Bramblepoint The Parting Glass

@Sassafras

Through the night, the silvery male dragged the stiffening corpse through the underbrush of the Caldera and further away, safely away from the pack which he felt he would never see again. Often the corpse would snag on a rock or bush, and Shrike's strength would sap as he tugged to get her legs and fur untangled. He was aware that Sassafras had chosen to follow him, but whenever he caught sight of her brlliant orange gaze he would growl to ward her off. For half the night he continued to warn her about her proximity, until he no longer cared to stop and growl when he felt she'd gotten the point. He couldn't stop her from following, but knew she was smart enough not to come into contact with either the body or him. 

As dawn broke, his muscles ached, and the progress he'd made, halted often by hacking coughs, finally came to an end. He'd found just by chance a burrow, probably once used by a wolf or two, but no more than that. He dragged the corpse in, left it shoved against the back and then emerged, blinking his bloodshot eyes into the rising sunlight as he scanned the area for Sassafras. His vision was blurry and only now n daylght did he realize just how much strength he'd lost, and finally, having found what he'd been looking for, he collapsed to the ground. 

"Sass." He choked, hoping she was close enough to hear, as his sense of smell was tainted by the scent of blood dripping from his teeth to the ground, and he'd closed his foggy eyes as he lay his chin near his feet. The sun's warmth began to lift the mist from the plants surrounding the densite, making it an almost beautiful and surreal place for him to do away with the poison that had killed the murderer. He waited patiently, hoping she might have heard his plea.

Sassafras knew how close was too close and she knew the dangers. Touching was too close. Contact with bodily fluids was too close. But time and time again, she got too close for his comfort for no other reason than that she wanted to be close. It was wrenching to distress him over something so selfish, but she was beyond torn. The only exhaustion she felt was emotional as she followed and watched her packmate struggle and suffer to do what had to be done. She knew he could only still be moving forward because of his prevailing sense of responsibility and couldn’t help but intensely admire his strength of character.

The sound of her name cut short in rasping breaths drew her towards him. He was asking for her this time. "Shrike," she answered as she gingerly stepped close enough for him to see her if his vision was beginning to fade. He’d called her "Sass", and so her personality couldn’t resist what was possibly the last of the banter he would ever hear. "You look like shit," she teased weakly with a soft smile and a heavy heart. She didn’t have it in her to keep it up, though, and her tired smile slowly gave way to sobriety she wouldn’t be able to shake again. She mirrored his position by slowly lowering herself and laid to face him with her chin on the ground. She extended one paw to him as if that might somehow bridge the distance between them. "Hey, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere."

His ears perked slightly when she spoke, and he finally opened his eyes, to see the morning light had grown brighter but still in front of him there was a slender shadow with two gems of mahogany gleaming at him. Though he'd originally told her to stay behind, he was comforted by the fact that she'd ignored his wishes and had stayed with him. Now, he felt better knowing she was there because he knew she could help him keep the wolves in the area safe from whatever harm it was either his or Hedda's body could do. She'd done the right thing, and he admired her in that moment for being responsible and caring. 

"Tanks." Came Shrike's dry reply. He didn't quite manage a smile, but her humour was appreciated, even if it was fleeting and somewhat forced. He could hear her slide her body to the ground, and saw a dark shape- what he assumed was a paw- come too close, and he recoiled out of discomfort. He wanted to reach out, and to allow her to draw near, but couldn't let himself fall prey to his sentimentality. "Gotta tell Peregrine. No more danger." He said. "And that I'm sorry. And thankful." He said. There was much more that he wanted to tell Peregrine, of course, but his words were failing and energy fading away slowly.

She flinched when he recoiled, pulling her paw back slightly in spite of what she wanted. No, that wasn’t right. What she wanted was for him to be comfortable. She wanted him to find some kind of peace lying there in a shroud of morning light and mist. She couldn’t imagine that her company would ease him, but she could not have let him make the journey alone even if he had outright refused. If anything, he could make a spontaneous recovery from the toxin, but require someone to take him to the water’s edge so that he wouldn’t live just to die of dehydration. It had been the driving force behind her intentions, but the longer she watched him, the quicker her hopes were sapped away. She simply wasn’t ready to admit it.

She bit the side of her cheek. "You’ll tell him yourself. The worst part is over," she tried to assure him. She could trick herself into believing that the worst part was over as long as she believed that suffering was worse than death. In truth, she had no idea what symptoms might befall him next. He had dragged a corpse from who knew where all the way to the caldera’s borders, and even at that point he had been coughing violently and weakening before their very eyes. After the fact, Sassafras had witnessed firsthand how gravely he struggled to drag the carcass all the way to Bramblepoint. She hadn’t even been able to help him with the burden.

The hope that Sassafras had made Shrike sad. He had no hope for himself- his insides were telling him to curl up in that very burrow and send her away so he could rest peacefully. He felt ill to the point where he felt even passing unconscious would be better than suffering, despite what could happen to him if Sassafras left him there alone. He coughed and writhed slightly, shortly after her comment, and said nothing to contradict her. Instead, he waited a few moments, before he shrank slightly back inside the burrow, just a bit more. The sun still shone on his head and shoulders, but the rest of him was blanketed in shade and he could feel the edge of the murderer's corpse against his tail in the back of the small den. 

"Need a favour." He said. His eyes were foggy and though he could make her out, her slim, dark shape seemed to waver this way and that, leading his gaze astray constantly. He looked as though he was aboard a ship and trying desparately to keep a bead on a fixed point on the horizon while the boat was tossed about on the waves. "Gotta swear it." He said, rough voice as steely as he could make it.

She stifled a quiet whine that sounded like a whistle as much as anything else. She knew she would do anything he asked — had to — but she was afraid of what he wanted to ask of her. She had no right to decide how things would end for him, just as she had no control over anything that happened to him now. Darkly, her mind veered without warning to think of how fortunate it was that his blood and fluids were poisoned and he couldn’t, no, wouldn’t, ask her to end it for him. The very thought made her feel sick.

Her jaw was already clenched hard to fend off the intense emotional reaction that followed his request for her to swear she would follow through. She felt her eyes well up with fresh tears that she dared not shed, blinking them away fervently without fear that he could see her. She knew his vision was blurry and deceptive at best; she could tell by his every swaying movement. She swallowed hard perhaps four or five times before the constriction in her throat relaxed just enough for her to utter two horribly strained words she fought and contorted to sound as normal as possible: "I swear."

There was a slight hesitance that came before Sassafras's reply. It was to be expected- she likely thought the worst, and it wasn't too far from the truth. ventually, she gave her answer, and though he doubted very much that she'd do what he asked simply because he made her swear, he hoped she would come to her senses and do the right thing. He nodded vaguely, and pushed himself up slightly, though his head continued to hang low. Weakened and ready to succumb to darkness, he fought valiantly to remain conscious as slowly and laboriously, he began to push himself backwards into the den, into the darkness where lay the corpse of the wolf who had murdered Redhawk Caldera's Peter. Slowly the shadow crept up his shoulders, the coolness running through his fur like icy fingers as he shrank from the daylight into the space that was no longer simply a den. 

It was to be his own tomb. 

As he moved backward, the shadows crept forward, hesitating just a moment above his eyes which turned upwards toward the sunny heavens just once before another shove with his forelegs propelled his tired body back, and the darkness consumed him. He moved until he could feel himself lying against the dark corpse he'd dragged and stowed away in the den, and though he hated to think he would die alongside a wolf who had murdered a pup from their pack, he kenw at least he would remain as a guard to make sure she never hurt another wolf. 

He allowed himself to sink to the ground, laying his head down on the cool earth and looked once more toward the light, before he breathed three words, and sank into darkness. 

"Seal the den."

Sassafras extended both paws out towards him this time, creeping forward only for the same distance to linger between them as he began to shove his weakened body deeper into the den. He was slipping away, both intentionally and beyond his control. Her dark brow furrowed and she clenched her jaw again as she watched silently. It dawned on her that she knew what he was going to ask before the words even reached her, and when all was said, she watched after him almost blankly — almost unable to process it. He wasn’t even dead yet and he wanted her to encase him in a tomb.

She exhaled a long, slow, and ragged breath once she realized she’d been holding it, then turned her head away from him and fiercely fought the urge to do anything except obey. It was a few moments before her wet eyes sought to find him again, but he already seemed so far from her that the last true image of him that she saw had been captured before she’d turned away. The steely grey of his unkempt coat had disappeared, and now there was only the darkness of his moving shadow.

There was nothing left to say, or perhaps she wasn’t trying hard enough. She could tell him that Peregrine… no. No she couldn’t. What did she know of how Peregrine had felt about him? Over the hours since their departure from the borders, she had managed to assume things in bits and pieces. One was that Shrike had so desperately wanted to deliver Peter’s killer that he had thoughtlessly run the risk of Peregrine losing control and more than two bodies being shoved in that tomb. And how long had he known the carcass was poisonous? Her chest heaved in a sharply drawn breath as she continued to stall for time, knowing the anger that began to burn in her chest was only an expression of the grief she felt. Knowing didn’t help.

She shut her eyes for a moment before she thrust them open and finally allowed her tears to fall freely. Her throat tightened violently and she couldn’t possibly have managed to swallow as she began to move the earth with pitch black paws.

Shrike had passed unconscious the moment after he'd spoken those words, and in doing so, had left the choice to Sassafras, whether she would fulfill the task or not. Had he been a wolf bitten by a zombie, he would have asked her to do the same- make sure that he could do no harm to any other wolves by taking care of him before he even became a threat. Of course, Shrike wasn't bitten by a zombie, or bitten at all; he was poisoned by inadvertantly tasting the blood of another wolf who had been freshly poisoned as well. Naturally, Shrike had absolutely no concept of what happened when poisons, in great or small amounts were consumed. All he could assume was what he gathered from his current state of being, and he felt as though he was dying. 

By the time Sassafras had finally managed to begin pushing dirt toward the den, Shrike had begun to pass from unconsciousness and into a warped sort of dream. Not that he could fully grasp what was going on in his mind or in his body, but his breaths had gone from ragged to steady, albeit faint, and surely inaudible over the slow, dogged drag of earth. He couldn't have been summoned form his slumber at that point had anyone even tried- his body was doing its best to fight off the poison and recover, though it was an uphill battle. 

He wouldn't know how long it took, eventually, but by the time the air began to grow close, the sun had risen, the birds had gone from chirping to singing, and the flowers had turned their bright faces to the sky to absorb the warmth. Shrike was still far from waking, but his throat tickled. He continued to breathe, but the raspiness began to itch his throat, and finally, he coughed four times, licked his lips, and continued to slumber, unaware of the fact that his own tomb had been closing in on him.

She dug and she pushed and she dragged the earth to seal the tomb as he had asked her, but she took all the time she felt she needed to do it. That meant that she would stop and stare mournfully at her surroundings, or pace and clench her jaw whenever she felt as though she was about to unravel at the seams. It was slow going at best, and just as she was about to hold true to the promise she’d made, she stopped before it was complete. With a heartfelt whine, she laid down directly in front of where the entrance had been and buried her nose between her slender forepaws. The sun beamed down on her and her dark as pitch fur shone burnished blue by its rays. She couldn’t have known how long she stayed there, sick with grief.

She eventually drifted off and dreamed fitfully and vividly, first that she knew he was dead but that she was somehow able to speak with him anyway. Next, she was convinced that he was alive in her beautiful dream world as they patrolled the borders of their home together, passing digs at each other relentlessly. She woke with a start from this dream feeling that he must be alive, forgetting all about the tomb and the murderer and Peregrine’s wrath. When she realized her mistake, that all of it had been real and it had been her dream that was false, she broke down and sobbed fiercely, overwhelmed by emotional whiplash. Minutes later, she curled up in a tight little ball and buried her nose again, wracked by sadness and too exhausted to go anywhere even if she had wanted to. Nothing was stopping her now, but she stayed.

She woke once more just before slipping into a deeper sleep, disoriented and blinking heavy eyelids, but this time seeing the world around her for what it was. She had heard something, though — coughing. She felt downright cheated by her own mind, and yet… this was fucking stupid. He hadn’t even been dead yet when she’d fulfilled his last wish, so with a careful sort of fury, she undid what she had done, trying her best to remove as much of the loose earth as she could without shoving it in on top of him. She had to verify. Even if she did it only for him to spew a dying sneeze straight in her eyeball, she still had to know. What would it matter if he opened his eyes for one last instant only to see that she hadn’t done what he’d asked?

Shrike's slumber had been more or less dreamless. There in the den he snoozed, body slowly capming from its shudders and gasps, and he would cough once or twice again as his ailing body demanded more oxygen. It was the need- the need for life, air, breath- that rescued him from his otherwise fateful slumber, and when he groggily lifted his heavy eyelids, and with his jaws agape, did his best to call out but could barely manage a wheeze.

It was then that he perked his ears, only to hear a frantic scrabbling at the den's blocked entrance. He winced when the light split through the cracks and though a shadow still moved beyond that light, digging the dirt away, he had to close his eyes. He lifted his muzzle in an almost noble way to breathe in the fresh air, and lifted himself into a proper laying position as Sassafras tore down the barrier. Once he could pry his gaze open and make out her shape, he cleared his throat. 

"Suck. At promises." he wheezed, before he pushed himself into a seated position and opened his eyes a bit further. Incredibly, he was absolutely sure this was a recovery; there was no doubt about it. "How many lives dogs supposed to get anyway?"

As she dug and pulled the earth away, adrenaline caused her to tremble. Seeing what she thought was movement, she finally cleared the way to witness Shrike lifting his muzzle to breathe oxygen he desperately needed. She was panting as she stood there before him, turning her face away from him in case a trace of salty tears had been left to shine on her dark face. She pawed at her face briefly, feigning dirt in her eye, then looked back at the very much alive Gamma with an unapologetic huff.

She half-stifled a laugh when he belittled her promise-keeping resolve, then grinned at him and refrained from childishly pointing out that he hadn’t actually specified how long she should seal the den for. She also refrained from mentioning that he still looked like shit, or that she was indescribably happy to see that he was alive. When he proceeded to joke about how many lives he was supposed to get, she laughed again.

"Two, obviously," she quickly quipped as if it was something he should have known. Wagging her tail, she made a motion with her muzzle for him to climb out of the tomb so they could seal it once again, but behind him this time.

"If you’re through with the dramatics and brushes with death, let’s bury this corpse and go home," she offered. She was still exhausted, but she was sure he would agree they should finish their task quickly. They would take it as slow as he needed to, but they needed to go back and face Peregrine.

Gonna tidy this up in this post since it's a wee bit old. New thread soooooooon!! <3

Shrike huffed quietly, unimpressed that dogs were only supposed to get two lives. "Screw cats." He chuffed, having heard by some lore that cats got seven lives. Ah well. Cats were dumb anyway. Sassafras made a good point, and with one backward glance at the corpse, he grimaced and pushed himself to his feet. He wobbled feebly out of the den, and lay down, not quite sure if he was ready just yet to begin burying the body, given that he was strapped of almost all of his energy. 

Once he'd recharged a bit, he felt strong enough to help Sassafras bury the body, giving it a more dignified end than it deserved. Once the two were done with that, with Sassafras doing the majority of the work and Shrike making the odd grumble here and there, they made their way back toward the Caldera, slowly but surely after Shrike had miraculously recovered from his near-death experience.