Mount Apikuni I went through hell to get to high water

somewhere appropriate in the timeline
@Zephyr

Before it got too dark, she wanted some time to hunt, preferably alone. She was still pretty upset with @Taikon, and so wouldn't have said much to him or Zephyr as they made their way from Emberwood and around the smaller set of mountains.

So she set out once they had settled in for the night, intent on begrudgingly finding something the three of them could eat. The mothering instinct was a hard one to ignore. Since she felt most at ease in the mountains, she began to make her way up into the smaller peak, hoping she could find a herd of goats or deer and pick off something weak or injured. 

She had only been climbing for, at most, an hour when she caught the scent of something she had no interest in—a cougar. Her mind flashed to the injured woman, and she wondered if this might be the same one. She stopped and scanned the area, not seeing anything, but she knew that didn't necessarily mean she was alone. Deciding she didn't want to tempt her terrible luck this evening, she turned to make her way down the mountain. She would find food elsewhere. 

But she didn't make it very far before a low, ominous growl sounded from behind her. Taki whirled around to see the cougar perched on a rock just above. It had the advantage, and she immediately went on the defensive. She tensed and backed away slowly, her own warning growl rumbling from her chest. She didn't want to fight this creature, but she knew she might not have a choice. Her foot slipped on a bit of loose rock, and she had to lunge forward to steady herself. This startled the cougar, and it surged forward with a roar and a swipe of it's formidable claws. Taki continued to back up, snarling again in return, continuing the fierce standoff.

He parts from Taikon with a quiet promise to return soon, following Takiyok's scent on a whim. Something about the woman strikes him as motherly, though he can tell she doesn't like him at all. It reminds him of Alessia — and with the loss still fresh in his mind, he can't help wanting some kind of attention from Takiyok.
Unfortunately, the scene he stumbles upon is less than ideal. Actually, that's an understatement. It's the worst possible scenario. Takiyok — the cougar — fuck. He's too far away. He breaks into a run, determined to reach her before —

The dance went on for what felt like forever—the cougar would rush forward and swipe the air, and Taki would snarl in return while trying to put more space between them. It was starting to get old, and Taki was about to just say fuck it and charge forward to attack the damn thing. It would not be an ideal situation, but she would just have to figure it out like she did everything else in her life. 

She braced to leap at her opponent, but the second before she made her move, a scent pulled a small section of her focus from her fight—the injured stranger. It was literally the last thing she needed right now, to have to watch out for this woman while also attempting to take on a cougar. 

When Zephyr emerged at a run, the strangest thing happened; the cougar actually seemed startled. It lunged forward again, and Taki meant to side step the attack and launch herself towards the creature's side, but her rear foot slipped off the edge of the small cliff they were on, and she couldn't work against the momentum. She fell back, her head smacking against the side of the mountain as she hit the ground. She saw blurry cougar feet running from her before everything went black. Blood dripped from her head and pooled around her muzzle. She still breathed and appeared alive otherwise, but she was completely out.

He's too late. The mountain lion seems almost as terrified by the sight of him as he is of it, but it isn't enough to spare Takiyok. Zephyr doesn't see how it happens — he's too focused on the lion, on those claws — but somewhere between his arrival and the other predator's flight, the woman goes down. He changes his focus, coming to a stop alongside her fallen form, heart racing as he tries to put the cougar out of his mind. His eyes find the blood pooling at her head, and briefly he imagines how easy it'd be to leave her here, to let her bleed out and keep Taikon for himself —
But he'd given his word. He tries and fails to remember what medics use to stop wounds from bleeding, and ultimately settles for shifting the woman and pressing a foreleg to the wound. Blood soaks through his fur quickly — but then it starts to work. It seems like an eternity before it feels safe to move away. The bleeding doesn't start again when he removes his leg, so he takes that as a good sign, and reaches for her scruff. It won't be a short or easy trip, but he nonetheless starts to drag her back to where he'd left @Taikon, hoping he won't regret his decision to keep his word. As if it'd ever really been a choice.

Takiyok was pissed. She was more angry with him than he had even seen her be angry at anyone, except for perhaps Mahler. It was easier to watch the distanced anger that she had been feeling since leaving Sagtannet. Once it was redirected onto him for bringing Zephyr into their care, she was quick to distance him what felt like completely. Gone were their late evening conversations. Gone was her tender touch. He already missed the way she had tenderly groomed his fur just days earlier — it was a touch she seemed to have given with the purpose of taking it away when he displeased her. She was an empress among women, and he knew that him making decisions without consulting her was very much the reason for this anger, but all he could do was sulk.
At the same time, having Zephyr around and caring for her was something of a treat. He knew he was being stupid for letting someone he barely knew tug at his emotions in this way, but it was just too easy. She needed help, and that was all he needed to know. He was convinced she was not there to spy on them. Unless they had found someone who was the greatest actress ever and had also thrown herself head first into a rock and at a mountain lion, Taikon was pretty sure she wasn't inventing her story.
So when Takiyok left to go hunting on her own, he understood well that she needed space. He used it as an opportunity to get some sleep. When he lay down, Zephyr was nearby, safe.

---

Taikon woke to the scent of blood.
Wolf blood. Takiyok's blood.
That was all the information he needed before he startled onto his feet, flying toward the smell. His eyes were wild with alarm. His heart began to race. He panted as he moved, but it didn't take long to find them.
Zephyr was dragging her by the scruff, struggling. Taikon launched toward them, panic setting in. What the fuck did you do?! He demanded, but didn't really listen to the answer as he dipped his head toward her. She was out cold. He was no medic. Neither was Zephyr. What the fuck were they going to do? Tears started to come as he looked at his friend. The friend he was worried had been doomed ever since they had forged a friendship. The friend who wanted to have more children. The friend who he loved, and it didn't matter if she wanted to be angry at him forever. Oh God... He struggled to make words, inspecting the wound, but so panicked he had no idea what to do with the information.
Finally, he thought to check if her chest was moving. It was. Alive. He looked at Zephyr, eyes dilated and terrified. Now what?

"What the fuck did you do?"

"Did you kill her?"

He drops her scruff. I-I didn't — One step back, then two. How could he have made this mistake? How could he have trusted this warmth to last? His last true opportunity for it had died back in the place where he'd been born. I tried —

No, she was sick.

I wasn't fast enough.

I'm sorry. I didn't know, or I would've been faster, I would've helped, I-I — I wasn't there. I wasn't there until it was too late to do anything but watch her die — It should've been me. I'm sorry. His vision is blurry. He doesn't remember starting to cry. All he feels is heat, horrid crawling heat through his face and his lungs and his eyes, and a deep hollow ache in his chest. Alessia is dead —

And all he sees reflected in Taikon's eyes is the monster that he has become.

His hearing felt blurred and echoing as adrenaline swam through his blood. His priority was Takiyok, but he noticed the panic in Zephyr. Inwardly, he knew he shouldn't have immediately tried to blame her, but there was no time for apologies and fucked up garbage now. They had to fix her. How were they going to fix her? He didn't know how to fix her.
Still panicked, he swung his head from Takiyok back to Zephyr, remembering that she also had a healing head injury. She was lost. Fogged. Not now, he thought. I know I know it's not your fault, he said, not even knowing if it was true. Maybe she pushed Taki off a fucking cliff, in which case he would...
—but that didn't matter. Taikon remembered, finally, as he shook, to take a breath. Once, Aphrodite had taught him to take such breaths when feeling panicked. The first was struggling, broken, harsh. The second was long, and slow, and as he breathed out, he felt slightly clearer in the head. Just just... Another, smaller breath. Help me with her. Help? How the fuck were they supposed to help? He looked at Taki, and Zephyr. He saw the blood on her leg, and saw the injury on Taki's skull. She had stemmed the bleeding.
He looked at a nearby tree, and decided that was where they would put her, at least for now. With or without Zephyr's help, Taikon grabbed her beautiful white scruff and dragged her to under the tree. At least this way, it might be slightly sheltered from the wind.

The ugliness rears up within him, wrapping sour tendrils around him and tightening its grip as Taikon speaks further. He feels cold and unwelcome suddenly; an intruder here, out of place in the warmth between them. Suddenly he doesn't want to be anywhere near either of them.
So he shuts down.
He helps Taikon move the woman in silence, eyes distant. All the while he detaches himself, snipping the little strings of whatever budding connection had been here, burning the ends so they won't grow back without his permission. There is nothing for him here. Whatever kindness he'd been shown had been fleeting, a fluke — and now it is only a business transaction. I have experience with head injuries, He says numbly after a time, not looking at either of them. She hasn't thrown up or started shaking. She'll be okay. All we can do is wait.
And with that, he settles by her head, starting to groom the blood from her fur without thinking. The way he'd groomed Alessia, right before she died in his arms.

Once they had moved her, Taikon continued his breathing exercise to try to calm down. He knew that he was not going to be of any use to Takiyok if he was in a state of complete panic. He was terrified to lose her. Terrified. Like he had lost everyone.
Zephyr said she had experience, and he listened, feeling distant, scared, alone. As she started to groom Taki, he watched her, still shaking. For a moment, he felt uncomfortable with her touching Taki, and wanted to make her stop. But the licks were tender. They were kind. They soothed at an ache. He blinked, and watched. Taikon settled beside Takiyok, curling his body around her the same way he had done their first night after they'd been thrown out of Sagtannet. His eyes were glossy and hazed. They burned.
After a few, much quieter moments, he looked at Zephyr. He didn't know what had happened, exactly. He couldn't even remember what exactly he'd said, he just knew whatever it was wasn't good. Taikon put his head on Takiyok's back, using her limp body as a pillow, afraid of losing her warmth.
I.. I know you didn't do this, he said, refusing to look up at her. C-Can you tell me what happened? He didn't understand why Zephyr had followed her. He thought he could smell...something through the blood. Another animal. Fear. As he spoke, it re-lit his fears of losing her, and his eyes welled.

He tries to imagine that it's Alessia beneath his touch. That she's alive and warm and with him, and she'll wake up any moment, blinking sleepy sanguine eyes at him. She'll smile, and tell him she loves him; he can almost hear the words, almost, like the faintest hint of a scent on the breeze. He needs to hear them, more than he even needs to breathe.
But the voice that breaks the silence is Taikon's, and Alessia is dead and gone, and the woman he's grooming is a stranger who'd sooner see him dead than inconvenience herself for his sake. He looks up at him slowly, silently, eyes raw and hollow and full of bright red hurt like fresh blood from a wound. The emotion vanishes from them after a few moments, and leaves an icy void in its wake. It was a mountain lion. The one that attacked me, He answers, tone sullen and reluctant, making it clear that he doesn't want to talk. He returns to his task, to his play-pretend, trying to ignore Taikon's presence.

He knew he should take the hint. He assumed, wrongly, that Zephyr was both traumatized by the accident and, partially correctly, that she was pissed at him for trying to blame her. At this point, he was getting used to people being pissed off at him all the time, even when he was just trying to do the right thing as much as he could.
Taikon continued to clutch Taki beneath him as though she might disappear. He was scared that at any moment, the life would leave her fierce eyes and no longer would he feel her chest rising and falling. The lion. Of course. He drew in a long, heavy, quaking sigh. He didn't take the hint, and kept talking because talking distracted him. You brought her back, he said slowly. You saved her, he concluded, still refusing to look at her. She, like Taki, could be pissed off all she wanted. Her act of heroism was nothing short of wonderful, in his eyes.

Taikon continues to talk, and Zephyr continues to feel worse. He wants nothing more than to be alone with his thoughts right now, to stew in his loneliness and self-loathing and world-loathing. But he can't. I had to, He answers simply, pausing to inspect the last of the blood in the woman's pale fur. Then he finishes his task, and stands up, shaking his coat out slightly. I'm going to hunt. She'll need to eat when she wakes up. And with that, he departs.

Zephyr cleaned the last of the blood from Takiyok's gorgeous face and neck. Then, she stood up, and announced her plan to hunt. Taikon finally looked at her, but she didn't match him. Thank— but she was gone. You.
The moment she left, emptiness claimed him. He snuggled closer to his limp friend. The silence hit hard. He heard the air. He heard the stillness. Don't go. Don't leave me. He pleaded it to the darkness. He worried about Zephyr being attacked by the lion. He worried about a lot of things. The welling tears spilled over, and Taikon plunged his face into Taki's white, motherly fur, and wept.