Redhawk Caldera unrequited sass

She didn't know what to expect but it wasn't that. She had braced herself for something bad but... this was immeasurably worse than anything she could have anticipated. Not only one but both parents were dead. Wildfire's lips parted in speechless surprise as her brain attempted to process this new reality. She immediately tried to think of the last time she'd seen either one of them. Had she told them she loved them? Had she said a proper goodbye? Of course, she hadn't ever thought this might happen, so their exchanges had been light and brief. As their faces floated in her mind's eye, Wildfire felt like someone was crushing her heart, crumbling it into dust. She sank to the ground.

Magpie's quiet gestures were met with no reaction whatsoever. By the time Wildfire dragged her eyes upward, there was only one aunt standing there rather than two. She gazed up at Finley, all the sorrow in the world etched on her youthful face. Her mate had just dashed her dreams and now the legendary Peregrine and Fox were gone. The Bandrona felt bereft and isolated, despite the loved one standing mere feet away. Where her heart had been moments ago, it now felt like there was a giant, ragged hole punched through her. Heck, she even glanced down as if she might find she had sustained a mortal wound to the chest.

But she was perfectly intact, of course, and she dragged her amber eyes to her godmother's face again. "Wh—wh—at happened?" She could barely speak and when she did, her own voice broke some sort of dam somewhere in the back of her throat. A wretched sob broke free and then her eyes and nose were streaming too. Wildfire rocked back and forth a little bit, otherwise paralyzed by absolute grief as she wept.