Raisa felt the time, hopes, and dreams slipping between her paws like sand. Nearly everything and everyone she had ever loved... they were gone. It was just she and Serafina now, the final remnants of a bloodline forgotten. Rajani, Blackfoot, Cirilla, Akuji, Shreya, Andrei -- they were all gone, mist burned away in the morning sun. If any of them were still alive, she didn't know.
Her heart ached when she thought even of Koku and her children, not blood, but family all the same.
Would she lose the rest, one by one? Was she doing something wrong to drive them away?
Raisa sulked. She'd been planning to go out again, but any ambitions she had for Seiiki were whittling away with each layer of grief added to her shoulders. How could she leave, now, when there were so few of them? Carnifex, Serafina, Cobalt, Barbosa, Stream -- they were all her fellow ghosts haunting the bloody woods, and Raisa was growing tired of failing them. She must've been, for so many to leave, to die, to be lost.
Were they just leaving her, Seiiki, the failed vision of a child queen?
Should she go looking for them?
She was nearly two years old, but she still didn't feel like an adult. She still felt like that scared yearling who went running to find Akuji and Shreya in the first place, blood on her fur and grief in her heart. What had changed? Since that day, it seemed as if she'd only lost, and most things she'd gained, she'd lost that too. Cirilla, Koku, stability, peace of mind... Hell, she'd even stripped herself of her own last name mid-identity crisis.
The striped woman plodded along the borders, disheartened and weary. Did she keep recruiting? Did she give up entirely? Did she find someone else to pass the mantle along to, someone more qualified? Who did she trust with everything she'd tried to create? .... Then what? Follow a new ruler, watch them reap what she'd sowed or worse, change everything anyway?
No.
The Sovereign sighed, stopped briefly to mark, and carried on halfheartedly. She kept on with her duties every day despite losing the joy in it, even when she didn't know why, telling herself it was for the others she kept going. Where would Barbosa have had to heal, if Seiiki wasn't there to let her land? Where would creatures like Stream be welcomed -- would other packs of wolves take her in, or was Seiiki alone in their ways? And Carnifex, with the social ability of a cricket?
She couldn't fail them, and those yet to come.
Her heart ached when she thought even of Koku and her children, not blood, but family all the same.
Would she lose the rest, one by one? Was she doing something wrong to drive them away?
Raisa sulked. She'd been planning to go out again, but any ambitions she had for Seiiki were whittling away with each layer of grief added to her shoulders. How could she leave, now, when there were so few of them? Carnifex, Serafina, Cobalt, Barbosa, Stream -- they were all her fellow ghosts haunting the bloody woods, and Raisa was growing tired of failing them. She must've been, for so many to leave, to die, to be lost.
Were they just leaving her, Seiiki, the failed vision of a child queen?
Should she go looking for them?
She was nearly two years old, but she still didn't feel like an adult. She still felt like that scared yearling who went running to find Akuji and Shreya in the first place, blood on her fur and grief in her heart. What had changed? Since that day, it seemed as if she'd only lost, and most things she'd gained, she'd lost that too. Cirilla, Koku, stability, peace of mind... Hell, she'd even stripped herself of her own last name mid-identity crisis.
The striped woman plodded along the borders, disheartened and weary. Did she keep recruiting? Did she give up entirely? Did she find someone else to pass the mantle along to, someone more qualified? Who did she trust with everything she'd tried to create? .... Then what? Follow a new ruler, watch them reap what she'd sowed or worse, change everything anyway?
No.
The Sovereign sighed, stopped briefly to mark, and carried on halfheartedly. She kept on with her duties every day despite losing the joy in it, even when she didn't know why, telling herself it was for the others she kept going. Where would Barbosa have had to heal, if Seiiki wasn't there to let her land? Where would creatures like Stream be welcomed -- would other packs of wolves take her in, or was Seiiki alone in their ways? And Carnifex, with the social ability of a cricket?
She couldn't fail them, and those yet to come.
Speaking: English - Russian - Japanese
