Whitebark Stream And go with you, I'll go with you

The day started as any other: he patrolled, hunted, brought food to his family, and as the sun set over the stream, he slowly made his way along the borders. He would normally have settled in the rendezvous spot for the night, but a tightness in his chest made him wander this evening. It was different than his normal anxious feeling; he knew that feeling well. This felt like there was no more room in his chest for his lungs or heart. 

For a few minutes, he was overcome with a coughing spell. The coughing had been occasional for a while, something he had tried to ignore as well as keep from anyone else. Not that he had spent time around many in the pack anyway. He had really only taken on the role as father lately because that seemed to be all he had the energy for. He didn't mind, though, he loved watching @Alsek and @Pele grow under Grezig's watchful eye. 

He drew in a few ragged breaths and stood again, clearing his throat as he began to move. His thoughts were of his family tonight. He hoped @Rosalie and @Alessia were okay. He knew @Soter and @Morena would have grown into strong, capable adults in their care wherever they all were. He hoped @Polaris still kept her soft heart and her fierce devotion to family as she wandered the world and he hoped the same for @Lainie, his sweet, sensitive daughter. Wherever she was, he hoped she was happy and healing and knew how strong he thought she was.

His thoughts drifted to his oldest sons, @Helios and @Zephyr. He had no idea where Helios was now. His strength had always been obvious, though, and he knew he was thriving. And Zephyr—things had never been easy for him or between them. They had been cursed from the start, but Kavik hoped he still knew how much he loved him and hoped for him to find happiness. 

He had to sit and cough again, his sides aching from the constant attacks. As he regained his strength he thought everyone else who had been in his life and meant something to him. @Liri, who he had failed—he would never forgive himself for that. She had helped him lead his first pack, and he still looked back on those days with fondness. He thought of @Agana too, and wondered where the mysterious woman was. And had he known of @Astraeus, he would have sent love his way, as well. 

He coughed again, white foam spewing from his mouth. For a few seconds, he couldn't catch his breath. He slid to the ground, gasping for air. And when he finally caught his breath again, he only coughed some more. Finally, he collapsed over onto his side, his entire body moving as he tried to draw in breath through the fluid in his throat. He coughed again and more fluid came up. This happened again and again until he could no longer find the strength to breath.

Darkness surrounded him then. It was like a dream, only deep down, he knew it wasn't. He knew where he was going and for for his last few minutes of consciousness, only his family filled his mind. Wherever they all were, he hoped they knew he loved them. He had always expected to feel regret in his last moments but strangely, all he felt was relief. 

Only a few more seconds passed before his chest became motionless. Only a few more sluggish, faint heart beats were left before his heart stopped too. 

Thanks for everything buddy. I'll miss you <3
I'll archive after 1 week

Grezig had been nearby, as she often was when it came to her husband. Something they had never really made official, but that’s what she thought of him as in her own mind. She had meant to catch up with him, to tell him good night, but had gotten distracted watching her children. When she finally caught up to him, he was lying in the grass, asleep… his limbs… stretched at odd angles. A coldness went through her body, shocking her as though she had just jumped into a freezing river. She felt dizzy. Surely he had just moved in his sleep and that was why his limbs were so awkward.

She moved around him slowly, dreading to see his face. There was foam bubbling at his maw. His eyes were half-open. He stared emptily at nothing. 

She moved closer, her body feeling heavy, but float-y at the same time.

“No,” she said. Her heart beat frantically, and suddenly her chest pained her. She began to pant heavily. “No, no,” she repeated, louder, and nudged his head with her nose. It moved with her nudge but flopped uselessly back to the ground. 

Her chest pained her again, more sharply this time. “Unh!” she grunted, toppling over near his body. “Kavik,” she cried, though the sound came out garbled. Her heartbeat was sporadic and it felt as if there was a band around her chest. And for some reason, her jaw hurt, and her shoulder. She gasped in pain and the inability to breathe. What was happening? She threw her head back to look upon her dead husband —

and her heart stopped.

sometime after this thread.

the blackbird awoke from his nap with a wide-mouthed yawn. grezig and kavik were both missing, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. figuring that either parent had gone off to hunt, alsek picked the prettiest of his flowers and began to seek them out.

he didn't venture far before hearing his mother's cries. she sounded close, close enough to touch, and so he went off to find her. first, alsek saw the oddly spread silhouette of his father, then the collapsing frame of his mother. what were they doing?

alsek walked forward with a bright smile, calling their names: mama! papa? neither responded, which must have meant that they were asleep. he came closer and dropped the gifts between their heads, flowers.

but neither parent reacted. alsek remembered that it was rude to wake someone, and so lowered his normally loud tone. instead of saying anything else, he kissed kavik's cheek, then grezig's, and curled up beneath her arm for another nap.

Pele was an observant, if relatively quiet child. She had witnessed her father’s coughing fits over the course of the last few weeks, but had said nothing of it to anyone. She was still a child, of course, and was not aware that she should be worried about something like that. But somehow, the coughing she had heard from him tonight had sounded worse. He’d had a harder time catching his breath, and so, when her mother went trailing after him, she’d followed behind from very far away, intending to watch over her father from a distance.

What had happened instead was like something out of a nightmare. She heard her father’s coughing fit once again, but then he’d gone quiet and she assumed that he had simply managed to catch his breath and had gone to sleep. She didn’t bother to check on him physically, for she was not supposed to wander too far away from their sleeping spot. But when she heard her mother’s cries, and then the struggle for air, she had come stumbling forward. She had witnessed her mother fall over, gasping for breath. It was as if some curse had afflicted first one parent, then the other. She was rooted to the ground and her mother did not notice her in the foliage. 

She stood there for some time afterwards, too numb to be aware of anything. And then her brother had come along. Her sweet, gentle brother. Her fucking idiotic bumbling brother. She saw him drop the flowers at her parents’ heads. Their dead heads. And then he… he curled up… under Grezig’s foreleg… 

“What the fuck,” she said—something both parents would have scolded her for. 

“Alsek!” she yelled, and stumbled forward on wobbly legs, the idea of getting closer to her parents making her feel sick. “Get away! No!” She leaned down, painfully aware of how close her mother’s body was, and snatched her brother by the scruff of the neck, yanking hard. He was bigger than her still, and always would be, so she failed in her attempt and only came away with a tuft of fur in her mouth. She fell over with an “Oof!” and sat down hard on her rump. “ALSEK!” she screeched, no longer truly coherent. “NO! BAD!”

general intelligence? ok.
common sense? well..

ouch, pele! being rudely awakened from the beginning of a nap, alsek couldn't contain his outburst. his parents seemed relatively unbothered, but that didn't change the fact that his sister had done something she wasn't supposed to do. come sleep, he begged, hoping that a sleeping pele would be less of an issue.

assuming she didn't want to do that (obviously), alsek moved back into his prior resting place. see? he teased. there was nothing wrong here; mama was warm, just like she always was, and she was being nice enough for a group cuddle. so what was pele's problem?

Having been back in Whitebark Stream for some time now, after a brief period of travelling, Chai was trying to settle back into a routine. Her friend, Reiko was on her mind often these days and she looked forward to when the time came that she could visit her. Things had always been relatively peaceful within the pack, and for that, Chai was thankful. But tonight, the air had a certain sense of uneasiness weaved within it. She couldn't pinpoint why, but it was enough to keep the young woman from falling sound asleep in the cozy depths of her den.

Voices in the night stirred her further. She blinked, glacial eyes bleary, lifting her head. Hoping they'd settle, she laid her head down over her cream paws once again. Only when they escalated into shouting, did Chai force herself up, crawling out into the open to see what the all the fuss was about. The voices seemed to belong to children - both of which she knew, but had never formally interacted with. 

Crossing the open ground, she followed the trail of their scents, letting their voices further guide her. With a faint smirk, she mused that they were just being rowdy kids, tussling about to tire themselves out before bedtime. As their forms came into view, the scene that was playing out before her eyes was not one of innocent harmony. And even more concerning... There, beside them, laid the two bodies of their parents. Grezig and Kavik. Little Alsek was tucked under his mother's forelimb, while Pele was scolding him. The actions of the toddlers wasn't what concerned her. It was the parents. Their bodies laid at an unnatural angle, lying too still. Sucking in a dreadful breath, Chai circled them with a wide berth. The froth at Kavik's lips...the half lidded, blank eyes of once thriving wolves who she would never know. Already, the scent of death was setting in, the picture painted so clearly before her.

Trying not to let the tears well up in her eyes, she silently looked upon the new pair of orphans. They didn't understand - their hearts and minds were too innocent. Too young. Far too young to have their parents ripped from their lives so early. Bending her head down with a heavy sigh that reflected the sadness she felt, Chai then followed through with the difficult decision, being the first adult to have happened upon this tragedy. She picked her head up and called for the pack, most specifically @Artyom and @Dawn, her voice a low, mournful cry that pierced the night.

Tags for reference.   :)

Artyom, blissfully unaware of anything beyond the bubble of happiness that enveloped his family's hollow, was mid-story as he and Dawn prepared to settle the pups for bedtime. He swept his warm gaze over each of his children as their eyes grew heavy, as the struggled against the lull of sleep in eagerness to reach the end of their father's tale.

Luckily for the golden Alpha, they had each drifted off to dreamland by the time Chai's call demanded his attention. At once, his chest tightened and his belly flip-flopped with dread, and he exchanged a troubled glance with his mate before making a swift exit.

Please no, he thought fiercely as he hurried in the direction where his pack-mate's howl had sounded, please. He was not to know what fate had in store for Whitebark Stream that night, but at the forefront of his mind was @Aphrodite and @Surya. Had grim news come about one of them, or both? The latter had been for a number of days now, the former far longer, and he gritted his fangs at the darkness swept through his thoughts.

What he arrived to was far from what Artyom expected: the powerful Kavik, crumpled to the ground with fluid pooled on the ground beneath his chin, smeared across his muzzle. Beside him was Grezig, as still as her raven-furred companion. Even more heartbreaking, their children were there to witness such a scene, and Artyom felt the air leave his lungs as he shifted to look solemnly in search of Chai's cornflower gaze.

"What happened?" Artyom asked, his tone hushed, though it was hard to tell if she'd been there soon enough to help or if she'd simply found them this way. His deep frown communicated his sorrow; they'd mostly been a private family, yet he could not recall them appearing or smelling sick when last he'd visited. He looked over the children once more, two little orphans, and said: "I think we should take them to Dawn." That way, they would be warm and safe, and would have the company of his own cubs. When Alsek and Peke were cared for, then the adults could turn attention on where to bury their parents.

lmk if this isn't okay <3

death was unfortunately a part of the life germanicus had taken for himself. it was a portion of life that came for each of them, but he had not expected so dismal a scene.

thick fluids and the powerful bodies of two whitebark wolves brought low. a pair of children, one he recognized as the lisping boy alsek. artyom was present, his accented baritone guiding preparations for little ones.

germanicus remained close. a burial was in order and he would put his strength wherever it was needed. these were two of the eight, and the eight must be kept well.

he had not known these wolves, but no child should be left to curl against the cooling body of his mother, and germanicus felt the sting of that scene.

To her great relief, Artyom soon answered her call, arriving at the tragic scene sprawled out before her and the orphaned pups. Another wolf, presumably a newer member, also arrived in silence. Ears falling back against her skull, she approached her leader with a low whine, her nerves frazzled at the situation. "I...I don't know. I was settling in for the night and I just...heard their voices..." She said, gesturing with her muzzle to Alsek and Pele. 

Her eyes lingered on them for a long moment, her heart going out to them. "I came to investigate...and they were like this." She referred to Grezig and Kavik, their bodies eerily still. "I'm sorry I can't offer you any more information than that..." But he was right. Yes, the children should be taken to Dawn. She would look after them. Chai didn't move to usher the youngsters away, first toiling with how to best coax them before a proper burial for the deceased could get under way.