Sunset Valley “no pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous”

The unquenchable thirst drove her mad, the lack of water made her delirious. All sense of time and place deserted her as Raider stumbled away from the grotto, her paws carrying her past the foot of Nova Peak without a hint of recognition. She didn’t even register when the eagle-eyed @Goldeneye spotted her from high above, first calling out to her and then flagging @Riley’s and @Dagur’s attention when the Alpha female did not react.

The almost summer heat pressed down on her back as she staggered down into Sunset Valley. Growls and whines eked from her wrinkled red muzzle with every step as the former Redtail—her identity stripped away by the vicious virus ravaging her central nervous system—tottered aimlessly now.

Title quoted from “The Masque of the Read Death” by Edgar Allan Poe.

What was going on?

The alert from Goldeneye had set him on a nervous edge and carefully he pushed beyond the lines of Dragonspine. Stalking and slinking about as if he tracked a herd rather than Raider.

It led him to the familiar slopes of the valley.

He had met her for the first time here.

Now he heard only disgruntled sounds. Something that further set him on edge. She hasn't responded to Goldeneye and now she wandered the Valley in...well, he did not know what. Pain? Tiredness? Was this a step in motherhood he knew nothing about?

Tentatively he warbled a call and wondered if she still would be unresponsive.

Don't get too close to her.

Called out from a distance; the pale figure stood tense and ready to flee. Dirtwater Fox had seen this before. He watched the woman and the sentinel from the safety of his far-off perch, more fascinated than moved by the scene before him.

She would die. Did the sentinel know this? Intense blue eyes traced each movement.

Reduced to her basest self and senseless to her surroundings, Raider didn’t comprehend her comrade’s nearness, nor his warbling call. Drooling despite her body’s desperate need for hydration, she neither saw, nor heard, nor smelled anything that evoked anything resembling awareness.

Then something did break into her stupor: a fierce pain in her hindquarters prompted her to stop in her tracks and bend in half. She nipped at her own flesh, which only made the agony flare. It engulfed her like a flame, driving her into a final and furious frenzy.

She looked like an ouroboros, spinning in circles as she bit at her own rear. It wasn’t long before the revolutions made her dizzy, breaking the circle and sending her stumbling toward the bewildered Dagur.

Goldeneye’s account didn’t make sense. Riley took it in with a sense of disbelief; when the scout finished, Riley stood in thought for what felt a painfully long time.

Watch them — please. He instructed Goldeneye, giving each of the young pups a brief hug before he turned, speeding off in the direction Goldeneye pointed.

A warbling call brought him close — his gaze briefly apprised Dagur, but ultimately, Riley’s whole attention was on his mate.

Something was horribly wrong.

The characteristic light in those golden eyes he loved so much; they were fractured and disoriented. The dark merlot of her mask — the identifying feature of Raider Riley found so striking — bore no resemblance to the mate he knew. Her face was dirty, disheveled, flecked with the rime of foam and blood.

Raider — Riley begged of her as she spun upon herself. He didn’t register the stranger above, who warned them all to not get close.

This was his mate. Excepting the puppies, this was the one soul in life Riley loved the most. He would move mountains for her. He would do —

anything —

Raider, stop! He begged, rushing to her side. He noticed she was attacking her scar; had something happened? Had a dormant infection in her hip awakened, and now she was delirious with fever?

Riley didn’t know — but his heart and mind was overcome with heartbreak as he watched his mate suffer and realized he could do little to stop it. He tried to pin her - to force her down to the ground where she would stop hurting herself. Anything — anything at all to make her okay.

"Don't get too close to her."

He would have thought it his mind warning him, only the voice was too real. A steadier thing than the slight tremble in Dagur's lip.

He watched as it looked like she nearly wanted to devour herself! Spinning and spinning, he had to look away lest he become dizzy too. He stepped back and —

There was Riley.

Dagur listened as the man begged and suddenly he felt a sickness himself. Not one like the Alpha Female carried, but one entirely conjured from emotions he had not tackled before. As if a grief not his own had settled in his gut. He wanted to be here, to offer support, but what could he do?

A scout was no medic.

Cowardly he took a step back and another one. Not sure yet if he should stay for Riley's sake (because there was no Raider's sake, the fevered thing was not the wolf he knew) or quickly return to Dragonspine.

Empathy was a curse. One that turned every emotion to some sort of illness; something that could infect, spread, cripple, kill. He saw it now, saw the way it crazed the hunter and consumed the sentinel. It made no difference. She would die.

Couldn't they see that?

Dirtwater Fox watched unblinking as the hunter took pen to paper with a desperate flourish, his own name scrawled over the dying woman's as if he might take her place. They would go together, then. Maybe that was meant to be romantic. Death, Dirtwater Fox decided as he left them to their tragedy, was a funny thing. A fascinating thing.

But he couldn't linger. They would be here soon, after all. He could hear them already. Small gods — always waiting. Always hungry.

The hunter and his dying woman belonged to them, now. But they would never find Dirtwater Fox, no. He was already gone.

He followed the sentinel.

Raider’s shoulder struck Riley’s chest as he stepped between her and Dagur. She slotted into that familiar space just like always, though she swiftly destroyed any impression of a lovers’ embrace with a vicious snarl. She violently shoved at him, though he stood rock-ribbed against her fading vitality.

Gently he tried to maneuver her to the ground. Some part of Raider understood that once she was down there, she would never get up again. Instincts vying for survival, she fought back with her whole body. Teeth snapped. Legs flailed. She snarled, terrible in her wrath.

Riley surely suffered damage as he tried to protect her from herself. But still he overpowered Raider, folding his implacable mate beneath him. His forelegs caged her struggling body, holding her still until Raider’s heart stopped and she went limp beneath him.

Riley had always been her rock. Now, he was her tombstone.

He barely registered that Dagur stepped away. He did not even see the man on the cliff.

Raider swam in his vision. She turned to him and he smiled hopefully.

She slid her head under his chin in that age-old embrace. Relief flooded his worried bones. It was going to be okay -- when suddenly;

he felt the hot burn of blood gurgling from his throat. Riley took a step back with a quiet gasp of disbelief. R--Raider. He sobbed as she fought against him. Her skin felt like fire to the touch, her thrashing legs hard as sharp points against his tearing skin. Raider, stop. He choked out as blood salted his tongue and tears assailed his eyes. Her snarls echoed around them but Riley couldn't hear them. If he could just get her to stop--

He didn't know what had gotten into Raider. He only knew this was not her. He had no experience with this disease -- but as he fought to contain Raider from further harm, he began to connect the dots. Old whispers from his childhood of a sickness that ravaged east of Bearclaw, taking the lives of countless with it. A primal fear seized him so deeply then - not just for her, but himself. Dark blood matted his fur as he pressed against her hard angles and held her close.

Eventually, Raider stilled. Riley's breath came in stifled sobs as he saw it was not exhaustion that silenced the fight in Raider, but irreproachable death. In that moment, all the fight went out in Riley too.

N-no. He stood on shaky limbs and placed his paws upon her. Raider, please! Wake up. He bit back another cry as he shook her shoulders.

She did not respond. He shook her again.

Nothing.

Riley didn't know which was worse -- the incoherent, terrifying Raider from minutes before -- or the silent Raider beneath his feet, stilled forever in a place he could not follow. Eventually, exhaustion crept into his quivering muscles. Riley sunk to the ground besides her, his body shaking with adrenaline and sobs.

The wound at his throat pulsed darkly. He was only just barely aware of it as hi--

What was he supposed to do?

He had seen three phases of Raider in rapid succession.

One — leader and mother. A quickly steadfast force that he had just come to accept in his life. They had just talked about her children, they had just discussed teaching each other.

Two — feral, ferocious. Not in a way that seemed like a warrior. It had looked like true madness up until the very last moment.

Three — slumped. A slack body against Riley, against the earth. No movements from her mate seemed to summon any sense of that first phase back into her. She seemed truly gone. Dead. No more.

The world was beginning to spin in his eyes as he realized Riley was suffering too now. Maybe not of the madness but of something. Grief, he imagined. One so strong and large that Dagur thought he would never grasp it in his life. The man had just lost a mate, mother of their children, leader of their home.

They said grief was not a competition, but Dagur knew whatever he felt in the wake of this loss was a speck of dust on the giant bookcase of Riley and Raider's stories.

He also knew he did not want to end up like the the alpha female in her final moments. It was a decision of survival that drove him off the scene instead of sticking around for any shred of support or further assessing Riley's own condition. A fleeting glance towards the dancer who had witnessed this all from a safe spot. He needed to return to Dragonspine and see what the world looked like when it stopped spinning in his vision.

Exit!

Smug as ever, Dirtwater Fox scampered along after the sentinel. He was far removed from this scene of grief, untouched by it. Life was sad. Sometimes it was real sad. If he listened closely, he was sure he could hear the sound of the world's tiniest violin playing for the dying pair.

And the world went on just the same.