Jade Fern Grove I tried.

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Gore/Possible death!

Bonnie is seriously injured! Possibility of death without intervention. OOC'd fight outcome. AW, tags for reference.  A few hours after Ascend into the night.

He tried.


For only so many miles, his legs took him back to the ferns. He collapsed. The river ran ahead of him. He could see its gentle flow beyond the foliage within his vision. His paws could almost touch it. There was the gentle noise of its quiet flow. He heard sounds he'd never had the chance to hear before. He smelled scents he'd never noticed. When the trees gently moved, they crackled and waved. Waved. They were waving at him. The soil had a deep scent to it. The grass was soft, for what little of it touched him. The river was beautiful. He inhaled a soft breath, shaky and rigid.


Blood seeped from deep wounds burrowed in his throat. His fur was matted in red, neck ached after it had been mauled for longer than he could remember. His cheek was warm from his own blood. His legs were nipped and torn. His flank had patches of fur missing. His eyes were glazed over with empty, tireless pain, lids half-closed and unmoving. He stared ahead of him, quiet.


He didn't know how he got here. In the moment, in a pit of dead, violent rage and a whelp he felt need to protect, he'd seen nothing but red. It made him do unspeakable things to that woman. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to hurt her. Limb from limb. No matter what pain he felt, he found himself unable to stop. Unable to think. His thoughts from those few hours ago were nothing but a fuzzy memory. After a certain point, he could no longer hear her. He didn't know what he was doing. He saw himself in that pup. Having no guardian. Being brought out into the world in tragedy. Searching for a parental figure that was not there. Clinging to a life. Being alone. He didn't know what he thought he had been doing. He guessed he just couldn't take it. By the time Wren told him of who she was, he had made his mistake. He had made his error. And then he couldn't stop. He learned too late. He knew it then it would no longer fix it.


And he lost.


The muscles in his ears had stopped working. No longer could he tighten them or turn them. His front right paw twitched once. He could not open his mouth if he tried to call for aid. There he lay, alone, towards the end of the grove, but still thick in woods. His blood trailed down into the water and made careful way downstream. A part of him wondered if he'd headed this way to get closer to Kvarsheim.


Not that it mattered.
No one would come.
No one would miss him.
He knew that.
It was okay.


Limp on his side, he took in another shallow breath through his open lips, his eyes settled on nothing but the view before him. The crickets were not singing so loudly tonight. He couldn't move anymore. He tried to twitch his ears again, and no matter how hard he tried, no matter how desperate the attempt, he could not.


He wished he'd known his father. He wished he'd known his mother. He wished he'd not hurt his gramps. He wished things had gone differently. He wished he'd had other paths. He wished he'd stayed back. He wished he had someone to think of. He wished he'd done something meaningful in his life. He wished he'd been given another option in life. He wished he could think of someone to call that might care. He wished it hurt him more that he couldn't. He wished he could feel more about it, but the thought was not new, and he could not exhaust over it. He knew that already. He wondered if he could think of something he'd done that had been different, apart from the time he'd brought gramps a lizard. Gramps didn't like it. He supposed that he'd brought @Gunnar that rabbit some time ago. He fucked that up too. He guessed that @Tauris got what she wanted then. Maybe he'd wisp away now. He could at least do that for someone. For anyone. She was right. There was no place for him.


The night was pretty. If there was any place to die, he thought this one wasn't so bad. All he was doing was waiting to die, limp and quiet, spare for the clicking clench of his throat when he fought for a gentle breath of air to enter his lungs. He wondered which one would be his last. He'd never felt this calm.