his siblings’ departure had left Lycaon reeling. old feelings of abandonment lost no time chiseling back into his life; chipping away at his self-worth until all that was left was an edge so sharp and needle-thin it would snap from the burden of a feather’s weight.
there were no extenuating circumstances that would make this breach of faith forgivable to him, and he’d withdrawn so entirely from the world that it was to the detriment of his functioning. forborne a sense of appetite, Lycaon’s muscles wizened and the skeleton beneath his skin was writ large.
it was her screams that drew him out that day. barely able to hold himself upright anymore from the lack of nourishment, the once-gallant sought out his smothered flame at a labored pace, wearily drifting like a helmless bark at sea, years of his life seemingly spent in the span of weeks.
his face became fully cast in pallor as he loomed closer to the grotto and the stench of decease came instantly upon him.
Lycaon stepped outside of himself. the time amidst passing through the scent’s pall and arriving at the site of carnage was void in his memory. he came to, absently staring at the hecatomb—at the rufescent wash of the walls, the floor, Nyx. the thought of her brought his eyes up from the ground to the woman’s presence, crumpled like a first-draft epistle of contrition and sobbing with gruesomeness stippled across her coat and blood smeared incriminatingly across her lips; droplets on every whisker for every life she took.
only loud static roared in his ears, he didn’t hear her wailing cries or even himself try to eke the words "they were… ours?" from his throat. it was like a mumbled whisper echoing back to him from a faraway place in his head—he was unsure he’d even said them out loud. his lungs drowned for air.
it was once so easy. breathe in, breathe out.
but the smell. the smell. it crawled and clung and lingered. it was floral, it was flat, it smelled like grey and white. unease caused his vision to swim.
his eyes briefly came into focus and corresponded grief, but vacancy soon filmed over them again as he looked upon each broken body and the static screamed even louder into his limbs. his forelegs fell out from under him and he folded into the dirt, gazing catatonically at the stained earth and conferring to the circumambient anguish without a fiber of resistance to hold him together as he, too, sobbed.
Fear. It was the first thing he felt upon his entry to the world, and comfort never came. So while his mother cowered in the corner, staring at her frightened offspring with wild eyes, the palest of her brood reacted the only way he knew how: he cried out.
He joined the chorus of his brothers and sisters, tiny body trembling with the cold as he shuffled around in search of a place to feel secure. On either side of his, his siblings did likewise. They huddled together close, some suckling on another's downy furs, others simply mewling in their desperation.
He was not aware of the carnage that soon followed, though the tang in the air concerned him. The ivory babe fell silent and only when he felt his mother's teeth pierce the loose hide of his back did he scream. He was lifted then, the ground disappearing beneath him, and the violent shake of her head sent him soaring through the air to land with a thud - luckily atop a pair of brothers who'd already met their fate.
He stilled, stunned by the sudden change of events that relocated him from live litter-mates to among those that were dead. The boy was not to know how much time passed but eventually, with his throat hoarse from all his prior wailing, he piped up with a small voice that quietly begged for support.
cue implosion
despite moving the cubs from the grotto to the rendezvous only a week earlier, caiaphas still felt a pull to the ominous depths. the grotto was her home, her sanctuary -- she had spent nearly her entire life in its uninterrupted, un-intruded halls -- and would likely spend the remainder of her lifetime there. it was no small surprise then today, of all days, she had sought out its unmeasured caverns to briefly escape the demands of her children -- only, as she ducked under the cold stone threshold, her nostrils were assaulted by something entirely unfamiliar and unwelcome. the heavy, matted scent of living tissue and expended viscera -- it caused her blood to chill and her heart to quicken and hastily, the siren queen plunged down the stone-worn corridors.
the scene that greeted her was at best obscenely insulting -- and at worst, a malign event without provenance. even she, as ruthless as she was, could not cull a cub -- and as she processed the bloodbath that rimed
her halls, that flecked the guilty muzzle of
her subordinate, an irresolute grief coupled with inimitable wrath consumed her. the grotto had been
defiled -- bled of its light and sanctuary -- and lives she would have cherished as if her own lost.
"no," she choked, still drinking in the heinous slump of mangled puppies.
"no." she bleated again, her voice shaking.
she strode past the sobbing heap of her displaced son and rounded upon nyx, every hair on end and and a frenetic fury in her falcon-yellow eyes.
"GET OUT." the siren queen roared -- a mighty bellow that thundered down the cavern (a noise so surprisingly forceful for such a small creature) spittle flying from her quivering lips. she could not house nyx any longer -- the she-wolf had committed the most unforgivable of atrocities, and caiaphas' very core quivered in quickening hatred as she howled her head off. if nyx did not leave now, caiaphas was sure she would kill her.
"get out GET OUT --GET OUT!"
she shuddered in fear and disgust, a new wave of revulsion hitting her as the scent of death rose around them. her jaws chattered and she steeled herself, stepping towards nyx with a crippling snarl worn across her thin muzzle.
"get you, you fucking bitch!"
She did not hear the clack of Lycaon's claws on the cold, slick stone as he crept into the grotto, nor did she hear the words he breathed. Nyx simply lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, oblivious to the presence of her pale companion as she openly and loudly wailed away her despair. Sobs racked her frame as she curled close to herself and she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to block out the horrific scene that would forever be engrained in her mind's eye.
Something in her finally urged her to pull herself together, a selfish darkness that reminded her that she had to escape. To gather the evidence and remove it from the place of her crime and be gone before the others were to put the puzzle pieces together and realise what she'd done. On shaky limbs, the golden Ostrega pulled herself onto her paws and tentatively turned to see the broken bodies of the cubs that she'd slaughtered and, among them, Lycaon.
Nyx felt herself deflate, and her heart yearned to reach out to him. He had crumbled just as she had, wept as she had, and truly felt the weight of her guilt. She had done this. While she couldn't recall the how or the why, she had thought of disposing of them in this manner long before their birth. She had genuinely considered disposing of them swiftly, all the protect herself.
She had barely given thought to how he might feel, and she hated herself.
Parting her jaws, the golden Ostrega attempted to breathe his name, but no sound spilled from between her teeth. A tiny cry drew her attention elsewhere and, ears suddenly alert as that fleeting, unfamiliar maternal pull to respond to a baby's mewl heightened her senses. She looked down at where two corpses lay bloodied on the cold slate, but it was the pale-furred live child among them who gained her focus. Nyx gawked at him, finding herself unable to move, and just as she swallowed the bile that had risen to her throat, another had arrived to look upon the devastation.
Caiaphas went from anxious to ferocious in the blink of an eye, just as Nyx herself had. She whimpered pitifully beneath the Alphess' sharp stare when it turned on her, body sweeping low to the ground as she felt the sting of each bellowed demand to GET OUT. But he's mine, came a glimpse of her maternal instinct again as her wild yellow eyes darted between her remaining son and the wench who sought to drive her from him - he needs me.
But she had killed his brothers. Slaughtered his sisters. In her unsound mind, perhaps she would destroy him too.
Her shoulders sagged and her gaze lingered softly on the tiny, fragile little body of her single child, hackles bristling as she considered the strengthening urge to fight for him. Caiaphas continued to press closer, cornering her, suffocating her, and she had no choice but to run.
what was this feeling? this sensation of his heart growing six times bigger, only to have the new space immediately tenanted by incorrigible despair. he was torn from the roots of existence and replaced by the skeletal husk on the ground; sobbing, chin propped to stare vacantly at the cadavers of his children.
on thin shoulders, he eased his body forward and touched the bridge of his nose to one of the pups’ bellies, nudging it tentatively.
he knew deep down it would not respond to his urging.
yet all the same, the hopeful feedback his heart gave him when the newborn’s body shifted was immeasurable to the dejection and sorrow that sunk fully in when it did not animate and stir autonomously as he withdrew his nose, instead relaxing back to its original listless position. dead. really dead.
numb. really numb.
from a few inches away, a small mewl. followed by a skittered heartbeat. Lycaon’s focus scintillated like a solar flare.
true to form, Caiaphas abseiled through the halls of the cavern with a sea of flames impelling her heels. in her eyes, the eradication that had occurred was an unconscionable dissipation of the sacrosanctity with which she regarded her grotto.
Lycaon did not waste a precious moment to steal a glance at any of the living forms around him as shrieks trebled throughout the alcove. even when Caiaphas shouldered roughly past him, he was unresponsive and scarcely budged. the only sound registering in his conscious was the roaring hiss of shock reciprocal to the tide of agony pulling him under.
his eye percieved a subdued movement—it was faint; the rise and fall of a small, pale belly. as the storm rampaged over his head, the exile of his children’s mother went demonstrably unheeded. he pulled himself together once again, summoning the strength to identify the living from the dead and pluck his surviving son from amongst the dispatched lives of his siblings. he immediately and defensively resiled into the corner of the room.
blood sullied his muzzle, so it would not be inconceivable for the siren queen to presume her own son had partaken of the carnage.
with Svalinn scruffed in the glove of his muzzle, he mustered a low, rumbling growl at his adoptive mother, cautioning her with a fraught look in his eyes to choose her next move wisely.
the sea witch closed the gap between herself and nyx in bounding strides, her fur on end and her harpy-gaze wide with vitriol. that monster -- caiaphas could not wrap her mind around such an atrocious act, truly - and it was only the stun that consumed her that saved nyx from immediate assault.
as the golden ostrega's gaze lingered on the pup a moment longer than the saltqueen preferred, she pressed forward in a series of bucking jumps, a snarl splitting her haggard muzzle. out, she commanded, spittle ejected from her curled lips. she watched hatefully as the molten woman bolted, and turned back around to her son --
what was more discomfiting than seeing a pile of butchered puppies?
perhaps, seeing the last remaining survivor clung in a desperate man's jaws.
caiaphas sucked in a deep breath, her chest expanding as if pushing violently against an oppressive and overcoming weight. she expelled a single utterance, staring directly at her displaced son with her tail curved above her: "you'll kill him, too?"