Dragoncrest Cliffs Traveling the line of this vertigo

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: suicidal urges. (Trigger Warning)

Wildfire wanted to die.

She was so exhausted, so depressed, that she caught herself yearning for the idea of eternal rest. Naturally, however, instincts overruled whatever emotional impulses she might have felt. Not only was there an ingrained sense of self-preservation preventing her from doing anything stupid (it wasn't like she had the energy anyway), she simply could not abandon her pups. If she died, so would they. She couldn't do that to them or Thuringwethil. She couldn't be selfish, couldn't do any more damage than she had already done.

So, just barely, she hung in there.

The rain this morning did little to lift her mood out of the dumps. Wildfire cleaned and fed the three remaining pups, battling through a series of guilty twinges every time she thought of Phoenix, which was roughly once every five or six minutes. She then sighed and shut her eyes, her chin falling onto her outstretched forelegs. Despite outward appearances, she fought the urge to fall asleep. She knew she needed it but every time she fell asleep lately, she suffered horrible nightmares that just made her all the more tired and depressed.

When the urge to drop off tugged particularly hard, Wildfire forced her chestnut eyes open and stared out into the rain.

For most of the day, Thuringwethil doesn’t know what to do with her time. Something tells her to stay close to Wildfire, to protect the puppies, to protect her, but the fire of irritation has long since claimed a place in the back of her mind. I am not made for this, she thinks. All of this, of a mate and family, had been forced from her teachings and the idea alone is foreign. Until she came to these lands, she’d not felt much more than fondness for her wolves outside of the love she has for each and every one of them. When they hurt, she hurts, but Wildfire isn’t just on another ball field, she’s an entirely different game. One that she did not get the handbook for.

Their time together has been a strain ever since the incident with Artaax. She barely had anything to say but the mood in the den began to change, more than she wants to admit at first, and she knows something has to be done. She thinks about Tirgatao and speaking with her but this territory goes against what she’s meant for, what she’s supposed to advise. The echo of her former advisor, even though he never said the words, speaks in her ears. The commanders in her sleep speak against it some nights but most of the time they are silent, unable to penetrate her to do what they want. It is there and choosing to ignore it can be detrimental to the rest of them. The last time she ignored them, the ground beneath them evicted them from their home.

With a rabbit hanging from her jaws, and the rain pouring down against her, she moves to the front of the den once she dismisses Arlo from his post. He disappears into the cavern and, with a deep breath, she pokes her head through to try and get out of the rain. Once she drops the rabbit, she carefully nudges it the remaining few inches.

Her mind felt sludgy and aside from lingering over Phoenix's death and her guilt over being a failure of a mother in general, Wildfire didn't think about anything in particular as she stared out at the wet world. Slowly, however, a nefarious idea began to really niggle at her. She tried to ignore it for her own good but eventually it suffused her brain: if she killed herself, the pups wouldn't necessarily die. In fact, it wasn't even likely. Thuringwethil would transfer them into Portia's care and they would be just fine.

But Wildfire tried to press that knowledge back down and suppress it, else... she might do something terrible. Fortunately, her mate appeared in the den's mouth. Her familiar face made the Bandrona's heart beat faster, not out of affection but out of nervousness. The commander was well aware of Wildfire's mistakes so far, even if she didn't know the depth of her mate's depression. There was definitely a silent tension between them lately, which only fueled Wildfire's guilt and sense of absolute failure. As much as she had wanted the mate, the family and the white picket fence, she was so miserable about all of it.

"Thur?" she spoke into the damp hush of the small log. Before she could second-guess herself, she asked, "Can you tell me the truth? Would it be better if I left them in yours and Portia's care and..." Whether she simply went elsewhere or ended her own life, would it be best if she removed herself from the picture entirely? Even as the words left her lips, they trembled and tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. But she blinked, hard, and refused to feel sorry for herself. "I'm sorry," she added, apologizing for... well, everything.

Wildfire does not go for the rabbit and Thuringwethil stares at it for a long time, uncertain how to handle the rejection. It isn’t the first time she doesn’t take a meal right away but there is more than that in the air. The prey means more than simply providing for her family and it isn’t acknowledged, putting a strange feeling in her chest. She tightens her jaws and bites against the hurt as her mates goes on about what she may think is best.

Finally, Thuringwethil tears her gaze away and she looks to Wildfire’s face and holds her gaze. Trying to make the connection doesn’t fix all their problems and admitting them won’t wash them away. She silently wonders if Wildfire can really step away from their children, especially when she doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation at all. She’d been so adamant about having them, expanding their family, that to give up on it now leaves her with a weighted mix of emotions that she can only feel a tease about. Hurt, anger, sadness, all cloaked with the heavy set of depression in the back of her mind.

She’s quiet for a long time, looking down at the bundle of puppies—now three—at her breast. The idea does not last long in her mind, destroying it from the start, but the panic she may be left with them doesn’t go unnoticed. “No,” she says at first, with nothing else to follow. The pause is heavy and unfinished and she licks her lips, uncertain of the things she needs to say. “You don’t get to give up.” The words are bitter and angry on her lips but her expression falls blank at first, before filling with worry and glancing away in an attempt to hide.

Her apology was met with bitter words, which made Wildfire shrug listlessly and flatten her ears, her insides wrenching. She didn't catch her mate's worried glance, as she was too busy hiding her own gaze. She swallowed thickly and nodded, trying to sort through her thoughts and feelings. She hadn't thought she could make matters even worse, yet here she was, making Thuringwethil bona fide angry with her. Wildfire couldn't and didn't blame her, though it would've been a lie to say it didn't intensify the urge to crawl into some corner to die.

"What—" she began after a weighty moment, her voice cracking, "what should I do then? I just feel like—" Her voice halted again and she had to draw in a breath, then let it out again. It was shaky. "I'm doing everything wrong. I didn't know I'd be so terrible or I never would've done it, or dragged you into it." Her lips trembled a little as she repeated her earlier, "I'm sorry."

It is no surprise when Thuringwethil goes quiet, finding long moments of silence before trying to speak. Most of the time, she does not have the words to properly convey what she feels when she does not know herself. Her mate still struggles at giving her the information she needs to know what to do. Neither one of them has been in this position before and the test on their relationship far greater than she ever expected it to be. The happy-go-lucky Wildfire of the prior two months had been a weight off her shoulder but now she doesn’t know if she’s strong enough.

“I don’t know,” she finally confessed but her silence alone answered it moments ago. “I don’t understand what happened,” she adds though it is soft and mostly to herself. Her mate seems just as long as she does but there is something missing that neither of them are able to conjure up. “Is this not what you wanted?” Thuringwethil swallows thickly, her voice softer than before. She slowly sits down, trying to get comfortable in the small, cramped space.

The commander didn't have anything to offer her. Wildfire felt dismay, though it was directed at herself more so than her mate. Her eyes tracked the Heda's movements as she slowly lowered herself to the ground and got more comfortable. Her ears twitched in response to the questions being demanded of her.

"I don't either. If I did, I'd fix it," she said quietly. "It is," she added emphatically, then shook her head and bit her lip for a moment before explaining, "It's what I thought I wanted. I dreamed of this, Thur, for so long. You know that. But dreams are one thing. Reality..." Well, call it one hell of a reality check.

Wildfire sucked in a deep breath and just decided to spit out the honest truth. "I want to die, Thur. I feel like a total failure as a wife and mother and I just want to throw myself in the ocean or something..." Her voice began to shake as tears welled in her eyes and wobbled on her lids before dripping down her cheeks. She felt a flush of deep shame. "I want to get better at all of this but I don't know how and I feel like I've already ruined it all beyond repair anyway," she finished, sounding stricken, wiping a foreleg across her suddenly runny nose.

While Thuringwethil isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do, she is able to get the woman talking. Her eyes trail over her features as she sinks into the conversation, her own expression dripping away into something void of everything. Her lips purse together and she feels her heart twist for the first time in weeks. She gets halfway back to her feet again to scoot closer so they are touching and her nose runs the top of her mate’s muzzle with a gentle kiss between her eyes, tasting a hint of salt from tears. Hearing the grim of how she really feels settles heavily in her chest and she closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“You’re not a failure. We just… we don’t know what we’re doing,” she explains though when she opens her eyes again and looks down to the bundle near Wildfire, she realizes how much she has failed. “It’s not ruined. They are still healthy.”

She hadn't realized how distant Thuringwethil had seemed until her mate closed that distance, embracing her. A sob wrenched loose from Wildfire and she probably took both of them by surprise by suddenly grasping the Heda and burying her teary, snotty face in the thick fur of her neck. She clung to the commander through her few but soothing words, shaking her head and really making a mess of the larger woman's pelt. For several beats after Thuringwethil finished speaking, Wildfire remained latched to her, sniffling and snotting and shaking her head slowly back and forth.

"They are," she mumbled miserably, "but what about Antler? What about Phoenix?" Her voice went up a few octaves as the latter's name fell from her lips, breaking her heart all over again. Antler's fate had been a genetic misfortune but Phoenix's had been her fault directly. She felt bile rising in her throat as she recollected the feeling of her own foot crushing his little body against the wall. "I don't deserve—" Wildfire didn't complete her sentence, mostly because she wasn't entirely sure what she'd been meaning to say.

With a shaky breath, she finally released her mate and pushed back to peer down at Artaax, Blixen and Robin sat between them. "It—it's more than just Antler and Phoenix," she confessed while she was at it. "Ever since the morning after they were born, I've felt—this horrible disconnect. I don't feel like..." Her voice trailed away into pensive silence. Her eyes slowly closed, staying that way as she exhaled through her nose and queried, "Do you—love them?"

She doesn’t have the answers for Wildfire as she speaks of their lost children, turning her nose to place kisses where she can while she clung to her. Her mate’s trembling body causes her own to rattle and she holds her close, humming quietly as the only source of comfort she can think of. She doesn’t have answers for Antler, or Phoenix; if there was something she could change to bring them back, to make them strong and healthy as the other three, she would, but she knows there’s nothing either of them to do.

“There is nothing we can do for them. Dwelling on them can’t be good for the three still here. I wish they were still here, but they do not have the life ahead. They do,” she final tells her though she is uncertain how much comfort it will bring or if it will completely backfire in her face.

Do you love them?

Thuringwethil tightens her jaw at the question, staring down at the little wiggling bodies on the ground of their den. They’d gotten so big in the last few weeks and Blixen has worked on her heart in ways that surprised her. Robin has taken another part and Artaax had his own. Is the love any different because they are hers, with Wildfire, than the puppies across the way in Portia’s den? Puppies she hasn’t even seen but she does not feel compelled to and Thuringwethil still comes back, provides, and does the things she needs to because, “yes. I do. And I love you. I won’t… I won’t make you stay with them if you don’t want to but… I don’t think you should leave them.”

Something seemed to have softened in the commander. Hearing that Thuringwethil loved the pups—and their flailing birth mother—was a soothing balm for Wildfire's twisted soul. She gulped in a wet breath, reflecting on all the Heda had just said. She was right, of course. They shouldn't dwell on their losses; they should stay focused on their living offspring, who needed both of them. It was a lot easier said than done but, slowly, the Bandrona began to nod.

"I love you too, Thur," Wildfire murmured, glistening chestnut eyes lifting to the leader's face before dropping to the three pups. She couldn't bring herself to lie and say she loved them too. But she could say, "I care for them a great deal and I want what's best for them. I like to think they need me and are better off with me here." The "but" was implied, though she trailed off for a moment before adding quietly but decisively, "I won't leave any of you."

Tempting as it was to give in to her self-loathing and dump the kids on Thuringwethil, Portia and Dio, Wildfire steeled herself. No matter how hard it was, she was going to stick it out and do her best. She hadn't tried so hard and for so long just to give up at the first sign of struggle. And she could keep hoping that the feelings she was missing for her children would grow and develop slowly and beautifully over time, just as they had for their doting nomi.