Chimera Fields long intervals of horrible sanity

Cypress watched intently as Rannoch digested the tragic news, sulphureous eyes mapping each fragmented emotion that crossed the beloved face. He was unprepared for and stunned by his littermate’s literal outpouring of grief — Cypress had been too shell-shocked and traumatized to truly process his own feelings and the release of tears had yet to find him. Still, he easily fell into his former role of protector and confidant, both forelegs reaching up to clasp his brother in a fierce embrace as his shoulders and hips shifted to find a more comfortable position. For a long moment he said nothing; a more mature wolf might have spared Rannoch the more grisly details, but Cypress was young and wild and desperately despondent. He pushed his broad muzzle into the thick, salt-crusted fur of Rannoch’s nape, and all the angry words he’d prepared for this very moment fell to the wayside. “I wanted to find you, Noch,” he mumbled, his words muffled by his brother’s thick undercoat, “because you’re my brother.”

Funny how empty victory could feel.

Dry-eyed, “Paw went out searching for you and Lucy every day,” Cypress murmured. “October and Allure, too. Mama went out searching, too, but she got sick again, and after that Paw said she should stay home.” He hesitated. “I looked for you and Lucy in the glen until I got in trouble for it — and sometimes when nobody was looking I went anyway.” He paused, the heartwrenching sound of Rannoch’s gasping sobs producing a thick ache in his throat that he tried in vain to clear away with a soft cough. “Did Paw ever tell you about our brother Kjalarr?” he asked, not truly expecting an answer. He was speaking to comfort himself as much as his turquoise-eyed sibling. He spoke of the blue-eyed berserker and his wife — an unknown quantity to Cypress, who had not gone out of his way to make his acquaintance — and he spoke of Shrike and his attachment to Allure. And then, quite abruptly —

“Paw had been gone for too long,” he whispered, “and Mama got so worried she went to go look for him herself. She didn’t take me. She said that I had to stay home — that she’d be back before I even had time to miss her.” The forest had become Cypress’ prison. “Allure and Shrike came,” he recited, his sentences growing short and taut as his breath came quicker. “They — we — there was a bear, and Mama — ” The withered raven squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden ache that blossomed in his chest and threatened to swallow him up. “Their eyes were open, Noch,” he whispered, horrified. He didn’t know why that particular fact haunted him so, but it was the sight of those blind, dried up eyes that haunted his dreams. “I knew they weren’t sleeping — but I tried to wake them up anyway — the smell — and there was blood coming from their noses and mouths and — ” Nausea rose up in the dusty-furred youth; he coughed, whipping his head away from Rannoch to spit a mixture of blood from his wound and bitter saliva, and when the feeling passed he began to tremble violently. He burrowed his muzzle into his littermate’s ruff and mumbled forlornly, “I tried to wake them up but their bodies were so cold.” The first tears slipped from between his squeezed-shut lids.