Firefly Glen these broken walls

set directly after this thread. cole tag for reference!

she had asked @Cole to remain a short distance away out of sight. there was much she had to discuss with her daughters before they departed the glen, a stranger being present was not one of them.

she had fought to keep herself steady for the sake of her remaining children. she did not wish for them to wonder why she sobbed. for them to worry on her behalf. she had kept herself distant these past days for their own comfort, slipping away whenever she could no longer choke back the tears.

had they noticed? were her efforts making things worse?

she trembled as she neared where her daughters lay, a soft voice calling for @Anatolia and zephyra.

what would she tell them?

how was she to tell them?

if she had noticed, she did everything she could to act like she had not.

yet maybe that meant her own behavior had become odd. anything her sister might have asked her to do had been a yes without hesitation. she offered to share any bones she had collected. she offered for them to try their hand at hunting the clusters of rabbits that had no fear of two young children beyond their noises.

anatolia forced herself to be so perfectly obedient and so overwhelming positive.

it had all come crashing down. unable to hold up the energy for it for too long. anatolia was currently down and out for a much needed nap. she would need more than a soft voice to stir her awake now.

Cole lingered just beyond sight, his broad frame concealed by the trees, though his golden gaze was trained on Nephele and her daughters. At her request, he stayed back, respectfully giving her the space to have this moment alone with them. Still, he couldn’t ignore the quiet pride that stirred within him.

There was a weight in her voice as she called for them—a mother’s strength, determined to do what she must even as it strained every part of her. He admired that, recognizing it as a courage he didn’t see every day. And now, she was trusting him with the precious task of protecting her daughters.

He squared his shoulders, standing a little taller.

if anatolia had accidently been overattentive to the odd behavior of their mother, zephyra had been the exact opposite. she did not pick up on the subtle clues of distress nephele might have displayed, her only real cause for concern being her still absent brother. 

she had noticed the odd behavior of her sister though, which was eventually summed up to ana just being the perfect people pleaser that zephyra thought she was. 

in the quiet hour as their mother approached, zephyra was contently snuggled up next to the warm bundle that was her sleeping sister. not yet asleep herself, the stormcloud of a girl roused when their mother called for them.

"ana's sleeping," she revealed with a whisper once close enough, a glance back to the slow rise and fall of her sister's chest.

it felt as if the world moved at different speeds lately. it was as if all she'd done was blink, and yet already her girls grew so big!

zephyra approached first from the distance, a gentle kiss swept over the girl's crown when she stepped close enough. the beat of her heart quickened when it was just the one child to greet her. the sleeping figure of her other daughter had yet to be seen, and all at once there was a flood of worry.

not another one. please.

she exhaled a breath she'd not realized she'd been holding at the discovery anatolia was only off in the distance. sleeping, safe.

"let's go wake her up," she suggested with a gentle nudge to zephyra's shoulder. "i have something to tell you both."

and with that the pair moved to go and rouse the sleeping babe.

in her dreams, everything was okay.

everything she loved and held dearly was there. everyone, too. mother, brother, sister. even morwenna, the silent moonglow girl and the boy from the sea.

in her dreams, no one ever left her.

ever.

---

the absence of an accustomed warmth was noticed first. she did not realize that her first thought was nearly identical to her mother's. zephyra could not be gone. she might have thrown herself in a sleep-hazed rush if not for quickly realizing two shapes were coming to her.

mother.

sister.

was he there too? she attempted to blink the sleep from her eyes, but found it clung thick like a fog. she could see only them. despite her exhaustion, she lifted herself onto all four giant paws. weaved closer and offered a soft push of her head against her mother.

then reached with affectionate teeth for zephyra.

silent now, but she figured if anyone had anything that should be shared, then it would be so.

Cole stood a few paces away, his ears pricked, catching every sound as Nephele moved to rouse her daughters. Shadows draped the early morning, casting an eerie quiet that only heightened his nerves. He shifted his weight, his paws pressing into the cold earth beneath him as he fought the urge to pace.

What if they didn’t take to him? The thought had gnawed at him since Nephele first spoke of introducing him to the girls. He knew how protective daughters could be of their mothers, especially of one as devoted as Nephele. His own lack of experience with family only deepened his unease; he didn’t know how to soften his edges or make himself seem… approachable.

He drew in a shaky breath, exhaling slowly to steady his nerves. The faint sound of Nephele’s murmurs reached him, gentle but persuasive, coaxing her daughters awake. He didn’t want to disappoint them. Not them, and certainly not her.

skipping zeph this round!

zephyra offered only the silence of a curious look as the pair moved to wake anatolia. the sleeping girl roused all on her own though, and as the two girls settled amongst themselves, nephele moved to cradle them.

she took a moment to preen through each of the girl's fur, gentle kisses given to each before she sucked in a breath and prepared to rip off the band-aid that held together her shattered heart.

"i found your brother's scent," she started with, eyes darting between each of the girls, desperately trying to read the lines of their face. zephyra beamed with some hope, but what of ana?

she continued, "i followed it to the edge of a forest, and then to a river." her heartbeat was suddenly in her ears, the drumming banging against the inside of her skull as she tried to dull the creeping headache.

"i-," she endured the sudden nausea that washed over her, the sudden tsunami of expected disappointment from her daughters. what would they think of her? "i do not think he made it across."

would they understand what she indicated? would she have to say it in detail?

would she have to say it out loud? could she say it out loud?

i think it's my turn then but lmk if im wrong! <3

ana remained very still through the first words.

as if any kind of emotion or movement might scare off whatever dream she was currently grasping for. yet some baseline instinct stirred in her gut. if it was good, he would be here. if he was with her, there would be no need for her to stand here alone before them.

edge of a forest.

a river.

her mother did not need to say it. the guilt suddenly so crushing upon her that it felt as if someone had dropped a rock upon her skull. dizzied and vision tunneling with the adrenaline spike. this was her fault, she thought. if only she had looked a bit more or stayed closer to him.

instead she had hunted with morwenna. she had played with the moonglow girl. she had learned of the sea from lafayette. she had been with everyone besides who she should have.

the look on her face was likely one that had been seen by her mother before.

the look that almost every child prepared to proclaim i don't feel good gave before disgust happened.

she opened her mouth, gulped air. a lump in her throat that felt like it blocked both words and oxygen.

no, she could not blame her mother, she would never. instead she only blamed herself and wondered if they would too.

Cole was a fool. A damned fool as he watched the emotional display unfolding in ways he couldn't control. From the brush, his head would hang low. What good of a man was he when he couldn't save her? Simple— he didn't know her, though what other purpose did he serve? To protect, protect, protect.

And he had done anything but.

With a shallow intake of breath, he revived himself and waited patiently. He was a good man. A good man. Over and over he'd repeat the mantra, somehow thinking that it could make it true.

zephyra was quiet through the words shared. 

she did not speak. she did not move. and for a long moment, she did not breathe. 

her sister surged with a wave of nausea, but zephyra could do little more than stare. she desperately, feverishly tried to grasp what had just been said. of what her mother had just proclaimed. 

her brother, a river. her brother...

gone?

she had not know loss. she knew it now. 

grief displayed itself in varying ways, but to zephyra it came in the form of denial and frustration. she slunk backward, brow furrowed as she looked to her mother with an air of rejection. it was not nephele she sought to shun, but the words that had just been spoken to existence. 

disbelief clung to the girl's heart as she finally released the shaky breath she'd been holding. 

it could not be. he could not be.

what good was a mother if she could not protect her children?

she had failed her son, she would not fail her daughters.

fear raced through her blood. fear of hate, fear of rejection, fear of losing a child in more ways than just death. she tensed under the assumption they would have questions, that they would wish to know the details.

but each girl was silent, and this brought about it's own pool of emotions.

to anatolia she surged forward with gentle touches to try and soothe the girl. to zephyra she saw hesitancy, and her features twinged with sorrow. so young! they should not know grief this young!

she moved to pull her daughters into an embrace should they let her, clutching to them with such ferocity that she might steal away what heartache they felt.

"we will be ok," she spoke this just the three of them. to anatolia. to zephyra. to herself.

they would be ok. she would make it so.

---

she would hold her daughters until they no longer wished her to do so. be it minutes, hours, or days, she would support the weight of them entirely.

and when it came time for them to release from their shared embrace, she would move with gentle strokes to brush away what tears might latch themselves to any of them.

"we are leaving this place. there is only misery for us here." she had decided it, and so it would be.

"we will go somewhere new. where this sadness will not restrain us."

she looked to each of her girls, allowing them room to speak if they decided against her words. if neither contended her decision, she would help them steady themselves before guiding them to cole for the journey to the valley.

cole will fade to the back!

Cole waited in the shadows, his presence a steady, silent anchor amidst the storm of Nephele's fears. He could see the pain etched across her face, the fierce protectiveness she wore as she held her daughters close, as if her embrace alone could shield them from all the sorrows of the world. He watched, a distant yet unwavering figure, as she whispered reassurances, as if willing herself to be enough, to mend what grief had shattered.

gone.

gone. gone. gone?

she wondered if that was the great fate of everything in the end. a father she did not know, gone. a homeland that had not been such, gone. now a brother, gone.

their camp would be gone too.

friendships she made would be gone.

it was a terrible lesson to have to be handed with so young. someday she might look back and say better now than later. someday she might question if she ever needed to learn it.

---

after consoling, after holding, came her mother's voice again. a declaration of leaving behind everything. what if she started to wonder. what if he was not gone, but lost. what if this was the last place he remembered and when he returned, none were here.

what would he think then? that they had not loved him enough?

maybe if she had loved a bit harder, he would not have been gone without a trace in the first place.

i — she croaked and her ears swept. uncertain. scared of change and what it meant.

where?

there'd been some tether of hope that none of her girls would question where they'd be heading, for the truth of the matter was the nephele did not know. she'd placed all her trust on the words of a stranger, of a man she'd just met. her younger self would have looked at her and scorned her for such foolishness.

but what was she to do?

she could not do this by herself. she had not longed for the comfort of her husband since his disappearance, but for the first time nephele found herself wishing arktos had not gone. she'd wished yellowstone had not failed. she'd wished that during her entire time in these wilds that she would have made one confidant that she could have turned to in this time of need, but there was none.

she had her girls. and she had herself.

"i- i don't know." she bled the truth to them as if it were an open wound.

"but i can not stay here. i can not-," the words formed a lump in her throat, and it felt as if she was suffocating beneath the weight of them.

"i can not lose you girls too."