Stone Circle The mother stone is what I become

Something was wrong. The female had felt it in her gut when she left Blackfeather Woods. Valette had a feeling that she should go home to Easthollow. She knew she had a pressing matters on her to do list; Visit Ira at Kaistleoki, Hydra at Moonspear, perhaps even Arbiter at Legion once all was done. But there was this tug, a want for her to go home. She frowned. Valette was a wolf that listened to her instinct so the mother made haste to return to her home instead of continuing to travel.

She traveled through the night and continued during the day. Valette did not stop to rest. She made sure she kept moving, even if it was just a walking pace. She made it back around noon. The sun was high in the sky, the white landscape revealing her location with her dark pelt. She crossed the border and noticed West's scent was stale. The matriarch frowned. She checked another scent mark which was also stale. He was suppose to watch Easthollow! Their family. Where was he? She felt light anger settle within her. He left the pack without someone in charge?

Valette rushed to the stone circle, howling to her pack mates to come and meet her, and that she had returned. She had been away for six days so the damage could not be that bad. Still, if Ursus got a whiff of that information there might not have been an Easthollow anymore. She had to be more careful! West had to be more careful! She came to the circle with a trot.

Valette was exhausted but she first wanted to check if everyone was alright, and who had been watching the pack if West was gone. She was glad to have returned to her stones. Her eyes fell on the fresh earth where Greyback was buried by the Father Stone. Her heart ached. She missed him. She did not want to lead by herself anymore. She was tired. So tired.

Valette trotted to the mother stone, and gave it a long look. Then her eye fell on something, a crack, in the earth at the base of the stone. Was that there before? She could not remember. Valette heard a light rumble and tipped her head to the side. Was that what she thought she heard? Perhaps not, those days were in the past. Footsteps came up behind her. She turned and saw @Merrit. Her face looked worried but relief went through her when seeing her son.

Not a moment later, her eyes fell on @Kallik, who also came to her call. She offered him a warm smile. She was about to speak when a loud rumble sounded directly from under her feet. Valette steadied herself to not fall, but the shaking was too severe. Valette lost her balance and fell to the ground. She looked with wide eyes at Merrit and Kallik, as a shadow fell over her.

Valette looked over her shoulder. The last thing she saw was rock coming at her. She thought it was strange since her beloved stones never moved. The rumbling under the ground continued and most of the stones seemed to sway as well. The sudden shadow came with a pressing weight and forever darkness. With a loud thump the Mother Stone fell towards the middle of the circle and on top of the wolf that called herself the Matriarch of Easthollow. It was when the rumbling stopped the deathly silence said enough. Valette would have her final resting place by her beloved stones.

Valette went from immense pressure and pain to feeling feathery light. Someone seemed to help her up to her feet. Familiar. A large presence, slowly emitting the softest light. She recognized his shape. Greyback. Then others appeared with the faintest glow around her. Clay! And... Newt! Newt was here too? She felt a smile tug on her lips. Nanook-- How she missed her. Then two little pups rushed around her and Greyback's feet. She could only smile. It turned wider when a brighter light approached. Pure white, warm. Mother! Her heart filled with joy. More joined, however, some faces were unexpected. West, Leta and Polaris. Her smile faded a bit, but al those wolves around her emitted so much light. Then one more appeared, almost like they had to travel from far away. She recognized his shape everywhere. Steady. Where there was darkness before, there was now light. So much of it, warm, welcoming, loving. She went with them, embraced that light, unaware of what she left behind...

Lyrics from 'Neglected Space' by Imogen Heap. RIP to the brightest queen <3 ;___;

He itched to leave. To travel long, and far, over the western mountains. To scale Moonspear again, and find Hydra, to escort warriors out east, that they might put an end to Ursus once and for all.

But mother had left, and so had West, and they had left him behind -- their failure of a son and a brother. He still tasted the blood of the cannibal he had killed in Fox's Glade... how many weeks ago now? And the dirt he'd clawed up to bury the youth that monster had killed. The clumps of earth still felt wedged between his claws.

Mother hadn't even approached him to watch the pack while she was gone, and that as much confirmed what she thought of him now: that she thought nothing much of him at all.

A has-been, a once was, the leftovers, an eyesore, bleeding, oxidising. 

But he came to her when she called. His heart still burned with love for her. Arlette and Keen, Leta, and Clay, and Newt, and Clary, and Ezra, and Steph, and Greyback, and Stark... West and mother, of all he'd sought to protect... they were the only ones left.

A few remaining, unloved, emotionally damaged, a waste of space.

He found Valette at Stone Circle. An uneasy tension cracked through the air. Merrit caught her eye, their bright hazel the only visible part of her he had ever carried -- and something was wrong.

Merrit paused at the cusp of the circle; brow knit; paw raised in a moment's hesitation to push forward and join her. Mother. His thoughts only warned in silence. He did not catch the smile that came across her complexion as his cousin joined them. Merrit turned his eyes to the stones to the sky. Ears tall, and flinching in every direction.

Unearthly silence.

And then, a great quaking, as one he remembered from many months before.

Cool stone met his shoulder, as the tallest stone of the Lost Souls upheld him, and in his mind he could see that memory of Greyback's body fallen to the ground, as though dead, when the earth had first shaken.

And he screamed, but his voice trickled out as a whisper.

"mother..."

What's gone? I'm losing it.
This is not what I stand for.

 The stone above her shook, with a violence he had never seen the earth shake before. Once a beacon, now a shadow of darkness, like the angel of death spiralling down, down, down to the earth --

This is not what I stand for.

"Mother." No. No. NO!

This is not what I stand for.

But his legs carried him over the trembling ground at the speed of a nightmare. He couldn't move fast enough -- he plunged for her --

"MOTHER."

Dust billowed in a cloud around him, choking through his lungs, stinging his eyes. He fell onto cold, crumbled stone.

And he knew.

"NO!"

He had missed her while she was gone. She was the only one he could really count on. His siblings were gone; he and dad never seemed to connect. But Valette had always been there for him. She stepped in when his mother had been mercilessly ripped from his life, and she and given him comfort and pulled him little by little from his scared little shell. 

So while she was gone, he kept mostly to himself. He never talked much anyway, at least not to the rest of the pack. He had spent most of his time near the borders, patrolling and waiting. 

Her call made him pause as he was making his way to the stones. He often went there to think. Luckily for him, it sounded like Valette was already there. He broke into a sprint, slowing as he arrived and taking a seat near his cousin. He returned Valette's smile with one of his own and the thump of his tail against the ground. She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by rumbling. Kallik stood and looked around nervously. A movement made his gaze whip back to the stones just in time to see the mother stone sway and fall to the ground—fall on top of Valette. His eyes widened and his heart dropped into his stomach.

He heard Merrit cry out, but everything sounded like he was underwater—all muffled and far away. He couldn't breath; he tried but his lungs wouldn't fill with air when he commanded them to. All the panic and fear beat against him until it all came to head, leaving him with one single thought: he had to help her.

Kallik rushed forward and threw himself against the stone. He tried to wedge a shoulder between the edge of the stone and the ground but it wouldn't fit. He pushed against the side, but he couldn't move the weight. Tears began to flow down his face. We have to help her! he shouted at Merrit. We have to get this off. He shoved and shoved, but the damn thing wouldn't budge. 

Finally, he dropped to the ground, shaking with sobs. How could this be happening again? Why was he forced to be without his family? What had he done to lose his mother and to lose Valette? It's not fair he mumbled between sobs. It's not fair. What was he supposed to do now?