Ankyra Sound There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon

In the days following Caiaphas' passing, Ephraim became a despondent shadow that haunted his birthplace. He mourned not for the wolf his mother had been, because he truly hadn't known her at all, but for everything he believed she could have been. For what few memories he had of her. For the woman he imagined in his mind, for the mama he would never have again.

He remained tethered to the sound in spite of the ruined coast. He hung about the entrance of the grotto, thin and downtrodden, as though he meant to guard it against all would-be intruders. Truthfully, that's exactly what he planned to do. Ephraim hadn't come up with a plan for disposing of Caiaphas' body yet, and once he tore himself away from it, he didn't want to go back. It still smelled of the insidious death that came for her and he was reluctant to touch her husk more than he had to.

Would she prefer to waste away in her beloved grotto? To float out to sea, or feed the bellies of scavengers? A burial in the sand? In the trees? Ephraim didn't have the answers, so he dallied on making any decisions and guarded the grotto instead.

Despite her very best intentions, Raleska went back.

Last she had seen her mother, she had turned her away. It had been right, but it had been hard. She needed now, more than ever, someone -- anyone -- to tell her what she had done was okay. That it would be alright. That the world would keep going, turning on its ceaseless wheel.


The heart, as it turns out, is a strangely illogical thing. So many secrets kept in that dark chamber; so many hidden wants and needs concealed in that deeply gurgling, always churning, bloody bower. Fueled by memories blooded by time and grief; cyclical, ever revolving, stupid fucking heart. Raleska was no stranger to the intimacies of that emotionally fouled organ, and here her heart lead her -- back where it all began.

She noted the tide had receded. The wash-line had stained the sequoias, and rimed along the stones - but at last, the Grotto was visible. Her heart did a strange skip as she saw that familiar formation of flowstone - how she had slid up and down that dark tunnel, in days that had passed through her like air between her teeth..

A scent lingered; she could not tell its origin, for it was faded and riddled by sea-brine. Ducking her head under the grotto's hungering mouth, Raleska peered after her endlessly bounding shadow, a sense of shivering dread climbing into her bones. "Hello?"

At some point, he retreated from the sunlight at the entryway and hunkered deeper into the grotto, where the only illumination was a wash of blue bioluminescence. Maybe he meant to sleep or maybe he meant only to hide from the prying eyes that came with daytime, but whatever the reason, Ephraim avoided his mother's corpse. She lay at the edge of the pool where he'd strangled her, sightless and lifeless, and he sought a place along the wall where the mouldering scent of her was not so strong.

From here, he could watch the play of light from the outdoors on the wall, and so when a shadow suddenly cut across the grotto's entrance, Ephraim saw it. Up came his head and ears alike, trained with singular focus on the point where Raleska's shadow consumed the sun. He would've perhaps remained there, taut and alert, had she not spoken.

But when her hello? echoed down into the chamber, Ephraim found his feet. He coursed up the shadowy throat of the grotto to emerge right in front of her, all bladed fur and bared teeth and wild sunken eyes—not uncontrolled and not afflicted like his poor mother had been, but pure protective fury. The faraway familiarity of Raleska's face rang a number of bells in his head, but for the moment, he ignored them all in favour of pushing her back a step or two from the grotto. From Caiaphas' sacred resting place. From a home he'd been denied by the cruel hand of circumstance.

It seemed the oft cowardly Eyjolfur had a little of his parents' ferocity in him after all.

Out from that flickering gloom, Raleska fancied she saw a shift of palest blue -- quickly eclipsed by shadow. The chill in her bones rattled along her spine, her hackles lifting in uncertainty .. and then a demon, or what appeared to be one, pulled its dark form from that blackness with such boundless ferocity that Raleska stumbled back in terror.

The first thing she noticed as she fell back against the soft sand was the madness - the exhaustion in those dark-ringed, champagne eyes. Then the teeth, and the deep wrinkles that cut their way across that dark face. Her eyes widened as she hunched before the beast, her ears suddenly ringing in roaring panic --

and it all came back

the sea

Drageda

the arc splatter of blood - Eurycrates, throat exposed and pulsing through a glittering sunset --

the vision of Dacio materializing from the thicket, his teeth gleaming

"NO!" She cried, shielding her face instinctively from the shadow that was sure to strike her down.

For the very first time in Ephraim's life, someone reacted to a show of aggression in a manner appropriate to his actions... and it made him feel instantly sick to his stomach.

He had never been a stalwart warrior of Drageda. There was a time he'd been proud to be one of them, but with age, he'd come to learn that he never truly was. To those who were born of that bloodline, he never would've amounted to anything no matter what. In the end, he'd been as much a prisoner as Rosalyn, for all that they made him believe he was a comrade. When he realized who the enemies were and succumbed to the trauma of it, they had treated him like less than dirt. Even the wolf he admired most among them had left him behind.

Seeing Raleska fall back and hearing her frightened shout only brought him back to when waking nightmares would drown out reality and make him believe he was back on a battlefield with piss and fear as his only identifiable companions. To when the dogs of war surged all around him in his mind and he could not tell who was friend and who was foe. To when he realized what he'd thrown away to stand with Drageda that day, only to be subsequently tossed aside by them as well. Those mental monsters had haunted Ephraim for ages after that and he wouldn't be surprised if he would be haunted by new ones in the wake of Caiaphas' end.

Watching that emotion play across someone else's face made his gut clench. He blanched and pulled back several steps into the grotto, eyes wide on Raleska and tongue unable to form any words. Regret swam in the pit of his stomach. He had to protect his mother's corpse but he had felt that fear, he had been Raleska not so long ago, cowering from a shadow, so even without recognition, his horrified posture still screamed the words I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sor—

She waited for the strike to fall, the sweep that would end it all. Somewhere in her pounding chest, came the whisper to fight, to claw, to survive - yet as she opened her eyes tentatively to the beserker that would end it all, Raleska did not see fierce warrior. She saw a kid, just as scared as she. She was transported back to the beach when she had discovered Tux; how she had wanted to hold onto that burning hate, and turn him away.

In the end she was too tired to even hold onto that flickering flame; and like a blaze doused in saltwater, it hissed and gave out.

Her heart was pounding in her ears, it was all she could hear -- her breath in rapid hitches. She tried to crawl away but could not - instead, she found herself shakily looking over the spectre that had almost assailed her, troubled first by his familiarity.. and then, by the latent realization if he was here, it meant Drageda surely was --

Raleska firmly believed there was no such thing as coincidence. She distrusted it more than she distrusted fate. Two Dragedans, within a week apart -- Raleska's eyes widened as she made a connection that was not quite there. Had it all been a trick? Had Tux lied? And had she unwittingly spelled Rusalka's end by trusting him..? And was Ephraim's fear -- or revulsion -- or whatever it was -- all because he had not expected to kill his sister that day?

There, limbs folded in the sand, and as helpless as a fragile fresh-born foal, Raleska whimpered: "don't hurt me."

Don't hurt me, pleaded Raleska, and Ephraim's belly roiled with bile. He held it down, just barely, but his voice was raw and sourly twisted when he asked, why?

It was an unclear thing to say and he knew it. He swallowed thickly and pressed back onto his haunches, forepaws hovering on warily on the sand. Every muscle in his body was tense. He didn't recognize Raleska. Not as his sister. Not as the wolf whom Blixen and Mallaidh had restrained. She was as good as a stranger to him, and yet her face drew forth the haziest memory of a little washed out girl screaming at him on a beach just like this...

Why would I hurt you? he blurted out, snatching back his tall ears at his own outburst. He had never been the type. He hadn't meant to clash with his blood alongside Drageda; he had only sought to protect his friends, the wolves who pretended at being family. He hadn't meant to strike Blackbird. He hadn't meant to lunge at Blixen... the last thing Ephraim was was someone capable of inflicting harm without a good reason.

Which brought him back to now. To protect Caiaphas—to protect his newest and darkest secret—what would he do? Surely he would throw a punch at most wolves, and yet he felt reluctant about aiming a strike at her for some reason. Why are you here? Why do you make me think of this place? What do you want with me? Go away go away go away, he fervently thought.

why? Raleska flinched from the voice, expecting then the blow that never came. She was waiting, waiting still -- believing at any moment, Drageda would flood the hills and it would all be over.

What use was even getting up? She was tired of fighting. She was ready to hand over her fate; gone was the vinegar from her blood, for she had learned the earth was ceaselessly cruel, no matter who or what occupied it. why would I hurt you? She blinked slowly - bringing her long gaze to look full upon a brother she recognized only by that rare coat color, that mask that could not be duplicated. "You're Dragedan. One of them." She answered simply, her voice thick with dull resignation.

It was not meant as an accusation. Raleska had denounced her family too, in a bitterly ironic twist of fate. Once upon a time she could not understand - would not understand - why Ephraim had done what he had done.. and now, she understood it implicitly. She had lived it - that hellish, hateful guilt. It resided in her bones, eating away at her strength, her security, her resolve.

Why are you here? Dare she admit what she had done? "Just.. felt like it, I guess." A lie. It was more than feeling. "I was looking for mom." She wondered, as she said that last word, if it would register with Ephraim - would guilt cross his features, as it polluted her own? She turned her neck to him, a ragged sigh leaving her thin throat. She still held onto the belief he was with Drageda, and Drageda would come across them in any moment. Better her life be taken quickly, before she was beat and tormented as Rosalyn had once been. "Get it over with, then." She would die with as much dignity as she could - which presently, felt like very little. But it was something.

What wasn't meant as an accusation nevertheless slapped Ephraim across the face with the full force of one. Physically, his reaction was a long, slow blink of his pale eyes, but mentally, he was reeling. One of them?! Indignation swelled in him and lifted the hair of his hackles. One of them?!

I was never one of them, he seethed from between tightly gritted teeth. He'd thought he was. He'd cared deeply for a lot of them: Etoille, Antumbra, Vercingetorix, Tux. When the latter's family left, Ephraim was there to witness his hurt. He was there to watch Tux shut them out and denounce them the way the rest of Drageda did... but still Ephraim thought he was one of them, never realizing how many red flags he'd overlooked. Now? Now he belonged to no one, to nothing, but himself.

He hated it. He hated them. He hated all of them.

Looking for mom, she said, sending a shadow across his face. Who was mom? He blanked out for a second while Caiaphas swam across his vision, diving into the sudden, unwanted sheen of tears that swept across his bottom lid. Mom was gone. Mom was dead. What could she possibly want with her?

A piece of seaweed slapping him in the face; a shriek of laugher as she yelled, "CATCH!" and fled up the beach. Of course. Only a Rusalka wolf would say such a thing about Drageda, and now he recognized her.

Ephraim shook his head violently and glared down at the cold sand. You can't be here. You can't see her, you can't find out what I did, you can't know, you can't, you can't, you can't.

He was reeling. Raleska processed this with a frown, feeling a sense of culpability for what she had accidentally inflicted. It had not been her intention but... to someone hurt, intentions were often irrelevant.

I was never one of them. But he was -- maybe not in blood or spirit or the way he deserved, but he had once been not Rusalkan -- and once upon a time that felt so long ago, that had meant everything.

She could have grappled for something to say to ease the hurt she saw dart across his champagne eyes, but she wasn't in her best, most clear-thinking state of mind at the moment. She was still feeling lightheaded, still on edge from the panic moments before.. and still, dully aware her time might be coming to a close.

His hackles bristled like little quills, outrage outpouring from his every swath of skin. And then something -- she didn't know what -- fled across his face. A flicker of blackness. Of outright fear. Or shame, or something unspeakable.. she didn't know, but she read into that emotion well and a sense of dread knotted tightly in her stomach. Her brow wrinkled as she tried to make sense of his most recent words. ".. What..?" Was it because of the Dragedans, surely hid in the depths of the Grotto?

Was he giving her a chance to escape, before they caught wind of her presence?

It didn't jive -- not with the way he had reacted to being called one of them, and not with.. well, all of it. If he wasn't one of them, why was he here? Raleska felt that sickness in her stomach grow, gurgling unhappily into something worse than dread. She didn't know what was going on -- but the shade that had darkened Ephraim's face fleetingly was possibly one of the most disconcerting things she had ever seen -- and it filled her with kindred apprehension.

No, no, no, she was going to find out, she was going to hate him. That same wild-eyed frenzy that sent him out of the grotto to confront her shadow was beginning to boil over in his chest, constricting his heart and lungs with cold panic. The uneasiness that rippled out from Raleska, too, sent icy spears of dread through his heart. She would never understand. How could she understand? She saw him only as a Dragedan and she would not listen to any explanation about why their mother was dead with him on scene...

You can't, he choked, unable to hold back the tears that cascaded down his cheeks as his voice rose into a roar, BE HERE! Let her believe he harboured some Dragedan army down in the depths of the grotto. Let her believe he was the enemy she wanted him to be. Let her never know all the regret he carried in his heart for his choices in life. As long as she didn't find out what he'd done...

"CATCH!"

...he could not live with another relative despising him.

A change; a lilt in voice to a ferocious roar. Raleska recoiled in horror as Ephraim shifted from distraught to something else entirely. Long gouges in the sand were left in her wake as she scuttled backwards, fur on edge along her spine.

Run, you idiot.

She rose shakily, gathering the breath beneath her lungs so she might run fast -- faster than ever before.. but one last glance, one look to the estranged brother -- and she caught the dark matting of tears streaming down his cheeks.

Tears?

Raleska stopped, ears folding flat to a skull that was lowered in worry. Should she run (yes) should she stay (no) was he okay (no) what the fuck was going on..?  She felt something - some crazy kinetic energy - rippling out from Ephraim like an unseen force. "Why?"

Good, thought Ephraim as Raleska backpedalled through the sand. It was better if she thought he was a monster but never saw the damage he'd wrought in the blue light below. It was better if she was afraid of him than if she hated him more than she already did. It was better if she believed that Mom had gone somewhere else than to know with absolute finality that she was gone. It was better if she didn't know it was Ephraim's doing.

You murdered her.

I didn't, he weakly muttered, talking more to himself than to Raleska. Raleska might as well have disappeared for the moment; guilt was sweeping him down a tunnel in his head where she didn't exist. She could've got up and left or leapt for his throat and either way, he wouldn't notice.

Murderer!

I didn't, he said with more force, lifting his teary-eyed gaze to his long lost sister. That was when her vivid yellow eyes registered. It wasn't Raleska he was looking at. It wasn't the silver-eyed demon that had come to claim his mother's body in the end, either. It was the fierce, burning yellow of Caiaphas' glare that he looked into, reflected in his sibling's face, and it was her mouth that proclaimed it.

MURDERER!

I DIDN'T MEAN TO, he wept helplessly at her.

Raleska didn't understand what was happening, and that, more than anything else, put her on edge. Fear filled her belly as Ephraim started to mutter -- her ears strained as she tried to decipher what it was he was saying.

I didn't, he was saying - he didn't what? She shifted, trying to inch a little bit further away. She was intrepid enough to see he was very close to a mental breakdown -- the way he was chattering, his eyes ruined with streaming tears -- something was off kilter, and not knowing what it was had Raleska's heart-rate rising.

I DIDN'T MEAN TO! Ephraim howled, weeping now profusely. Raleska instinctively recoiled several feet under the gale of his breath, alarm-bells ringing in her head. She should go. She should fucking run, right now. Something was wrong, something was not right, something something something was going to get her she was not safe he was not right --

Stupidly, instead of doing what she should do and get the hell out of dodge, Raleska stood on her shaky limbs, her ears pulled back and expression wrought with fearful concern. "You didn't mean to what?"

Some dam that was holding back his trauma broke when he shouted and he was reduced to a snivelling, broken little boy. Raleska could do anything she wished and he would be powerless to stop her. How fortunate for him that she was too stunned by his outburst to take advantage of it. All the strength leaked out of him, bringing him to his proverbial knees as he sat heavily in the grotto's shadows and cried.

Raleska would've been smart to run, but Ephraim was helpless to stop her now. The most he could do was weakly protest her passing; she would have no trouble shrugging past him to see what he'd wrought, if that was her wish. He knew it, too, so his response came in the form of a hoarse croak, a pleading sound: She was sick, she was dying, I didn't mean...

But he did mean to. He meant to with every fibre of his being... but Raleska would likely assume he did it for vengeance, when in reality, it was a son's lingering love for the memory of his mother, whatever bad stemmed between them before.

Too stunned to do much but stare, Raleska took another involuntary step back as the floodgates opened. She was not prepared for this level of emotional unrest; her entire life had been one of instability, and she lacked the stony core required to shoulder through rocky situations.

She glanced past Ephraim, utterly unthinking -- incapable even, of registering what he meant. Raleska might have been clever, but in that moment it was hard to tell. Her ears pressed to her skull, buried in the winter fur that wrapped around her ruff. She felt her own strength fading, as if being around Ephraim for too long (and being subjected to his unraveling composure) was sapping her own will. She bit her lower lip, still horrified of the lurking feeling of doom that roiled in her stomach as fitful as a dragon in restless sleep: "Who? Who was sick?" Ephraim's bent form in the shadows commanded most of her attention, but Raleska could not help but gaze past him and wonder...

but she dared not take that first step.

Was there any point hiding it from her? He'd already said too much with his stupid emotion consuming him, returning him to the traumatized wolf he'd been after witnessing the clash of wolves without the conviction to stomach it. He tried to think of a good reason to keep it from her besides his own fear of what she would do, but being faced with Raleska and forced to acknowledge to himself just what he'd done, nothing was forthcoming.

She'll kill you.

That was a good point. Raleska wasn't likely to let him leave here alive if she knew, because she would assume the worst. Fear for his life threatened to choke him, clogging his throat and nose and wrenching another sob into the air. You deserve it, said a saccharine devil in his ear, and he knew it was true. Self-preservation was one of his strongest instincts, but right now, it was mute. Maybe that was why he cracked his mouth open and croaked, in a hoarse whisper, mom. Or maybe that was just a mournful moan for Caiaaphas that clawed its way up from his lungs, but either way, he said it.

Mom, he croaked. Raleska started, not really understanding. Her gaze drew back to Ephraim, clouded with confusion - what did she have to do with any of this?

And then it hit her - if she had just paid attention a little better - if she had just stepped out of her own convoluted mind a second, and really connected all the dots..

Her blood ran cold in a second.

A chill wrapped its icy talons around her heart, pulling it down past her sinking stomach, down deep and dark and cold..

A species of speculate horror mounted her yellow gaze, which drew abstractly from her brother down the throat of the grotto -- down where dark and deep, she knew...

She walked in slow motion, pushing past the hunched form of her displaced brother. Pushing past the narrow walls, down the corridor's tall shelf that once, neither Ephraim nor Rhakios had been able to clear (or she, for that matter ..). A flood of memories, of familiarity, accosted her senses -- but with them trickled something malodorous and stark against the soft scents of dampness, brine, and moss.

That scent cut through the air like noxious smoke: destructive and thickening, in a way that caused the hair along the back of her neck to prickle and her heartbeat to race. As she neared the chamber, her gaze fell to the small, reflective pool -- with its darting blue surface which hauntingly projected phosphorous blue along the cave walls.

And there, unmoving save for the flicker of blue light racing along its black form, was a shape  ---

She turned away instantly, quelling the cry that rose to her lips. Her eyes were clenched tight, a wracking sob of disbelief working from her taut jaws in a choke of terrible realization. That was no shape, no lurking wolf -- that was a body -- her mother's body.

Alarms in her head, ringing

the sound of waves crashing

screaming

the roar of the wind in the forest

Eurycrates --

the drum of her heart, should it be so slow? She was aware it sounded like a distant gong, a wardrum traveling thousands of miles. A lightheadedness spread out along her mind, and she was reeling. Her face flushed, burning, that ringing screaming roaring yelling --

Raleska whirled around, remembering Ephraim and his connection to here, to now. What did you do?! Her eyes accused, but at that moment the light inside those yellow irises became flat, and Raleska, shocked into a sudden disconnect with consciousness, slipped wordlessly to the ground besides Caiaphas.

Ephraim flinched when Raleska lurched toward the grotto in anticipation of being flogged, but she simply pushed past him and descended into the darkness. No! screamed his mind as he stumbled after her, halfheartedly reaching as if to grab her scruff, only to fall back before he could close his jaws. No, please!

Raleska didn't need to see this. She didn't need to know what a monster her long lost brother was. Of course, she'd already drawn that conclusion already from his association with Drageda, but somehow this would solidify it. This was irrevokable, and yet he was powerless to stop her. He couldn't have touched her if he tried; he was too afraid of her.

He lurked in the shadow of the corridor with his tall ears pressed so close to his head, they seemed to be entirely gone. He watched Raleska realizing who that body belonged to, heard her choked sob, mirrored it with his own... Futilely, he made a weak attempt to reiterate, she was sick she was dying I only wanted to help her...

But then Raleska's light dimmed and she slipped into unconsciousness. Ephraim faltered for a long time, fidgeting tearfully in the dark, before stepping silently over to where his sister lay. It felt weird to think of her that way. It felt weird to associate her with him, as if they weren't worlds apart. Reconnecting enough to call her that seemed impossible. It was impossible, he thought, especially now. Before, her forgiveness was extremely unlikely, but maybe if he played his cards just so, they could have found a way. Now, there was no way she would ever forgive him.

He bent to press his nose apologetically against her face, then turned and fled back up the tunnel. It occurred to him that he should put as much distance between himself and Ankyra Sound as possible, because it was very likely when she came to, Raleska would hunt him... but Ephraim collapsed in the waterlogged sand when he exited the grotto and could only lay there, sobbing wretchedly into his thin arms.

He would not leave. He would not run away from this. Much of his life was spent running away, coward that he was, but this... if Raleska came for him then so be it. She would find him in the Sound still, refusing to leave his mother's body even with the threat of imminent death hanging over him.

MURDERER!

He deserved it all, come what may.

Into darkness Raleska slipped, and it was there in that unknowing blackness she remained as Ephraim pressed his snout to her, and then turned and fled. Into that swimming nether Raleska fell, for what felt an eternity that somehow did not matter.

When she woke she heard the familiar sounds of the grotto. The trickle of the subterranean river. The distant rush of the sea. The groaning, aching bones of the stones a millennia old. The lap-lapping of the circular pool where--

She jerked up, her head spinning. The cavern, blue water, her mother, whirling in a kaleidoscopic orbit.

Raleska felt an overwhelming nausea grip her as she stood on shaky legs and collapsed several steps away, a violent surge of vomit and spittle forcing its way past her lips. Bile. Sourness. She lurched to the right, her vision falling fearfully on her.

Mom.

Raleska looked around her; where was Ephraim? Had he gone, had he left her alone with the reeking husk, left her alone with death? She stifled the whimper that threatened to escape as she tried to tackle that enormous, insurmountable first step of thinking -- what now?

This was all her fault. She had turned Caiaphas away, and her mother hadn't been in good health then. She had caused all of this -- whatever this was. Raleska was still trying to wrap her mind around what had happened: all she knew was, there was no blood anywhere, only the overarching scent of rot spilling from the corpse like a volatile shroud of doom. A second wave of nausea overcame her and Raleska climbed for the exit, her steps uneven and shaky.

Sunlight met her -- almost too brightly. Raleska winced and ducked, squinting into the blaring afternoon with a sense of purposelessness. Ephraim was collapsed on the strand not so far from her.

Trying haplessly to put together pieces that did not fit, Raleska shakily made her way towards him, and stared out at the grim sea. "What happened?" Her voice was weak, and carried an edge of resigned sorrow to it; for she had put all of this in motion the moment she had turned Caiaphas from the plateau. It was she that was irredeemable, no matter what end Caiaphas had met in Ephraim's presence.

Ephraim laid there for what felt like a long time, crying at first and then sniffling and finally lapsing into stunned silence. Half of him buzzed with adrenaline and the desire to get up and run as far and as fast as he could to save himself from his sister. The other half of him was numb and lackadaisical, with hardly enough energy or willpower to blink, let alone flee. Torn between these halves of himself, Ephraim laid on the beach in sullen, miserable silence, heart racing but muscles too weak to cooperate. His pale eyes found the sea and dove into their depths, quieting both his thoughts and his focus on anything else.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Raleska's voice sounded behind him, not with the sharp whip-crack of a demand or a threat, but a defeated kind of melancholy. All along his back his fur stood up, then slowly drifted back down, and his watery champagne eyes were blown wide when they landed on her. I don't know, he croaked. Realizing this was not a satisfactory answer, the little coywolf swallowed thickly, summoning his courage alongside the deeply rooted fear that Caiaphas' condition had roused.

This was his only chance to make Raleska believe that what he'd done was necessary and not cruel.

It was like she was already gone, he implored. I don't know why I came here. But I found her there, in the caves, and... she was so sick. What he didn't realize was the more he attempted to paint a picture of Caiaphas' affliction to absolve himself, the more he condemned Raleska. Only in her own mind, but nevertheless, the more detail he shared, the worse it became. Her back legs weren't even working right and she wouldn't speak, she was just making this awful gurgling noise and clacking her teeth and there was foam coming out of her mouth and her eyes looked all wrong.

The tears were flowing again and he felt his hackles lifted along his back, almost as if Caiaphas' specter was facing him again, and that impenetrable fear was returning. She smelled like death, he moaned, I wanted to help her, to save her even if... even though she hates me... but... she was already gone. I just... ended it faster. You murdered her. I didn't want her to suffer more, he choked, though in reality, it was largely fear that drove him to do what he did.

Fear... but there was a son's love for his long lost mother there, or else he would simply have fled.

Satisfactory or not, Raleska accepted the answer in silence. Her mind was in chaos - her thoughts buzzing around in cacophony.

It was like she was already gone, Ephraim detailed. The words sunk to her gut, clawing fitfully as they sunk to her bones. My fault, Raleska thought bitterly, turning her dark muzzle away so Ephraim would not see the dark rivulet that curled down her cheek like a blackened vein. The more Ephraim explained the more Raleska realized she did not have the stomach for such news: upon hearing the failure of her mother's hind limbs Raleska felt another violent insurgence of nausea - this time forcing her to steady herself with her forelimbs.

"Ohhh," she moaned, sorrow blading sharp in her warbling voice. "It's my fault," she whispered in a hushed wail, her tear-struck gaze locked to the thrashing shore, where Ephraim would not see the

guilt
hurt
grief
exhaustion
defeat

that lurked in eyes too young to have deserved witnessing such heavy emotions

Raleska slunk to the ground, a strangled wail keening her throat. She buried her head deep into the cold sand, covering her skull with both black paws, as sobs roiled from her body like the uncurling thrash of tormented waves.

Ephraim didn't mean to bring Raleska so low with what he said; he watched, distressed, as she sank into the sand with a moan and covered her face with her paws. His dark ears swept back and his throat bobbed, but for a long time he didn't say anything. He was trying to parse the meaning of what she said. He didn't recall her scent on the sand or in the grotto when he found Caiaphas here, so how could it possibly be here fault? The devil in Ephraim was sorely tempted to agree with her, shift the blame elsewhere, come away from this scot-free, and maybe in another time or place or with another wolf or having killed someone else, that's exactly what he'd do.

But Raleska's pain was poignant and it was his own and he could no more do that to her than he could launch himself at her and declare her an enemy. Whatever happened between their mother and Thuringwethil to breed such resentment was in the past. Ephraim was not Thuringwethil, and Raleska was not Caiaphas, and he would not perpetuate a war where everyone lost and no one won. She was not the enemy and he would not make her one, not to him and not to herself.

When he was no closer to understanding what she'd said several minutes later, Ephraim asked in a voice ragged with weary emotion and exhaustion, what do you mean? How in the world did Raleska imagine she was responsible for Caiaphas' death, when it was his jaws that snuffed it from her? He guessed she was referring to the sickness, but she wasn't sick as far as he could tell... but only as far as he could tell, he realized, eyes sharpening with wary concern.

A silence, mournful and interminable, set between them. For a long time while Ephraim tried to make sense of what Raleska had said, Raleska tried to make sense of life -- and how it had gotten to this.

At last the spell of quiet was broken. What do you mean? Raleska looked up to Ephraim helplessly, gesticulating with an upturned spread of her forepaws -- as if to say -- how to even start?

And how to start? Her gaze hardened as she looked back to the ground, studying the cracks in between her pawpads, the blunted edges of her claws. Little fissures here and there, callouses, worn skin..  Where to start?

She heaved a sigh. This was a story she did not want to tell Ephraim. Not because he didn't deserve it -- she believed he deserved closure same as her -- but because it painted her explicitly as the culpable party. It would put her in a black light, and once she spread it all out there on the table for Ephraim to see, it would likely change how he looked at her -- permanently.

And they were such strangers, weren't they? If it weren't for the fact they were siblings, would he -- or would she -- have put all of their bad blood behind them in this moment?


"She left." Raleska's voice was despondent, but tightened. "Sometime last spring, once it was sure that Drageda was gone. She went back to Easthollow, with one of our packmates... Vercingetorix." She glanced up to read if there was any recognition at all on Ephraim's face - either for Easthollow, or Vercingetorix. She barely remembered Easthollow at all.. but she would never forget Vercingetorix's face. "He came back, without her. He told us she had killed one of the Easthollow puppies and that he did not stick around once he realized that was her reason for the trip." A sad smile danced briefly across her face, as fleeting as light on the water. "And he said she was as good as dead. And for a long time, I believed it. Svalinn had gone after them when they first left, and when he returned to us he said she was dead -- that he had left her, too.." Her voice cracked -- she realized now, all of Caiaphas' children had left her.

Another sigh, with pale plumes like dragonsmoke rising from her parted jaws. "So much happened while she was away. Vercingetorix turned on Illidan, and became alpha.. And then there were others, and then Aningan chased Vercingetorix out.. And I had to find a new family, because mine was all gone.. My mom was dead, Illidan had just walked out one day and never came back.. and..." Raleska looked to Ephraim almost apologetically as she continued: "..and well, you were dead too.. but in a different way. So I found my place, but it wasn't with my blood-kin. It was with Rosalyn and Erzulie, and their family.. Because they had always been there, and unlike mom they didn't bring chaos and misery wherever they went."

Raleska paused, realizing now she was at the point of her story where Ephraim would see her in her real light. Would he rip the throat from her like she deserved? Would he even understand -- and if so, how could he? She couldn't delay revealing her hand in this all much longer, but all the same, she dreaded it.

"Then, a month or so ago -- seven months after I had seen her last.. Mom showed up at Rusalka.. but Rosalyn was already there, and I had to pick!" Her voice took on a pleading edged with desperation. "I had to decide between someone who hadn't been in my life for months - someone who just.. went on and on and on, always fighting, always some new enemy to kill or plot against, to the point of exhaustion..  I had to pick between that and stability.. and I.." Quietly now, Raleska admitted it all. "I picked Rosalyn. Rusalka.

And.. she didn't even fight it. She just looked at us both, and then at Aningan.. and she left." Raleska's voice choked as she remembered how Caiaphas had sped away.. How she hadn't even looked back. "She wasn't.. sick then.. but she wasn't well, either. I don't think she was ever well.. but it was my fault. I should have stayed with her, or followed her.. and instead I.. turned my back on her and....."

Well, they both knew what came next.

Ephraim listened, and listened well. There were times he wanted to interject and ask more questions, like when Vercingetorix's name came up. That son of a bitch. He'd left Ephraim chained in Drageda and left him there, claiming he was leaving to secure a better and safer life for his offspring, only to join Rusalka in the end. It wasn't the roiling distaste of a former comrade joining the enemy's side, for Ephraim wasn't convinced that Rusalka was his enemy—they were his family, no matter what they thought of him—but the disappointment of being turned prisoner for wanting to leave because he couldn't fight them, only for one of his captives to join them.

Horror followed quickly when Raleska revealed that Caiaphas had killed one of Easthollow's pups. Ephraim didn't remember the place. He didn't remember being there as a child or being turned away; the inevitable haze of time that stole most youthful memories had taken that one, too. Most of the names she rattled off at that point meant nothing to Ephraim. He didn't know who Aningan was, he didn't remember Svalinn, he didn't know Rosalyn (by name) and he didn't know Erzulie. He knew Illidan was his brother but little else. It stung for her to claim he was dead—forsaken was the proper word. Forsaken by his family, forsaken by his pack, all because as a little boy with no means to care for himself, he had stumbled into the wrong hands.

As for Raleska's hand in all of it... Ephraim understood, and he also didn't. He could've been the perfect little soldier for his mother if she hadn't chosen to cut ties with him on the cliffs that night. If she had stolen him away with her he could've followed her every order... if she'd been more clever than that, he could've been a spy on the inside for her. In truth, Ephraim would've done anything to reconnect with his family and be brought back into their fold, even if he thought he hated them at the time. On that hand, he rebelled against the idea of exiling his own mother, and that part of him railed against Raleska for choosing to turn her back on her family.

On the other hand, Ephraim had done the very same thing. Not intentionally, but nevertheless, he had turned his back on them and stood on the opposing side in their war. Things might've been very different if he knew exactly who he was fighting; all he knew was that some wolves had set up on the beach that Drageda wished to claim, the very beach whose blue-lit grotto featured in his earliest memories, and he had wanted them gone so he could return to his home and have what little he could of his old life. And could he fault Raleska for wanting stability in her life, with chaos incarnate for a mother? Ephraim didn't know the meaning of the word, but he certainly would've chosen it if he had the opportunity.

You didn't make her sick, he said at last. If he was more like his mother and less like Kierkegaard, or less like Etoille who had taken him in, maybe he would've turned the gun on her. He just couldn't. I don't know what was wrong with her but if you'd been with her she might've hurt you. Maybe you'd get sick, too. Or maybe she wouldn't have; maybe Caiaphas had only advanced on him in her horrific stumbling way because she remembered that he was the son who accidentally betrayed her. Maybe if you didn't turn her away she wouldn't have got sick, but in case she took it as an accusation, he was quick to add, but maybe she would have anyway, and then maybe your whole pack would be sick and you all would die.

You can't blame yourself for nature. If she's like you say, because Ephraim never had the chance to really know his mother, so he couldn't say for sure, then maybe it was her soul what made her sick and maybe it was unavoidable.