6/21/2025, 8:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 6/21/2025, 8:12 AM by Pennyroyal.)
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.
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.
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