Blacktail Deer Plateau cruel to be kind
Ghost
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All Welcome 

Mature Content Warning


This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: TW: suicidal ideations

Summer was nearly at its apex, yet there was nothing but ice within her.

Cold, brittle bones, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. A heart frozen over, and veins and capillaries wintry tendrils. One eye of cool amber, the other of midnight indigo.

And still, still as if one locked within the confines of a glacier.

She had eyes for her remaining daughters, but barely. Watched them play, watched them grow, offering a tiny smile or an approving nod when she had to. When she could.

But her will to live was slipping from her like water from interlaced fingers.

Drink. . .and find it spilling down the front, and she hapless to keep the thoughts at bay.

Think. . .yet every musing found her spiraling into self-loathing and what-ifs.

Sink. . .

Which was all she wanted to do, and she laid upon the bank of the plateau, watching Whitefish River whirl by. She could fling herself down; a blow to the head from one of the stones, rising jagged above the rapids. . . She'd feel nothing. Ever again.

That was good.

She made to rise, and her muscles stiffened, body warring with mind. For even as the psyche plummeted, as the corporeal turned cold—the heart still beat, and the base instinct to survive carried on.
Moonglow
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his new dad was gone as quick as he'd come, a development that, if he had any predictability programmed into him, should have painted a new layer of bitterness over peregrine's tempestuous psyche. but @Phox had promised to come back, and that meant the difference between raging asshole peregrine and eagerly impatient peregrine. he paced the territory and he quietly sneered at everyone who wasn't new dad (so, everyone), and he especially avoided mopey @Vesper, whose presence he could not stand any longer. he often wished @Prevost would come back. surely she would like new dad. surely she would see that old dad and old mom were nothing but jerks and abandoners.
speak of the devil; there was old mom in the distance, moping around just like vesper. the sight of it filled him with a cold tingling feeling that seemed to swell in his chest, whispering violent wants into his oversized ears. maybe a set of teeth in her hide would wipe that miserable, ugly expression from old mom's face. the vicious intensity of the thought drove him to approach, where normally he would have turned away with his typical sneer. he walked up beside her, drawing himself up to his full height and lifting his tail stiffly. i hate you, he announced, enunciating each word with careful weight and letting them fall into the silence surrounding the pair. he said nothing else. he didn't need to.
woops i'm not caught up but i could not resist. vague lil assumptions, can edit as needed <3 sorry maegi :(
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her world had changed, whether she liked it or not. even as vesper clung to the happy family they had been, the insertion of phox into their mix had split them apart— a drop of oil, repelling them away from each other. she grew quieter, retreating within herself, a cool stoicism slowly replacing her youthful joy. she hated phox with every ounce of herself for disrupting things... but as she and her vocabulary grew, the darkling was wondering if perhaps she was beginning to hate mother and father as well.

after all, it was their lie at the root of all of this.

but her brewing anger spilled over at peregrine's words, overheard as she approached. they had never been close, not like he and prevost had been. perhaps it was their fault; if they hadn't run away, vesper may still be unaware of the lie at all. and what harm, except this, had come from the lie? they would have died with niamh if not for mother and father.

leave, then. she told him blandly, each word falling without a hint of her emotion.

you hate us, you don't want to be here— so go. vesper continued, her words containing an apathy that she didn't quite feel. she turned her shoulder away from him, then, and moved casually towards mother. the darkling was brimming with anger, but she forced herself to stay relaxed with careful breathing. it would feel so good to fight, but it would accomplish nothing else.
vesper is experiencing their first heat until march 28, 2023.
Ghost
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I hate you.

She looked up, but it wasn't Peregrine's voice she heard. It was Potema's. Generations linked together in mutual disgust of this girl, the one born into and named after pestilence.

Nothing changed.

Yes, she said, her voice lifeless. There was nothing else to say. She didn't hate him back; she couldn't even fake it.

But she couldn't very well say she loved him, either. She felt it, deeply. But she also knew her failure to mother—the latest in a string of failures—eclipsed that love.

What good was love when she couldn't keep it together?

Vesper came, but her words were drowned out by those three uttered syllables of Peregrine's. Maegi resumed staring at the water, unmoving, save for a flick of one ear at a nagging fly.
Moonglow
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another boy might have responded to vesper's unwanted intrusion with shouts and threats. another boy might have countered her demand with insults, even teeth. peregrine, however —
he ignored her entirely. not even a flick of the ear to acknowledge her presence; as if his sister was a ghost, looming over the living sans any ability to impose her own will. as if she wasn't there at all. and to him, it might as well have been true. clearly she didn't want to be a sister to him. no, she would rather be a daughter to liars and abandoners. and if that was the case... he would treat her as such.
where vesper inspired no reaction with her words, old mom drew wildfire rage with her lack. the wayward redhawk bristled and stepped closer. fuck you! you don't even care 'bout me! you only care 'bout vesper 'n blueberry! he spit the words in a fury with his newly-pottied mouth (courtesy of buzzard), disjointed and breaking with a million emotions, all volatile. you never cared 'bout prevost either. you didn't come get us, and now she's gone, and it's ALLYOURFAULTCAUSEYOULIED! his voice rose to a piercing shriek, chest burning with the knowledge that new dad would never have let prevost disappear. he wouldn't have left peregrine to be the only one who cared about her enough to go looking. he would have protected them.
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neither did peregrine's outburst inspire more out of the darkling, who looking more and more like her namesake each day. she was smallest of her siblings, ears the largest, and now that a tawny overcoat was beginning to grow in she looked like a wolf version of the vesper bat.

at least she wasn't blind as a bat, unlike her thick-skulled brother.

her orange eyes watched him, bored, as she took a seat next to mother, unaware that maegi's state of mind was more concerning than the overall moroseness that afflicted them all on the plateau. inside, however, her anger continued to boil as he raged on nonsensically; after all, for as quickly as vesper had matured, she was still just a child.

you're an idiot she hissed out of the blue, lunging towards him in the same breath. whether she made contact with her teeth, body, or not, she continued: we would be dead if not for them. phox wouldn't have a family to destroy if not for mother and father. hadn't they explained all of this?

why the fuck did you and prevost run away anyway?? had he not learned from vesper's little adventure and mou's anger with her? she was trying to go back to their home, not leave them altogether. what were her brother and sister running away from? why'd you have to go and fuck everything up?

it was the most she had said in weeks, and the most she had spoken to peregrine.. ever. but how was that her fault when he kept to prevost's side? how was tending to their smallest sister wrong? hadn't everyone seen how blueberry had needed her more?
vesper is experiencing their first heat until march 28, 2023.
Ghost
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Her ears pinned back, slicked back against her skull as Peregrine screamed. But no retaliation. She bore his anger as if she was a wall against the wind, rain spattering against old brick. Old enough to come apart, should it be strong enough. But not. . .yet. . . 

Don't, Maegi whispered, eyes shifting to see the two of them almost at blows. Not. . .his fault.

He was right to hate her. And Vesper was right to care. They each were justified in their own way; things were too complicated here to be black and white.

She moved to rise, but was stymied again by her treacherous muscles. Perhaps they knew her mind would gladly send her sailing down the rise, headlong into the river. Her teeth came together, hard. She stared at her children, pleading.

They could hate her, but they could not hate each other.

Don't fight, she said, her voice soft, but undoubtedly a command. Please.