Stone Circle Say it to me

"Well, you were right about one thing." That guilt remained, but utter defeat and annoyance did too. Annoyance. Annoyance? Annoyance. But not of selfishness. Annoyance that Gunnar had been on to something, unfortunately, and it pitted his stomach out, because now he wondered if it would have been smarter. To say nothing.

"I wasn't going to tell you," he put plainly, calmly, either an admission of his own guilt or a statement. Both. He offered the honesty of it- for Gunnar.

His teeth felt cold.

"Because if I'm being honest, chief. I shouldn't be alive."

The tip of his tail came to a feline curve, tucking and tensing as if that terrible storm was beginning to burst its thunder through his cracking ears. Cracking in this silence, that he now had brought himself to break.

Here it goes.

"I smelled blood." A gruesome tale unfolded.

"It was raining, but the wind was strong. Blood- So, I followed it." The tip of his tail unfolded and curled, back and forth. So vividly in his mind, rain fell once more. One could see it, each word he recounted. He squinted in recall. "There was a body. Dead- dead body. A dead mother. I don't know how long she'd been dead.. And a woman beside her, doing I don't know what. Just there. And a newborn. I assume the mom died in birth. I don't know," he uncomfortably shrugged it off, choosing not to think deeply into it. There could've been many reasons for a death. None of it changed anything now.

"Then someone else followed after me- said it was their pack member, or somethin'." Was that how it went? He had to second guess himself. Yeah, something like that. That was it. "The other woman, I guess she wasn't part of their pack, or whatever, had her get her pack members. Didn't take long. I waited over the dead moms kid. You know, so no funny business." He didn't trust someone to not take it, or kill it. "Didn't know if it was actually their pack member. Nothing else to do about it." Wasn't his. Wasn't the stranger womans. He remembered just waiting for someone to claim it.

"Then some kid, just a pup, charged at me and went to grab it. So, I gave them a warning snap. Didn't touch her. There were plenty of adults around to take it- not some rampant kid to kill it on a clumsy slip. And then," he thought hard again. Things got blurry. He struggled. What happened? Gritting his teeth, he shook his head, tail lashing and tensing. Headache.. Headache.. "This woman lunged at me. Acted like I killed her child and wouldn't let me go. Told me.. they were swiftcurrent creek members." His eyes pinned, like blood dripped before him in a meal. A meal he did not want. 

"It was like I couldn't hear her. I couldn't stop. It was too late, by the time I learned. She engaged me. I didn't want to fight. She hurt me." And the small bit of color and care Bonnie had shared in the moment for a person not himself, a being so fresh to the world, it spiraled. Perhaps it had been a reason that he'd stopped caring of what happened to his being then. "It wouldn't have changed anything anymore," he shook his head, saying it gently and factually. "We fought until we couldn't. She didn't mean for me to live. At some point, I couldn't do it anymore." A pitiful laugh from him, solemn and broken. He knew he was dying then. "I just stopped. I didn't know what I was doing. Or what the point in any of it was. I couldn't feel my limbs anymore. Couldn't even hear. I just stared at her, and at some point I just left. Or tried to. Til I couldn't."
He only wanted to help.