Big Salmon Lake Just leave me your stardust to remember you by

Set after this but before this. Making an assumption that they agreed to meet up so that finding the body makes more sense. Vague about the outcome of this.

From the pine forest, Dragomir parted ways with the wolves from Moonspear, and possibly Isilmë as well if she had other business to attend to. @Vercingetorix intended to meet up with them at the lake in the foothills, so that was where Dragomir headed. The going was slow, but he was pleased to find that moving at a normal clip was getting easier and easier. He limped conspicuously, which was a weakness he didn't want on display for the world to see, but it was unavoidable for now.

The last thing he expected to see in the shallows was a body. It was always surreal to come across a fallen wolf. Dragomir approached with mild curiosity at first; he'd never seen a body before, and his mood was in such a low place that becoming distracted was easy. Pitching his ears forward, the juvenile limped into the water and waded out to the waterlogged body. Poor sod. He wondered what had caused his demise.

The warm scent of his father came first, bathing Dragomir's insides with an icy fear that was confirmed when he got close enough to see the familiar scar stretched across the man's neck. That fear solidified inside of Dragomir, encasing every organ in solid ice. He was petrified, mortified eyes wide on the lifeless form of his father, face expressionless. There was so much blood in the water. It was beautiful and sick and horrifying. Somewhere inside him, something fundamental broke in half.

He did not react with the same hot, anguished show of emotions he had upon learning Aurëwen had left them. The grief that punched through him now was far, far stronger than that, because this was permanent. There was the chance his mother would return one day, as unwelcome as she might be, but his father could never come back from this. What happened instead was a sudden seizing of every emotion in his body, leaving him completely numb; he couldn't even seem to cry, even though this hurt as much as learning his mother had chosen to abandon them. Even as the depths of his depression grew tenfold.

He did whirl away several feet before vomiting bile into the water, and there he crouched, shaking like a leaf, repeating no no no no no no no no over and over inside his head. Not dead, he's not dead, he can't be dead, this is someone else, it's someone else, it's not him, he fervently told himself as he retched, and so desperate was that hope that in no time at all, he would force himself to believe it. The alternative was too unfathomable and his shattered heart could not handle accepting his father's demise. It couldn't happen.

Because this was his fault, too, and he knew it. If only he had gone with Vercingetorix, his father wouldn't be dead. His fault. His fault his fault hisfault. It was easier, as fragile as he was, for Dragomir to tell himself this wasn't Verx.

Invited: @Cadaver @Isilmë