Lone Star Mountain Who called me by my name and ran

The hot effect that her words had on the suffering Warbone went unnoticed until his gaze met hers. Only then could Saena tell that there was something churning in his skull, and perhaps deeper, in his heart of hearts. There was something as black as her own sorrow hidden in there. She had to wonder if that was why he'd come up this high. She'd climbed to escape her dark feelings, ones that came on so suddenly when she was alone, fears that she kept hidden down most of the time. Surely Warbone had his own demons to chase him to these heights? She only knew she was running to escape her pain when he spoke of it himself, and the realization that she'd subconsciously meant to walk off the edge scared her.

As he spoke, she felt his pain poignantly. She felt the same as him. Her own flock no longer belonged to her, but to a woman she had thought to take for an advisor. It not longer even belonged to her family, its rightful owners. Her beautiful maple forest was no longer occupied, nor could it be, for the threat that hung over it was far too big a weight to place upon anyone. She still believed that threat was issued by Larksong Grotto itself, for her memories of the dragon coiled further in the north were all but gone. Nevertheless, she could never return to the place she'd truly come into her own, nor could she reclaim the broken pieces of it that she'd salvaged, and that sliced to the bone.

"I don't know," she admitted when Warbone voiced his question, not sensing that it was rhetorical. "Maybe." Saena couldn't put words to the feeling that had drawn her to the peak. It was desperation and depression, yes, but also hope, a chance to clear her mind and steady herself for things to come. "It was my ex-mate," she revealed, not sure whether Warbone would care, but it was information she relayed to almost anyone. Even at her lowest, Saena relished a chance to drag Reek through the mud. "We had a beautiful home, a healthy pack, but when our family was just beginning, he chose another. I could not take the slight to my own authority, so I sent them away, only for them to raise up a pack against me mere miles from mine, and threaten to take everything. Even when we left and found a new home, he chased us down, and stole my daughters from under the noses of those protecting them."

She sucked in another chilly breath, filling her lungs with biting air and relishing the prickling pain in her snout momentarily. "And I could not even remember them," she breathed, and her eyes felt itchy with the tears that gathered. "I don't know when it happened, but I forgot them all. I forgot myself, too, and only remembered much later. I wasn't there for them when they needed me, and my place was taken by another. But they weren't there for my kids, either. They let it happen when I was not there to prevent it myself, and I don't know if I can ever forgive them for it, let alone myself, for he is bound to harm them." Maybe by now, Warbone would no longer care for her issues, so she dropped it off with a shaky breath. They were alike, she and him, and while she was much less a wolf of the wild than Warbone, she was beginning to feel like it. In the absence of things to keep her emotionally sated, the animal itself rose up.

"Nor I," she replied eventually. The thought of lurching over that cliff edge sent her heart into her throat, and that was how she knew she wasn't ready. She'd thought for a split second that was the answer, but she knew better now. Warbone made her see. "There is too much left to do in this life." She would rebuild, maybe, or she would wander until her dying day. The wind offered no answers on which of those courses was the better one. Whatever the case, Saena could not forgive herself, and so she did not deserve the potential release that death would bring from lacking anything at all to hold dear.

PSH I think you mean yours is beautiful, I always feels like I'm all over the place, lol. You're so good at keeping your char in the moment and I struggle so much with not writing all about their thoughts and forgetting everything else, haha.