The Visitor was weak, the visions growing more disturbing. The whole northwest of the Alpines was Plagued. More and more of the freshwaterways to the south and east were no longer safe. Bodies were dropping, and sometimes, Solulfur thought she saw purple snow on the summer breeze, when the light hit the dandelion fluff just right in the setting sun's light.

Overhead, a storm gathered but never broke, the morning sun blotted out, and Solulfur did not look up, did not feel anticipation.

She sat in the cradling semicircle of the Vale's skyscraping peaks, the summer grass long and swaying in the storm's breath that swept through the Vale. Solvi's empty den stared back at her, the dug-out entrance a blown pupil. If Solulfur looked long enough, she wondered if she could see her reflection in that emptiness. Solvi had disappeared weeks ago - the imprint of her body preserved in the leaf litter lining her den, the herbs still left drying where they were arranged, the Avon pack to the south similarly up and disappearing without warning that Solulfur knew of - and her scent had finally faded.

Solvi was not a Pillar in name, but her warmth had been a part of the infrastructure of Solulfur's life in Dawnbreak for over a year. Solulfur found it hard not to dwell on the woman's absence - like running her tongue over the soft, tender gum left behind by a missing tooth. It ached, but she couldn't stop doing it. The Black Sun sat and watched over the empty den, a vigil most useless, too little too late. She avoided her packmates, as she so often did, and turned vitriol onto the Visitor anytime he had the gall to show up in her dreams. She did not want the burden of his past sins on her shoulders. She wanted Solvi delivered back to her grasp. She was Isblod, she was fra Nordri, and she did not like losing that which was hers.

She did not like losing.

Solulfur knew not to find time to loiter around her Dawnbreakers, lest the icy rage within her breast find its outlet tongue-lashing the skin right off some poor, unfortunate soul. She hunted. She patrolled. She watched over the puppies from a distance, all routine, all with a numbness that burned like frostbite. It all felt hollow, machination without soul, and Solulfur still could not look up at the sky. It wasn't her grandfather's fault, it probably wasn't her own, but the resentment was the only bandage she had to wrap around the wound.

Solulfur stared at the gaping earth and hated how much it looked like a grave. She wished she could bring herself to fill the den in. The Sun-wolf remained frozen, cold, in stasis. Waiting for the storm to pass.

Morning came, but it was growing difficult to tell the difference.

These days Aurelia tried to remain strong for her packmates, stoically going about her duties as she stifled the ever-present tickle that threatened to overtake her with yet another bout of coughing. It was important - no, imperative - to maintain routine and stay the course.
They would not lose the Vale again; more than that, they would not lose any more of their packmates.

Not like Solvi.

No one knew what had happened to her. One day she was here, and the next... gone. Vanished. A building sense of terror gripped her chest like a vice and she clung desperately to her patrols and her hunting to distract herself from the knowledge that this was just like what happened to Father. Augustus. Wren. All those who had been among the ranks of what was then Duskguard, laughing and smiling and loving until -

They weren't.

It was the same.

As they all searched for her, perplexed by the sylph's absence, they thought first to check at her den and could only catch the faintest remnant of her scent leading nowhere. She had gone to sleep and somehow, in the same manner that Tiberius and part of Aurelia's own family had been snatched away, disappeared. There was no trail to follow, no signs of disturbance, nothing to lead Solvi outside her den.

Nothing at all.

Aurelia had taken it much harder than she thought she might. Grief seemed to be a familiar friend by her third year, having experienced so much loss in so little time, but this one felt... pointed. Intentional. As if the gods or fate or whatever asshole watched them all from on high thought it would be funny to catch her off-guard, wait until she had recovered and settled and then pull out the rug from under her for a final laugh.

Solvi had been irritating. Foolish. Overly enthusiastic. Oppressive.

But she had also been kind and nurturing; she had put her all into the wolves of Dawnbreak and embraced her role as a healer with a vibrant enthusiasm that eclipsed them all.

As she finished her patrol, a familiar shadow sat, stone-like, a short distance away.

Aurelia said naught a word and only padded up next to her, taking a seat beside the Black Sun in profound silence. They watched the world together for several moments this way, quiet and solemn, each wolf festering in their own thoughts as the reality of the situation fully sank in.

I miss her too.

It came out as a whisper, but it was not sickness that felt her throat tighten.

Losing, or failing?

Azrael patrols. It's what he does. Protect and serve. It's all he knows how to do. And he did not like Solvi. He found her off-putting, strange, frightening even. But she is gone, and the Visitor comes instead.

Truth be told, Azrael doesn't trust the Visitor. It bears no symbol of the God-Emperor. It speaks not the High Gothic, but some daemonic language. The runes must be a plot by the Visitor to lure the land into even more chaos. He will not fall.

But he lingers near the den, as if signs of chaos will show themselves. And the pack mourns. He does not know if he deserves to come closer. He does not miss Solvi, so to speak, but he also did not wish harm upon her. She was his charge. He would have died for her in a moment, asking nothing in return, as she is a citizen of the land he has called home, and a daughter of the Imperium in spirit, if not in flesh.

If he is unwanted between Aurelia and Solulfur, he does not know. But he paces close regardless. He does not need to speak to say that his patrols have brought no sign of the golden woman. Instead, he glances towards the den, then towards the two of them.

Between the three of them, no true emotion could be shown.

skill: heartbroken

She'd learned upon the first little bit of being back that Sølvi had disappeared — the universe had swallowed her whole and spit her out somewhere else — just like it'd done to almost everyone that lived here. The grief in Dawnbreak was palpable. Dalmatia had found herself waking up at night with tears in her eyes, heart cramping, because even though she didn't know the woman super well, she knew that Sølvi had been there for her sisters when she had not been, when she had been too caught up within her own walls of an icy depression.

Sølvi had grown to be a part of their family, and now that part of them had been ripped away.

There must have been a pull to it, whether it be coincidence or misery (and its love for company), she caught scent of Aurelia heading towards Sølvi's den, where she was aimlessly heading too. She picked up her pace a little, trotting after her sister, hopeful in the fact that it might just be the two of them, a moment to check on her sister —

Though when she crested where Sølvi had made her den, she could see Sólúlfur's stormy fur, and Aurelia already finding a spot beside her. Dalmatia didn't want to interrupt their moment. She'd find another time to talk to her — another time to talk to both of them that were grieving. She spotted Azrael across the way, looking upon the two as well, probably finishing his patrol. She gave a small nod of acknowledgement, a weak smile, and started to make her way back the way she'd come.

---

mostly just a cameo, if anyone wants to reach out to her, tag me and she will reply! <3

Sol's ear twisted toward the sound of approaching footfalls. At first, they sounded oddly far away, as if filtering to her cupped ears through murky waters or thick snowfall. It was the brisk, precise pacing of them and the accompanying buttery, smoky scent that Solulfur now knew so well that pulled her awareness more fully to her surroundings. The Black Sun shifted only minutely - a slight tilt to her skull, the lines of brooding tension in her expression smoothing away one by one. She didn't yet pull her gaze away from the abyssal maw of Solvi's den-made-grave, not until Aurelia's voice quietly crossed the limited distance between the two women.

Solulfur shifted her molten gold to Aurelia's silvered face, sympathy and appreciation both unveiled in their depths. She considered reaching out, to tuck her Shakti-Vaes against her chest and weather the storm for them both for just a minute, like on the shore of that awful lake to the north that terrible day. But something moved in the corner of her eye, looming and gilt. Azrael.

Had he been another wolf, the worn-down Sun-wolf would have outright bristled at the unwelcome intrusion, or at least shot him a glare fit to strip the skin off a weaker being. Azrael was hers, though; a strange wolf, brought into the fold by her very conviction he would make a valuable packmate, and he'd proved her belief in him true. Solulfur instead draped her tail across Aurelia's, tucking it close to the other woman's flank.

I... She started. What was she? Sorry? Angry? Helpless?

None of it would change anything.

I loved her like kin. She spoke in a low rumble; it could have been mistaken for the distant threat of a storm hanging over their heads to anyone not right beside Solulfur. And I never told her.

The scent of others approaching wafted gently along the acrid air, coloring its foul bitterness with notes of peony - undoubtedly Dalmatia - and the unmistakable musk that so often accompanied Azrael. They lingered like ghosts at the edge of her peripheral, shapes draped in muted hues that never quite came into focus, for Aurelia could not yet tear her eyes away from Solvi's den.

The motion of Solulfur's tail sweeping over her own would have sent an electric thrill up her spine in any other situation; here, however, it was the closest thing to comfort she had felt in a long time. It carried - warmth.

As Azrael hovered and Dalmatia turned to depart, Aurelia turned at last to look at the pair and called out.

You can join us, she said, probably likely to send a ripple of surprise through the group. It was unlike her to enjoy the company of multiple packmates at once, much less invite it; but this felt like a vigil that should be shared by any who had cared for the golden sylph. There is room, and Solvi always liked a - a crowd. She would want her friends here.

It was up to the other two whether they came to join them, but Solulfur soldiered on with the naked truth rumbling from her lips in a low tone that perhaps reached only Aurelia's sharply-pointed ears. Her left ear swiveled to better hear it, lest the words dissipate before they could be understood. She did not turn her head.

Nor did I, the Shakti-Vaes responded sullenly, inadvertently matching Solulfur's quiet whisper. It was a heavy exchange, almost sacred as they peeled back the armor to reveal their vulnerable, beating cores. Then, louder: I once called her a weak flower.

At this she bowed her head as the ghost of a smile tweaked her lips.

She took it as a compliment, somehow. I shall never forget it.

Gently, slowly, Aurelia leaned into her companion's dark shoulder with a pressure that belied a great, terrible need, touch-starved and aloof as she was in her everyday life. The gesture might have meant little to anyone else; for her, this was sanctuary.

Aurelia turned, called out to the others.

Invited them in, rather than shutting them out. A truer way of honoring the Mender's memory than, Sol thought, even sitting here at an empty grave den. The she-wolf swallowed her pride, the possessive part of her that wanted to guard the den, void of even Solvi's lingering scent, like a coyote snarling and drooling at its rivals over a carcass.

She even managed to quell the instinct to hide her grief-stricken expression in the Shakti-Vaes' silken, silver scruff. Solulfur could be strong a little longer. That was how she'd made it through every trial, every twist of the knife prior to this. A little stronger, just one more day, one more stretched-thin moment, endured. And endured and endured.

Her eyes slid shut as Aurelia spoke, shutting out the sight before her and instead focusing entirely on the sound of the woman's words, the wind over the hills, the crickets in the grass. The soft bellows of Solulfur's breath in her lungs, mirrored in Aurelia's beside her.

Enduring, but not alone.

I once called her a weak flower, and Solulfur could not help the fond smile that lifted one corner of her mouth. She saw the world in a light no one else could. It was as fascinating as it was infuriating to me. Aurelia's weight was a mild pressure against her shoulder, but it settled Solulfur's scattered mind and wounded heart as if the smaller woman was a mountain in her own right - immovable stone, irascible, dependable.

But within that steadiness, Solulfur could still recognize the fragile, tender parts laid bare. She cradled this most precious thing beside her, resting her chin lightly atop the silver wolf's crown.