Stone Circle Feeling Hotter Than a Glue Gun

it felt as if she were desperately trying to hold an organism of liquid entity upright, such fruitless need to stop it from leaking ceaselessly between sodden paws. 

she couldn't do it, things were falling apart in chunks of disastrous rubble around her and she...she didn't know how to stop it. 
she was beginning to wonder if it were even possible, or if the only answer left on the table was to accept defeat. 

west had killed the pallid witch and she didn't know how to approach him or such a topic, not when she...not when she had fallen victim to such an inferno of desire to rip the throat from that raven with her amethyst stare and watch that destructive light wink out and leave her as glassy eyed as the dejected corpse that had brought them to their doorstep. not when the horror of what she possibly could have accomplished had she been more physically capable did not completely extinguish the guttering want to see the nefarious umbra and her hellhound wiped from the world. 

also, clay was dead.

she didn't know what to say to west about that either. 

not when she had been plunged into a frosty dwam, so unorthodox in which it was numbing compared to the fiery agony that had accompanied all former losses. she had watched from the outskirts when his malformed vessel had been brought home; shattering on her lonesome for she was not family in the way that mattered in such circumstances. 

and it had killed her to know that clay, in his bitterly short life, had felt the same way around these wonderful wolves that had truly cared for him so much. she wondered had he ever managed to admit the thoughts that had plagued him so, the harrowing guilt he'd had to carry simply for believing the way in which his heart chose to love was grotesque and incorrect. 

had he ever told the mysterious boy about his feelings? had he found happiness before having to depart, had he found love? she would like to imagine so but as her heavy soul trudged on it found itself unable to draw up such chipper imaginations. 

yet she could not lament and wallow about not doing more for clay when he was here, for not trying to rediscover the bubbly child she'd crashed into during days of blissful naivety, not when she didn't know how to help her friend in what had to be his greatest time of need. 

to think she could throw herself at the enemy and string such spiels of honour and bravery and then when someone truly needed her she crumpled...like a selfish coward.

jaw grits as she stalks, eyes so painfully dry. she wanted to cry, she wanted to scream and yet her chest...why was it all just so fucking hollow?!

a resigned sigh, shoulders slumping, unable to summon enough emotion to even feel anger at her lack of reaction. what a sardonic cirlce huh. 

and it is then that she spots him, weary look pinpointing his figure with ease. she's not sure why, but the first thought to approach was to remark how much he'd changed even in the time she'd known him. he was large but, it was no longer so apparent that he was big; it...suited him better now for lack of a better description. he'd grown into himself, strong and defined. and....he was crying. 

it brought forth an unbidden memory, the shock upon spotting her papa cry when believing he was alone when zephyr and helios went missing. the slow realization that adults were not these indestructible forces, that they were simply craftier in terms of hiding their misgivings. she'd approached him so boldly then, unhesitant in her decision to accept such a thing and do what she could to reassure and help.

what had happened to that trait? why was it that she felt such anxious dread, paws rooted to the spot despite her heart begging to steal forth. she needed to go to him, she wanted to but--

but--

but what? 

toes pressed hard against the soggy ground, jaw clenching. 

she could do this, she would. because this is what mattered, this was so much more important than flinging yourself into reckless danger. 

she stepped closer, and again and again until she was walking towards him; jaws parting to simply murmur "west...tyree" as her heart suddenly clenched, a blooming ache in the palm of such prominent ice, chasing it back with a sizzling hiss as she stopped a few lengths away, wide stare devoted wholly to him.