Blackbeak Bluff [m] uh oh! bad decision mark!

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@Apollyon other tags for ref

in the hours leading up to the birth of his children, he'd been at the side of @Reverie as requested and gave her space just as willingly. whatever you need, he'd said to her. his chest ached, burned when he was not with her; he could hear her sobs just outside her whelping den and it brought he himself to his knees; and just before dawn reached the willows, he'd made a frantic hike back up the mountainside in search of herbs for @Kukutux.
his son was dead, she'd told him.
their son.
he hadn't been thinking straight. his limbs were static and he felt as if his head might explode, and he'd wove a path in the wrong direction in his terrified flurry. too far out towards the marsh, just along hearthwood's borders, was where he saw him.
protective instinct surged, sundered him; he hadn't been thinking when he gave chase, and he certainly hadn't been thinking about how far away they were now, and how he'd left a spattered trail of scarlet across the snow in his wake, leading all the way back to the willows.
he hadn't felt it when he could no longer breathe beyond the teeth wrapped around his throat.
he hadn't felt the cold air as it blazed across his half-mangled form, the force of the fall sending his consciousness elsewhere; his eyes shut tight as sparking visions of his wife, his home, his children swirled behind his lids.
his last coherent thought as the waves swept him under was the beautiful, shining face of his wife, and then there was nothing.