Chimera Fields gold heart; silver tears

For @Cypress and @Shrike

She couldn’t remain idle for much longer. The pack remained at a standstill – each member drifting just outside of the borders, hoping to catch sight of its missing youth, and each time they came up empty handed. Scimitar had been gone for too long – and now Eshe too had gone to search for him, or so @Cypress informed her.

So she sought to distract the boy – and in turn, scout some of the nearby territories to see if they could find anyone who knew something – come upon a scent that would indicate anything of importance to them. She had invited @Shrike with them – soothed by his presence, for now more than ever she needed strength.

Chimera Fields was not a place she visited often, but it was just on the outskirts of the pack. Silvertip Mountain loomed to their right, and it seemed the wolves that they had been told to steer clear of had dispersed.. to where, she did not know. Perhaps, it was worthwhile searching it?

Her eyes looked to Shrike then, casting him a forced smile – the stress within her heart showing purely upon her slender features as Cypress ran ahead of them. He was desperate to put himself to good use as well – the days waiting for word had become long in Neverwinter Forest.

The past year had been a tough one on all of the wolves Shrike had come in contact with. Either through death or the disappearance of a loved one, and though he had succeeded to track down one killer, and had come close to finding Lucy, those were his only successes, and yet again he'd lost track of the Caldera's little one. Now the search was expanded once more, to include Scimitar who had been missing for too long. Shrike had been searching for months for Lucy, but he had always come back to the pack after a couple of days at most; Scimitar hadn't been seen or scented for too long now, and the worry had begun to weigh heavily on Allure. 

He was glad that he could be there for her when she needed him, and he doted on her as much as he could. He could tell that her spirits had begun to flag, and he had a feeling that she dreaded the worst. Having just left a pack that had lost its alpha, he prayed that the same thing did not happen again. Had Shrike been superstitious, he might have thought that he was cursed, but the truth was far from that. He still had Allure in his life, as woebegone as she was. And when she mustered her strength to smile at him faintly, he was not disappointed in the fact that he knew it was forced. She was trying, and he knew that it was perfectly normal and acceptable to be depressed and weak in a time like this. He nuzzled her cheek gently as they walked, before he scanned the area ahead to catch sight of Cypress. 

He liked the young lad; this was Allure's little brother, after all. He was keen, and naturally, since Allure was fond of him, Shrike was too. He gave the boy space, and made sure not to crowd Allure so that Cypress did not feel out of place or smothered by Shrike who was still a newcomer.

Left to his own devices, the young wolf tried to make good use of his time — he patrolled the borders relentlessly, noting the arrival of three new scents with a mixture of pride, excitement, and trepidation. Quite by accident, he had caught his first warm-blooded kill, and to celebrate Eshe’s inevitably triumphant return with Scimitar at her side, Cypress had arranged a pile of autumn leaves near the family den — selecting only the most perfectly formed, brightly colored ones — and laid the small carcass upon it with meticulous care. Worry for Rannoch and Scimitar had made of his bright, strong mother a thinly-stretched, worried creature and Cypress doted upon her as much as she doted upon him. In truth, Eshe was the reason he had mostly ceased his obsessive searching for Lucy — she worried so when he left the territory! — but he firmly believed that her going out to search was the game changer. If anybody could find Scimitar, Rannoch, and Lucy, Eshe could. She still possessed the remarkable ability to right everything in the fledgling’s world, and he greeted the arrival of Allure and Shrike with hope instead of despair.

The Frostfur boy’s assessment of Shrike was still developing; he understood that the grayscale wolf with striking ink-lined eyes was important to Allure, and that was enough to earn Cypress’ respect. That being said, the Neverwinter prince had not gone out of his way to establish a closer relationship with the former Caldera wolf, mainly on the grounds that all of his time nowadays was spent with his mother. He had grown selfish of her company, choosing not to venture far from her side — aside from Allure, she was the sole member of his immediate family who had not left him behind. Left unattended, he fretted — so when Allure suggested that they search the neighboring territories, Cypress jumped at the chance, insisting on carrying his kill with him lest one of his cousins attempt to steal it in his absence. With the cooling carcass clasped possessively between his jaws, he ran ahead — and when he caught his mother’s scent trail, he erupted into a boisterous howl of triumph and put on more speed. “Mama! Paw!” he cried, his voice breaking in his adolescence, the consonants muffled slightly by the prize he bore.

Cresting a rise as a brisk autumn breeze danced westward, Cypress was assaulted by a thick miasma of scent that was an acrid, fetid mixture of decaying meat, urine, bile, feces, and blood. The metallic, cloying aroma caused his lantern-yellow eyes to swim with tears as his muzzle pooled with saliva — sick, the thought sputtered feebly across his sentience, I’m sick. He swayed upon his feet, desperately searching for the scent of his mother, which had been drowned out beneath the unfamiliar stench of two things he had never smelled before: bears and death. When his vision cleared, he made out two familiar shapes — and his paws were moving before he fully recognized what he was moving toward. “Mama! Paw!” he cried as he ran, the joy gone from him. He was badly frightened now and a sense of urgency he didn’t fully understand had swallowed him up completely; his skin prickled, every hair on his body standing at attention. His tail spiked out in a bottlebrush fashion as the wild hair along his nape and shoulders stood out like an array of quills; he licked his lips nervously as his eyes, jack-o’-lantern wide, settled on the fallen lovers. He panted, body trembling, as he nudged his mother’s shoulder. “Mama,” he said, watching in horror as fresh blood spilled from her nose, mouth, and even her ears.

His breathing was reduced to shreds as he regarded his paws, chilled and sticky with congealed blood, and he looked wildly about — perhaps Allure and Shrike had already drawn near, and perhaps they were saying things, but the world around him was blurred as if by some immortal stain. Had Eshe always been so small — so fragile? Even the form of Scimitar did not seem as heavily-muscled or proud as he had been in life, and it was to his father that Cypress went now on legs that buckled — he crashed to the earth beside his father, heedless of the blood that seemed to have swallowed up the field entirely, and nudged at the patriarch’s neck with an insistence he never would have dared invoke before. “P-P-Paw,” he squeaked out, heedless of the way his sides fluttered and his body shook, jarring the loving term of endearment from him in a series of skipping stutters. When he found his father’s body to be as cold and unyielding as the prey animal he’d clasped in his jaws only moments ago, Cypress skittered backwards, his jaw cracking open in terrified dismay — but he was immediately at his father’s side again, knowing that Scimitar alone could wake up Eshe, just as Eshe alone had been able to find Scimitar. Again and again he butted against his father’s prone form with his muzzle and crown.

“Paw, Mama — Mama’s hurt, you — you have to fix it,” he begged. “Fix it! Paw!” His pleas became commands, and the commands became epithets of their own making as his words ran together in one horrified scream that died into a whisper: “you’re not sleeping! You’re NOT sleeping, now get up, get up your eyes are open you’re not sleeping YOU’RE NOT SLEEPING YOUR EYES ARE OPEN PAW FIX IT FIX IT NOW!”

Her eyes had been sweeping over the boy that romped before them as the offensive stench hit her nostrils. Her mind was attempting to grasp how big Cypress had gotten now, and that Rannoch himself, when and if they ever found him now, would be so changed to them. But when the wind mingled the scent of disaster before her, the bi-toned girl slowed her pace, feeling the skin along her nape prickle as the fur stood up, her eyes narrowing as they shot to Shrike with alarmed question.

An abandoned meal, was what her mind tried to coax her to believe as they continued, even when Cypress’ words filled with dread in the cold air. Ma, pa?

Her ears instantly flickered forward, and desperately, Allure scrambled for purchase upon the ground, hoping to catch up to her youthful brother and determine why in the world he was screaming for them – why was his voice laced with such fear?

She saw them, but she did not recognize the scenario before her at first. Something didn’t seem right, seeing her father upon the ground in a haphazard puddle of blood. Scimitar had always defeated what had come his way before – and only then did she realize that Eshe was not far from him – her own form crumpled.. far more delicate in death than the gentle beauty had been even in life.

Her jaws opened to speak, but they snapped shut as nothing but air wheezed from her passage. She rocked herself gently for a moment, her eyes glazing with confusion and panic as Cypress began to butt his head against the body.

The body. Scimitar had become nothing more than a fallen body.

And before the young girl could comprehend this, before she could grab on to Cypress and hold him, protect him from what they all witnessed now, her world went dark, and she instead fainted, her slender form crumpling to the ground.

It was quite nice to be out and about, searching with Allure again, but with Cypress as well. It was a bit of a treat, getting to spend time with not only Allure but her brother as well, as he had always hoped to get closer to her family members and find himself in their favour. The silver-dusted youngster loped ahead of them and breached a hill in the distance, stopping there for a moment. He didn't take much notice at first, as he'd turned his head sideways to cast a warm smile at Allure, but as soon as sideways movement caught his peripheral vision, his eyes snapped back to the boy who had swayed on his feet in a delirious manner. It was then that the scents hit him, and he could feel Allure bristle at the scents at the same moment. Cypress disappeared over the rise, and his hackles raised. 

"Allure-" He began, as she bolted forward- he'd recognized the scent of bear immediately and the last thing he wanted was for more blood to be added to the sickening array of scents upon the air. He lunged forward, spurred on by the desparate cries, the unholy and hair-raising pleas that came from Cypress- and his heart dropped. He nearly stumbled as he crested the rise, but forced himself forward, frantically galloping on legs that felt like feeble prosthetics carved from ice. His cold, silver eyes roved from the bloody and still form of Scimitar to the form of a female, similarly broken and left motionless, and to Cypress, still wailing and begging. 

Allure too wobbled on her feet, and, wordless, she fell suddenly, too quickly for Shrike to move in and soften her fall. He crouched beside her and whined gently, for a moment blocking out the high voiced pleas and demands coming from the shocked youth, sniffing her face and neck, to see she was still warm and breathing, but unconscious. Allure had fainted, and all he wanted to do was curl himself up around her to keep her warm and be there when she awoke. But the boy's caterwauling tore him from that moment. Allure was unconscious- and it was likely for the best. The boy's cries made Shrike's ears ring and made his nerves feel as though they were being rubbed with sandpaper. Astutely, he kissed Allure's cheek, and with a deep sigh, he moved toward Cypress.

The boy was frantic- there was no telling what he'd do when approached by Shrike who was little more than an acquaintance, so he moved to the boy's side but did not physically intervene. "Cypress." He said calmly, surprising himself with his own amount of self-control. "Cypress...They're gone."

The boy’s frantic pleas, ripped from him in ragged fragments, ceased entirely as shock began to push its icy tendrils deeper and deeper into his unconsenting flesh. At the sound of his name being spoken by a voice that was distinctly not Scimitar’s or Eshe’s, he flinched violently and whipped around, lantern yellow eyes wild and unfocused, their pupils alarmingly dilated. There was an odd element of guilt in the way his muzzle ducked down and away from Shrike, his shoulders hunching as his hindquarters skittered into a crouch. Panic and fear forcibly wrenched back his lips, revealing a shark-like smile — at five months old, his deciduous canines had yet to be ousted by their blunt adult successors — and he growled, froth and spittle collecting in the divot beneath his nervously flickering tongue and seething from betwixt his incisors. “No!” he gritted out in a hollow gasp, a gastric rumbling punctuating the single terse syllable. Skittering away from Shrike and Scimitar, the boy outstretched his neck and squeezed his eyes shut, sides rippling in a virulent wave as he expelled the contents of his stomach — once — twice — thrice.

When the storm had passed, the orphaned prince approached his father once more, clasping the cold, rigid scruff between his teeth. He yanked for all he was worth, but there was no palpable give to the Frostfur patriarch. It was like tugging at a prey animal’s carcass, and Cypress’ lungs emptied themselves on an endless litany of wordless whimpers as acceptance began to set in. “Paw,” he croaked, his throat ragged from shouting and burning with acid. A billion questions and protests whirred through his mind — “I thought only bad wolves died. Who’s going to train me? Who’s going to find Rannoch and Lucy? Who’s going to protect Mama?” — and when Cypress remembered Eshe, a terrible wave of remorse swam through him. With a last desperate, wide-eyed look at his father, he crept to his mother’s flank, heedless of how visibly mangled her flesh was; closing his eyes, he saw her as he had always seen her, a sylph of dandelion fluff and cottongrass with eyes brighter than the sun. He nestled beside her, butting the crown of his head against her rigid muzzle, and offered one last fervent prayer: “Mama, please get up.”

She came to – but the surreal situation continued to unfold before her, as if she was watching a movie, rather than partaking in the traumatic event that had now just struck the Frostfur’s once more. Their devastation continued to reign freely – from the fire on Nova Peak, to the bears that had taken Swift’s eyesight.. to the death of Whittier, and now to the bears that had taken her father’s life.

She roused, her ears cupping forward as she stared at the scenario before her again  -- to the wretching of her little brother, and to Shrike’s gentleness as he tried to coerce the boy away from them. But the scent of bear still lingered, and fear suddenly struck her and she woozily rose to her paws, ungracefully stumbling forward as Cypress now made to tuck himself in to the battered body of his mother. Allure’s bright eyes cast down upon the fallen woman – a woman she had never truly given a chance in friendship, for she had remained bitter instead that Scimitar had torn their family apart.

Now she felt nothing but guilt and regret. Her muzzle swept down, hoping to graze over Cypress’ head, before she held back a sob. “Cypress – hon. We can’t stay. The bears might come back.”

The boy's sudden movement didn't startle Shrike, who felt as cold and motionless as the bodies before them. His silver gaze remained calm and lackluster as he watched the boy, and did not intend to intervene again until he calmed considerably. He didn't want to anger him, or have to force the boy to the ground. Shrike saw the boy's pain and knew it would eventually pass from anger to grief, though it might take some time- Cypress, afterall, was still in blatant denial and Shrike felt for him. He knew what it was like to have something so cruelly unfathomable happen so suddenly.

Allure rose and moved forward after Cypress had vomited and had tried again to move Scimitar to wake him up. Shrike did not intervene, knowing that if he did so, Cypress might lash out at him. He'd take whatever lashing the boy had in him, but if it could be avoided, it would be best. Allure's soft voice spoke in reason and he nodded, casting his sympathetic gaze to the woman whose beauty still remained, even in her grief, though the shimmer in her eyes was replaced by dullness and made glossy by grief and tears he knew would come.

"We can come back when it's safe." Shrike offered, as a compromise, and stepped forward to Allure's side, muzzle at her shoulder for support.

The tender brush of Allure’s muzzle against the velveteen of Cypress’ crown produced an automatic flicker of his raven-feathered tail, but it stilled almost immediately when his eyes blinked open to the destruction that threatened to drown him. What did it matter if the bears returned? The boy’s mind flipped wildly through memories and conversations as he sought blindly for a way to cope, but his youthful face was a blood-spattered, shell-shocked mask, devoid of expression. “I need both my boys to protect me.” Eshe’s voice, smooth as honey and twice as sweet, replayed itself in fits and starts. “Your fairy godmother, Deirdre, ensured that I would have the perfect little team. She did something and the pain was gone! It was magic, it was — she is one of the most powerful wolves in the valley.” Shrike was next to speak, and although it was hard to hear him over Eshe’s voice, Cypress did his level best — too-tall ears swiveled toward the grayscale wolf and cupped attentively.

After a prolonged silence, “Deirdre,” mumbled the boy quietly, latching on to his last hope, laying every card on the table in hopes that the river might save him. “She fixed me and Rannoch. She can fix Mama and Paw.” He turned from Shrike to Allure with a burning intensity kindling in his lantern yellow eyes. “Mama said she’s one of the most powerful wolves in the valley — she can fix them with her magic.”

Even as the hopeful words fell dully from his lips, resignation began to steal over the sulphureous-eyed raven, turning his limbs to stone and his pelt to dust. “I’m lying,” he realized in a hollow whisper, turning to Allure and fixing her with an intense stare. He searched her expression, reading the stricken lines of her beautiful face, flipping hastily to the end of the chapter to see whether the white witch of the wood would come. “Nobody can put — ” The thickness in his throat stopped the words cold as a sharp intake of breath jerked his entire body. “Nobody can put them back together.” His gaze slid to Shrike for confirmation, resting on the striking wolf’s empathetic expression briefly before returning to Eshe’s bloodied visage. “You can go home if you want,” he murmured, uncharacteristically obstinate. “I don’t care if the bears come back.”

Cypress spoke a name – one she did not recognize, for she had never heard the story. Still, what he wished was impossible, and her eyes blurred as tears threatened them once more before she swallowed thickly, casting a look to Shrike and wondering what his own thoughts were. Before she could interject – before she had to reign her brother down to the limited realm of of real life, he came to logic once more, and her muzzle would only further preen at him. “I’m sorry, Cypress.. I’m so sorry.”

The words were not enough – nothing could ever be enough to explain this. Her eyes would drift to her father’s fallen figure – and she felt the weight of guilt weigh down upon her now. She had never truly forgiven him for leaving Bazi and his litter with her behind – from fleeing responsibility. But had her mother made it possible for him to stay? Not likely, knowing the headstrong arctic woman.

“Cypress.. we all need to go back. Please. I can’t have anything happen to you, okay? You’re all I have left.” He was her last blood relative in the valley – and one who’s charge had suddenly fallen to her.

Shrike remained silent for some time, allowing Cypress and Allure to speak, though Cypress seemed to be under the same illusion he'd been under before, believing that his parents would wake up- until he finally caved, and accepted the fact that they were gone. It was a distinct change in the boy, to go from being so emotional to losing almost everything personable about him. He lost that spark he'd had, and seemed to become resigned to a fate of sorrow. When the boy's gaze trailed to him, Shrike sighed softly, closed his eyes and nodded. No one could bring Scimitar or Eshe back. No amount of care or magic could do it; they were gone. He hated having to admit that there was nothing they could possibly do, but he could not lie to the boy who had just found his parents torn and beaten, lying in the haze of their own spilled blood. 

Allure began to plead with Cypress, who seemed content to stay in the area even if the bears came back- it sounded suicidal, but Allure began to express to her brother how much he meant to her. He was all she had left...Shrike's heart sank, slightly, even though he knew she was referring to him as family, not simply as the only wolf left that she cared about. Still, he couldn't help but feel as though he didn't quite mean as much to her as he wanted to. But now was not the time for him to mope about something as trivial as that- Allure and Cypress were deeply wounded, and he would have to get them to safety. 

Though the boy didn't care if the bears returned, Shrike had something different to say about that. "We care." Shrike said softly, moving to the boy's side, preparing to guide them out of the area, ready to herd Cypress should he need to. There was no way that he or Allure would leave the youth behind, but he would not make any move- he simply allowed his presence at the boy's shoulder to hopefully nudge him into movement. "And your parents would too. They wouldn't want you to stay here." He said softly. It was hard, speaking for the deceased, but he knew his own words were true.

I’m sorry for the brattiness and the length. ;-; Cypress and I got carried away.

There was a part of Cypress that wanted to lash out at Allure and Shrike — a feral, wild desire to bully them away from Scimitar and Eshe — to fight — because what they were suggesting sounded a whole lot like flight. It was Allure’s pleading that ultimately kept him from reacting with physical violence; still, he bristled, each silver-tipped hair standing on end as he huddled still closer to his mother — his mother, not Allure’s or Shrike’s. The glint of his shell-shocked gaze turned briefly baleful, glittering with sulphureous demonfire as he regarded his elders with defiance — but it guttered out at the confirmation he read in their turquoise and silver eyes. There was nothing to be done now. “Why do you care?” he asked Shrike bitterly, his lips twisting into something ugly — a petulant grimace that smacked of disrespect. “They’re not yours and neither am I.”

The raven’s eyes went wide, wild, as he hung his head in shame and tucked his tail. “I’m — I’m sorry, Shrike,” he whispered quietly. “I’m sorry.” Licking his lips nervously, he glanced from silver to turquoise. “I’m sorry, Allure. I was — I — I didn’t mean — I don’t know why — ” He wanted to thank Shrike for his kind words, but the words felt thick and heavy on his tongue. Cypress was usually a well behaved, welcoming wolf, but the desperately angry words that had edged their way from between his gritted teeth were laced in stinging venom. After a beat, “Thank you for caring,” he said softly, woodenly. Although there was some truth in what Cypress had said, he didn’t understand why it suddenly seemed to matter that Shrike had no blood claim over him. It wouldn’t have mattered to Eshe, who had loved and pined for Lucy as her own daughter.

It felt like the worst kind of abandonment to rise shakily to his paws and step away from his mother. Cypress had never faced death before, so the concept of burying his parents was something that didn’t occur to him. All he knew was that it felt wrong to leave them lying here. “Do bears eat — ” He clamped his mouth shut before the question could emerge in full, not sure he wanted to know the truth. The thought of Scimitar and Eshe being consumed by the beast who had killed them was disturbing on a level that the young wolf was literally incapable of processing.

Forcing himself to meet his mother’s dead, staring gaze, “Mama,” Cypress said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Deirdre in time, and I’m sorry I didn’t find Lucy or Rannoch — I tried, but — ” He swallowed hard. “And I didn’t mean what I said to Shrike,” he whispered, his voice pleading, and he turned to repeat this directly to the Neverwinter wolf: “I didn’t mean it, Shrike.” The bloodied, gore-spattered raven felt a growing heaviness drape itself over him, a fog that made him feel dizzy and sick, and he touched his nose to his mother’s nose. The blood that had seeped from it had congealed and stained her pristine muzzle with blackish mire. “They say I have to go,” he whispered to her, his breath rattling hoarsely in his throat, “but don’t worry. Even if you never — wake up anymore, I’ll be good. I won’t make trouble. I’ll be good.”

Though his throat felt like it was closing up, Cypress made his way to where Scimitar had fallen, rattling off the same apologies he’d offered Eshe. “Paw,” he croaked hoarsely, “I’ll try to remember everything you said — and I’ll try to still make you proud. You…you don’t have to worry about Allure, because Shrike and me’ll protect her.” The gangly soldier briefly buried his face against Scimitar’s shoulder, but he was dry-eyed as he quietly intoned, “Paw, please — ” He knew the time for pleading was long overdue, but his heart was filled with questions — and Scimitar had increasingly been the one to whom he’d turned for answers. “I know,” he mumbled finally, not really talking to anyone in particular.

“I love you,” he said, his voice small and frail.

In his haste to appease Shrike and Allure, at whom he’d unfairly flung his rudeness and defiance, Cypress turned away from his parents, his paws pointing back the way they’d come. He stumbled, catching himself, and merely waited to be told where to go and what to do. Though part of him wondered whether home would ever truly feel like home again, he essentially shut down in that moment.

Cypress struck out at them -- particularly Shrike, and the girl flinched, her own shoulder drifting to brush against her companion's in silent apology. But she knew this was not the words of her little brother, and as his bright eyes widened in shock and upset, she quaked, longing for nothing more than to sweep forward and press him in to her side.. to make it all go away.

He said his goodbyes. It seemed so surreal, and Allure looked numbly between her fallen father and the woman he had taken as his own. She never had imagined a day like this, and when Cypress finally turned to go with them, she herself clung on to the hope that perhaps death did not settle upon them now -- that they would stir, and all they needed was a healer and their home.

But the blank stare was embedded in her mind forever, and with a sob, Allure turned away from her father, stumbling in her steps back to the forest.. the journey would be nothing but a blur, and she could not suppress the tears as they streamed down her face.

Shrike didn't answer the boy; not because he didn't have the words to satisfy the boy's demand, but because he knew, as he watched with a solemn gaze, that those words weren't meant at all. He seemes to surprise himself with his words, and Shrike's quiet gaze softened, and he closed his eyes when the boy apologized, giving the boy a nod to show that no harm had been done. He understood the boy's frustration- he knew what loss felt like, and how unfair it could be. Cypress and Allure were both lost in the labyrinth of grief, not knowing which way to turn- to sadness, or anger, or confusion. All paths led in the direction of some horrible emotion, which would send them searching for another path. Only time would light the way to happiness again. 

Allure's touch to his shoulder did not go unnoticed, and while Cypress said goodbye to Scimitar and Eshe, he leaned over to place his chin atop her forehead, lingering there for a moment without saying a word. There wasn't anything he could say to make her feel better at the moment- and he doubted he'd ever have the appropriate words to say. He hoped his presence would be enough, at least for the time being. 

Once Cypress had said his goodbyes, and turned to leave, Allure did so as well, with the silent guardian at their heels, to shepherd them back to the pack, maintaining his place as a protective gesture, lest the bears return. He would follow them in silence, noting each stumble, and the hitch of every breath, his own heart leaden with sorrow.