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.