Cassiopeia's View and we will never stop looking

Some weeks ago she had come along these passes with Arturo on one side and Sirius between them. It had felt like sending her boy to a firing squad. The had survived together and Hemlock was grateful for it, but now, another tragedy. Losing Roarke was like losing one of her own and while she had not carried nor birthed any children it made her heartache no less.

She had told Arturo and Lotte that she was going to pass through the mountains, giving strict orders for Sirius to stay with the other children and their sitter while she was out. As Oifigeach her duties were not much more but they were none the less important and she was taking a break from the borders for the sake of combing the mountain range that loomed above them for any sign of her godson. 

She howled loudly, crying out over and over again for him. Desperately she listened, ears twitching as she hoped to hear his responding cry. Dawn was just breaking and Hemlock wanted to keep hope alive; she wouldn't stop until they had answers. 

"Day-day," she asked while she limped after her father, "Whas do day-day?" Charon ignored his three-legged daughter's voice, brows knitted into a frown. She'd started to call him a name. That was the sign he needed. The sign he'd been waiting for. For so long he had stared at the den and wondered, known he should take action, but he just couldn't. He knew what he should have done before she became so much of a person, back when she was still just a blob, just shapes, just nothing...

But he couldn't.

He still couldn't.

But he was doing it anyway.

"Wha Zee?" she asked. "Wan tiyums..."

He would carry her, sometimes, and then he would let her walk again. He didn't know where to. To somewhere where he... knew for sure that Galaxy, Vela and Jarilo wouldn't hear her cries when he committed the act. To somewhere that wasn't so much home as here. Somewhere. They were going somewhere. Anywhere. A place, an abstract place — far enough away until his guilt was muted.

They were at one of those points again. "Tiyums, day-day!" He didn't respond. He hadn't responded to any of it. He just walked, walked, walked, kept walking, brought her away as if she was livestock, cattle for slaughter. He wondered when he'd become so soft. He'd killed before. But they weren't pups. They weren't his own. Made him feel grateful Althaia'd got away. He wasn't so sure he'd have been able to carry out Amekaze's command to murder her pups. Made him wonder where they were, out there, if they were alive, if they'd survived.

Then finally, the landscape changed from places that felt like home beneath his paws to a place that wasn't quite so known to him. To a place that was different and abstract enough. "Was dis?" Ran asked as she looked around and blinked. "We're here." He wasn't sure what here was. Ran stood there, her cripple leg sticking forward at a weird angle, her fur all black and her eyes still a milky, colourless tone of puppy blue. She was little, too little for her age. She was a monstrosity, his monstrosity, after a long line of healthy pups, and he hated her for it.

He wanted to kill her, he really did, knew somewhere deep down that it was the most humane thing to do to her, but fuck it, he just couldn't do it.

"Daddy has to go now," he spoke coolly, his voice eerily calm and calculated. "Just stay here, and things will be okay soon. You'll be okay. There won't be anymore pain. Just —" His voice cracked up there, and he watched Ran as she looked up at him with ununderstanding eyes. She didn't get what he was saying. She didn't know she was gonna die soon. Fuck. "Look, just, stay here. It'll be okay. Something'll get you, it'll be over soon."

He didn't even know what he was doing anymore. He wanted to just grab her and run her home. But he couldn't. They were far enough from home, they were in no man's land, in an abstract place that was just... somewhere. Not home. It was too late for home. He'd have to explain everything and it'd be difficult enough if he came home without her. Let alone if he came home with her now and if shit wouldn't get better. And it wouldn't, he knew as he looked at her leg.

"Bye, Ran," he murmured and he then turned away and vanished into the night.

"Day-day!" Ran cried as day-day suddenly turned away and left. "No no!" she called out after him as she stumbled after him on three legs, but she was unable to keep up. She was slow, having only begun to learn to walk on her three legs; too slow. She strumbled and fell multiple times but Ran just kept lifting her tiny body up again, on shaking limbs from all the walking she'd already done. Her fur was dusty and dirty and her legs felt like breaking but she had to find day-day again! Where'd he gone?

After running for an hour she still couldn't find him anywhere and Ran didn't know where she was and she was beginning to grow colder and hungrier rapidly. She'd fallen down a few slopes, fur ruffled and looking like a child of the wild by now. Her crippled left front leg poked forward at a weird angle, the single-toed-leg dangling there uselessly. She wailed loudly into the night, unknowingly not too far from someone who had their ears piqued for a sound.

There was a sound nearby. It wasn't what Hemlock expected to hear; no doubt if Roarke had heard her he would have answered her with gusto. Instead, this was a pitiful sort of wailing, not unlike the way that she had cried her devastations out into the world. Hemlock was quiet as she tracked the sounds, coming upon a puppy that seemed to have seen the worst of the world. Hemlock let out a soft crooning sound, something she'd reflexively begun to do between Sirius and her godchildren. If Roarke was here, she would have done the same to him. 

She neared the child and sniffed it over, finding no blood amidst the proverbial cloud of dust trailing over the puppy. "Oh little pigpen," She murmured softly, "What has happened to you?" There was no way a child so young managed to get up to the View; not with it's rough edges and steep rises. With a soft sigh Hemlock laid down, gently nudging the child closer to her abdomen and some warmth. 

Ran's wails didn't cease; she had called for day-day at first, but when she hadn't found him in such a long time she had begun to wail senselessly and she had stopped running after all her stumbling and falling. She grew more and more afraid by the moment, alone and trembling. When a shape appeared Ran crouched into a ball, widened eyes staring up at the other wolf she didn't know. She didn't smell familiar, but the way she spoke was somehow calming. Ran stared up at her with questioning eyes and shuffled a bit closer as she was directed, feeling comfortable in the warmth.

She sniffled as she huddled close and listened to the soothing tone in the wolf's voice. "Day-day an adoo an diddle," Ran explained in a soft, bashful voice as she pressed herself into the fur and sniffed up the wolf's scent.

 

The puppy didn't hesitate and Hemlock was grateful, gently cleaning off the puppy's face once she was nestled close enough. It was hard not knowing how young she was to know if she was properly eating meat but she didn't remember Sirius speaking much until after he was fully transitioned. Hemlock gave a little nod, although she wasn't certain what the child was saying entirely - something about her father, she surmised. "It is alright, Sweetheart. We can get you taken care of." 

The options seemed clear. Despite the little deformity she had noticed Hemlock she did not consider it a death sentence - she had seen plenty of wolves with grave injuries do fine. One of the elders in the tribe lost his front leg to battle and he had been fully capable of his duties, refusing to be coddled. "My poor sweetheart - do you know your name?" Hemlock didn't recognize beneath the dirt the pack scent that was the same as Olive and her family; even if she had, it would have been like leading Ran to the slaughter to bring her back to Moonspear. 

Ran was still frightened and felt alone, but she instinctively knew that she must stay close to this wolf if she wished to survive. The soothing, motherly tones were enough to gain her trust, to make her realise that she must stay here. "Sweeter," she murmured softly into the unfamiliar fur that belonged to the soothing voice, mimicking the word she didn't yet know, 'sweetheart'.

She didn't recognise the word 'name' as something relating to her, and was altogether too stressed to recognise it was a question for her, either. "Tiyums," she sighed; "Wan tiyums..." She just wanted to sleep, like she did most of her days, and be somewhere safe again. Ran looked up at the unknown adult questioningly, silently asking, what happens now?

 

Hemlock chuckled at the parroted word, she could scarcely remember how Sirius had sounded when he was learning to speak. Her god children too, had three loquacious adults around them and seemed to graduate quickly from those struggled words. Hemlock was hoping maybe she would know the girls name but it wasn't so easy - she guessed that the girl was tired, and 'Wan' could have been a lot of things. First thing first, they would rest. And then Hemlock would get her back to Teaghlaigh. 

"You should rest, my sweet." Hemlock said as she curled around the puppy. That was an easy fix at least. She hummed gently, a soft little nonsense melody and watched the girl as she laid her tail across her too, hoping to provide enough warmth she wouldn't struggle too much. 

Ran was tired, but she also wanted to be somewhere safe again — somewhere home, with Galaxy and Vela and Jarilo and mam and day-day. Yet it was easy for a pup so little to forget all that for just a moment as she was enveloped into warmth. She let out a pleased little sigh as she closed her eyes and fell asleep, accepting the time and opportunity to rest for now.