Dragoncrest Cliffs STONE.
Did someone say plants?
526 Posts
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Medic
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All Welcome 
days crept by and portia did not heal. she had hardly begun to accept dalia’s leave when her best friend left. when her best friend left with her daughter. 


another child, gone. 

portia tried so hard to be so strong for her remaining to children. for her husband. she tried so hard.

so hard. 

she was absent, however, from hougeda. portia did not return to the caverns at night, afraid to face her remaining family as the failure she knew she was. she was a horrible mother, a horrible wife, and lately? a horrible medic. 

she wandered the territory all throughout the day and late into the night, unable to sleep and unwilling to eat. she grew delirious— distancing herself even further from her family. it was not fair for them to see her in this state, and portia knew this much.

they surely noticed her absence, but her scent was along the outskirts of the territory. 

until the storm. 

she was on the cliffs, green gaze glassy. she was not the beautiful, graceful woman she had come to drageda as. she was crazed, her fur ruffled and unkempt, but matted to her still. her tail was lifeless, posture weak, frame frail. portia had given up on her own, and if the ocean didn’t take her she would’ve gone anyway. 

the winds were harsh, rain blinding. the cliffs were slippery, and any other day portia would’ve known to avoid them during a storm like this. but she was not in her right mind, and so along them she wandered. only to slip.

and fall.

down. 
down. 
down. 
splash.

— 

portia would resurface long after the storm, her presence completely solidified from the pack. it was likely they thought she left, abandoned them. but she hadn’t, not on purpose. 

her body washed up along the same beach she used to look for shells on with dalia. the same beach she’d take walks with dio on. she returned to the shores that she loved so dearly. 

if only she knew she were back. 

her body was ragged, waterlogged, but the piebald fur was unmistakably hers. the body was unmistakably portia. 

she laid in the sand, body curved into a crescent moon, as the waves lapped against her hind legs and tail.

@Dio @Dacio @Antumbra <3 she had a good run. thank you all for writing w me <3 
green text signifies trigedasleng.
[time & tide]
479 Posts
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Guardian
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#2
Stormy times had preceded the actual clouds, and the Drakru was.. tired in the aftermath of it all. Every unanswered howl for every time he felt like he couldn't get a grasp on things had eaten away at him, one worse than the next. Between duty to guard when shady company manifested right on the doorstep (with their captive to consider), and the old sting of abandonment, nothing felt like it was going his way some days.

The greater picture remained strong, while he found himself weighing twice as much thanks to sorrow, and draining fast. Without Portia, his routine? Upended. Something far too important was missing and in her absence, he was lost.

For Dacio and Opalia, he was stone-faced and determined, however. They, with the pack's routines, helped hold him up when he didn't want to—and for when the days passed with still no sign of her. Scents had gone from scattered, to fading, to absent. The storm had come, then passed. He remained as steadfast as the sunrise to greet each day with the same grit to his teeth, working past it and all the emptiness it left, or so he said to himself.

He couldn't say what precisely compelled him down to the sands. He knew he needed to go check in with the captive, and make sure the Sound side was tended--among all else. But, he trotted over the stretch of beach first, slow and careful.

Soon, Dio could understand why. A sinking feeling in his gut, but an ice cold closure that he hated to meet here today.

His head hung as he reached the waterlogged body, and a nose buried in to her ruff like he had done a thousand times before didn't feel right. It was her, unmistakably, yet she was..   gone.

Whining, he still grabbed her scruff in his teeth and pulled her from the waves' immediate reach. Some distant hope wanted her to still be there.. that he could just dry her off, get her to safety, and all would be well again but the better sense told him how foolish that hope was to have at the hands of the sea's mercy—and for how long had it been? He didn't have it in his heart to call for his son and daughter just yet either. They would know, but did they need to see her? She would have a resting place to honor her proper, but now.. here she was but a husk of what had once been so vibrant and alive. Still her. Still his wife, true, the one he could never doubt that he loved so wholly and well.. despite it all, and beyond what they had been through in the last year that had finally beat them both down so badly that she succumbed when it was too much. To what end exactly, he could only guess expertly with a nose full of seasalt.. but there was so much to blame here, he knew that for sure.

She deserved better than any of this.

The wocha stayed alone with her for some time, listening to the waves, overcome with sorrow, and wishing he could have stopped it from coming this far.

He was going to miss her.
<3 <3 <3