Porcupine Ridge [m] So light your matches, and I will rise

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9:46 PM

The stars were shifting. Somewhere far below, the grass parted in a shattering of gold.
On the night that Reverie was meant to die, the heavens parted and then stilled; waiting; expecting. A thousand thousand miles away, in a world she would never know, someone watched, and wept, and finally reached for her. And it was then that she knew love; the love of her creator set to the tune of soft words she would never forget.

You are my most treasured creation.

And I never wanted you to hurt this way, but you've been so strong.

You've given me strength, and comfort, and joy I never imagined when I made you.

This doesn't have to be the end.

But if you want to rest now, you can. It's okay.

For a long time, Reverie was only quiet. She had so many questions. Or maybe it was only one question scattered into a hundred offshoots all tracing back to the same single word: why? Why her? Why all this hurt, this loss, this blood? And she knew that she could have had the answers then, but realized next that maybe she did not want to.
Her very existence was born of great sorrow, she felt. But she had done her job, hadn't she? She'd given comfort, and strength, and joy; she'd given her blood and her tears, her love and her laughter, all of it. There was no regret in her for this, nor resentment, if only because she could not help but love deeply and inherently the one whose sorrow had sparked her into this strange and striking life. And she could rest now, if she wanted.
But she did not think that she was done.

I want to go back, she said finally, silently into that endless grey void.
For a moment there was nothing, and she wondered if she had been heard at all.
Then —

Anything for you, Reverie. I love you. Don't ever forget that.

...

And the strange little light that was Reverie fell, and spiraled, and whirred through the cold night air until she felt the grass in her fur and the agony of a hundred hurts across the body she'd nearly left behind forever. She drew in a single, gasping breath — and promptly fainted from the pain.

...

6:09 AM

The world was shifting. Somewhere far above, the sun greeted the earth with a tearful smile.

And Reverie blinked awake to smile tiredly back.

Akashingo;

Ptolemy only had a rough idea of where the mesa was located, passed down in his mother's own cryptic way. She had not been fond of the pack. Yet they had given her a servant, one whom she'd intended to use to bring new blood to the islands. Blackwater had fallen before they could see her plan to fruition.

And they had failed to pay their debt.

He hunted now for an offering, unwilling to give his own gilded trinket over. The whispers of spirits led him to a trail of spattered blood across the mountainside. It ended over a ledge. Ptolemy wondered at that. He strode to the stony edge of it and peered over in the dawning light, and his eyes lit upon a broken figure in the grass below. Her gilded fur seemed to gleam in the light; the scarlet of her blood glittered and called to him.

He might have thought her dead, had she not begun to stir.

Ptolemy chuckled under his breath, full of wonder again; this time, for his great fortune. Like a circling vulture, he began his careful descent.

Reverie tasted blood on her lips, and her weary smile to be alive soon faded as reality set in. Her head hurt, foremost. Blood seeped through the grass around her skull, into her muzzle, into the fur at her ear and her neck. Her chest hurt with every breath. Broken ribs, she thought numbly, and her leg — oh, her leg —
She lifted her head to look and cried out at the movement, and again when she saw the unnatural angle of her leg. Broken, it was broken. She was broken. And she started to cry then, and that hurt too, so fiercely that her sobs quieted as quickly as they'd begun. In the silence she heard footsteps. Someone was coming. Amalia? It was her, surely, but who she hoped for was —
Boone? Her voice cracked as she let her head fall back against the blood-soaked grass, and silently she cried. She wanted her father. She wanted her daughter. She wanted her husband. Please.

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Not dead, perhaps, but as Ptolemy neared he understood that she would not suit his purpose. The woman was a ruin; shattered by her fall, by whatever had brought her to it. He crept nearer, keeping to her back now so that she would hear but not see who or what had come upon her. She reminded him of Minuet.

She was beautiful.

A cruel idea, then; a cruel want. Ptolemy stepped over her, smiling pleasantly even as she cried in fear. The Speaker leaned down to brush his muzzle over one gilded ear. Shhh, He murmured, one paw snaking over her shoulder. Shhhh. And he lowered himself to press against her, to feel the warmth still lingering in her tattered body. She started to scream, then. But he didn't mind.

Someone was coming. Someone was coming, and it was not a friend. A friend would not have approached at her back, silently, where she could not see no matter how she urged her body to twist in search of the stranger. And she started to panic. H-hello? She stammered first, voice shaking, but there was no response.
The footsteps neared.
Go away, Her voice still trembled; her forepaws sought purchase in the grass, but the movement of her chest sent white-hot bolts of pain through her and she collapsed. Go away! She shrieked; hot breath at her ear; a paw at her shoulder; no no no no no no NO NO NO NO — Get off me stop STOP STOP —

Mature Content Warning

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pp and implied major injuries are done with ooc permission!

THUNK
He hadn't even thought about it, hadn't the time to before he rammed into the ribcage of the assailant. He hadn't seen his face, hadn't seen his wife—
His wife. Blood, there is blood and screaming and her cries and—
You get the fuck away from her! a shout, piercing, roaring; red spots collide with his vision and he snarls, jagged-edged and merciless.
He wastes no time.
For what must have been the first time in his life, Boone's size is to his advantage. He is no wolf, but a bear, a feral creature devoid of humanity in this moment. He rips and he tears and he bashes and he swings, does whatever he possibly can to make this fucker's parents regret ever breathing life into his mangled figure. The man is left a clump of tri-colored fur; a heap, torn asunder, and Boone peels away soaked in ribbons of scarlet and with gashes that litter his shoulders and neck, blood singing, lungs aching, pupils pinpricked in a devouring rage.
Reverie.
When he first looks upon her, he barks out a choked, horrific sob; his wife, his beautiful wife — I'm gonna get you help, babygirl, asking questions was not his priority. Adrenaline courses every fiber of the helpless, frantic mountaineer as he scoops her in his arms, attempts to sling her over his back. A garbled string of it's okay, I'm here, I love you, it's okay—
Where the fuck was he going to go for help?

Shattered as she was, Reverie would not simply lie back and accept her fate. With a desperate snarl she lashed out, teeth catching the skin at her assailant's throat — and it all happened very quickly after that. Later she would remember, above all, the pain; the way each movement felt like lightning arcing hotly through every nerve, the whimpering cries she couldn't seem to contain, the tears streaming down her cheeks.
In the moment, all she knew was that her wish had been granted after all. Boone. Her heart leapt into her throat. The unwelcome weight fell away from her. There was snarling; the sound of fighting; the scent of blood. She struggled to stand. But all too soon it was over, it was over and Boone was there at her side and — oh, he was bleeding — for her, he'd fought for her. Boone, Her voice was nearly a whisper, and then — W-where is - Blossom?
But Reverie never heard the answer, if there was one at all. She felt herself fading. I love you, She managed, slurring a little now. Her last thought before the darkness took her again was that he was always so sweet, always calling her pretty pet names, always affectionate in every aspect, and that she loved him fiercely for it.