Dragoncrest Cliffs i pull god's roots out

Knowing that it was going to happen doesn’t make it any easier. Even the one more night was met with false hope that it’s going to be any different. He can’t even express his anger and he’s certain she knows the burden on his shoulder. Robin turns his head back, her dark silhouette in the distance, but he does not linger. It isn’t something he can stomach. He makes his way to Hougeda without looking back, knowing she won’t be there if he does.

He does not want to draw any unwanted attention upon himself until he’s told he’s meant to tell first so he does not call for his brother and sister. He hasn’t spent a lot of time with them since their return and he wishes he had, because maybe that would make this easier. As much as he wants to feel their little circle is complete, he knows there is a huge barrier between them and this isn’t going to help. All he can do now is pull the band-aide off and figure out what to do from here.

Robin drops down into the cavern, searching for @Artaax and @Blixen, hopeful he can go ahead and get this over with.

Artaax licked his lips was a pleased growl, having just stripped the last bit of meat from the leg bone he'd been gnawing on. He tossed it aside carelessly, figuring some kid around here or another would find it and use it as a chew toy. The fact that his younger brothers were nearly yearlings now was not one he was aware of. He assumed they were still about a foot tall and wandering around there somewhere, at least he did when he offered his thoughts to them at all. Which wasn't often.

He had just dropped his head to his paws for a nap when the flicker of a shadow across the light of the cave mouth drew his attention. Artaax peered ahead to spy Bobby entering hougeda. This did little to rouse his interest. The brothers had been thick as thieves when they were kids, but then Bobby had left, and Artaax had written him off. It hadn't been Bobby's decision to go, of course. He'd been commanded, and Artaax was well aware of the fact that there was no refusing an order. He went ahead and held it against Bobby anyway, and so he rolled to his side, curling away from his brother and shutting his eyes, unconcerned.

bobby and blix had never been particularly close as children -- she'd been impatient with his seemingly lazy attitude (or at least his refusal to try) more than anything. his depature had no lingering impact on her beyond the vague sort of jealousy that she couldn't accompany nomi, too -- but, well, she had been doing something more important, hadn't she? 

in any case, his sudden summon for her and her brother's attention does not perturb her. if she'd known what news he's here to deliver it would be a different story. 

blixen comes up in time to watch artaax turn away and rolls her eyes (really, you wouldn't think he's a fully grown adult and capable warrior sometimes). she doesn't comment, only takes a seat beside him with a slightly pointed shove and says to bobby, "what is it?"

It’s a weird mix of relief and anxiety awash together, swimming in his stomach, when he finds them both. Artaax doesn’t give him the light of day and he steels his gaze, turning to find Blixen. He wonders if they know he had no choice but to go to Trigeda when all he wanted was to stay here with his family. The closeness he once held with Artaax will never be the same and, after what he’s about to tell them, he’s not sure if they’ll even call him their brother anymore.

He turns slowly to Blixen and regards her, sadness in his gaze as he looks at her. She looks so much like Wildfire, from what he can remember, and he’s forced to look away at something empty and vacant.

The camera swings to Artaax.

He wants to lift his nose and hold his ground. He’s the strong sentinel, a warrior returned from Trigeda, and he doesn’t need things like family, but that’s always a lie, isn’t it? Artaax isn’t always the stoic jerk and Blixen doesn’t have it together like she acts like she does, like a leader is supposed to. They’re just as old as he is and there’s no way they don’t feel it too. Robin swallows the lump in his throat, trying to hide his trembling.

“Heda is dead.”

Artaax grumbled in annoyance as Blixen came to his side and gave him a rough jab. He lifted his head to frown at her wordlessly and would've dropped it again had she not addressed their brother, who had come to join them. His face shifted to the stoic mask he usually wore as she rolled and pressed himself up into a seated position at Blixen's side, silently wondering what this was going to be about. If Bobby was about to start discussing the distance in their relationship, Artaax was so gone.

Being the creature he was, Artaax did not notice the subtle signs his brother showed that would otherwise have warned him something terrible was coming. He thought Bobby was just being weird, and the feisripa's patience began to wane at a drastic rate. When finally the words came, Artaax merely stared at him - his empty expression unchanged. The sentence made no sense to him, either due to the utter absurdity of the notion, or the last vestige of self-preservation the boy had left in him after being worn so thin by the loss of his sisters and mother not long ago.

Heda could not be dead.

She couldn't.

He stared at his brother in silence more deafening than any he'd ever known before.

bobby begins to speak. the words haven't even processed when blixen's stomach hollows, almost as if she knows what he is about to say before he's said it (how could she, how could anyone?).

h̨̝̳̞̞̤̜͔̘̓͑̓͑͐̅͢͡ě̷͇̯̻̥̦̻̔̾̀̊̕͠͠͝ď̢̬̞̪͕̃̿͌̐́̽̈͗͑ͅa̞͚̞̿̋̈́̐̃̓̂̿͘i̘̹͎͎͓̮̱̥̓̈́̇́̍̿́̾͞͡ṡ̞̭͎̠͕̫̝̰͊̋́̈̆͗͘̚████
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┉┉
┉it's ringing in her ears louder than anything she's heard before. louder than wildfire is gone, louder than mom's been taken by someone, louder than war, louder than furi's gentle i love you. loud enough to take everything from her.

a blanket of calm descends on her, frigid. "that's not funny, bobby."

His heart seizes in his chest when Blixen accuses him of lying and he stares at her, wide-eyed and glossy. He’s lost just as much as they have, through all this, and he’s forced on the sidelines again. “I’m not joking,” he says, and glances at Artaax. He hasn’t said anything at all and his ears fall back upon his head, waiting for some sort of explosion. It hurts too much to say once, let alone a second time and he pleads with the both of them to take some sort of understanding.
 
“I tried to stop her,” he tells them. “I tried to talk her out of it but she wouldn’t listen.”

Artaax was silent as Blixen and Bobby went back and forth. He heard every word, and it was perfectly possible that somewhere deep down, he knew and understood. He did not accept, though, and his very soul rejected this poisonous truth without hesitation, leaving him blank, confused, and numb. It just wasn’t possible. This was a mistake. This was... what even was this?

There were tears in Bobby’s eyes, and a hollowness in Blixen’s voice. Artaax, for his part, was perfectly still - looking for all the world as though he wasn’t even completely paying attention, but for the black intensity at which he stared at his brother.

the chill sets in deeper, sinking into her marrow, making her blood slow. bobby's voice is so loud in her skull she almost tells him to shut up--instead he keeps talking. .
.
ḧ̶̹̞̲͚̘̪̳̯̦̒̈́͞ͅe̸̢̳̠̠͙̥̳͆̋͐́̅͛͂͝d͉̩̼̭̠̀̿̎̒͘̚̕a̴̢̻̹͓̪͍̼̭̙͙͊̿̀̑̓͊̈́͌ i̗̳̣͖̳̮͇̲̖͊̾̽̾̿̒͘̕̚̚ş̵̠͚̗͙̖̝͖̲̳̋̈́̌͑͡ ď̮̞̤̖͇̺́̆̃̄̆́͘̕ͅḝ̱͙̠̘̜̪̆̄̀̐̈̇̚͟
.
.ad,

the final syllable the knelling of a bell.
she is much too cold to cry. "what do you mean talk her out of it?" she asks, her voice clear and steady, as if bobby is just reporting some rote issue from border patrol, as if it's something she can straighten out and continue on her day. she understands what he's saying and it is why she is ice, but she does not understand all the same, because there is no way for nomi to be dead. it is impossible. it can't be possible.

oh, god.

Artaax still doesn’t say anything but there’s enough (or, rather, not enough) on his face to know he’s at least been heard. He wasn’t the smartest of the litter, Robin figures, so he puts all his attention on Blixen. It isn’t the kind he wants from his sister but she’s the only one talking to him.
 
“She said it was the last message the commanders gave her,” he tries but reliving the conversation is hard enough. If he could tell them every detail, every word she said, every ounce of pain and peace writ across her face. “I tried to tell her she was wrong, that… after all she’d done recently?” he says and goes quiet, biting his lip and turning away from the pair of them. She’d at least given him a night, a night for her to spend time with him, to see Blixen and Artaax again before she’d found the place, but it’s not enough. The last moments weren’t enough for any of them. “Drageda is yours, Wormana,” he then says, looking back to her.

It was all far too much for Artaax to even begin to reconcile himself with. Every word entered his ears and glued itself ruthlessly to his mind, but still. It was as though he didn't understand language anymore, or at least the concepts  they were meant to impress. He blinked slowly as they went back and forth, Blixen asking the questions and Bobby sharing the terrible, terrible answers. But it was all nonsense to him. He had spent so much of his life ignoring the things that would've otherwise changed his perceptions of himself, his worth, and the world that he lived in. For a few, hopeful moments, it seemed like this might be one of those same things. He would just reject this truth like he rejected the others and go on with his life thinking that Thuringwethil was not dead - she was just away again, fighting on some battlefront somewhere far away, always preserved in his mind just the way she ought to be - fierce, strong, and immortal. Just a few more days from returning to them ot be his commander, his nomi, once again.

Drageda is yours, Wormana.

It wasn't meant to be.

He shattered.

Artaax's control vanished in an instant, like a dam suddenly just disappearing to allow the flood to come thundering down. He felt it all then. It was heartbreak, it was misery, unequalled and inescapable. It was rage like he had never before known, and the boy was a hurricane in its arms. He shot past them, slamming his shoulder hard into... someone... Bobby? Blixen? Likely Bobby. Whoever stood in his way was knocked aside as the feisripa tore out of Hougeda in a show of more emotion than he ever had in all of his life collected. He was yelling something. Shouting No, or It can't or some other words that would never come close to explaining the utter devastation that was running rampant throughout him now. He cried, he swore, he stumbled. He ran.

He would go to the cliff. He would be blind to the drop, but not the confirmation it held for his fears. He would run from it, and when shortly thereafter, Blixen called for the pack to come to her, he would run from that too. He would run until there was nothing left inside or out. He would run until he collapsed somewhere, alone in the Wilds, and he would sleep in the embrace of nightmares that he wouldn't be saved from upon waking. But eventually, he would awaken.

And then, the whole world would burn beneath the wild, raging fires of Artaax Drakru's anguish.

bobby's words make sense, and that's the cruelest trick of all. it would almost be easier if it'd been nonsensical, if it'd been some random accident, something they couldn't understand -- but this has shape and meaning and it winds her.

drageda is yours, wormana.

 "no," she gasps, just as artaax takes off. for a crazy moment, she nearly follows him, but her feet are stones, sunk deep into hougeda's loamy ground. now she'll cry, she thinks, but doesn't. she can feel every individual nerve ending go numb at once. 

she has to -- she has a duty. "bobby," she says, unsticking from time ( she is

a child, and wildfire has been taken, and she tells nomi she wants to get strong enough to protect everyone

a fledgling warrior, in teasing competition with artaax for nomi's approval, impatient and impetuous and running her mouth when she shouldn't

an overbearing sister, trying to push bobby to contribute, be more like her and artaax, like nomi, but secretly, finding joy in his careless attitude

being asked to step up for nomi the first time -- being asked to lead a new branch --)

"i understand."

and blixen leaves, too, not the same panicked, heartbroken flight as her brother, but a calm, slow procession to the cliffs. she needs to make it real with her own senses; then she will call the pack to her and let them know, too. 

she does not look back.