The Heartwood [m] In what appears to be a ritual "Godspeak" song of the Rieklings

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Depiction of self-harm/attempted suicide

I am so sorry. Making some assumptions, let me know if it should be changed!

@Heda was leaving.

Again.

And it was her fault, of course it was, it had to be her — because she had been the first to shatter the peace of their island, the first to bring blood and echoing screams to their beautiful flowered life. If only she hadn't hurt John, maybe Abel would not have left, and Ava would not have been hurt, and their parents would not have fought.

She'd been visibly unsettled to hear of her mother's plan to leave; turning clingy, growling faintly at her siblings when they requested Heda's attention, hackles always slightly aloft. Hyper-vigilant; Ana watched her unblinkingly, in silence, oddly absent of her typical clicking cheer. It was when she rose, seeming as if she intended now to leave, that Anathema finally broke her silence.

A growl rumbled deep in her throat, and she lifted herself, advancing for a moment as if she might turn on her mother the same way she'd turned on John. Then she went very still. Heda was leaving. Leaving her — hurting her — and she couldn't stand it, she wouldn't, and if her mother insisted on hurting her this way then —

Then she would hurt herself first.

She whipped around wildly, hyperventilating now, and her eyes fixed on the trunk of a tree. For a moment it was all she saw, and then blood staining it, her blood, and with a strangled shriek she slammed her skull against the bark. Again. Again. Again, and there was blood and she couldn't stop she couldn't stop she —

Isolation seemed to help with the sadness, though it allowed his bitterness to fester and grow like an algae that consumed him and clouded his vision. On a daily basis he roamed further and further from his home, often not returning until evening or later and by then he was so tired that he would simply collapse and succumb to a dreamless slumber.

But it seemed that with every day, it became harder and harder to tire himself in spite of the travel, so he wandered further and further, attempting to cure his growing insomnia but inadvertently making himself even more tolerant to drowsiness by leaving his mind idle. 

He barely noted his surroundings. He spoke as little as possible, and avoided his family. Even his anger became wordless, though he would catch himself growling softly with every exhale, as though training his voice to deepen. He would only realize it when his voice caught, prompting him to clear his throat. 

The girl had hit her head a few times before he even noticed the sickening sound and when he looked up, he thought his eyes were fooling him. He looked up to the sky, as if expecting for it to be crimson and gold- and looked back to the girl, realizing then that it wasn’t a trick of the light, but a remarkable contrast of warm and cool hues in her fur. 

Then, he saw what she was doing.

He told her to stop, but only in his mind. He stepped forward again, and commanded her again but nothing came out. The part of him that understood what she was trying to achieve stole his voice away from him until another disgusting smack! finally snapped him out of it. 

He didn’t speak, but he bolted toward her, leaping silently in the hopes of tackling her to the side.

It was not her mother who stopped her, but a blur of beige; a boy, Ana realized belatedly as he swept over her and sent them both tumbling away from the tree. A boy she did not know. But there was no fight left in her. Bleeding profusely from her head and from her mouth, she went limp during the fall, and when she found herself lodged firmly underneath him, a shiver ran through her whole body.

She buried her bloodied face into the pale fur at his neck and cried. Helplessly Ana clung to the boy, seeking comfort, abruptly aware of how touch-starved she was after weeks of self-imposed isolation from all but her littermates. Her head hurt. The world spun. And there was no room in her for questioning.

She'd wanted to make it all go away. Now she wanted nothing more than to be held, and told that it would all be okay, even if she could never believe it.

Once the world stopped spinning for a moment, he painted and looked up at the sky in a daze, fighting off the dizziness. Only a moment later did he realize that he’d not only tackled the girl aside, but that he was still laying on top of her. 

But when he went to stand up, he found himself weighed down- and was pulled back to the ground by the limbs she’d thrown about his shoulders. She bawled, and he was tense for a moment before he gave in, wrapped his big paws about her shoulders too, and let her snuggle in close. 

Caring for someone else was a welcome distraction. Gently, he smoothed the fur at the top of her head, avoiding where she’d been striking her temple against the tree, and held onto her just as tightly as she held onto him.

He held her, and slowly Ana calmed, soothed by the way he groomed the top of her head. After a time she started to clean her blood from his fur in the same gentle way. For the first time in weeks, she clicked contentedly.

She loved him.

And still she did not know who this boy was, or where he had come from, but she knew that he had come to her when she needed comfort the most. She knew that she would follow him anywhere. Even as she bled into the dirt all around them, even as her vision swam and her mouth was stained crimson, Ana felt the soothing of a hurt carved deep into her soul.

Stay, She bid him quietly, pleading past the blood thick in her mouth, and pressed another scarlet kiss to his neck. This was love. This was it. She would never let him leave her.

He wondered what she'd been going through when she'd started smashing her head against the tree, and it frightened him to find himself wondering why hadn't I thought of that? Obviously, though, it hadn't fixed her problems, it'd just given her a bunch of scrapes to her crown, and had likely hurt quite a lot. Something like that...It didn't fix anything. But what did seem to help, was simply being held, and it worked for the both of them. 

Maybe it was because they were strangers, and neither was holding the other out of pity. Neither knew why the other one hurt, but he felt both validated for all of his horrible feelings when he held her close, and groomed her head. His gaze softened when he realized she was cleaning her own blood off him as well; not that he minded that she'd made him bloody. He could forgive her for that in a heartbeat. 

"Mkay," He said, and wrapped a foreleg across her shoulders as she leaned into his neck. He heaved a sigh. 

Nothing had felt this good, not since before everything had gone wrong. And while he knew his mother would fret and stress when she didn't see him come home at his curfew...It was worth it, having found someone that made the bad feelings go away.

There was a soft simplicity to the moment, the kind of unfaltering acceptance that could only be fostered between children bearing wounds too deep to ever heal. Ana was too young to know what to do with the surge of affection and possession rushing through her veins. This was a feeling only her littermates had ever inspired in her, but she knew that she would never see this boy as a brother. She knew that this devotion would run deeper, if only for the fact that he had chosen her.

But there were many things she did not know, starting with what tomorrow would hold. She would follow the boy home, she figured. But what was home, to him? Ana didn't linger on the thought. She let out a little sigh, and continued to preen at his pretty beige fur until her movements slowed and faltered into stillness. Still she stayed close.

And she would always stay close, as long as he would let her.

The foulest of his emotions began to numb as with each thud of her heartbeat, warm against him, distracted him from the pain caged within his chest. She preened the soft, beige fur of his shoulder and without thinking, he returned the gesture, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing. He tried not to tweak her fur with his teeth, and found himself eventually settling into a gentle, combing motion that soothed him as well. 

They were still together for a time; time and obligation didn't rush him. Curious, he wondered how long it could go on for- and if he should wait until she said something, or pulled away, but she seemed committed to just being there. It was only when he remembered that she'd been hitting her head that he drew back enough to look at her brow, frowning with light concern. Maybe he should have brought her home earlier; how much blood had she lost? Had she hurt her brain?

"Does your head hurt?" He asked, then. He had not lost any faith in Eljay's capabilities, and thought now that it might be in her best interest to see Brecheliant's medic, whether or not the injury pained her.

The pain of the moment had been easy to forget, until the boy asked after her self-inflicted wound. It was still bleeding, warmth still seeping over her neck and shoulders — and Anathema might have been content to stay this way, to let herself bleed and bleed until there was nothing left and her last breath shuddered from cold lips. But then he spoke of it, and as if on cue the pain lanced through her head in a blinding arc of white.

She had hurt herself terribly; more than the girl realized now, perhaps more than she would ever know.

Yes, Ana said quietly, seaglass eyes searching his. He had pretty eyes, blue eyes, not like the sea but the sky on a bright and cloudless day. And his pine-sap scent, his steady warmth, it reminded her of something she could not quite place; like a memory of home long lost to time. You help. She murmured, not a request but a statement of fact. He made all the pain fade from her. And what more did she really need?

He winced, and nodded- he had suspected as much. He was too timid to try and touch her wound himself, not knowing how far the pain spread and how severe it was. The last thing he wanted to do was cause her an infection, especially in a head wound. 

"I can take you home with me. My uncle, he's a medic. Best one around," He said, though his voice faltered slightly. If Eljay couldn't save his Dad, would he be able to save this girl? Her wounds didn't look as severe, but he knew so little about injuries, and what he knew was just from his own experiences. "That okay?" He asked. It would involve travel, but they weren't far- he felt relatively certain they could make the trip.

Probably my last, feel free to powerplay Ana <3

Home.

Had she ever known what that was like? A home? A place where she truly belonged?

Yes, She murmured, eyes beginning to cloud with grief and growing fatigue. Anathema shivered in spite of the boy's warmth. An odd sort of chill was settling over her as blood continued to ooze from her head.

Black waters; the rising tide; all her veins turning cold and dark.

And he, the only light around for miles, with his honeyed fur like bright summer mornings on the beach, eyes like the clear sky over that holy island she'd left behind. In his warmth she felt, at last, the touch of God.

In him she found her religion.

I so want for there to be a Church of Ponyboy XD

Slowly, steadily, and mindful of her breathing, Ponyboy led Anathema back to his home. He would pause whenever he felt that she needed a break, and would take her to the stream to drink, and use some of the fresh waters to clean some of the dried blood from her forehead. He wondered what his mother might make of him bringing home a lost girl, without even knowing her name, but he thought as well that he would be forgiven- the girl clearly needed care, and he'd already become far too attached to her to simply return her from where she'd come.