Moonspear I'm the biggest, the best, better than the rest

many things arcturus had seen tumble from the inhospitable and celestial reach of the mountain. rocks, stones, once a fallen, smoldering star. and never in his life did he expect to see two shapes hurtling like meteors from the spear’s desolate summit; two irreconcilably familiar shapes that caused his world entire to crash down around him. 

his wavering gaze followed their crashing descent, watching as their bodies threw down like furious spears — watching as their bodies dismantled and thudded and split apart, finally coming to rest in bloodied tatters on a rocky and barren shore. 

he ran as he had never before; no no no no no his mind cried in tandem with his rising heartbeat; good god, please no —

and he came upon them both, strewn and bloodied and gone. the once tall, impressive stature of his father crumpled and distorted, his muzzle crushed and bloodied with his singular eye closed forever. alongside charon draped the dark form of arcturus’ mother, and it was here a choking despair seized the moonspearian boy. her once-sleek pelt was obscenely matted by blood with dust clinging, profane and wrong, against what had always been a glossy and flawless pelt. arcturus’ head swam, his tongue and mouth run dry; mom, he choked, at once both loathe and desperate to nudge her devastated form; god, if he touched her one more time, would her form crumble and wither away? she was so broken already. 

amekaze did not move as arcturus nudged her bloodied muzzle, those tranquil and knowing fern-green eyes empty and gone; her bruised body unrepairable beyond measure. ::mom, please.:: he cried, placing both paws against her shattered shoulders in a heave that resulted in nothing but a limp lull against the stone. 

still amekaze did not stir. still, the dust settled around them and somewhere the clatter of a single disturbed stone begun its irreversible descent down the slope. 

he turned to his father, the one wolf he could always count on to make it right — to fix the unfixable, assail the unassailable.. dad please, mom won’t get up and oh god i don’t — dad, help— yet no help came from the beaten patriarch, whose body had suffered assault and abuse beyond measure. despair crept into arcturus’ quivering bones, icing his very marrow with a deep and unsettling unhappiness. he felt the first sting of tears and did not even register it — from that moment, charon’s boy wept freely. 

he could not bring himself to think it; they were not dead, no, they were not dead they were not dead — they’d get up, they’d fight it .. they were strong and they were always there for him and they’d be for him now.. they’d get up eventually and shake the dust from their hide and years down the road they would all come together and laugh about it..

but that was not reality, and was a world that would never happen. they were gone. two black and white bodies curled around the other’s battered half; devotion and infidelity, violence and tranquility, ying and yang — two souls that hung on the balance, and now, were gone forever. 

who could arcturus go to, now? his two best friends, his parents — they had gone together and left him here. their lives were stolen by the ruthless greed of gravity and stone alike. they were not coming back. what cruel stroke of luck was this, to not just lose his mother, but his father too? arcturus felt darkness cloud his vision, black spots shimmering like the scintillating edge of a pool. his legs were suddenly shaky, his breath ragged — he wished a thousand times it was him sitting in his own pool of blood, his body cracked — not them, please not them. 

he could look upon that ruined scene no longer. he closed his eyes shut and willed it be anything but what he had just saw; when he opened his eyes again, there they were — their bodies battered and broken still, yet nestled to one another as if clinging still to their mates even as the life was beaten from them. 

somehow, their dissolution had been their absolution, but arcturus felt nothing but the keening blade of heartbreak. 

arcturus looked upwards, towards the insensate and blasted slope. his sunny gaze was uncomprehending, his features stricken in unending grief — of what manner of dark turn was this, what transpired on that peak above that would rent his parents apart and send them spiraling to a cold and uncompromising death? he searched for hydra - for dirge — for he could not for one moment fathom his parents had leapt to their deaths willingly.