Ankyra Sound Don't want to let you down, but I am Hell-bound.

@Lycaon, birthing thread for @Svalinn.
WARNING: this post may seem a bit dark re: Nyx killing her litter.

An overcast sky, dark and ominous, loomed over Grimnismal's land. With its blackened clouds came the promise of rain and thunder - a brewing storm that seemed to mimic the one in Nyx' weary mind. She lay there in the sand, a shell of who she'd once been, chin propped atop an outstretched forelimb and dull gaze staring lifelessly at the roll of ashen waves as they lapped at the shore. Her life was utterly miserable: she could not function beneath the sea witch's rule, and continued to struggle with the impossible notion of becoming a mother herself.

She'd never wanted a litter, and she sure as shit didn't want a bastard litter.

While Nyx and her siblings were born out of mateship themselves and had been loved without question by their pack-mates, the neglect of their grandfather had affected her in ways she hadn't really been aware of until the discovery of her pregnancy. There was a constant reminder of the way Cross would look down on them with disappointment, a sore realisation for such small children that their lives meant nothing to him. She understood his bitterness now: her mother's illicit mating could've endangered the family, and she'd pissed all over his authority with her actions. History was repeating itself as the bastard daughter of a Winterheart prepared to whelp bastards of her own.

She'd felt lost for weeks, but as the unfamiliar twinges of early labour tugged at the pit of her abdoment, Nyx knew exactly what she had to do.

Deep within the grotto, enveloped in the comfort of darkness, Nyx laboured long into the night until she bore her six cubs. Instinct drove her to clean each airway as they arrived and while an eager mother would feel the urge her to curl herself around her fretting babes, she found herself entirely unable. The newborns mewled and writhed among themselves on the cold floor, hungry and crying out for a comfort that would not come. The agouti Gamma, eager to distance herself as much as possible to the tiny foreign bodies that had come from within her, pressed herself to the slick wall of the cave and stared at them with wild yellow eyes, wide with panic as she struggled to figure out what she was supposed to do.

Finally, after gawking at them for a time that felt endless, Nyx tentatively made to close the distance between herself and her pups. Her eyes darted over them, curious and afraid, to look upon each ugly little ball of brown and cream fur. Mine, the initial swell of her heart called and she hovered her muzzle over her brood, but this fleeting pull for her to reach out was quick to dissipate. Her ears laced back and she recoiled with a hiss of annoyance when the whelps began to gravitate toward her, desperate to feed.

She didn't want them near her. Anger bubbled within her and she backed away, far enough that her rump collided with the den wall and she huddled up close to the cool stone again. Her tail swept between her hind limbs and Nyx hunched her body, hackles raised and lips twitching as she glowered at the disorientated puppies whose volume seemed to increase in her absence. "Shut up!" Nyx barked, unaware that they could not hear her, and snarled in her frustration when they did not obey.

Everything happened so fast. One moment, she was listening to her offspring's cries echo throughout the grotto and in the next, she saw red. Nyx did not recall her frenzy that ended each new life, nor could she understand the metallic taste on her tongue or chill that tightened her chest when she examined the scene of her crime with a flurry of emotions.

Silence hung around her but as she looked upon the first of her slaughtered cubs, felt the release of her anguish as she slumped to the ground in a bloodied, sobbing heap.

his siblings’ departure had left Lycaon reeling. old feelings of abandonment lost no time chiseling back into his life; chipping away at his self-worth until all that was left was an edge so sharp and needle-thin it would snap from the burden of a feather’s weight. 

there were no extenuating circumstances that would make this breach of faith forgivable to him, and he’d withdrawn so entirely from the world that it was to the detriment of his functioning. forborne a sense of appetite, Lycaon’s muscles wizened and the skeleton beneath his skin was writ large. 

it was her screams that drew him out that day. barely able to hold himself upright anymore from the lack of nourishment, the once-gallant sought out his smothered flame at a labored pace, wearily drifting like a helmless bark at sea, years of his life seemingly spent in the span of weeks.

his face became fully cast in pallor as he loomed closer to the grotto and the stench of decease came instantly upon him.

Lycaon stepped outside of himself. the time amidst passing through the scent’s pall and arriving at the site of carnage was void in his memory. he came to, absently staring at the hecatomb—at the rufescent wash of the walls, the floor, Nyx. the thought of her brought his eyes up from the ground to the woman’s presence, crumpled like a first-draft epistle of contrition and sobbing with gruesomeness stippled across her coat and blood smeared incriminatingly across her lips; droplets on every whisker for every life she took.

only loud static roared in his ears, he didn’t hear her wailing cries or even himself try to eke the words "they were… ours?" from his throat. it was like a mumbled whisper echoing back to him from a faraway place in his head—he was unsure he’d even said them out loud. his lungs drowned for air.

it was once so easy. breathe in, breathe out.

but the smell. the smell. it crawled and clung and lingered. it was floral, it was flat, it smelled like grey and white. unease caused his vision to swim.

his eyes briefly came into focus and corresponded grief, but vacancy soon filmed over them again as he looked upon each broken body and the static screamed even louder into his limbs. his forelegs fell out from under him and he folded into the dirt, gazing catatonically at the stained earth and conferring to the circumambient anguish without a fiber of resistance to hold him together as he, too, sobbed.

Fear. It was the first thing he felt upon his entry to the world, and comfort never came. So while his mother cowered in the corner, staring at her frightened offspring with wild eyes, the palest of her brood reacted the only way he knew how: he cried out.

He joined the chorus of his brothers and sisters, tiny body trembling with the cold as he shuffled around in search of a place to feel secure. On either side of his, his siblings did likewise. They huddled together close, some suckling on another's downy furs, others simply mewling in their desperation.

He was not aware of the carnage that soon followed, though the tang in the air concerned him. The ivory babe fell silent and only when he felt his mother's teeth pierce the loose hide of his back did he scream. He was lifted then, the ground disappearing beneath him, and the violent shake of her head sent him soaring through the air to land with a thud - luckily atop a pair of brothers who'd already met their fate.

He stilled, stunned by the sudden change of events that relocated him from live litter-mates to among those that were dead. The boy was not to know how much time passed but eventually, with his throat hoarse from all his prior wailing, he piped up with a small voice that quietly begged for support.

cue implosion

despite moving the cubs from the grotto to the rendezvous only a week earlier, caiaphas still felt a pull to the ominous depths. the grotto was her home, her sanctuary -- she had spent nearly her entire life in its uninterrupted, un-intruded halls -- and would likely spend the remainder of her lifetime there. it was no small surprise then today, of all days, she had sought out its unmeasured caverns to briefly escape the demands of her children -- only, as she ducked under the cold stone threshold, her nostrils were assaulted by something entirely unfamiliar and unwelcome. the heavy, matted scent of living tissue and expended viscera -- it caused her blood to chill and her heart to quicken and hastily, the siren queen plunged down the stone-worn corridors.

the scene that greeted her was at best obscenely insulting -- and at worst, a malign event without provenance. even she, as ruthless as she was, could not cull a cub -- and as she processed the bloodbath that rimed her halls, that flecked the guilty muzzle of her subordinate, an irresolute grief coupled with inimitable wrath consumed her. the grotto had been defiled -- bled of its light and sanctuary -- and lives she would have cherished as if her own lost.

"no," she choked, still drinking in the heinous slump of mangled puppies. "no." she bleated again, her voice shaking.

she strode past the sobbing heap of her displaced son and rounded upon nyx, every hair on end and and a frenetic fury in her falcon-yellow eyes. "GET OUT."  the siren queen roared -- a mighty bellow that thundered down the cavern (a noise so surprisingly forceful for such a small creature) spittle flying from her quivering lips. she could not house nyx any longer -- the she-wolf had committed the most unforgivable of atrocities, and caiaphas' very core quivered in quickening hatred as she howled her head off. if nyx did not leave now, caiaphas was sure she would kill her. "get out GET OUT --GET OUT!"

she shuddered in fear and disgust, a new wave of revulsion hitting her as the scent of death rose around them. her jaws chattered and she steeled herself, stepping towards nyx with a crippling snarl worn across her thin muzzle. "get you, you fucking bitch!"

She did not hear the clack of Lycaon's claws on the cold, slick stone as he crept into the grotto, nor did she hear the words he breathed. Nyx simply lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, oblivious to the presence of her pale companion as she openly and loudly wailed away her despair. Sobs racked her frame as she curled close to herself and she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to block out the horrific scene that would forever be engrained in her mind's eye.

Something in her finally urged her to pull herself together, a selfish darkness that reminded her that she had to escape. To gather the evidence and remove it from the place of her crime and be gone before the others were to put the puzzle pieces together and realise what she'd done. On shaky limbs, the golden Ostrega pulled herself onto her paws and tentatively turned to see the broken bodies of the cubs that she'd slaughtered and, among them, Lycaon.

Nyx felt herself deflate, and her heart yearned to reach out to him. He had crumbled just as she had, wept as she had, and truly felt the weight of her guilt. She had done this. While she couldn't recall the how or the why, she had thought of disposing of them in this manner long before their birth. She had genuinely considered disposing of them swiftly, all the protect herself.

She had barely given thought to how he might feel, and she hated herself.

Parting her jaws, the golden Ostrega attempted to breathe his name, but no sound spilled from between her teeth. A tiny cry drew her attention elsewhere and, ears suddenly alert as that fleeting, unfamiliar maternal pull to respond to a baby's mewl heightened her senses. She looked down at where two corpses lay bloodied on the cold slate, but it was the pale-furred live child among them who gained her focus. Nyx gawked at him, finding herself unable to move, and just as she swallowed the bile that had risen to her throat, another had arrived to look upon the devastation.

Caiaphas went from anxious to ferocious in the blink of an eye, just as Nyx herself had. She whimpered pitifully beneath the Alphess' sharp stare when it turned on her, body sweeping low to the ground as she felt the sting of each bellowed demand to GET OUT. But he's mine, came a glimpse of her maternal instinct again as her wild yellow eyes darted between her remaining son and the wench who sought to drive her from him - he needs me.

But she had killed his brothers. Slaughtered his sisters. In her unsound mind, perhaps she would destroy him too.

Her shoulders sagged and her gaze lingered softly on the tiny, fragile little body of her single child, hackles bristling as she considered the strengthening urge to fight for him. Caiaphas continued to press closer, cornering her, suffocating her, and she had no choice but to run.

what was this feeling? this sensation of his heart growing six times bigger, only to have the new space immediately tenanted by incorrigible despair. he was torn from the roots of existence and replaced by the skeletal husk on the ground; sobbing, chin propped to stare vacantly at the cadavers of his children. 

on thin shoulders, he eased his body forward and touched the bridge of his nose to one of the pups’ bellies, nudging it tentatively. 

he knew deep down it would not respond to his urging.

yet all the same, the hopeful feedback his heart gave him when the newborn’s body shifted was immeasurable to the dejection and sorrow that sunk fully in when it did not animate and stir autonomously as he withdrew his nose, instead relaxing back to its original listless position. dead. really dead. 

numb. really numb.

from a few inches away, a small mewl. followed by a skittered heartbeat. Lycaon’s focus scintillated like a solar flare. 

true to form, Caiaphas abseiled through the halls of the cavern with a sea of flames impelling her heels. in her eyes, the eradication that had occurred was an unconscionable dissipation of the sacrosanctity with which she regarded her grotto. 

Lycaon did not waste a precious moment to steal a glance at any of the living forms around him as shrieks trebled throughout the alcove. even when Caiaphas shouldered roughly past him, he was unresponsive and scarcely budged. the only sound registering in his conscious was the roaring hiss of shock reciprocal to the tide of agony pulling him under.

his eye percieved a subdued movement—it was faint; the rise and fall of a small, pale belly. as the storm rampaged over his head, the exile of his children’s mother went demonstrably unheeded. he pulled himself together once again, summoning the strength to identify the living from the dead and pluck his surviving son from amongst the dispatched lives of his siblings. he immediately and defensively resiled into the corner of the room. 

blood sullied his muzzle, so it would not be inconceivable for the siren queen to presume her own son had partaken of the carnage. 

with Svalinn scruffed in the glove of his muzzle, he mustered a low, rumbling growl at his adoptive mother, cautioning her with a fraught look in his eyes to choose her next move wisely.

the sea witch closed the gap between herself and nyx in bounding strides, her fur on end and her harpy-gaze wide with vitriol. that monster -- caiaphas could not wrap her mind around such an atrocious act, truly - and it was only the stun that consumed her that saved nyx from immediate assault.

as the golden ostrega's gaze lingered on the pup a moment longer than the saltqueen preferred, she pressed forward in a series of bucking jumps, a snarl splitting her haggard muzzle. out, she commanded, spittle ejected from her curled lips. she watched hatefully as the molten woman bolted, and turned back around to her son --

what was more discomfiting than seeing a pile of butchered puppies?

perhaps, seeing the last remaining survivor clung in a desperate man's jaws.

caiaphas sucked in a deep breath, her chest expanding as if pushing violently against an oppressive and overcoming weight. she expelled a single utterance, staring directly at her displaced son with her tail curved above her: "you'll kill him, too?"

@Svalinn @Caiaphas feel free to respond again but this is Lycaon’s exit

just like always, her ascetic stare withered him. he shrank further into the corner under the intensity of its cast, of the compunction that bore deeply into his conscience. compunction that maybe wasn’t even his to bear. he'd helped forge the path to their creation and in doing that, perhaps he'd also forged the path to their destruction. yet, at the same time, every fiber of every tether he had to his senses was so shorn he truly didn’t know the extent to which he was involved. the second he'd scented death, no single enusing moment was preserved in his memory.

with the whites of his eyes flashing, his frantic gaze hit the ground, flitting across the strewn bloody imprints that led to him, traveling with horror to his paws that inherited the carnage. 

”I didn’t…” he blinked hard, vision aswim in thick gunk. I didn’t do any of it. he choked, “any of it…” he tried to speak around the cub gripped between his teeth, thin chest heaving with the deep qualms he felt about the sincerity with which he spoke the words. again, his eyes scoured over the body count and frenziedly sought out any sliver of compassion he could glean from Caiaphas’ severe lower.

there was no compassion for a blood-spattered man cornered in a room of murdered children. 

”no.” gently—consideration given to not make any sudden movements that might activate the wych’s offensive reflex—he dropped his head and liberated the surviving boy from his clutch. his tail clamped his underside as he slowly, slowly, so slowly, rounded Svalinn’s red-washed body with a look of agony creasing under his eyes. ”Svalinn is his name.” the wolf murmured without being prompted—the appellation came to his tongue as naturally as the bile rising in his throat as he nudged the pale child nearer to Caiaphas; an irrefutable sin offering. 

he glanced once more towards her, ears tilted downwards, before whisking from the grotto—pledging to never enter its defiled corridors again.