Valeska woke with the echo of the haunting dream fresh in her mind. She looked up quickly to see the Visitor close by, watching her carefully, the three portals hovering before her as she stood up beneath the blackened sky. In the first, she witnessed a vision of clouds parting through the chorus of voices; the second, the Great Tree under siege, and then the last - heavy, suffocating, terrifying - the glowering visage of the Moving Isle, its roar a pale glimpse into what horrors must surely await in its depths.

For a long moment, she didn't move.

Duty, she had always believed first and foremost, was not the absence of fear, but the hard decision made in spite of it. And yet there was fear burning hot within her still, coiled tightly beneath her ribs and making her so dizzy (... did she need to throw up?) Valeska thought she might faint. Never in all of her years had she seen anything close to this calamity. From within each door resonated a desperate cry for help, a sound felt more than it was heard; she could almost see the Great Tree's pain inside her mind blooming like a crimson flower, the dark clouds overhead knitting ever more tightly together in a crushing shroud, and...

... The Isle.

She took one step forward.

Valeska thought of Amaranth, of the very first day they'd met. How beautiful she had looked that morning, golden and serpentine, coiled languidly over a pile of sun-bleached bones as she had looked up at Valeska with eyes as mysterious and far away as the moon. They'd not known, then, what they would someday come to mean to each other - or the life they would build together. From friends, to lovers, to mates, to mothers; they had savored every gift the world had offered them and created a legacy of their love that would endure until every star in the sky had faded.

She thought of Dimitri , Violet, Sreda, Narcissa, Alder - their precious first litter, all of them grown up and making their own way, whatever that meant for them, wherever they were. Their physical location had never mattered; she carried them all with her in her heart.

Aelia, Amaris, Amaya - the children she thought they had lost. Never had she known the true depths of grief until that horrific moment, nor had she known it since. It was the Great Tree of this place that had silently pulled them all back from the dead and delivered them within the embrace of its gnarled roots, and she felt anguish knowing it was now in harm's way.

And oh, the grandchildren! Her nieces, her nephews, all of them -

- she looked again toward the third door, and the Isle shrieked in answer as several new fractures burst open across the surface of Mythris. Some of them ran straight through the heart of Fate's Respite, narrowly missing the den-site. Her packmates. Everyone she loved, all of them in danger, and the Isle screamed and screamed as it continued to rip the earth asunder.

The other paths called to her in their own ways. The wolf-song stirred something bright and fierce inside her chest, an oath of unity, of something almost holy in that togetherness of driving back the dark. The Great Tree cried out for her protection, and she felt the righteous pull to defend it from the wraiths, her blood boiling as a rush of adrenaline surged through her limbs.

But the bound wolf... the screaming. Its path of destruction and the inevitable end of her world.

Others would rise to the call of the other two portals. She, however, could not.

Valeska breathed out slowly, a plume of steam rising from her maw as she tried to steady herself. Her paws felt like pure lead and the fur stood straight up along the length of her spine as she braced herself, closed her eyes, and moved into the light.

For them. Their family, their friends and all of the experiences they had shared and had yet to share in this peculiar, damaged, wonderful world.

For her, and for those eyes as mysterious and far away as the moon.

---

The door closed behind her. The air was electric, taut, like a rubber band pulled too tight; carvings like that of the Runes they had all searched for were scrawled across the high stone walls of the cave, glowing strange and azure, and snarling at the center of it all was the Wolf.

He loomed before her, his presence so overwhelming it felt like an invisible pressure bearing down upon her. Whatever dark magic was imbued within his chains hummed in a steady, powerful rhythm, and with every movement he made the sound of searing flesh hissed through the air, but he did not seem to notice - or to feel it at all. Wrath burned in his gaze, and he looked at her with pure malevolence. The only way to stop the calamity outside was to stop him.

Please, I know you think you were left behind, but you must believe me - the Dream Visitor, he is remorseful - it was not -

The bound wolf howled a deafening shriek. He would not be reasoned with; that time had long passed, if it had ever existed at all.

He was insane. Unwell. The only peace he could hope to be granted was a quick death, and yet...

"I am afraid of you," she thought to herself, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She was absolutely terrified. It felt like all of her legs had locked up at once, and she tried desperately to move forward but they would not obey, and as he shrieked again she could feel the earth tearing open outside in waves. He wasn't going to stop.

... And still, I shall not turn away.

Valeska muttered the last half under her breath, every bone in her body rattling with fear. But then she could have sworn she caught the scent of lavender lingering close in the air, and the gentle but steady weight of all she had lived and fought for settled over her like a golden embrace.

Whether he was worthy of freedom, she couldn't know; whether it was the wrong choice, she couldn't be certain. But killing him felt worse. Maybe she would only hasten Armageddon with this decision, but in the same way she had reached down into the pit for Amaranth, she would reach down into the pit for this sad soul.

Valeska lunged forward, wrapped her jaws around the nearest chain rooted firmly into the rock, and pulled with all her might as the smell of her own burning flesh filled the air.