Stone Circle I will (not) go pt.2

Some music to go along with this post. I'd love it if you would give it a listen while reading!
TAGS: @Valette

Snow fell softly outside of the shared den. His tired eyes watching the small dots softly drift inwards and outwards every now and then before joining the small sheet of blanket set across the grounds. It was only when the wind was particularly rough would they travel in towards the mouth of the cave, ruffling his fur and melting upon impact.

Inhaling softly, he looked beside him to where Valette lay, her small body tethered to his for warmth and shielded from the cold, curled so tightly he could only see the top of her head. During the night his ears tipped back to listen for her breaths, so shallow and small in slumber, but a sign that she was still here. Still with him.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, the man exhaled his breath into the darkness of the cave before mustering the strength to nose her awake with light touches.

Valette, he croaked with a burning throat. Come.

Tired eyes stared at her, lids heavy and folding at the corners of which were crinkled with age. A smile blessed his face as she rose to stare at him, and without a word he turned to shed the warmth of the cavern for favor of the frigid night, the snow fall covering his back, welcoming him into it’s embrace.

Stalking through the land with muscles laved with ache and pains, the elder slipped every now and then upon the trail. His legs first, then body would clash with the earth, sending snow in his wake and grunts spilling past his maw, but he was determined to stray his mind from the pain, to continue onwards with steady breaths which would disappear into the frigid air.

---

Growing tired with each step, Greyback sought to stop and rest at the crest of a hill. The land so dead, so white with snow that it was barely recognizable. The mountains, once sharp and black, were now dulled with the cover of white they almost blended in with the sky line, and the snow, so blinding it was hardly worth trying to figure out what was up and down.

Love, My love.

But a voice, so calm, so surreal, pulled him from his thoughts, his worry.

Greyback…. Love….

Squinting his eyes into the white air, the man tried to see, tried to listen and follow the oddly familiar voice whispering on the wind.

Where are you?

It echoed again and again, pulling him deeper and farther into the unknown before opening up to a figure of white. And there, standing before him, was a face so familiar and almost lost in age he shook with tears of joy.

It’s been so long, they whispered.

He agreed silently, smiling happily and approaching them through the mist, tail wagging behind him.

Am I to go with you? Is it time? He questioned softly.

The figure nodded. A reply he expected, something he had been preparing for and making peace with...But something within him still didn’t feel right, still didn’t want to let go, and as he paused to think and look down he swallowed his ever-dry throat. The wind battering against his sides picking up in strength. The cold stung.

But… Valette. I can’t leave her.

He looked behind him, battling against the cold and squinting towards the direction from which he came, and to where Valette hadn’t followed him... Why hadn’t she followed him?

She will join us sometime.

A long silence stretched miles and miles.

Deep within Easthollow the remnants of him laid, still snuggled against Valette within the ever-inviting den and proving warmth that was slowly fading with time. Come morning he would be stiff against her,
cold and still,
gone and waiting.

The cold of winter wasn't what woke him that morning, it was a call. A howl filled with grief and pain, the melody shaking on the wind, and it had come from his mother. Whatever grogginess he held was quickly shaken as something stirred within him. A feeling West had grown accustomed to lately, though its familiarness did not take away the weight. The woodland boy made his way to his paws, escaping the warmth of his shelter to head into the storm that awaited him.

Each step chilled him, though it wasn't the cold that shook his body. It was Valette.

No no no no no—

His steps quickened, the lightly blanketed snow torn behind him as he raced to his mother's side. He nosed her, almost as if prodding silently. Who was it? How could this happen again? Though the words were never needed. Another had beat him to the scene, Zola. He had briefly heard her words, that she too was here before her mumblings turned to something he could not recognize.

West's gaze turned to the mouth of the den, his gaze darkening as he saw his father's slumbering body. Why hadn't he come? Shouldn't he hear the news as well?

Of course, pieces were slowly fitting together, though denial burned in his chest. Valette had been lingering near the dens for some time now. "Your father," she had said, "just his age, nothing serious". Death was imminent for all, something easy to forget with those who died too young. From the siblings he lost to the strangers who veered their borders.

The truth was he was only familiar with one kind of death, that which was unjust.

He had not prepared for the soft death of an old life.

A cold washed over him, freezing his bones as he stood like the stones they held dear. Perhaps time was passing by without him, though if it was, West was completely unaware. He remembered when Polaris first joined, how she claimed the world to be cruel and unjust. It all seemed dramatic to him at the time, surely there was good to balance, though it seemed each day tried to prove him wrong.

Newt never came home, Clay did though in pieces, and now the stone that he never imagined leaving had fallen over. No one was safe, even if Ursus never existed, those who never left the territory were just as much at risk of leaving forever. What was the point? Why had he killed to protect those he loved if his loved ones were just going to leave one by one anyway?

A rock seemed to settle in his chest, a weight he struggled to bear as it tried to suffocate him. He was breathing, but it didn't truly feel like it. Something told him to run, though it became apparent that rocks filled his legs as well. He was useless, and all he could do was stare silently. It was too quiet, even with his mother's sobs and the prayers of their newcomer, it was quiet, yet somehow that silence was deafening.

Heartbreak was never so loud.