Ocean's Breath Plateau There is such a thing as too much heart break

Marina had been away.

She returned to Moontide red-eyed and ragged, scarcely acknowledging anyone, unaware of the tragedy which had struck in her absence. The silver wolf was caught in a tragedy of her own, a nightmare brought to stark reality.

Her children were gone.

First @Brockleigh had gone missing sometime in the night, her trail lost at a riverbed somewhere just beyond Moontide's borders. @Carlisle had been inconsolable. The very next day, his own scent led and ended in that same spot, and Marina had grown frantic. She'd followed the river for days, scarcely sleeping, never stopping to eat.

But they were gone. Lost, alone, without protection, and all she could do was imagine their cries of fear and pain. The wilds were cold and unforgiving. How could she return? How could she give up?

And yet she did, at least for now, forced by the failing of her own body in its grief and neglect.

The woman returned in a gaunt and haunted state. She had gone first to her den. There she'd finally allowed the grief to take her fully, sobbing aloud in the empty space where the fading scents of her children lingered. In her sorrow she failed to note that @Chakliux's scent, too, had grown faint around her den site.

Finally, she looked for Rodyn and Samani. She would tell them, and then she would leave again. There was no rest to be had for a mother's fear. There was no peace to be found unless her children were at her side.

Yet she found Rodyn alone; Samani's scent fading; an emptiness to their den that she had not expected. Marina went to him, questions brewing on the tip of her tongue, but all her words died away as she realized that he was crying, that something terrible must have happened. She only looked at him for a moment with red-rimmed eyes, and sat down. Her own tears welled again, but she blinked them away and reached out with one paw in silence.

It was all she could do.