Noctisardor Bypass valar morghulis

impromptu pack meeting, no posting order, @Amadeo @Druid (tagging @John, @Artio, @Averie, @Goldfinch & @Kikimora to keep everyone in the loop <3

heda was born the day that a girl realized that she could be abandoned by the mother who bore her and the brother who had fed at her side.
but the breath in her body had begun before heda knew what it was to devote all to unseen and to be failed, again and again.
the departure of flesh and blood was the ailment of those who lived. its flaw in herself made this understood.
far less was the silence of the one she had loved beyond all self, even unto her own children. and not only silence, but the repeated torment of her heart until it had begun to crumble as if it were an abandoned watchtower.
druid had never changed her name, she thought nonsensically to herself, unless there was some lesson too in this: that to change was to take a path which led to things unexplainable.
The Clock ticked for heda.
perhaps it would not for who she had been.
there was steel in her eyes when she stopped beside ezra, not glancing toward her son before she tilted head and called to those who remained.
"i need to search for gideon. i need to search for all of them," she said with a twisted set to her mouth. "i can't stay here any longer. but i can't make the choice for anyone else," she said, trying not to waver as she gazed at the children of druid's she had always loved as her own, raised as her own. it was almost too early for them to start traveling. almost, in a world that wasn't constantly robbing her of any joy she might have enjoyed.
bitterness twisted itself in a black stalk around the stems of her heart, constricting. "it's been over a week. we can assume anselm isn't coming back. but gideon, we've searched. we've looked. i have to go."