Wolf RPG

It happened, perhaps, while Everett was sleeping. Or maybe he was doing something else, any of the tiny mundane tasks on a neverending checklist that only amounted to staying alive.
She was somewhere far beyond all of that. Mostly, she existed; she looked at things but didn't see them and she thought of nothing at all. Her eyes would catch sometimes on pretty things, pretty moments, but when the words came to her she could only think: what's wrong with me? What's happening to me? And those thoughts scared her. So she did not think them. Nothing was wrong with her. Nothing was happening. Everett was with her.
No. No, she was... alone? The quiet was suddenly deafening as she looked around and saw only the frozen gently-swaying wilds, and her heart was in her throat and her fur was growing cold, why cold? Why... oh, oh no, no —
Blood; blood in her fur, on her face and streaking her throat and across her shoulders, and she could smell it now and feel the drying pieces clinging to her and her throat seized. She vomited into the snow and tasted blood, and saw more drying on her paws and her legs. Everywhere. It was everywhere, and she was afraid. Not for herself. She was unhurt. She looked again and saw no sign of Everett, and wished for a moment that she could retreat back to that dark, quiet place where nothing was real and nothing mattered.

He woke up.

She was gone.

Panic. A flurry of snow and soggy fallen leaves, unearthed by a gentle melt a warmer wind had blown through.

He turned right. Left. A sharp breeze caught his cheeks and ruffled his fur like a wild man.

Ophelia was gone.

He did not call for her this time.

He had seen how the last time, he’d broken her to silence, stretching on, on, on.

She withered. She shrunk. Soon she would decay, if they did not find their brothers. If he did not find her.

He chased her scent, and she led him on a wild hunt. Coherent — yet wholly elsewhere.

An hour passed. Two. The sun turned through the sky. Three — and then, he saw her, gilded strands between the leaves.

Gilded strands and —

Mother Rain, he whispered, prayer quieted by a choke.

He hurried towards her, and though he wished to probe her with paws and toes and nose, he swooped in without kisses or overbearing touch, as Evander may have done. Just searching eyes, scouring the length of her, looking for where new wounds lay, but he could not decipher any new from the old.

Where are you hurt? he asked, a stressed and quiet question, what happened? Let me see you.

Everett; she was alone and then she was not; then suddenly he was there and frantic and questioning, and it all became that much more real. The relief of seeing him alive and unhurt didn't even register. She started to shiver, a delicate violence to her trembling like glass shuddering and threatening to shatter. Too much, it was too much. She shook her head and started to sob, the sound strangled and raw in her throat. And then a thought seized her: what if Bjarna sees me like this? Gunnar? Lestan? No — no!
I - I don't know. I'm not hurt, She stammered, eyes glazed and wild. I can't - I don't want to think about it. Talk about it. Please, Everett. Reverie started to groom herself in a clumsy panic, and only managed to smear the blood for a few horrible seconds before her fur started to come clean. She had to get it off, she had to, before anyone else saw it. No one could ever know.

From Swiftcurrent Creek he cut a swift path across the valley, fueled by righteous fury and sudden desperation. Ophelia was here, close, and he knew it now. He knew that it was possible that Lestan was someone she knew, someone who was protecting her — from him. The thought made him want to vomit. It made him wish he'd been stupid enough to pick a fight at the border. Lestan had no right; he had no claim over Ophelia — and Arric, who had seemed so friendly and so willing to help, had supported him. Of course he had. They were pack wolves.
It was Everett's scent which cut through his thoughts first. Tybault grimaced, but started to follow it before the decision was even consciously made. His brother's company, even his least favorite, was better than being alone right now. Then he smelled blood, and the panic really settled in. He started to run, but only made it a few yards before he caught sight of Everett, and then —
Ophelia. He knew her immediately. Of course he knew her. His heart was in his throat and his feet just stopped under him, and he almost stumbled, but it didn't matter because she was here. Ophelia. Ophelia. Ophelia! Tybault called out, breathless, and started to run again. She was here, she was alive, thin and covered in blood and tattered to hell but she was here. He didn't stop, he didn't look at Everett or even try to see if she was hurt. He pulled her into a hug and knew that he would cross the world a thousand times over just for this one moment. For her.

She sobbed, she shook, she trembled like he had the morning after Evander had found him scared and crumbled beneath the seer's tree.  If only Evander were here with them now.  Sunlight where Everett was ice, passion where he was stoic, strong where he was frail.

Evander would know what to do.

Everett just staggered forward with that longing to help that always came up just a little bit too short, a little bit too late.

It's okay, it's okay, he would try to soothe her, even though his own voice shook, we don't have to. Just let me help you, she loathes your help, something whispered in his heart, but he crawled forward anyway and sought to reach her in her frenzied panic to cleanse the blood from her fur.

That was when Tybault shouted her name.

Tybault, stop! but his brother had already called for her, already shoved by him to reach her, and Everett staggered and lost his balance enough to fall against a nearby tree.  Oof!  His shoulder met the scrape of bark, and hot pain seared beneath his fur.  Not that name, he wheezed, but he knew his warning would only come too late; Tybault had already called for her, her name now forbidden:

Ophelia.

We don't have to. Reverie blinked up at Everett, drawn momentarily from her frantic haze. He stumbled closer, closer, and she let him. He reached out to help, and she let him. She wondered if it had been that simple all along, or if it was only that they were different now. Theirs was a murky glass-domed world, ash-stained from fires long ago reduced to smoldering memory; their light came through in cracks and glowing patches where, through careful work and a gentle touch, the ash was swept away. That was their fate, to steal those beautiful moments like trying to capture sunlight in their hands.
Until they dared to reach up, until they were brave enough that even the threat of falling shards couldn't hold them back.
And the glass ceiling shattered.
And the light flooded in.
Do you feel that? She wanted to ask, but she only pulled Everett into a tight embrace, and blood be damned. Hers, theirs, Medeiros in their veins like a golden curse; it didn't matter. I love you, She whispered into his fur, thinking for some reason that she might not get to say it again. It felt important that he knew. And then the moment slipped away, as they all did.
Ophelia!
No, Tybault, don't - Too late, it was always too late. She pulled away from Everett, prepared to run, but Tybault was already there. Stiff in his embrace, she only stood and grasped with a desperate slipping grip for here and now. It was fading, fast. She looked at Everett, pleading with her eyes because the words wouldn't come. Don't leave me with him. Don't let him -
Dark.

So maybe his entrance was more like a wrecking ball than a parting of clouds, but Tybault wasn't much for self-analysis just then. What did reach him was the way his siblings immediately chastised him, almost in unison. His eyes flicked to Everett first, never a shortage of venom in them for his least favored brother. But Ophelia —
No. He cast the name aside, apologies already spilling from him. I'm sorry, I won't, I didn't know - wait wait wait DAMNIT - He stepped back as he swore, realizing she was already gone. His fault. That was his fault. Fuck. He couldn't look at her, not when she was like that, so he looked at Everett instead. A long moment passed.
I'm sorry, Words not meant for his brother, but he would witness them all the same, because if not him then no one at all. Their sister was gone. Gone, and it was his fault, and he knew he would never apologize to her, not after this moment. Not the way she deserved. He never could.