Moonspear I'm still waiting for my turn.

MATURE! Mention of suicide.
@Keres, backdated to Oct 20th!

In the weeks since she'd brought her cubs to Moonspear, Nyx' uncertainty remained. It flared to life in new ways throughout this time: would Ciri ever recover her self-worth? Would Elke hold onto resentment for her forever, a bitterness for uprooting her so suddenly? Had she made a mistake in removing each of them from Sagtannet? Would Mahler hate her for making such a decision without reaching out to him beforehand?

Her woes plagued an already wearied mind that night as the lioness prowled Moonspear's higher slopes, so much that she barely recognised thinning air and biting chill. Her body did - her skin pricked and paws numbed - as she found herself trailing through freshly fallen slow, but neither mattered.

She'd barely allowed herself the opportunity to think of the gargoyle who'd sired her daughters, so afraid she'd been to pine for the closeness of him. His companionship was not what she'd wanted in the beginning, nor even now, yet somehow along the way her heart managed to open to him all the same. Nyx' guilt over her fondness for him remained rooted in the splinters of what was left of it for he was not hers, never meant to be hers.

I did not expect this to be so cruel to you.

Neither had she, but felt now that she should've known better. Each small sliver of joy in her life had always been swept violently from under her, every time leaving her winded and bruised, a shadow who she'd been before. It was not entirely Mahler's fault, either; she'd chosen him, despite his offer of escape when Wylla once more entered his life. There were days when she wished she could go back, accept that opportunity to escape. She could've found a donor in some rogue beyond their borders, someone who wouldn't care to look for pups that came of such a union, but -

You gave me a beautiful gift in them, Nyx.

​She had, just as he'd gifted her. Nyx paused, lifted her tired yellow eyes to blink up at a vast midnight sky and curled her lip in self-loathing. Ciri and Elke were everything to her, because of Mahler. He'd been nothing but honest with her from the start, yet still she'd warmed to him in a way she'd thought impossible. Thoughts turned swiftly to Lycaon and how her actions had surely brought him to ruin all those years prior, and emotion welled in her gaze as she compared this most recent breakdown of family to then.

This was not the first time she'd robbed a father of his children.

A sob racked her frame and, as she staggered forward, she felt herself at the edge if the cliff on which she stood. Lowering her crown with a gasp, Nyx stared down into the blackness below. Overwhelmed, limbs trembling, weeping freely, a darkness grasped the opportunity to creep its way back into her soul; the wind whipped at her furs - nature's cruel encouragement. The tawny Ostrega lingered there, afraid and too aware of the temptation to sacrifice herself to that never-ending drop with the hope of ridding her poison from the lives of all she'd ever touched.