, he supposed, with going home even though he didn't want to. They were wasting valuable time, and what if they'd already left? What if they were all dead? What if they were mad at the nearly-yearlings for leaving without a real warning?

His heart fluttered nervously in his chest as he recognized Elysium's lands sprawling before him, but there was a brief sense of warm joy that began to leak into his paranoid mind. They were home. Whatever came, surely, Mama and Papa would just be happy to see them.

Like a falling star, the hope came plummeting down to destroy itself, smashed into a million pieces against a stony wall of fear. Penny recognized his twins scream, and horror twisted his features even as he set off quickly after Benny's heels.

No.

He can smell it, the warped way their scents touch his nose.

No.

He noted the silence, the lack of bird song, the way even the air seemed heavy.

NO.

He saw Nemean's pale silver paw draped over Fleetwood's back, hugging her close.

NO!

They were just sleeping! He hared past Benny as she stopped, a sob choking up in his throat alongside illegible words that might've been begging or questions. The ginger boy galloped right up to them and collapsed at Pinesprings' side. Immediately, he began blubbering, sobbing, choking on his own tears; whines and yelps and keening wails leave him, and all the while through his panic, his grief, he can't even tell if Pine or Benny were saying anything, if anyone else was here.
None of it mattered.

His parents were dead.

And he'd left them in the night, without a word.

Skill: Heartbroken 2/5

Pine can't cry.

The scream is the most he could have managed. Instead, he stands there, stoned silence, shaking in quiet fury.

Verbena and Pennyroyal appear, and some fucking creepazoid talking in some language he doesn't speak. And while he's not going to scream at his siblings, he does whirl on Achlys.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

Achlys isn't even close. Anyone in Elysium, by right, can come to witness this. But Pinesprings only knows what he can sink his teeth into.

He bristles, nose-to-tail, stiff-legged and ready to pounce.

Valeska looked like shit.

Hungry and tired, her gait was unsteady as she walked the border. Prey had dwindled until even their last reserves lay depleted, and the lake was now a stinging poison that seared the parched throats of all who succumbed to its inexorable pull. Still, she thought - things may get better - this was their home, this was where they had lived and raised so many young -

What would the All-Mother have her do? Vexed, she bowed her head in fervent prayer, asking the same question she had sent up to the heavens a hundred times before -

And this time, only moments later, someone answered.

The scream tore through her like knives, and her eyes widened as she understood the sound of death. With what little strength she had left, Valeska tore across the landscape, tripping over her paws as her throat burned like fire with every heaving breath, bloody and raw from the acrid waters of the lake that now cursed them. Her heart hammered in her chest, adrenaline pumping, fearing the worst, but hoping maybe, maybe...

She slowed to a halt when another coughing fit overtook her, and her eyes watered as she struggled to see through them. To see who was there. To see what was -

Nemean. Fleetwood.

Her already-stinging eyes swelled with tears as they poured freely down her face. The children were there, howling over their parents' corpses, and Valeska fought the urge to howl with them. She was supposed to be older, wiser - stronger - but they had been her friends, stalwart and kind, both eager to prove themselves and begin anew in this place that was supposed to protect them. Shelter them.

Pinesprings bristles with emotion, filled with a rage that craved release. Valeska moved to step between him and the dark Achlys, her eyes gentle and full of pain.

If you must take your hurt out on anyone, she said haltingly, straining around the tightness in her throat, Let it be me.

Stubborn pride, the same pride that had hollowed the very flesh from her father's bones until he laid as an empty-eyed husk had kept her chained to this place. She knew it in her heart, she recognized it for what it was, but despite the years that stretched between then and now and vowing never to repeat his mistakes -

She was no better than he.

He who had allowed their original pack to starve, unwilling to leave home - and she had been there, she had watched them die with horror in her wide, child's eyes...

Valeska had failed them, and Nemean and Fleetwood had paid the ultimate price.

... Let it be me.

Skill: Warrior 3/5

And in the way of that freak comes the silver bitch herself. Pine's never thought of her that way before, always being respectful and minding his Ps and Qs. He used to like Dimitri well enough, finding the man strange but interesting. And before now, he'd almost been intimidated of her, wanting her approval to join his parents as a Shadowsbane. Perhaps, in another life, he would have risen through the ranks, all the way to Shadepiercer. The role sat vacant, with no one having earned that title. Pine would have been the first, wouldn't he, the prince that he is?

Or was.

Because now, with all the force of his training behind him, he stiffens as he stares Valeska down.

"It was you," he whispers.

And it all sinks in. Mom and Dad wanted to stay because this was their home. If Valeska had left, would they have ever done so?

Valeska. Their priestess. The voice of the Five.

"IT WAS YOU!"

The next words are spoken through a snarl as he lunges, full-bodied, fangs bared. He's been staying towards the edges of the territory, where prey's more plentiful, and not drinking the water. He's aware he's in much better shape than Valeska is, even with her being older. And right now, all he can hear is the thunder in his ears.

He can't cry. But he can bite.

Warrior

The youngest Nightshade of the litter was in a state of disassociation, staring blankly at her parents bodies as the world moved on around her. She could care less about the eyeless reject that Pinesprings was about to attack, but when she heard Valeska her head turned.

Processing the small silver wolf, her state. She wasn't that much further from death than their parents, from the sound of it. Wretched thing...

Her brother's snarling however set her into action, her body moving on it's own, to intercept his lunge if she was fast enough or slam him away if she wasn't. All the while silent, her face stone even as everything in her world had crumbled.

Their parents died for this woman, they were loyal to her in the end. To the end, with this stupid pride and stubbornness they all seemed to share. Verbena wasn't about to let it be in vain!

The first several moments are silent as Pennyroyal panics, his grief loud enough to drown out other sounds and yet his own ears were deaf to it; wearing him down quickly until he was left trembling and softly crying, murmuring soft nos and I'm sorrys.

Suddenly, all he heard was Valeska, insisting that the blame be taken out on her, and Pinesprings, the sweet, soft, brave, perfect sibling he'd always been... agreed with her. Lunged, just as Penny turned to look over his shoulder. Tears began flowing all over again, and only a strangle of squeaks leave the boy as he tried to call out to his brother; it isn't Valeska's fault, it isn't anyones fault, their parents made a choice to stay. He remembered hearing Nemean wonder aloud one night, perhaps seeking guidance of The Five, if he should send them all to an ally, but Penny knew the Nightshade unit wouldn't have split themselves up on purpose.

And Spiderlily -- oh, gods, Spiderlily's scent wasn't here at all, had she tried to follow him and Verbena? Did she set out on her own? Had something terrible befallen her, first, the most sickly of them all?

Penny hiccupped a sob, watching the goings-ons with stress creasing his features and trying to hold back the new wave of desperate crying that wanted to envelop him. Nemean and Fleetwood, they'd died for Valeska, sure, but for this place, their home they'd sought for so long, their right to stay, the hope it might be fixed. Elysium, Fate's Respite, it was everything his parents had loved. Nemean had considered Valeska his sister, family by extension of loyalty.

It wasn't right for Pine to take it out on her, even if Penny understood the need to blame someone.

[Мать ебучая ВОЛЧЬЯ Мать ебучая ВОЛЧЬЯ! (MOTHER FUCKING WOLF MOTHER FUCK)]

In a distant corner of her mind, she wondered if this offering of penance had been a mistake after all. The sudden shift in Pinespring's expression was like something out of a bad dream, and there was a moment of breathless silence before he broke it with a hoarse whisper.

She flinched at the - correct - accusation. Valeska closed her eyes reflexively, ears swiveled back.

What came next from the boy's mouth was not a whisper but a thunderous roar, and she had only a fraction of a second to open her eyes again before quickly realizing he was going to send her straight into the arms of the Five.

A vision of Amaranth's loving visage passed before her, and she felt regret that she would not get to say goodbye as she braced herself for the end -

But it did not come. Instead, Verbana moved to intercept Pinesprings from his holy homicide; what happened next was a small series of unfortunate events.

While she proved successful in displacing her brother from going directly for Valeska's throat, the boy proved craftier than anticipated, and his body twisted midair as his jaws clamped directly around the base of Valeska's tail close to her rump.

Мать ебучая ВОЛЧЬЯ Мать ебучая ВОЛЧЬЯ! (MOTHER FUCKING WOLF MOTHER FUCK) she howled into the air, head thrown back in an expression of pure pain. MY ASS!

Well, it was technically her tail, but he was close enough.

Although his justice was warranted, she could not stop her natural reflex to begin violently kicking out her hind legs in order to dislodge him - hoping through the fog of agony that it might be successful.