Chimera Fields gold heart; silver tears

I’m sorry for the brattiness and the length. ;-; Cypress and I got carried away.

There was a part of Cypress that wanted to lash out at Allure and Shrike — a feral, wild desire to bully them away from Scimitar and Eshe — to fight — because what they were suggesting sounded a whole lot like flight. It was Allure’s pleading that ultimately kept him from reacting with physical violence; still, he bristled, each silver-tipped hair standing on end as he huddled still closer to his mother — his mother, not Allure’s or Shrike’s. The glint of his shell-shocked gaze turned briefly baleful, glittering with sulphureous demonfire as he regarded his elders with defiance — but it guttered out at the confirmation he read in their turquoise and silver eyes. There was nothing to be done now. “Why do you care?” he asked Shrike bitterly, his lips twisting into something ugly — a petulant grimace that smacked of disrespect. “They’re not yours and neither am I.”

The raven’s eyes went wide, wild, as he hung his head in shame and tucked his tail. “I’m — I’m sorry, Shrike,” he whispered quietly. “I’m sorry.” Licking his lips nervously, he glanced from silver to turquoise. “I’m sorry, Allure. I was — I — I didn’t mean — I don’t know why — ” He wanted to thank Shrike for his kind words, but the words felt thick and heavy on his tongue. Cypress was usually a well behaved, welcoming wolf, but the desperately angry words that had edged their way from between his gritted teeth were laced in stinging venom. After a beat, “Thank you for caring,” he said softly, woodenly. Although there was some truth in what Cypress had said, he didn’t understand why it suddenly seemed to matter that Shrike had no blood claim over him. It wouldn’t have mattered to Eshe, who had loved and pined for Lucy as her own daughter.

It felt like the worst kind of abandonment to rise shakily to his paws and step away from his mother. Cypress had never faced death before, so the concept of burying his parents was something that didn’t occur to him. All he knew was that it felt wrong to leave them lying here. “Do bears eat — ” He clamped his mouth shut before the question could emerge in full, not sure he wanted to know the truth. The thought of Scimitar and Eshe being consumed by the beast who had killed them was disturbing on a level that the young wolf was literally incapable of processing.

Forcing himself to meet his mother’s dead, staring gaze, “Mama,” Cypress said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Deirdre in time, and I’m sorry I didn’t find Lucy or Rannoch — I tried, but — ” He swallowed hard. “And I didn’t mean what I said to Shrike,” he whispered, his voice pleading, and he turned to repeat this directly to the Neverwinter wolf: “I didn’t mean it, Shrike.” The bloodied, gore-spattered raven felt a growing heaviness drape itself over him, a fog that made him feel dizzy and sick, and he touched his nose to his mother’s nose. The blood that had seeped from it had congealed and stained her pristine muzzle with blackish mire. “They say I have to go,” he whispered to her, his breath rattling hoarsely in his throat, “but don’t worry. Even if you never — wake up anymore, I’ll be good. I won’t make trouble. I’ll be good.”

Though his throat felt like it was closing up, Cypress made his way to where Scimitar had fallen, rattling off the same apologies he’d offered Eshe. “Paw,” he croaked hoarsely, “I’ll try to remember everything you said — and I’ll try to still make you proud. You…you don’t have to worry about Allure, because Shrike and me’ll protect her.” The gangly soldier briefly buried his face against Scimitar’s shoulder, but he was dry-eyed as he quietly intoned, “Paw, please — ” He knew the time for pleading was long overdue, but his heart was filled with questions — and Scimitar had increasingly been the one to whom he’d turned for answers. “I know,” he mumbled finally, not really talking to anyone in particular.

“I love you,” he said, his voice small and frail.

In his haste to appease Shrike and Allure, at whom he’d unfairly flung his rudeness and defiance, Cypress turned away from his parents, his paws pointing back the way they’d come. He stumbled, catching himself, and merely waited to be told where to go and what to do. Though part of him wondered whether home would ever truly feel like home again, he essentially shut down in that moment.