Ankyra Sound " Look at that deep well, look at that dark grave. "

Last from my girl. Thank you to everyone who ever threaded with Raleska! It would not be a character death without a theme song, so here you go. It was an amazing ride! <3

Of all the revisiting specters in Raleska's life, of course it had to be him.

She recognized him the moment she saw him. The bear that had come to her home when she was scarcely more than several months old. The bear that had chased her proud father and savage mother (two wolves who did not run for anything) across hill and fen.

The bear that had returned time and time again, to cast his black mark on her already ruinous life. Had it all started with him, then? 

Her lips skimmed back, revealing an arsenal of fangs she relished using on the hide of that insufferably ugly bear. Shardik loomed ever close, hideous muzzle low and china-doll eyes focused. Raleska was not so stupid to believe she could singlehandedly win this -- her survival was contingent on baiting Shardik away from the entrance, where she could make a quick exit and flee for home to tell Rosalyn and Erzulie of their unwelcome guest.

Every bid the young Eyjolfur made was skillfully countered; Raleska had very little experience fighting a bear, and Shardik had all the experience in the world killing. He artfully lunged and parried with every one of Raleska's feints and runs, exerting just enough energy to thwart her escape, but never enough that he was baited from the entrance where Raleska could make her escape.

She grew exhausted; she was going to die, here in the very cave she had been brought to life. Raleska felt her reserves slipping, her muscles tremoring in resigned fear and burning fury alike. It wasn't fair -- it wasn't fair at all that she could have lived an entirely different life free of so much suffering and calamity, if this fucking bear had never existed.  Kierkegaard could still be alive. Rhakios and Ephraim never separated. Even her adoptive mothers, all of them, could have lived lives far better served than under the malicious will of the bear.

A dogged grimace stole across Raleska's face, mirroring the laughing bared-teeth sneer of the dead. That's what she was, wasn't she? Her body might still move and breathe, but her sentence had been cast the moment she had allowed herself to become entrapped in this cave.

Whatever happened here, Shardik must not escape unharmed. Raleska's fear of death began to ebb away, replaced then by purpose.

For @Rosalyn, the mother she had ever wanted and needed. For @Erzulie, an idol of righteousness and balance who had served in many ways as Raleska's mentor alongside the pirate. For her children Valravn and @Regin - may they live long lives free of any of the insolvent shackles that had followed Raleska around like a noose from the day she was born. For her brother @Ephraim -- somewhere out there lost, divided from both his family and the culture that had raised him.  For @Kaertok -- whose soulbind had been wasted on a wolf as undeserving as she. For @Niamh, who had only ever shown her that there was kindness in the world that she deserved. For her mother and father -- two wolves that now lay dead and unmoving as their daughter's life raged on.


Raleska flung herself at Shardik tooth and claw, taking satisfaction in dealing hurt to the beast who had followed her like some restless wraith their entire life. She tore and snapped, parried and weaved -- until at last Shardik answered her advances with a hateful rebuke all his own. His mighty arm aimed towards her as if a torpedo, blasting her backwards into the spine of a stony column behind her.

There was no flash of white light when Raleska's skull split in half. No tearful recollection of her life's entire contents, rewinding and hazy. When Caiaphas had died, her memories had unraveled bit by bit in a cyclone of both reality and delusion. For Raleska, there was only the tepid soulless cave and the bear -- the fucking bear -- before all went black for eternity. 

Raleska's soul finally met peace, while the world raged on without her.