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

She watched as Speedy fled from their home and their teeth, from the mistakes she had made. Mistakes she now carried within her. There was a certain sort of disappointment Lyra felt as the girl's form slowly become a distant speck. As if there was unfinished business. She wanted more. Alas, the chase seemed to have satisfied Hydra enough, for her sister gave the command and both Lyra and Jarilo halted, returning to the Beta dutifully. What awaited them back inside the borders none could have guessed.

The first hint of something wrong was the faintest of smells — blood, a bear, and Revui. It was old but it was enough to unsettle Lyra; she turned to Hydra who had sent up a call just as another wave of scents hit them. Blood. More of it. Too much. Her sister suddenly broke into an all out sprint, closely followed by herself and Jarilo. She had never run faster in her life.

The scene they came upon almost made Lyra retch. At first she didn't recognise them, she didn't want to recognise them. Two shapes, battered and bloodied and so utterly broken lay at the foot of their all at once grand, powerful, and terrible mountain. Their home. Their claim that had so readily, so easily spilled the blood of its rulers. Lyra mouthed a silent no as her mirror image exclaimed the word, rushing forward. She stayed locked in place, only vaguely aware of the others who had already been drawn to the scene. Her brothers and sisters, entirely ignored in favour of the two who she now focused on. Her mother and father.

Dead.

They couldn't be. Not her father, not Charon, the proud, strong patriarch of Moonspear who had not once faltered in his stride. He had been beaten down time and time again but rose to face each challenge with bloodied teeth and a stubborn grin. A grin that had been cruelly twisted and crushed by gravity itself. A fall he would never rise from again. Slowly, Lyra tore her eyes from the battered form of her father to her mother, and she felt the first of many tears begin to prick at her eyes. Not her mother. Graceful even in death, she was poignantly draped across her mate's body, blood soaked and still. The dark spires of her hackles raised as if she taunted death itself. Amekaze had always flirted with the prospect, but never once did Lyra imagine she would lose. Not her wonderful parents who, despite all their flaws, were the ones who meant everything to her. They were meant to stand tall for years more to come, to watch their grandchildren grow to be as strong and capable as they, they were meant to see this mountain they very well may have raised up from the earth itself flourish and prosper, they were meant to grow old together, they were meant—

"Lyra!? Tell her, tell her she will live!"

The triplet was rocked from her shell-shocked trance and looked suddenly to Hydra, then back to Amekaze. There was just too much blood. Even if they stopped the bleeding, her bones would be fractured and shattered beyond repair. And Charon was already gone. Lyra couldn't imagine a world without the both of them standing together. It was both, or none. She shook her head, unable to form the words to explain to her sister that hope was not something they had the luxury of believing in here.

It was in this moment of lucidness that Lyra finally recognised the others; Arcturus and Jarilo who stood nearby, rooted to the spot in incomprehensible silence. Dirge who had arrived and was at his mate's side, seeking to comfort her. And then there was a familiar face which had materialised as if out of thin air and collapsed before their parents. It took a moment to realise the wailing ghost was Vela, and she blinked out of confusion, but now was not the time to question.

Instead, the Ostrega remained in place as the sudden wave of sober acceptance and heart wrenching sorrow finally crashed, engulfing and swallowing her whole.