Hushed Willows gravity and resignation

backdated to an indeterminate point in the past
permission granted to take @Seabreeze out with her ;___;
tagging: @Sundance @Reif @Atwood @Okeanos @Ibis and any other friends
feel free to discover their remains, if you wish! love you guys ♥

She did not know how she got here, but when she awoke, everything was different.

The first thing she noticed was that this was not Elysium. It was a land that might have been far, or it might have been close — the way the earth now buckled and was torn apart, it was unrecognizable to her impaired faculties. Blinking against the harsh autumnal sun, she lifted her heavy heady to glance around at the foreign landscape around her. It was nothing that she knew from before.

It was then that the pain seared across her cognition. Red hot pain, the likes of which she had only felt during childbirth. Her eyes squeeze shut as she tried and failed to make sense of the situation she found herself in. The strange land, the hurt in her body — and when she reopened her green eyes once more, she glanced down to find her forelimb broken, with the bone piercing the skin and protruding at an obscene angel. When she saw the wound, she did not bother to think much of it, because the next thing she saw drew her attentions right away.

There was a body nearby. The druid immediately knew the small, sandy frame to be that of Seabreeze. Seeing as the two rarely left one another’s side, it only seemed fitting that her mate would be here, during this nightmare. She dragged herself across the ground, like a worm after a rainstorm, to the woman’s side. She was breathing, but could not be roused from her unconsciousness. This gave the willowed nursemaid a chance to assess their wounds.

Her leg was broken to a degree that it would never heal. The blood around the exit site was dry, infected and infested with larvae — how long had she been laying here? Her head pounded and throbbed, the entirety of it, from behind her eyes to her temples to the bottom of her skull. Certainly a rib or two was broken, as she could only breathe in short, infinitesimal huffs. There was an emptiness to her breathing, a small wheeze in her abdomen and constant breathlessness, that led her to believe a lung had been punctured… and all of this was nothing compared to the crazed thirst she felt, which already threatened to drive her insane. Seabreeze’s own belly was distended with what was certainly internal bleeding. There was a significant amount of blood crusted around a wound that split open the side of her head — it was a miracle that the sea sprite was not dead already. It was as if their bodies reflected the ravaged landscape around them in a most disturbing way.

Olive did not want to think, or move, or breath, so she chose to lay upon the ground and wait for her lover to wake into their new, painful existence. Eventually Seabreeze did wake, and together they cried — what had happened on that fateful scouting trip? They tried to recollect their memories, but everything always suddenly cut to black — and then they were here, in this unknown hellish land. What had become of the world? Was this existence over, and they had all been relegated to hell? There was no certainty and their were no answers, and there were no answers to their calls whenever they were able to utter anything more than a whisper. Here, the two women lamented their losses and waited to die.

However, death would not do them the pleasure of taking them here. The days spent waiting for relief blended together, and they did not know how long they waited in a painful limbo — but eventually, it was decided that their last memory was not too far from Elysium and even though this place was now recognizable, they should try to make it back; to see their children one more time; to finally die amongst a place they knew and loved. They did not want to perish here, strangers amongst a strange land.

Little by little, dragging step by dragging step, the two made it back to the hushed willows. They followed nothing more than their innate, internal compass — and a deep, longing desire to see Elysium once more. It was a small happiness to find Elysium unchanged, despite the evident earthquakes and storms that had claimed the land surrounding it. It was a true testament to the power of these lands, and for a moment Olive found her wounded chest swelling with pride. It swelled, until she noticed how empty her home was.

The scents of her loved ones were stale, the caches gone to rot. The dens appeared to not have been lived in for some time. Of all the pain she had experienced to this point, this was certainly the most painful; a wound, cut right across her heart, and here should could have bled out and died knowing that her children were maybe dead, or maybe alive, or maybe gravely wounded and suffering such as she. Where were the other seraphim? — were they safe amongst other packs, or…

After dragging their own still-living corpses across the willows, the two women settled in the ever-blooming rose garden and tried to cry, but their bodies would not produce tears. They clawed their way to the gravesites of Lily and Ariel, and the others who had perished among Elysium’s aegis. They settled upon the ground and here they lingered in silence until Seabreeze, her voice hoarse and weak, finally spoke up.

“Do you think…” she wondered out loud, breathlessly. The thought did not need to be finished for it to be understood. Olive shook her head, already used to the dull pounding such an action inspired within her. “I do not know what to think, but let’s not make assumptions.” Together, they glanced over to @Lily’s grave, and shared an unspoken, telepathic fondness of the blackbird’s memory; the women who had scarified her life to save what they all loved so dearly. Then they lingered over the grave of @Ariel, and finally the tears came. The few that did, the shrouded druid let fall and soak into the earth that covered her wife’s body.

Again, Seabreeze spoke up. “It was never the same after they died — perhaps Elysium was a failed mission.” Many times in the past few days [weeks? months? lifetimes?] since finding their new reality, Olive had wondered the very same thing. However, her devout and trusting nature shone through the darkness. “Failed? How could you say such a thing?” she mustered in the brightest voice she could, hoping to provide her star-crossed lover with some last semblance of hope.

The woman swallowed a sob as she recounted the memories. “As much as any wolf could hope to do, we provided a safe home for our children… and we did so in a nonviolent way.”She remembered the happiness, the parties, the sense of safety that was pervasive here, amongst the willows, the home they had spent a lifetime trying to find. “We gathered packs on our lands in the name of love and communion.” Not everyone agreed with their philosophies, but they believed enough to cast aside their differences and celebrate the seasons as they changed. Had anyone else been able to accomplish such a feat? “We have preached a legacy of peace to the people… the messages they’ve heard from our lips will never fade. Our ideas will live on, long after we are gone.” It was true, and it was the idea the druid, a humble advocate for peace, had always lived her life by. Bodies would die, but ideas would live on forever.

Seabreeze looked forlorn, but she had always been the more melancholy of the two. She now wept freely, her broken face and body pressed upon Ariel’s grave. “ — and, and our children. They will always remember us, won’t they?” she managed to choke out. The silvered woman moved closer to her and squeezed her tight and kissed her face, willfully ignoring the pain such an action created within the two of them.

“Yes, they will. They will remember their mothers. Olive, Seabreeze and Ariel… The angels of Elysium.”

By the time anyone might discover their bodies, they would be nothing more than bones — a skeletal remembrance, cast upon the grave of their lover lost too soon; intertwined with one another as if their souls had inhabited a single body all their life. Indeed, they had; and now their souls walked together amongst the luminescent tendrils of their grove, the willows that had sheltered them during their corporeal existence, living amongst their heavenly shelter forevermore.