Hushed Willows Scary, right? Wait until you hear the bad news.

He had given up on the trail for a bit. Mostly because he had taken up to herbal remedies and it was the only way he was getting any sort of rest. It still wasn't great, but, he at least could make it a few hours without waking up screaming. He could only imagine how hard that was for Tambourine to face his mother being dead and his father acting like a basket case. The Alpha drug his way out of the Crook, noticing how uneasy his footing was. 

Maybe he had taken too much the night before. 

He shook his coat out, deciding to take a few uneasy steps out towards the borders. He needed to do some sort of work, he'd been holed up long enough.

I have permission to do this from the admins. She's still dead.

The willows continued to hang their collective heads while Stark slipped between them; they did not seem to mourn the passing of their late leader, although their tendrils did seem to drift about with an unseen wind and rustle with strange energy. The shadows criss-crossed over Stark's path as he moved, stumbling and dragging heel, until there was nothing familiar with which he could orient himself. And on that wind there was a whispered, stark..

so spoopy

If he'd been able to pay attention maybe he would have tried to focus on something, try to really figure out what he was doing and why but instead he just let his feet take him where they wanted. The branches of the willows shifted and teased him, enticing him onwards as his eyelids grew heavy again. The Alpha stumbled, but thankfully there was no one to see him - and yet still he felt he was being watched, felt eyes on him that no longer closed. 

The dark male pressed on, forcing his eyes to open again before a voice called out to him and Stark felt his blood run cold for a moment. "O-octavia?" But surely not. He knew better. He knew he had dug her grave, he knew he had laid her to rest. What he didn't know was why he was just as sure that he was hearing her voice again.

There was no shape, no form, but there was sound, and it drifted through the endless sea of willows around him. The voice was light and almost carefree, like the voice of a child — a little girl.

You're leaving me — the voice drawled, oddly casual, but there was something off about the pitch. The willows shook as if in response to the words, distorting their sounds, fading them in with the cacophonous din of their braided mess of branches.

And then, the wind began to wail.

He had to strain to hear it, the male almost leaning forward as if he could the source, his head swinging from left to right to just try and see where it was coming from. "No!" He shouted quickly, sucking in a deep breath. But he had left her, after all, and she was in the dirt. He didn't want to think of it that way. It wasn't leaving her - he wouldn't have. 

"Come back!" He couldn't help himself, desperate and needy the way he'd been when his mother died - wanting so badly even though it wouldn't work, even though it was impossible. 

She was but a ghost on the wind. 

Last from me! Would be hilarious if someone found him screaming at the trees.

The clouds eddied too quick, clotted together like mashed potatoes carried on a river of gravy, and darkened as they went. The trees shuddered, and their tendrilous hair whipped at the path he stood on; some reached out to him, but as soon as the branches touched a hair on his body, they seemed to recoil. The weather was turning abysmal, and quickly. 

There was a violent sound above Stark's head — abrupt, alien — like the tearing of a giant piece of velcro. The roar of rain came next without hesitation, and soon the Keep was being drowned in a deluge. Through the sound of the rain falling was the dimly recognizable sound of crying, the ceaseless overflow of grief — you've left me all alone! —

Around him the elements shifted. They responded to the electric static in the air, the rapid beat of his heart, the desperate pounding in his ears - maybe it was from straining himself, maybe it was from the influences of being between those realms but he didn't actually know and that was bothersome enough. A torrential downpour started, pounding over him and overwhelming the Keep. Stark shuddered and shook his head, blue eyes shining. "Please! No - not...I didn't!" 

Oh but she was cold so long ago - there had never been any hope.