It hadn't taken Arlette much effort to convince him to go see the newest children of Easthollow. He needed a break from the constant weight that slumped across his once youthful shoulders, and made him feel far older than he had ever felt before. The days had been long, ever since Arlette had started showing signs of her pregnancy, and they had gone, together, to tell her parents what they had done. Long, and marred by stress, and pain. Valette did not talk to them. Kaito feared he had created a schism they would never be able to cross. Well -- maybe Arlette would, one day. And maybe their children. Heavens, he hoped Valette would speak to them. He prayed for it, every night. That something would change, no matter the cost. Inwardly, he had very little hope that he would ever reconcile that small tether of relationship he had broken with her, but he still hoped that this could be fixed between Arlette, and their offspring. Their children would carry the Matriarch's blood -- and maybe this would be enough to soften her heart towards them -- but he would always be an outsider.

An outsider to Easthollow, to everyone but Arlette. So Kaito stuck close to her, unwilling to abandon her, and comforted her in any ways he could while they patiently waited for the birth of their children, just as she provided comfort, strength, and peace of mind for him. He knew, without a doubt, that she loved him. He knew, without a doubt, that he loved her. And their children would know this love they shared, their children would feel their love, and they would know that they were not a mistake.

Kaito walked alongside her today, in the waning hues of the late spring evening. He shared soft words with her here and there, meant only for her to hear. The forest was oddly quiet this hour. Heat prickled beneath his skin. The air felt stale and hostile. He didn't think much of this, not at first. Easthollow never much felt like home anymore. But then he noticed that the birdsong had stopped. And he noticed that they were not alone.

Valette neared the entrance to the birthing den. Her presence did not surprise him - though at the sight of her, he wished to turn around, and save their visit for another time. Yet there was something else within the narrative that set him on edge. The Matriarch seemed odd in the way she held herself, staring into the undergrowth as thought something were not quite right. His fur lifted, and he drew closer to Arlette - protective, though he did not know what he needed to protect her from - 

Until the bushes rustled with a burst of tawny fur, and Kaito shot like a stone from a sling.

"Arlette, go!" he hurled his voice out to her on some heightened impulse, and the scene unfolded like a nightmare ripped from an exhausted mind. Arlette's warmth diminished from his side; not because she had run, but because he had peeled away, away from her safety, and into the warpath.

Kaito managed to outpace the cougar by a few short steps. He had never been a fighter. His paws knew the ways of medicine. How to help, how to heal, how to save. And that was his objective, when he flung himself into the narrow space between the beast and Valette. Hoping, that he might give her enough time to run. Fully knowing, that he would not have that chance himself. Fully knowing, and fully terrified, as sharp claws skimmed his face, and fangs closed down around his shoulders and rendered him as useless as a ragdoll.

He did not die in that moment, but he knew his death had begun. Chaos erupted in ways he could not discern. One moment he felt ground beneath his paws, and the next, nothing. The world dizzied around him, and somehow, he found himself flung off somewhere to the side, slid up against a tree, twitching in the warm blood that oozed around his broken body, and praying, even still, that everyone else would be okay.

There was a rhythm to her days, now that the first few weeks of infancy had passed. As the children grew, and neared their first taste of independence, Nanook found she only wanted to keep them near her. Their eyes had opened; they babbled, and sought to form their first words. Tottered, at times, to the cusp of the den -- and at times she let them out, but not too far, and not without her eyes to watch them. They were still too young for, that kind of independence, too vulnerable. And, she had not been able to shake that unscrutable feeling that she'd had when Valette had visited her, heavy with milk. That feeling, that this bliss would not last... that change was on the air, change she was not so sure about.

She wrapped around them tonight. Valette would be here soon, for she always visited these days, and often at this hour, when the pack was quieter, and the world passed into the moonlight hour. Sure enough, her sister's warm scent flooded across the entrance of the den -- but strangely, her shadow never followed. Instead, the tranquil air seeped with a sudden stab of fear-scent, her sister's - and she sprung to her paws at her sister's panicked yelp.

She snaked around her children with a sharp command for them to "stay", and she ripped from the underground.

And met a sight of absolute chaos -- a flurry of blood, and bodies, and claws. Valette's presence stood heavy a few meters away, and beyond that, she saw the forceful impact of Arlette against the cougar, saw the beast turn on her niece, and rip -- tearing her, and scoring the ground with blood as red as her eyes.

In that movement, she did not see Arlette. The resemblence, too uncanny -- she saw mother in the cougar's grip -- and the fear, the rage, the grief overtook her. Around her, the world filtered to that familiar shade of white, blinding her to everything, except that which mattered, and narrowing down her scope to the instincts that propelled her.

"Protect them," she shouted to Valette, and knew her sister would understand what she meant. She needed her sister: not here, but there, beneath the ground, where the children would be safe. Where Valette would be safe.

And in the furious rush, she began to understand.

Nanook moved like a comet across the darkening ground, blazing in her fury, single-minded in her rage. Burning, with the passion afforded any mother against anyone who dared shed their child's blood. And as her children were to Valette, so her sister's were to her: blood of her blood, and as much sons and daughters as were Selamuit, Kallik, Taktuq, and Ikiaq. Hers to hold, to teach, and to protect.

Arlette would not die.

The silver mercenary threw herself at the cougar's exposed side, and swung with a warcry, and sharp resolve, to force the cat away. Their weight shifted together, and they crashed to the ground. She could not see what had become of Arlette, but she understood what would become of her.

Nanook's grip slipped, her rigid canine limbs not made to twist like a cat's, but she had long trained her reflexes to respond to the fight. With a tumble, and a skid, she regained herself, and she sprung up and dashed forward again. Knowing, how quick these predators were. Knowing, that this fight would end in death. If she ran, she would spare herself, but Arlette would die. And if not Arlette, then Valette, and the children. And if not them, then Siarut, or Greyback, or any of the countless others who counted on each other to live their lives and give their lives for the sake of the whole, to lay themselves down for the greatest, and for the least.

These were her family; these were her friends, and as Nanurjuk had taught her: greater love had nothing but this.

She met the cougar head on. It had begun to turn back to Arlette, but now reared it's bloodied face. Spun around, and lifted to strike. A mistake, for him. With one last motion and a wily grin, she skid beneath it's striking mouth, and shot upward, just as the cougar brought its fangs swiftly down upon her back.

The cougar ripped her away, and she ripped out his throat. Hot blood spilled over her head. She could not tell what was hers, and what was the beast's -- as if that really mattered anymore. She felt the beast shift and weaken in its grip. She felt herself drop to the ground. Her final words were not profound. They were, instead, a triumphant laugh, that matched the wild smile on her face.

She had learned to lose, and she had learned to love here -- but her life had always been a pilgrimmage, a preparation for the better place that had always been prepared for her. Siarut knew how she loved him, she knew she left him with light he would carry, and give to each of their children. Valette knew how she had loved her, too, and she knew her children were safe in her arms, safe in Sia's -- that they were all safe with each other, and that was enough.

She saw herself hit the ground, her body dead and maimed, but her soul, very much alive. She was going home now -- she would see the One who had kept her -- and she turned toward Kaito's fallen body as the heavens opened up with glorious light.

Reality blurred in the moments that passed, between what was worldly, and what was not of this world. He was still not dead enough to feel the bliss of Heaven's healing, and still too much alive to want to go there yet.

His wounds ached with a pain he never even knew existed. Excruciating. Agonizing, and he closed his eyes, his voice, quite wordless, emitting only as the high pitch of a whine. Wanting to let go, wanting to hold on. Not for him, but for her. For her, always for her.

What would she do when he was gone? What would he do, without her?

He tried to move, to get up, to help, but he couldn't. He couldn't feel much beyond the pain, didn't know if he could move anymore. The sound of the fight raged on, and he closed his eyes from the sight.

Waited, maybe, for death to come.

What came instead was a presence. Comforting, and soft, and familiar. His eyelid fluttered open, the one that could still open, and the setting sun washed Arlette in a stark, yet magnificent light.

"Lette." His eyes pinched in sorrow and something happy, to simply see her safe, and a warmth spread along the curve of his lips, lifting upward in a smile that seemed torn between relief and agony. Relief, because she was alive -- right? -- and here with him. Agony, because even with his blurring vision and the darkening shadows, he could make out the crimson stains smeared across her face, blood and pain he wished he could wipe away. "You...we're s'ppose'd t'run..." he tried to tease, but his voice felt rough, and hoarse in his throat, and his words faded to the pitch of a whine again.

It hurt, it hurt, gosh, it hurt so much, but he had so little energy to say even that. He closed his eyes, but some part of him could still see. It made sense, and none at all. Arlette hunched over him, but he could not hear her, not very well. The cougar, now dead. A limp shape of a sterling wolf beside it. His heart turned.

"Don't look so upset. I am not there anymore."

The voice startled him, and that was when he saw her: Nanook -- dead, but alive -- a comfort, and a fear. "Please," he did not know Nanook, not very well, but he knew Arlette had loved her. "Please." He knew he was dying, but he didn't know how. As much as he knew what waited for him on the other side -- a much better life than the greatest life here -- he did not want to go of this. Did not want to let Arlette go, did not want to let their children go.

Gosh, it was all just a wretched mess!

Nanook seemed to consider him, then met him with a soft, and oddly knowing smile. "It is okay," she said, and turned from him. That was when he saw the other side. Like a veil being torn, the heavens seemed to unfold before him, above him, around him, and she stepped into the light. And that was when he saw her: Nanook, the same, but different. Not younger, not older, simply changed, in a twinkling and a way he knew but did not understand.

She had walked the same path as him, and he had never known! But he would have eternity to know her now -- and there came a comfort, in that realization that she had waited for him. That she had waited for him, like he had been her own, as her children, and as Arlette, had been.

Beyond her, now, others appeared -- those who had gone before him. And he did not recognize them from their faces, or their forms -- but he knew them, and knew them with a fervour and knowing, as though he had known them here on earth. The tallest one met him with a smile and that same look of knowing Nanook had given him before. That it was not easy, but it was okay. "Dad," he whispered, and he turned to see the others... oh no, oh no. "D'you -- d'you see? Them? Lette?" Oh, he knew she couldn't -- but how he wished Arlette could see!

In the dark and weighty world, he did not look to Arlette again -- he could not turn away from them, saw her, in their faces -- but he managed to move his leg and reach out, to touch her, one last time. To brush the soft fur along the side of her swollen abdomen.

"They're safe," he whispered, with a coherence that comes before life slips completely away, "they're okay. You'll be okay." He did not know if she would be okay, but the One had given them each other, if even for this little while, and for this significant reason: that they might live, and laugh, and dream, and know happiness, and know sadness, and learn something of love and forgiveness together, that even now, she might know what loving someone truly was. He had loved her. He loved her still. And he had been faithful, and faithful to the end. And he hoped -- prayed -- that he would, one day, see her again. But that was not in his hands.

The light in his eyes began to fade. He felt this coming, and he tried to press one last word for her. One last thing, he hoped she would carry. The One had afforded him that grace -- but here, his words began to slur. He tried to say something about the One, that he was safe now, and protected from harm. And he said all these things, in that awkward space between life and death, but his words slurred, and the only coherent one that trembled from his lips was, "Forgive."

Then, his earthly voice broke entirely, and he stilled.

A new voice sounded as Kaito rose from the ground, and left the temporal world behind. A sound like a million waterfalls, cascading one over the other, and springing from the heights; a voice, which made his feet feel like they could jump along the mountain heights and never grow weary, which made a song rise in his chest, and bubble out in joyful declaration.

The One laughed with him -- a far more beautiful sound than he had ever imagined -- and He welcomed him home, to this place of rest and worship before the One he had worshipped and longed for here on earth. And as Kaito caught up to Nanook, she laughed with him -- brother and sister in the faith, though neither had known -- and they bounded together toward his father, his children, and the One he had waited his entire life to see.