Blackfeather Woods and took my eyesight quite away

aw, but for @Astara & @Averna first <3

in the night, the seizings had come upon her, and wrung all manner of strength from her small body.
at dawn, relmyna lay sapped beside the altar, flanks scarcely stirring, a terrible tic in the ruined side of her mouth. but there was a smile all the same, for as her form had been lashed by the clenchings and writhings she could not control, the mother had come to her.
mephala remained close; relmyna felt the warmth of her presence, and let the last tension ebb from her tortured muscles. the inner voice, also, had whispered the last of the things she did not know, and so the listener knew now that her son had once been called seff. that his father was terich, that his first father was a nameless wolf. 
that she had loved so terribly a man named reek, that she had killed.
vuk, the voice whispered, even as pain split down the center of her skull. that was your name.
relmyna lay still, for movement caused the agony in her head to stir anew. she had been given such gifts, and for them, for the knowledge of holding them to her breast, she would pay the mother's price.
she could not call for her daughters; her throat was mute, so relmyna merely beckoned them with her consciousness, sending it out in darkened tendrils through the silent wood.

the woods were quiet, but a strange tendril grappled astara. she paused and gave the quiet bosk her full attention -- something had probed her conscious, but when she scanned the vicinity the only thing that caught her glare was the lone and mist-covered shade.

she felt an urge to seek out the companionship of her mother, and knowing where her dwindling dam oft preferred to inhabit, astara made for the strange alter. her mother was prone on its stony face, and the girl frowned to see such exhaustion worn plainly on her dam's face.

she had noticed as of late the tremors, the slipping consciousness -- the gradual wastage of her mother's body. day by day she looked more ghost than wolf, and one day astara was afraid she would discover her dam had faded entirely.

stepping up to the stone shrine, the girl gently brushed her muzzle across relmyna's cheek, her gaze seeking the fractured teal of her mother with somber concern.

The spirit was not so troubled by the worries that plagued her counterpart. Where the dark one worried for their caretaker, the pale ghost knew that their caretaker wold be by her side no matter in what reality -- real world or spirit world. Ever since the time she had spoken to their father the spirit had seen him more and more, a ghostly blur as white as her. She would unlikely ever know or see his true presence but that was part of what allured her to him, to seek his wisdom. Some days she would simply wander the woods chatting to this visage. At times out loud, at times with words unspoken.

Averna...

A voice thrummed in her mind, calling her somewhere she was unaware of. Was it the voice of the father, or was it another one altogether? It was not one she recognised, but it was more often that voices would summon her forth, and she always came, for they usually her something good to tell or show her.

When she arrived upon the body of their caretaker the spirit stole a glance from the dark one. It showed her that there was little to be known but what she saw in front of her and she stepped forward to inspect the caretaker curiously.

they came.
she noted her daughters arrived in opposite pattern of their birth. first the nightcub, then the daycub. averna had been born first, astara second. and though relmyna was weak, she looked upon each of them with a great fondness. the shadeling gazed at her with concern, the ghost with curiosity.
how beautiful they both were! how filled with the spirits that inhabited the melonii line; how flush with the power of blackfeather's energy. the wood was dying, but they were not; they would only come into themselves as the months went on. to speak was not required; to communicate was more important.
relmyna met the indigo eyes of her nightcub, then the pale silver of the daycub.
my spirit is leaving me. it will go to dwell here, in blackfeather. her lips did not move; only her gaze, shifting affectionately between the wolves she loved most in all the world. would they grieve her? she hoped they would not.
overhead, the ravens stirred, and she knew that they would catch up her soul when it left her body, and ensconce it somewhere within the weald. astara. averna. averna. astara, came her consciousness, a fearless smile of purest love upon her face.
blackfeather is yours, but it may fall all the same. if you leave, you must stay together. no spirit or creature must separate you. exhaustion overtook relmyna; she let her mind's whisperings fall silent a moment, save for a brief you are loved, while she paused to see if the light of recognition would dawn on them, or if she imparted wisdom only to those who could not hear.

if there were words silently communicated between them, the world was not privvy to them.. but astara and averna were, as they locked eyes with the woman that had brought them into this world, and saw in her gaze everything she willed to tell them.. astara knew the pained look of prolonged suffering in her mother's gaze, and at nearly a year old, had seen plenty of animals shudder their last breath from their bodies. her dam's health was grave, and the tremors grew more forceful in their reckoning.

astara had not been ignorant of their progress, creep-creep-creeping like the ill-fated tendrils of some malignant and accursed vine. she gnashed her teeth in helpless anger, a torrent of grief overcoming her.

shaking in breath and body, the nightcub placed a paw gently on her mother's wasted limbs, sinking so that she lay alongside the woman that had been present for every day of her young life. she nosed her muzzle deep under relmyna's haggard chin, a long and sorrowful whine exhaling from her body.

It was always different when it was somehow that you knew. The pale youth looked upon the caretaker, the one who had brought her up and who had showed her the world of the spirits. Every word she spoke and did not speak was always understood correctly and completely, for the caretaker had the same connections that the spirit had to the world of spirits and gods, even if she did not walk one paw in it. The spirit's real world leg was still injured from the run in with the youth her age who had been enraged like a bull upon seeing her. Afraid of ghosts, perhaps. But her spirit self was strong as ever, stronger perhaps at knowing that her mortal coil was fragile but her spirit would never wane, no matter what.

The caretaker had introduced her to the unknown one whose spirit she sometimes saw, and now she would join him and watch over the spirit and the dark one by his side, giving the pale youth the same, if not more, advice as she had in life. The spirit did not mourn for the caretaker's soul, for it would live on within and between them, but she would mourn the mortal coil that had provided sustenance and warmth and all things mortal to the mortal part of herself, she realised as the caretaker shuddered out her last breaths.

The pale youth stared at her counterpart in silence after it was done. No birds twittered and no squirrels skittered. It was silent but for the beating of their hearts and their breaths upon the winter air.

oof ;;; it's been a good run. and i love you both <3

blackness loomed, but relmyna was comforted by the fact that her daughters were near, that they had heard, that they would understand. astara touched her, and while the listener knew she and her children had not oft been physically affectionate, it was good to close her eyes now, to reach a foreleg out and touch the nightcub's sable ruff.
unsure if averna would venture close, but knowing always that her daycub had belonged more to the spirits than to her, relmyna felt her chest clenching with both sorrow and the nature of death, that it stole slowly one's ability to draw breaths. sorrow to leave them in the ruins of blackfeather, but none for herself.
for she knew now more than she ever had before, and that the knowing of it was honey in her mouth.
oh! but she did not want to leave averna and astara. so much there was left to teach them, so much there was left to tell them. wisdom to impart. for a moment she suffered a mother's reluctance, fighting against the dire dog's-head of shadow that glinted in the corner of her turquoise eyes. 
no. she would not depart her daughters believing she had failed them. she had not; she had entrusted to their young hearts the secrets of what she knew, and the spirits of this place would grant them the rest. they, for their silence and their oddities, were the most pious, effortlessly, simply by dint of their being. relmyna allowed herself then the first grace she had ever shown herself, the thought i have done well.
the flutter of wings sounded again; the sound of it rushed into her ears and a great buoyancy held the woman. her heartbeat was a distant cadence, one that slowed, slowed, until it beat three times once more and fell into its first and last silence.
but not before relmyna fixed her seafoam gaze upon some distant place between the eartip of her huddled daughter and the silent one, between astara and averna, her nightcub, her daycub, and to herself uttered audibly a single syllable.
"vuk."

<3 D: D: D: <3 <3

she knew the hour was near -- and yet, while astara understood that death could not be cheated, it was she that felt as if her world had been stolen from her.

her dam, the one soul that astara had jealously guarded close to her heart, suffered her last breath -- and a stillness unnatural and sorrowing overcame the languid form of relmyna. the pale keeper of blackfeather -- the last bastion to the dark brotherhood -- walked this earth no longer.

astara did not rise from the suddenly listless form of her mother for some time. in her bones she felt the warmth slowly leave relmyna's fur, the tension ebb from her skin -- until at last a coldness seeped along her flank, her mother's once warm touch as cold as the stones on which her soul had left her.

a weariness overcame astara; if averna was still there, the girl did not acknowledge her -- her aubergine eyes closed to a simmering shut, and she wished it had been her too to have drawn her last breath; so that she did not suffer the torment of living a life without the single most important figure residing in it.

<3 ; _;

The dark one collapsed and stayed there even as the last of life departed the caretaker's body. The spirit moved in to her face, sniffed it in silent acknowledgement of the fact that she was dead. The pale youth lay down on the other side of her than the dark one, let out a heavy sigh, and then simply drifted off to sleep. She did not mourn like the dark one did, and acceptance came easier to her. After half an hour or so of slumber she awoke, the caretaker's body cold and the dark one still there as the last of life departed.

The spirit got to her feet, stretched her bad leg to increase its functionality, and cast a glance at the dark one. Without a word, she departed, leaving her dark counterpart to her grief.