Emberwood There's a party and we're all going

Everything was gone. Milan was alone once more, hungry and weak. Her father had been right in the end.

Frederick had not come back. He left for his mission and never returned. What was she meant to think? Had he died, or had he made the choice to abandon her without word? Which would hurt less should either be true?

Now Bearclaw was gone too. They had left, and Milan stayed behind.

Walking through the woods on trembling stilt legs she suddenly felt herself crumbling to the ground. Wracked with sobs, she could nearly scream. What was she supposed to do from here? What was left for her?

She wished that she had joined Frederick in the creek, that she had followed Beau when he showed his face, anything the could have torn her from this path. She was filled with a merciless, unaimed, hateful despair. Releasing a breath, this time it did come out as a scream. You would think her heart had been ripped clean from her chest.

She felt like it had been.

All things considered, Hirundo wasn’t having a terrible time. He wasn’t starving. No one, at present, was trying to kill him. The sun was warm and pleasant on his gray fur, and he had found some sweet-smelling flowers to roll in. The purple petals clung to his fur as he lounged in the meadow, limbs outstretched.

A cry split through the air. Hirundo sat up, ears flattened against his skull. Distantly, he heard—crying. Someone was crying.

At once he felt a bit of shame for his initial reaction. Someone was not well. …Would he really be any help, though? Most of the time, he simply made things worse. Hirundo had learned that bitter lesson by now.

And yet, pulled onwards by some old instinct to help he simply could not ignore, Hirundo stood up. He walked towards the sound of distress.

Upon seeing the crying woman, he paused. His first instinct was to comfort her, to tell her that all was well—but he knew that couldn’t be true.

…Can I help? Hirundo decided to ask.

A stranger came, and Milan could not help feeling shameful there under his gaze.

They're all gone.. Her voice trembled with her body, teary eyes fixed on the other. I'm alone. Everyone left.

Something in the back of her mind screamed for Milan to stand, to keep going and claim that everything was fine. She was too old to be sobbing like this; a grown woman for goodness sake!

But how could she not feel horrible? The small life she had managed to build for herself, the life she had been promised and hoped for, it was all gone.

Hirundo stared at the ground. Everyone left. The cold, suffocating hollowness in his chest yawned open again. He tried to turn away from it; he tried to hide it; but here it was, in brown-furred mirror. He could turn away from her and leave, too. Instead, he sat down, watching the woman grieve.

Hirundo took a deep breath.

Not all gone. You're still here, he said gently. He paused. You're here, and you have to keep going.

Milan supposed he was right. Even if others had left, she was still here.

Should I.. look for him? She asked after a moment. My lover. She clarified. He's been missing for months. His pack sent him on some sort of mission and.. he just never came back.

She missed him. She missed @Frederick so dearly. Part of her felt that she should move on, but how could she? He had been perfect, her proof that soulmates were something more than a story spouted to young girls to keep them waiting.

To her question, Hirundo had no good answer. He stared down at his paws. Should he have looked?

He knew in his heart he should have tried to find the survivors. And he had, sort of, only he’d given up when the trail went cold. He’d given up, and now he was here. But what good could he have done, anyways? He would have led them right into an ambush, or into hunger and sickness. He was not his mother. (Or he might find an aunt or cousin and think himself safe, only to watch ivory teeth tear through her last scream.)

That was what he told himself. Yet guilt chewed at his insides.

If something took his life, it might claim yours too, he told her, ears drooping with concern. His voice did not sound like his own. But if you don’t look, will you regret it later?

Hirundo did not speak that awful question. No grieving heart needed that pain lumped on by someone else. (Unless it was his own, weak and foolish as it was.)

She seemed to ponder his words for a moment, but in truth her mind was already made up.

Then I have to go.

Milan was no fighter, that was for certain, but time had proven that she was a lover. She needed that clarity, she needed to know what had happened to him if she ever hoped to move on.

She would need to grow comfortable being alone once more. She had to leave, and she would return when she had her answer. Thank you. Finally sapphire eyes looked to meet that of the strangers. It was only brief before she made her quick exit.

Thank you for the thread! <3

Just like that, the stranger made up her mind. He wouldn't have expected any different from her. She had the same mettle as his mother; he knew that should things have gone differently, she would have never stopped looking for him. But instead, she defended their home until the very last.

Hirundo only stared as the woman left. He did not see the stranger any longer. Instead, he saw his mother's red-stained silver-gray pelt, silent as winter snow.

It was not until his limbs began to ache from standing that he began the trek back to the witch and her river.

thank you as well <3