Noctisardor Bypass valar morghulis

tags for reference; all welcome! <3

@Anselm is still missing and now @Gideon has, too disappeared from rivenwood. but he remains; healing from injuries from @Heda's care. and though there is no evidence to support it, ezra's suspicions grow, born of his own bias towards anselm and mistrust of @Amadeo who was an unwanted presence to ezra in his family.

he searched and searched and searched but gideon nor anselm were in rivenwood. the days bleeding into one another like spilled ichor tell ezra this with a sinking swoop to his stomach and ill harbored anger and grief.

it erodes away at him like violent waves over a crumbling cliffside.

made even more confusing by the shadowveiled figure that visited him in dreams; known marrow deep.

justicebringer. justicebringer. justincebringer —

an avenging archangel so full of primordial fury. but it is ezra's fury, his confusion, his grief that fuels him.

vhere are you? he asks of his father and brother to the trees of rivenwood, knowing the old woods would not answer him.

impromptu pack meeting, no posting order, @Amadeo @Druid (tagging @John, @Artio, @Averie, @Goldfinch & @Kikimora to keep everyone in the loop <3

heda was born the day that a girl realized that she could be abandoned by the mother who bore her and the brother who had fed at her side.
but the breath in her body had begun before heda knew what it was to devote all to unseen and to be failed, again and again.
the departure of flesh and blood was the ailment of those who lived. its flaw in herself made this understood.
far less was the silence of the one she had loved beyond all self, even unto her own children. and not only silence, but the repeated torment of her heart until it had begun to crumble as if it were an abandoned watchtower.
druid had never changed her name, she thought nonsensically to herself, unless there was some lesson too in this: that to change was to take a path which led to things unexplainable.
The Clock ticked for heda.
perhaps it would not for who she had been.
there was steel in her eyes when she stopped beside ezra, not glancing toward her son before she tilted head and called to those who remained.
"i need to search for gideon. i need to search for all of them," she said with a twisted set to her mouth. "i can't stay here any longer. but i can't make the choice for anyone else," she said, trying not to waver as she gazed at the children of druid's she had always loved as her own, raised as her own. it was almost too early for them to start traveling. almost, in a world that wasn't constantly robbing her of any joy she might have enjoyed.
bitterness twisted itself in a black stalk around the stems of her heart, constricting. "it's been over a week. we can assume anselm isn't coming back. but gideon, we've searched. we've looked. i have to go."

Her head pounded in a way that made Druid’s stomach feel hollow. There was no other sign, unless dry mouth was one of them. Was it? No, surely that was just due to the dry August heat. These were the dog days of summer. Druid sought refreshment in the lagoon, immersing her whole body in the cool waters in the hope it might alleviate her headache.

She felt a little better until Heda’s call carried through the woods. She immediately leaped onto the bank, not bothering to shake out her coat as she galloped toward the rendezvous site. The journey felt like it took ages, her brain rattling around in her skull with every swift step.

Her sister had called them here to say something, so Druid stood in panting, dripping silence as Heda stood over Ezra and made her declarations. Maybe because of her headache, Druid didn’t understand at first what Heda meant when she said, “I can’t stay here any longer.”

Of course the Den Mother wanted to find Gideon. But Druid was torn. Who would look after the children, with so many gone? And what about Amadeo? Neither he nor Druid herself was really in any shape for that responsibility. But then comprehension began to dawn on her. Did Heda intend to take Ezra with her? Did she plan to return? Or was she saying she was leaving Rivenwood for good?

Druid’s heart dropped at the thought, then broke into a sudden sprint. She felt a huge emotion sweeping through her. She’d always been so cool and levelheaded, she didn’t recognize herself as her face contorted in a sudden fury. She wasn’t entirely sure what exactly she planned to do, until she was doing it: Druid leaped at her sister, intending to grab her by the scruff and force her to stay.

the thought of leaving rivenwood fills him with a soft spike of fear, but pushing past that is just the sort of reckless bravery that he needed — because obviously: he was going with mother! truthfully, the thought of being left with amadeo without his father or mother scared him worst than venturing into any sort of unknown.

i'm going vith you. ezra looks to his mother when he speaks this; conviction strong in his words: because of course he was ( whether he was invited or not ).

and in the span of a heartbeat, his gaze swept over the adults; chaos appeared to rip the eerie calm of the riven wood. druid — druid! was charging towards his mother with ugly fury written upon her face.

all at once: ezra is a child; scared at this sudden and unexpected turn of events ... and a young teenager filled with grief and rage all his own. get avay from her!!!! he's growling at druid; breath shallow and pupils wide as he reacts to her actions: all inexperienced and gangly snapping teeth as he tries to bully his way in-between them.

consequences towards himself be damned.

once heda had been trained in the focus of a warrior by the wolves of duskfire glacier. and though for many years now she had not needed to be so fierce, druid's attack came as such an unexpected shock that her instincts were immediate.
amadeo would not come before they collided, injured and bloodied by anselm as he was. and she hoped, she was glad now that he was not here to witness her transformation.
pivoting, she felt her sister's teeth close around her nape and jerked until the closure slid to one side. "ezra! no! no!" she's sick she's sick she's sick your auntie druid is sick don't touch her but no way to say it but with a note of desperation in her voice.
rage warred with cold instinct, warred with surprise and love. at first skaigona only grappled to hold druid, to pin her, but if the efforts went on, she felt her self-control waning rapidly toward a blinding fury.

I made some assumptions for narrative flow, so just let me know if I need to tweak anything! :)

She felt such savage glee when her teeth closed on folds of red fur. She wanted to bite through them, shove Heda to the ground and really beat her into submission. As that thought flashed through Druid’s mind, her sister wrenched partway out of her grip, her screams mingling with a childish cry of outrage.

These sounds had the same effect as a bucket of ice cold water pouring over Druid’s head. The heat of her inexplicable wrath vanished in a puff of smoke, her jaw loosening as she tried to scramble backward. Someone’s flailing limb caught her in the jaw, the shock of pain joining the fierce ache blooming through her skull.

Sorry, she tried to say, though Druid wasn’t entirely sure she was making any sound at all as she tried to retreat.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me! she wanted to scream. But that was a lie and these words never made it past her throat. The suddenly shaking Druid knew exactly what had gotten into her.

there was screaming.

druid's, his mother's, his; raising into a horrible battleground of sounds.

his mother's voice pleading for him to not do attack druid is like a crushing blow to his chest: it slows him down and he listens, stopping just sort of druid; struggling between crushing guilt as he watches them grapple.

and then as quick as it begun, it was over.

druid released her hold on his mother and she is retreating.

mama, ezra rushes to her side, keeping his aunt's retreating form in his vision. are you hurt? he asks heda worriedly.

ribcage expanded with horrid breath. druid's face twisted, smoothed, fragmented. she was mahler. she was sequoia. she was worripa. she was witch. she was the unknown smudge of paleness over a newborn's cradle, the timbre of a voice which was shocking and muted to recall even now.
ribcage swelling; and it was rage, it was long years of it and the endless, continual losses.
oh, somewhere they had to be placed. somewhere they had to go. 
a step, tempered; another would have flung her upon druid and cut her sister to unseeing ribbons in this moment of all moments, when she stood in the horror of losing another son —
— anselm's son.
the final den mother made the choice to maim four stricken children for the sake of one. pupil pinpoint, she backed from druid, grabbed ezra, and dragged him off at an adrenaline-fueled, breakneck speed which cut her face upon pine boughs and blurred her with tears.
she could not see druid die. she could not watch the pups outlive the short life of their mother. too much she loved them for that, and too weighty was her selfishness in taking what was left of herself and of anselm from the one place to which she should have never returned.
fatherwound;
motherwound;
sisterwound;
rent in the souls of four children as she clutched ezra in unyielding jaws which scarcely managed to lift his growing body, shoulders cramping, neck aching, running and running and running from rivenwood.

she will be leaving rvw as of this post with no intention to come back

When Heda grabbed her son and yanked him off into the woods, Druid could only watch on helplessly. She scarcely blamed her sister for protecting her remaining son. From her. Because loath as she was to admit it, she was a danger to them, to them all.

It was right then that she realized she’d made an enormous mistake by coming back here. Now she’d hurt Heda, frightened Ezra and put everyone else at risk. She couldn’t put those things to right, though there was one thing she could do to mitigate further damage.

Of course she wanted to run after Heda, apologize and say their goodbyes. Of course she wanted to see her four children one last time. Of course there were a thousand other things Druid wanted to do with herself, with her life, but now she had to think of @Kikimora, @Goldfinch, @Artio and @Averie.

Druid sobbed and fled westward. Her life now forfeit, she raced the clock.