Swiftcurrent Creek I got a bulletproof heart, you got a hollow-point smile

I'm just going to say she's been near Swiftcurrent Creek but absent from pack territory since Akavir's departure, since I don't think anyone has referenced anything regarding her ICly yet <3

A familiar scent had returned to Swiftcurrent Creek's borders. It'd taken Mae a few days to notice — and she supposed that was her cue to return, too, if anything was. She'd spent time with @Lavender, exploring and getting to know the girl while her father was off... doing whatever @Akavir did when he occasionally fucked off for long periods of time.

But now he was back.

So I guess I'm back, too, Mae told herself with ears slowly tilting backward as she took in the scents along the borders. The pack felt strange to her again. Her father was a stranger again. Maybe it would always be this way.

He's real angsty... im so sorry.

The borders—he had to round the borders once more.

He had to stay busy. Because if he didn’t—if he let the quiet drift over him… Oh, he would surely choke on the grief that hung from him like a dozen sandbags.

So he clawed a tree—he lifted a leg. He pissed on a world that should have held all his loved ones—and tried not to fall back to a time where he had held a tiny Lilitu, a tiny Arielle, and a proud new mother, Ibis in his arms and swore to protect them all.

The fucking last man standing.

He blinked—a shadow in the distance. But it was no stranger—at least, not in a definitive dictionary version. There was Mae—his heart ached, of course it did.

How much room could his heart keep for those who despised him?

He rounded closer—wondering, if now, she was speaking to him once more. Before, she had once more decided he wasn’t worth her time.

<33

She didn't know how long she stood there. It seemed an eternity before Akavir's scent strengthened on the wind, before it turned into something tangible; something she could follow. And that was just what she did.

Mae joined her father's patrol in silence. She wanted to ask what had kept him away this time. She wanted to tell him to stop fucking leaving already — but even when he stayed, he still found a way to choose someone else, didn't he? Muskrat was gone now.

And Mae was still here.

Maybe one day he would see that.

She moved along to his side then—the quiet falling over them just like a blanket of snow would in a winter storm. Perhaps, it felt as chilled as one as well.

His eyes remained steeled ahead—his jaw set. Only as moments passed, did he turn to look at her—ready to ask her what he had done this last time to gain her ire. Instead, he found his gaze softening, the resolve crumbling with one look at her face.

Did neither one of them truly know how to love? Is this why the sound of winter strummed between them, unending?

His breath hitched—he found his eyes jerking back to the direction they traveled. “I want to find Lilitu’s body and give her a proper burial.”

It was all he knew to say. That incessant need to remain busy.

To give his daughter the proper goodbye she deserved. But… what did that mean of the sickness?

Lilitu's body.

Her own breath caught sharply before she could stop it. But Mae stifled any further reaction, gripping tightly to her facade of stoicism even as she reeled with the revelation. Lilitu's body. Lilitu. Dead.

Mae hadn't even gotten to meet her.

And why hadn't Akavir told her? Why hadn't anyone told her?

Well... she supposed she knew why.

Mae exhaled slowly, realizing many things all at once — but most of all that she did not know how to fix what was broken. It was both of them, maybe; broken in the same way. And she couldn't fix it. She could only try not to hold it against him too much, and hope he would do the same.

Key word being try.

Right now? She asked after a moment, face turning toward him more out of habit than anything. She couldn't see his expressions anymore, but it made her feel better to look.

It was subtle—that intake of breath—but Akavir had known to look for the tiniest afflictions from his most youthful daughter, otherwise, he would be completely in the dark on any of her feelings, it seemed.

He swallowed—his own muzzle jerking in her direction, his pace halting. Had she not known? Had she missed Lilitu’s departing call—the sadness that had afflicted it.

His jaw worked, but nothing came out. And then, before he knew it, he was sitting—the world spinning—but it was Mae who he focused right now, as he felt that weight pull him

f u r t h e r

down….

“She was sick, Mae. She got… I don’t know. I don’t know what it is. Highly contagious… From a bite? Or maybe just touch… I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.”

The grit of his teeth. “I don’t even know if I can bring her to her mothers grave so they can be together. I just…”

I just….

I just…

Sick. She heard him sit more than saw it, but followed the dark blur of his movement as she stepped closer. Akavir was easier to see than most, a stark inkstain against a muddled backdrop of green and grey and brown. That didn't make it any easier to know what to say, though.

Mae hesitated as his words trailed off. When was the last time she'd hugged him? Had she ever?

Tentatively, as if any sudden movement might burst them both into flames, she reached out to embrace her father. Mae had no grand words of wisdom or sympathy to give, and perhaps she never would. Life sucked, in her opinion. All of it sucked. Especially this. What words could ever make it better?

But she could be here. She could do that much.

He hadn’t expected the hug—when was the last time Mae had been in his arms? He could remember the bright-eyed girl she was—swearing almost as much as her uncle Arric, and sassing just about anyone that looked her way.

He leaned in—he pulled her closer, arms wrapping about her as he buried his nose to the fur along her shoulder. “Mae,” he croaked—words failing. There was nothing he could say in this moment to make any of it right. Whether it was Lilitu—whether it was their own broken relationship.

Instead, as much as he didn’t want to—the tears came anyway. The grief of losing Lilitu—the grief of unborn pups from he and Eset—the grief that the children he did have left… two had run as far from him as possible, while the other could only partially tolerate him.

The grief came in waves—the sobs were silent, but they shook him to his core—each one making him more and more hollow.

Mae clung tightly to her father, all the while wishing fiercely that she knew what to say. Maybe this was why he was always searching for — something else. Something more than what his broken daughter could offer him. Mae never had anything nice to say, after all.

She only knew how to hurt.

Her own tears never came. She could summon no grief for the sister she'd never known, nor could she bring herself to keep grieving what could have been. So she only tried to be a warm presence for her father, even as she felt the long tendrils of ice creeping between her ribs and filling her chest.