Dragoncrest Cliffs [M] The shadowmaker

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Mention of suicide

For reference, please read this thread because it's so damn pretty and takes place a week before this one.

She stared at the earth, where fresh snow had fallen. Interred there, good reason to plunge a silver dagger into one's own breast; the loss of loved ones felt so deeply that the wound would never heal. Fresh tears followed paths where others had fallen many times before. Only the sands of the shore would know the taste of salt better than the gravesite in Sapphique.

She came to the graveyard tired, but fulfilled. The legacy of Sapphique would live on; she had gone to the wilderness like her mothers had before her, and had found a way to continue her bloodline. She was drawn to the source of an eternal wellspring of grief, and paused to close her eyes and speak with her mothers, communicating in the only way her body would allow; flowery song transmitted only through thought.

She rubbed tears from her cheeks, and it was only when she tilted her head that she noticed the patch of ground nearby where the snow lay uneven and lumpy. Slowly, like a blade being drawn silently from its hilt, she rose and moved to investigate, hovering her parted lips over the earth. She pawed away the bed of snow, to find the earth frozen, but crumbly beneath her paws. Her breath came in huffs as she scented, until it paused with a hitch.

Alongside the valiantly deceased was her brother, Valravn. Interred, she assumed, by the twins.

She considered it to be blasphemy to lay him to rest there, when he had given up his life in such a selfish way. The others had died for Sapphique- they had been selfless, and have given everything they had had for the welfare of the pack. And here, among them, was one who she believed had done the most selfish act that a wolf could do.

She growled- and began to dig.

She had been his shadow, for so long. She had stood by his side and defied Rosalyn and Erzulie both when they had herded the children to the bay, and put them into a competition in which Valravn could not- would not compete.

The earth was cold beneath her paws. Earth and rocks were frozen together in clumps that came away only in little pebbles with each scoop of her claws-

She had welcomed him when he had returned home after being gone. He had welcome her home when she, too, had gone voyaging. They had hunted together, they had nursed their loved ones back to life, carried them home when they'd returned. They had opened their pearls together- gold, and white.

-until she found herself battling against clay frozen so cold that she could do nothing but a hatching of clawmarks on the red earth. She continued to strike-

They had fought the bear.

-but scrape after scrape-

They had buried their mothers.

-dirty black fur, stiff limbs-

They had buried their brother.

-heavy to pull from the earth, heavier still when carried to the cliffs until it was dropped into the ocean-

She had been told that he was not her brother, that he was the descendant of Caiaphas- and she had still looked at him and called him brother.

-and gasp after gasp-

And even when she knew to suspect beyond doubt that he and Mireille had conceived children together, and that they called him Papa, she had not raised any questions or qualms. He had earned his place in their hearts, in their family, in their leadership.

-she began to realize that she had not begun to dig at all.

The ground remained untouched. She gasped, suddenly shocked at how vivid the fantasy had been. A wave of profound guilt consumed her, the way one will feel upon awakening from a dream in which some terrible sin had been committed. She felt relieved to discover that she had not actually committed such an atrocity- and it was that realization that finally broke the levee, and allowed her grief to manifest in a great flood of sorrow, guilt and regret.

Valravn had been true to Sapphique. She would not forgive him yet, but for the sake of all he had contributed to the pack, to Mireille, and to his children, he had earned his place in the graveyard, left to slumber peacefully, far from where the waves would ever reach.