Dawnlark Plains [m]Tell my almost ex-wife That I loved her and left her too soon

MATURE WARNING/TRIGGER. SUICIDE. All tags for reference and joining if wanted. It's been lovely playing Sunny <3

 Having abandoned @Steph was not the original plan...his trip to see @Dawn had gone awry as it always seemed to. He'd been attacked...dropped on by a giant cat. The wounds raked across his body had him weak enough that he'd been lain up for a week. 
Was it a curse?
Had he been such a terrible wolf that he was forever damned?
There had been a woman. She'd tended his wounds and told him he'd never be physically capable of the same work again. No fighting and hunting would be relearned. Then she gave him some poppies wrapped in a leaf and told him to eat them if he found his life not worth living. He'd carried them around for a while playing around with the idea inside of his mind. All he could think about lately was the way his daughter had been refusing to welcome him back ever since he'd made one mistake and been gone. Dawn had more of a reason to look at him the way he had and even then he found that it made his stomach sick to think about. 

Hadn't he done his best?

Was he just delusional and useless?

His mother, Keoni, His father, His uncle, Aliac. They would all be returned to him. Steph and @Minnow ....they were both alive and well. Alive and without any need for someone tired beyond his years to weight them down. His two sons were somewhere and if they were gone too then his passing would only return them as well. Steph would find someone worthy of her radient personality and who would be appreciative of her beauty, She'd have children one day with them...he was sure of it. He walked on moving past the place where he envisioned Dawn raising her children feeling rather numb with what was planned.
As he crunched the bundle between his jaws saliva pooling and being forcefully swallowed down Sunny lay himself down in the spot where his father had passed and pressed his chin to the dirt a shiver running down his spine. It Anyone who stumbled across him after would find him already drifting and clearly inebriated out of his mind. Images flashed before his mind's eye and he smiled
 The icicle incident, watching his mother leave, fighting with Dawn and making up, Watching her climb a tree as if she were a squirrel.

His breath rushed out of his lungs and he realised he'd been holding it, the release of oxygen causing him to float off. "i'm tired dad" his voice whispered to the dirt as he let go and waited for it to end a billion and one things from his life playing like a movie if he knew what that was. He thought of @Valette and wished she knew that she was always like a mother to him, that he loved her like family and was sorry for being a constant nuisance. The world began to shift and swirl and he exhaled again his eyes beginning to drift shut "Steph" the name held so much regret as it fell from his lips, breathing slowing to a dangerous level as he stared into space not really seeing anything but blurs of color and sunlight. 

It was on his way from Whitebark Stream to the Hushed Willows that Valiant came across the form of his father. He was sure, for a moment, that the man was standing, facing him, watching with with sad, tangy eyes — but when he drew nearer the apparition faded, and he was faced with the cold truth:

His father, small and broken. Dying.

"Daddy?" Valiant breathed, his breath hitching as he crept closer to the almost-stranger's face. Was he gone already? "Dad, it's me. It's me, Valiant." He belly-crawled the last few steps, fat tears rolling down his cheeks as he touched his nose tentatively to his father's. He reached out a paw to push at Sunny's, choking on a sob when he saw that they were now the same size. "Dad, no," he begged, "Please, come back. Don't leave me."

For timeline's sake I'm gonna say this is set following Artyom's visit to Seelie Court - on his way home to Whitebark Stream.

For more than half a year, Artyom had made his home in the Snowforest Taiga. Tucked away in some safe little nook by the stream, he thought it to be the most wonderful place. He'd found Dawn there and entered a whirlwind romance with her. Together they built their family and welcomed a litter, dived headfirst into what presented as a perfect and rewarding life.

Artyom knew all too well that wonderful things could be short-lived. Stress after stress, loss after loss, he was rapidly losing faith not only in his ability to lead, but in the territory his pack claimed. It had never been Dawn's intention to settle there forever, he contemplated along the Eastern route he'd taken to seek audience with Lumiya. Perhaps, he found himself wondering, their family had simply overstayed their welcome among the pale trees.

Maybe it was time to move on.

Such thoughts were cut short, however, as movement of a pale figure among the plain's wild verdant grasses captured his attention. The flaxen ranger lifted his muzzle in attempt to better see this oddly familiar pelt of frost and ash, something that reminded him at once of young @Minnow.

Artyom veered toward them, a new eagerness in his stride and an enthusiastic sway if his giled tail. There was nnothing that ccoul've prepared him for the scene that presented itself as he drew closer, however, and his blood ran cold with shock.

Dawn!? Artyom's initial, fearful thought was that the sterling-furred figure on the ground was that of his beloved. He felt something akin to relief flood through him to see that this wolf's tail remained intact, though it was short-lived. "Sunny!"

His brother by law, a shell of the man he'd known only briefly. Guilt tightened the pale hunter's throat as he looked on, helpless, at Dawn's wayward littermate as he lay defeated on the ground. Hovering sorrowfully over him, the pallid yearling he'd mistaken as his missing niece was, in fact, his missing nephew.

"Oh, Sunny," he murmured, remaining in the background for fear of overstepping any boundaries that may provoke Valiant to react with aggression. Artyom, unskilled in the realm of medicine, could not conjure any thought of what herb or potion might aid him on this final journey.

Sunny had been gone for far too long, and no amount of searching had turned up any sign of him. As the days drew on, Steph's worries only grew stronger. She had refused to let any notion come in her mind that said Sunny had left her on purpose. He would not do such a thing. But, that meant something, or someone, had been keeping him away. 

She paused in her trails when she saw the group gathered around. She drew forward, tail wagging she she realized Sunny was in the midst of them. We bounded ahead, eager to erase the distance. Sunny! she yelled joyously, sticking her nose into the fur on his throat.

It was then she noticed that coldness had already begun to seep into his body, and she recoiled as if he had snapped at her, and her  expression turned to shock. Her eyes searched his still body for any signs that what her instincts were telling her was wrong. One breath was all she needed. But it would not come. Sunny was forever still. 

Her breathing shallowed and quickened as fear and sadness set in with the realization that Sunny was gone. She did not move to embrace him one last time. He would not feel her, and she did not want to feel his lack of warmth again. Instead, she turned to a sobbing Valiant to lend her comfort to him. Her body lowered next to his as she attempted to snuggle him and place her head over the back of his neck.

She glanced to Artyom, to the horizon, to the grass, to anywhere except the form lying before them. She didn't want to remember Sunny this way. and so she wouldn't. But she knew there were things to be done. Valiant, she said softly. Stone Circle was our home for so long. Could we... Could we take him back there to rest?  She wasn't sure how the young male would reply, but if he declined, she would not push the matter.