The Sentinels wham bam thank you m'am

Pride killed her in the end.

Behati had been conspicuously absent from pack life since her clash with Aria. Superficial wounds and a bruised ego followed her on a path deep into the woods, where the young girl mulled over her predicament - spending equal time plotting vengeance and making imaginary amends.

The fever took her quickly, and by the time she realized what was going on, it was too late. Infection had gotten in and staked its claim with alarming speed, darkening Behati's blood with poison. One determined bacterium and a whole lot of exceedingly bad luck was all it took.

They would find her on the beach, where she had collapsed in a shivering heap after throwing up the ocean water she had swallowed in sheer desperation. Had Behati ever spared early death a thought, this is not how she would have wanted to be found - damp and tumbled by the waves, stinking of seaweed and early decay. She had gone with her tongue pinched between her teeth and her eyes half open - staring emptily at the rocky base that bore her first and only home.

In her chest, a still heart - dark and heavy with the regrets of a life barely lived.

it was Casmir who found her, torn as he was from the teeth of the coastal wolf. he had lost his left ear in the scuffle, the stub of it bloody and clinging to the side of his head. the boy stumbled through the sands, covered in all manner of bruising and lacerations, in a haze compounded by the muzziness of a beginning fever. his tongue lolled from the side of his mouth; Casmir's eyes were half-lidded against the brightness of the sun upon the snow, and he almost did not see the small body tossed bonelesly into the sands, salt-rimed and contorted in the last throes of life.

it was this sight that at last put the boy over the edge; he had moved slowly and desperately in the direction of home, but here he could go no further, and sank to his belly alongside the girl. "Behati," he croaked from a throat long gone dry with thirst, from between lips chapped by the merciless sun, and not a single tear could eke its way down his salt-charred cheek.

Casmir did not stop to think about the why or how of it -- only that she was dead, and he had hurt her the last time that they had met. it was his fault! "my fault!" he cried out, staring at her brined corpse in shock and horror, the last words he was able to utter before his voice cracked into oblivion.

he lay beside her and did not move.

Spontaneously throws Eigma at this situation, hue hue hue.

She had begun to patrol the beach nearby, hoping to find more trinkets to give as gifts perhaps; but what she found was hardly a gift at all. There was a dark figure upon the sand bar, a blob, and Eigma paused to watch its distant movements the way she might have watched a seal. A sound drifted her way -- sad, piteous, sorrowful, filled with pain -- and she was pulled along to investigate. Coming up behind the dark-furred wolf, she saw a vaguely familiar creature practically embedded in the sand. At first there were no words -- this wasn't her first dead body, but it was the first lost life here in the wilds. Eigma's eyes widened and her jaw went slack. She looked to the shadowed boy and then, slipping back a step, tried to get a clear idea of what was going on.

There was a body. And there was a boy. The boy was wailing about how it was his fault; that was enough for her. The fur of her spine began to spike -- and she raised her head, calling out for aid to @Lasher and @Dante since she had limited relations with anyone else. Whoever this wolf was, Eigma did not know him as anything more than a murderer at this point.

nu Behati is dead now?! and throwing Pearl in here for more feels ;)

 

Pearl wasn't too far off on the borders when she heard Eigma's call for the leaders. She figured she'd better get down there to help just in case it was an immediate thing. She raced down to the beach, prepared to face the pirates - but what she found was much worse. 

She arrived next to the newer girl, shooting her a concerned look before approaching the two bodies that seemed barely recognizable. But when the masked smell did finally reach her nose, her face fell when she quickly realized what had probably happened. She called first back to Eigma, "It wasn't a murder, they're our packmates -," in a short, choked back sob. But she had to remain strong to help Cas with this, so she composed herself and tilted her head back to call for @Blue Willow, a strong, sad sound nearly unrecognizable as her own. It got the message across - Casmir was hurt. 

Pearl turned her attention back to the sad scene that beheld her. "Cas, what happened?" she said worriedly.

Though Dante was mostly recovered from his long bout of illness, Osprey was now sick, and he was certain his own proximity had led to it.  So he divided his time between the usual duties and caring for her, a schedule that kept him hopping but gave him no cause to complain.  

He was tracking when the calls sounded, trying to track a badger that would likely put up a fight but provide some meat all the same.  Yet as soon as the first howl faintly fell on his ears, that was forgotten.  A death?  Dante's stomach dropped, and he immediately sprinted towards the shore.  The second came shortly after - Casmir, injured.  So not dead?  Or were there two?  

Fearful, he found the truth when he arrived.  Behati had died.  He had a hard time processing this, it was so unexpected.  How?  Last he knew she'd been fine.  No one here seemed to know what had happened or how to proceed, and Dante was one of them.  The call had been for he and Lasher - he would wait for the father to arrive.  Instead of speaking, he went to Behati, unable to see anything mortally wrong with his unpracticed eye.  She had no obviously fatal wounds.

aria had returned, intact save for a wound upon her shoulder. lasher had listened to her ghastly tale with growing horror, relieved that she had been able to come back to their fold. these events set him upon edge; he patrolled with a larger sense of fear, trepidation for his children, for his wolves, for the pack led by the sly little wolfess upon the coastline.


the day that eigma's call rose up, filled with horror and unsurety, lasher had been 'round the den of the babes. small though they were, he considered greatly moving its locale deeper into the weald. the two assailants had escaped, and had all but been upon it -- perhaps its current place had been marked for a return. 

yet he paused in shock, his slimmed frame -- his appetite had been nonexistent as of late -- moving of its own accord. taltos lengthened his stride into a flashing run as pearl's cry rose for blue willow.

casmir.

when the man arrived, he cursed himself for not having been the first upon the macabre scene. yet he was grateful to eigma, to pearl, to dante, though he said not a word as he moved swiftly to the side of his comatose son. one ear had been bitten off, the flesh of it in some unknown locale; the lanky body of the yearling had been assaulted. 

tears stung lasher's throat; through a saltwater veil he looked to the body alongside casmir's, and saw it to be behati, who had run off following his latest chastisement. he had been too harsh! and though he saw no wounds upon her body, the place of death and wounding slashed greatly at the thin veneer of control upon which he struggled to maintain a hold. 

there was a scent here, one he recognized only for his mouth had been filled with it! his nares filled with it! the woman who had struck for the babes, she had wounded his son, and perhaps mortally.

hatred filled the druid, twisted his usually gentle features into a horrifying visage of rage and flame. assuming blue willow would be hence, the man nevertheless summoned @Tachyon and @Raven, for eilidh had been exploring, and he did not know if she was near. the burning swampmurk of his gaze travelled to dante. "it was that foul bitch who did this," he seethed in a voice that shook, scarcely able to contain his wrath. 


"i will remain here until raven and blue willow are able to attend. eigma, see that the babes are protected." to aid the quiet girl would go the silent man, who had proven himself a protector of donnelaith during the last attack. turning from them, lasher settled his baleful stare again upon dante and pearl, knowing that the gunmetal man, the pale girl -- they would who know against whom his ire had been kindled. "please take behati's body and bury it within the land. i will not leave her here for the elements. she was one of us."

with his tasks given, lasher took to the work of curling himself 'round his son's body, beginning a slow bathe of the wounds he could see.

was it his weakness that had done this?

Blue Willow heard the call and her heart siezed deep within her chest. She checked over the babes, making sure they were safe, and waited till someone came to watch over them. Leaving them in the soft embrace of a pack mate, she strode towards the macabre scene. Once she got there she stared unseeing for a moment, as she suck in breath after breath, forcing her heart and her tears down. She sniffed at the gentle behati, and bemoaned that she should have allowed the girl to get so sickly. She licked the cold girls face once and then looked to her son.

Fever took her. I wish I had known she was ill. Blue sniffed once a tear sliding down her face, and then gently she began to bathe the wounds of her own flesh and blood. I'll need licorice and lavender and a few other things. Come Cas. I know you do not wish to leave, but we must take care of you, lest you join Behati.

a sheer terror clutched his heart as he heard the summons -- had the derelict wolves returned to savage their camp? he lurched into a dead run, strung out and rapid as he crashed through the tussock brushes and out into the open strand. ahead the wolves milled, and a dread uncertainty sunk in his gut like a stone as he saw the inert body coughed forth by the brine.

he was unsure what to do, but having received the tail end of lasher's instruction, pulled towards the female that had passed. he did not recognize her, but knew her to be donnelaith's kin -- he would await blue willow's determination of her cause of death before he would clasp behati's scruff gently and assist in dragging her to whatever location the healer dictated.

lasher was silent until his mate arrived. there he breathed her name, unfurling himself from around their gently weeping son. tachyon was given a grateful nod -- he stood aside then, to chivvy casmir to his feet with a soft nip or three, understanding now that the wound rent in the boy's soul was greater than that in his flesh. 

behati's grave would be marked and laid with spring flowers. stubborn though she had been, she had not deserved this fate, and his heart filled with sorrow anew.

Cas moaned when his mother spoke, and dug his claws into the earth. yet, at her gentle prodding, he roused himself, stumbling toward her. blood had dried upon his left eyelid, glueing shut the side of his gaze, but he continued to weep all the same. he wanted to shout at Tachyon, to attack the man, to drag him away from Behati, but he grit his teeth and staggered toward the borders alongside his mother.

Dante was shaken, but as was his way, he internalized.  At times like this there was little room for letting emotion get out of hand, and he had a duty to do to those still here.  He nodded at Lasher's command and joined Pearl in the trip to inter the girl.  Tachyon got there first, seemingly having taken the direction upon himself.  Not arguing against this, he simply followed, ensuring they would have him to assist should any trouble arise or difficulty be met.  He knew Tachyon was still not at one hundred percent.

closing this

in time, the boy was taken to the medic's den and behati's crumpled, frozen corpse was summarily buried. lasher oversaw all of it with a heavy heart, aiding where needed, and when the grim task had been finished, the druid marker her grave with a flat stone and moved off into the heart of donnelaith to grieve.