3/31/2026, 5:23 PM
![[Image: Viv_FablePost.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Viv_FablePost.gif)
She wasn't sure she made the right decision in bringing her family here.
Pressed between the promise of certain war and the promise of something she thought offered them some modicum of safety, no matter how tenuous it appeared when making a blind decision, she chose what she thought was a brighter future.
She could not have stomached seeing her family cut down, and they surely would have been; Deithe would never leave any of Avon's kin alive, to do so would have been to invite in dissenters and the enemy nation thrived on their convoluted version of the truth.
They hadn't hesitated to wipe Avon's ancient kingdom from history books after they killed every last one of its citizens... or so they thought.
It wasn't bad enough that Deithe itself was a resurging threat - there was infighting within the Hand's members. They would turn on their brethren who sought refuge alongside them, all because of the Matriarch's heir's lineage.
Familiar lands were no longer safe. Samhain would run red with blood of those she had grown up knowing - and it would have included her family, had she stayed.
But even knowing what lay in store if they stayed, Fable was ill at ease with how things had transpired since their return to Mythris. Doubt was a living, breathing entity within her chest; it dragged sharp teeth against her heart and rend her stomach with twisting anxiety. She hadn't eaten in a couple of days, but it was from a litany of reasons.
Her mother was ill. They didn't know why, or with what - she knew only that her mother was weak and couldn't be allowed to venture out of supervision. She almost walked directly off a ledge - one that was clearly visible. Her motor skills were deteriorating, and her cognition overall was poor; it wrenched her heart to watch the strongest woman she knew fade.
Not only that, she still hadn't found Aisling.
She hadn't stopped searching, even after finding her trail go cold at the precipice of one of those glowing fissures. A mournful voice in the back of her mind told her she would never find her alive, but her heart refused to listen.
Fable would search until her dying breath. She wouldn't let another one of her children slip away from her - this world would not take her from her.
She wouldn't allow it.
Even as everything was falling to pieces all around her, she would do what she always did: she would fix it. She would cradle all those broken bits and bobs of the life she still held hope for - a long life surrounded by all those who made it richer for their presence - and she would fit them back together. Some of them may not look the same anymore, but neither did she with the passing of time and having been the catalyst of five precious little lives.
Permanence was an illusion, but she wanted the life of warmth and love she knew she could still have, in whatever form it would take.
Perhaps it was that finality that kept her calm in the wake of the gruesome dream. She lifted her muzzle from her paws to look at the three portals with the clinical precision of a doctor determining how best to excise something unpleasant. Though fear beleaguered her and she knew the path forward was anything but certain or safe, the time for being idle had long passed.
She could not simply hope things got better and lay low - the dream itself had shown her as much. Despite her peaceful ways, she would shed them for those she loved.
Foxglove , Aisling , Nausicaa, Illithya, Epona , Alistair, Ffionn, Fleta , Lugh, Shiloh, Fiadh , all of Avon - and all those who had not yet met her on this side of time and space.
For them, she would give up everything she possessed. Pain or threat of harm sluiced off her back like water to a duck as she passed through the second portal and directly into the palm of chaos.
Cursed creatures that reminded her of some of the Veil's worst spirits converged upon on the tree; through the dense forms of the monsters and the other wolves, she had not yet noticed the skeletons curled within the hollow. But she saw enough to know what she needed to do.
This tree was sacred, it meant something to this realm - and she, and all the others here, were meant to protect it.
A familiar blaze of fox-red fur immediately caught her eye; she wondered, distantly, somewhere beyond herself, if it was possible for either of them to not notice the other by instinct alone. Her eyes were drawn to him and, for the first time since she woke from the dream, fear roared to life within her.
He shouldn't be here - he should be back in the Meadows, safe and at least moderately warm in the unforgiving cold.
Fable pressed forward, her limbs flying across the terrain as she dove toward Foxglove , seeking to shorten the ground between them so she could be at his back. Her jaws snapped at the cursed lifeforms as she wove between them, a thunderous snarl loosing from her chest as she burned with the fire of keeping her family safe - especially the ginger-coated man before her.
Pressed between the promise of certain war and the promise of something she thought offered them some modicum of safety, no matter how tenuous it appeared when making a blind decision, she chose what she thought was a brighter future.
She could not have stomached seeing her family cut down, and they surely would have been; Deithe would never leave any of Avon's kin alive, to do so would have been to invite in dissenters and the enemy nation thrived on their convoluted version of the truth.
They hadn't hesitated to wipe Avon's ancient kingdom from history books after they killed every last one of its citizens... or so they thought.
It wasn't bad enough that Deithe itself was a resurging threat - there was infighting within the Hand's members. They would turn on their brethren who sought refuge alongside them, all because of the Matriarch's heir's lineage.
Familiar lands were no longer safe. Samhain would run red with blood of those she had grown up knowing - and it would have included her family, had she stayed.
But even knowing what lay in store if they stayed, Fable was ill at ease with how things had transpired since their return to Mythris. Doubt was a living, breathing entity within her chest; it dragged sharp teeth against her heart and rend her stomach with twisting anxiety. She hadn't eaten in a couple of days, but it was from a litany of reasons.
Her mother was ill. They didn't know why, or with what - she knew only that her mother was weak and couldn't be allowed to venture out of supervision. She almost walked directly off a ledge - one that was clearly visible. Her motor skills were deteriorating, and her cognition overall was poor; it wrenched her heart to watch the strongest woman she knew fade.
Not only that, she still hadn't found Aisling.
She hadn't stopped searching, even after finding her trail go cold at the precipice of one of those glowing fissures. A mournful voice in the back of her mind told her she would never find her alive, but her heart refused to listen.
Fable would search until her dying breath. She wouldn't let another one of her children slip away from her - this world would not take her from her.
She wouldn't allow it.
Even as everything was falling to pieces all around her, she would do what she always did: she would fix it. She would cradle all those broken bits and bobs of the life she still held hope for - a long life surrounded by all those who made it richer for their presence - and she would fit them back together. Some of them may not look the same anymore, but neither did she with the passing of time and having been the catalyst of five precious little lives.
Permanence was an illusion, but she wanted the life of warmth and love she knew she could still have, in whatever form it would take.
Perhaps it was that finality that kept her calm in the wake of the gruesome dream. She lifted her muzzle from her paws to look at the three portals with the clinical precision of a doctor determining how best to excise something unpleasant. Though fear beleaguered her and she knew the path forward was anything but certain or safe, the time for being idle had long passed.
She could not simply hope things got better and lay low - the dream itself had shown her as much. Despite her peaceful ways, she would shed them for those she loved.
Foxglove , Aisling , Nausicaa, Illithya, Epona , Alistair, Ffionn, Fleta , Lugh, Shiloh, Fiadh , all of Avon - and all those who had not yet met her on this side of time and space.
For them, she would give up everything she possessed. Pain or threat of harm sluiced off her back like water to a duck as she passed through the second portal and directly into the palm of chaos.
Cursed creatures that reminded her of some of the Veil's worst spirits converged upon on the tree; through the dense forms of the monsters and the other wolves, she had not yet noticed the skeletons curled within the hollow. But she saw enough to know what she needed to do.
This tree was sacred, it meant something to this realm - and she, and all the others here, were meant to protect it.
A familiar blaze of fox-red fur immediately caught her eye; she wondered, distantly, somewhere beyond herself, if it was possible for either of them to not notice the other by instinct alone. Her eyes were drawn to him and, for the first time since she woke from the dream, fear roared to life within her.
He shouldn't be here - he should be back in the Meadows, safe and at least moderately warm in the unforgiving cold.
Fable pressed forward, her limbs flying across the terrain as she dove toward Foxglove , seeking to shorten the ground between them so she could be at his back. Her jaws snapped at the cursed lifeforms as she wove between them, a thunderous snarl loosing from her chest as she burned with the fire of keeping her family safe - especially the ginger-coated man before her.
![[Image: Viv_FableFB.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Viv_FableFB.gif)
