Swiftcurrent Creek i'm gnashing my teeth like a child of cain

He touches her. He touches her, and for a moment she feels a bit like she's at her own funeral. But she lets him. She didn't have the energy to tell him otherwise if she wanted to.
A small, tiny part of her wanted to curl her lips into a growl, to tell him to leave; a stinging memory of the last real conversation they had before all of this, the fact that he hadn't been there—
But she doesn't. She still needed him.
Moss. He'd seen her. Wren looks to him with glass eyes. We were too late.
She hadn't known her, not really, not at all. But Moss had been gamma before her; Moss was someone the Creek looked to with respect, even in the final months of her life when she hadn't been well. For a second, Wren wondered if this was a long time coming and they'd all turned a blind eye.
But there was no use for what-ifs, were there?
He asks if she needs something for the pain, and she quietly shakes her head no. It's... bearable, she tries to smile, tries to imply that she can handle it, that she is far from weak, and yet it falls short; her smile wavers and her eyes drop down to her paws, still flecked with dried mud.

What happened?

She swallows, dryly.
Friday morning, I heard a distress call that came from the... the marsh. I think it was Eshe. I found her and Mae there with, with Moss and these-- these two strangers. A man and a woman. I don't know either of 'em, never seen 'em before. They were playing fuckin' hot potato with Moss's baby. a shudder; she clears her throat. Mae, Mae got ahold of the baby and she-- she tried to escape, with it, and then the fuckin' dude lunged at her. At Mae. So I... I told Eshe to, to protect her, get her home, and to get someone to put the Creek on lockdown, and I... snapped at him. The guy. To try and fend him off. He just-- he tore into me. Nothing I did made him back off. I tried to tell him who we were, who-- who that baby belonged to, but I don't know if he even heard me. Or cared. shame ripples through every word that falls from her mouth. At some point, he gave up and limped away, and... god, we almost killed each other. I thought I woulda had to, he just-- he just didn't stop, at some point, she'd absentmindedly sought to hold his paw; a shaken, loose grip upon his wrist. and I hate myself for it. I-I don't know who or where he is or if he's still alive, or if he knew that other-- the woman. I don't know. I'm so sorry.