3/26/2025, 4:15 PM
![[Image: Viv_FablePost.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Viv_FablePost.gif)
SKILL : HEARTBROKEN ( 1 / 5 )
Like the days before it, Fable spent much of her morning searching for her two wayward daughters.
Their initial absence had not been immediately alarming - though something in the pit of her stomach stirred, an intuition she had oft ignored out of some sense of self-doubt and blithe optimism that her worries were overzealous. Eidola had been keeping her distance - which she permitted, thinking she needed space and time to adjust to what life now looked like - and Fable did not bar the children from visiting their father at the border even as concern billowed like blood in the water. It was presumed, by Fable, that Archon was looking over her and that, as much as he had failed as her lover, he might succeed as a positive parental figure. The girls were old enough now that their legs could travel further and their scents had remained present enough, for a time, that she was able to curb her anxieties for a day when they had gone unseen.
However, when evening's dusk fell upon the next day and she could find neither of them, the worries she kept at bay had been brought to the forefront. She searched in all of her free hours, trying to find their trails, but she could never keep it; she would pick it up for a brief and effervescent moment, only to lose it again. Too much time had spanned now and their scents had grown stale - in their absence, a feeling of failure settled sorely. Fable prayed to - pleaded with - every deity and power she knew of that they were accompanied by Archon, wherever it was they had gone, and had not found a fate aligned with Gamma's, but she still hadn't stopped searching the terrain and horizon for signs of Eidola or Kyros.
She still had three daughters to tend to and an entire pack to run, scarce though its ranks might be. Without enough hours in the day, she encroached on her own sleep, returning home to her den beneath the boughs of Aine's Whisper with only hours left before dawn would rise - the light by which she would wake again.
Eventually, it would catch up to her, but she steeled her resolve for now. Strain etched itself into every stitch of her, ever faintly below the effort she took to hide it. She plastered a serene facade across her despair while, inwardly, she wondered how many children she must lose before the world had wrought whatever tithe she owed it. What had she done that had been such a grievous slight?
Her nose skimmed across the ground, sorting the scents of rapidly thawing earth and prey. The tell-tale signs of her daughters were nowhere to be found, but an uncharacteristically bleak part of herself had expected that. Fable pressed a long and steadying breath through her nostrils as she drew to a pause, lifting her head and settling her weary gaze upon the Vale to the north in deep thought. She would have to tell Shiloh soon that two of his nieces were missing, and she also knew he would be cross with her for not asking for help when he could have made a difference.
He operated on logic, less so emotion; he didn't yet understand the frazzled thought process of a mother trying to retrieve missing children - she had pressed into motion without thinking and the sands of time had already been slipping through her fingers with each passing moment.
Their initial absence had not been immediately alarming - though something in the pit of her stomach stirred, an intuition she had oft ignored out of some sense of self-doubt and blithe optimism that her worries were overzealous. Eidola had been keeping her distance - which she permitted, thinking she needed space and time to adjust to what life now looked like - and Fable did not bar the children from visiting their father at the border even as concern billowed like blood in the water. It was presumed, by Fable, that Archon was looking over her and that, as much as he had failed as her lover, he might succeed as a positive parental figure. The girls were old enough now that their legs could travel further and their scents had remained present enough, for a time, that she was able to curb her anxieties for a day when they had gone unseen.
However, when evening's dusk fell upon the next day and she could find neither of them, the worries she kept at bay had been brought to the forefront. She searched in all of her free hours, trying to find their trails, but she could never keep it; she would pick it up for a brief and effervescent moment, only to lose it again. Too much time had spanned now and their scents had grown stale - in their absence, a feeling of failure settled sorely. Fable prayed to - pleaded with - every deity and power she knew of that they were accompanied by Archon, wherever it was they had gone, and had not found a fate aligned with Gamma's, but she still hadn't stopped searching the terrain and horizon for signs of Eidola or Kyros.
She still had three daughters to tend to and an entire pack to run, scarce though its ranks might be. Without enough hours in the day, she encroached on her own sleep, returning home to her den beneath the boughs of Aine's Whisper with only hours left before dawn would rise - the light by which she would wake again.
Eventually, it would catch up to her, but she steeled her resolve for now. Strain etched itself into every stitch of her, ever faintly below the effort she took to hide it. She plastered a serene facade across her despair while, inwardly, she wondered how many children she must lose before the world had wrought whatever tithe she owed it. What had she done that had been such a grievous slight?
Her nose skimmed across the ground, sorting the scents of rapidly thawing earth and prey. The tell-tale signs of her daughters were nowhere to be found, but an uncharacteristically bleak part of herself had expected that. Fable pressed a long and steadying breath through her nostrils as she drew to a pause, lifting her head and settling her weary gaze upon the Vale to the north in deep thought. She would have to tell Shiloh soon that two of his nieces were missing, and she also knew he would be cross with her for not asking for help when he could have made a difference.
He operated on logic, less so emotion; he didn't yet understand the frazzled thought process of a mother trying to retrieve missing children - she had pressed into motion without thinking and the sands of time had already been slipping through her fingers with each passing moment.
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