Silvertip Mountain the bells

takes place hours after this thread

HE'HP!!!

her shriek-howl rattles up the mountain, her legs already propelling her past its borders in search of the first sentry she can find. she pushes through brush, gasping, her lungs and limbs and heart burning with the effort and from what she has witnessed.

MERRIGH! AHH'YAR! HE'HP!

no one can help, truly, but perhaps they'll hear her.

even if it's more a matter of revenge than rescue,

she hopes they can hear her, and soon.

she can no longer draw deep breath, and half-collapses onto a moss-covered boulder, wheezing and doubled-over in paroxysms of grief. like a wound down to the bone; she feels it, oh, she feels it more acutely than any physical harm ever done her.

she weeps savagely, waiting for someone to heed her.

merrick had left silvertip to wander.
the keening of his eldest daughter drew him back. hard legs carried him to the summit of the mountain, where her shrieking had abated into sobs and the vermillion of her was terrible and brilliant against the earth.
dread.
her scent carried many things and his heart began to rush and pound; blood filled his ears. 
he nosed her shoulder with a soft rush of breath; "what has happened?"
and yet that sickening yawning fear had not left him for days — it swirled and coalesced.

Just a cameo unless he's addressed or something, just tag me!

First it was alarm that drove Aventus to appear. He did not recognize the mangled sound of his sister's voice, and since he could not place it as any of his packmates, he was on high alert as he tracked it down. His mother was missing, his little sister still gone as well, and it made the hackles on his back ripple uncomfortably along with the roiling dread in his belly to think of either of them screaming in such a fashion.

It was curiosity that drove him next when he realized it was his traitor sister instead. He felt a bright lick of anger and fear in his chest — what was she doing here, hollering like a maniac? — but he was stopped from storming toward her by the garbled sound of her voice and the weeping tremble of her body as much as by Merrick's appearance. What had happened to her in her absence? Why was she so upset?

He did not trust Avicus, nor did he have any reason to believe she wouldn't seize the first opportunity to try to take his rank again. He was more concerned with that than her well-being. Deep down, he did care about Avicus and mourned what should have been a strong bond, but it was buried beneath paranoia and betrayal. He ought to attack her before she could do it to him again, while she was vulnerable, but he couldn't very well do so with Merrick standing right there. Plus, he had the same slithering snake of dread in his stomach as his father.

So he lingered there, expression unreadable, eyes like ice chips, and watched. And waited. And did nothing.

what has happened?

Merrick, finally, and her red-rimmed eyes snap upward, haunting pools of indigo. ma, she whispers, and it is only with a deep inhale that she continues louder, in ragged tones. mama. hurhh-dt. bleeh-ing. whih' womanh. bigh manh.

the unencumbered "ess" will forever be elusive, but she sticks her tongue out, clasped between her teeth, and makes a horrible hissing sound leading into:

tthhhhhainths.

a prickling sensation on her nape, then, as if she's being watched. she looks around and turns to ice as she discovers that she is, in fact, being watched. their eyes meet, and she's silent for a moment.

but this is bigger than them. bigger than all of them. 

mama, she says again. he'll know what it means.

mama.
bleeding
saints.
aventus standing near, unmoving as the sentinel that had once stood over bearclaw valley.
merrick's mouth pooled with bile.
a white woman and a large man.
the fucking bastards.
"show me," merrick commanded in a terrible voice. he turned away from her, turned away from both his children, and began a long stalk back the way avicus had come, focus narrowing to nothing — if he walked in the wrong direction, it would be up to her to redirect him.
blackbird mama mama mama mama —

The shrieking howl could be heard from anywhere on the mountain, and Arielle had poked her head out from the herb den to glance around as if she would see something. 

Then she was making her way down from her den and to the place from where the sound had come. Something was happening and they might need her skills, no matter that she was still a novice. 

There was an unfamiliar girl and the dark form of Merrick walking from the borders. She could tell the stranger was upset, but she did not look harmed. Arielle stopped near Aves, her expression concerned and questioning. She released a soft howl in the bear king's direction—should she follow?

His eyes locked with Avicus', daring her, inviting her to sow her hateful discord in their home a second time—

Mama.

It was the weight of a freight train that took his breath away, turned his ironclad gaze to simmering silver with a sheen of fear. He knew, the same way he had initially known that something had happened, that his mother was far beyond any of them now. Aventus knew that this was responsible for the inexplicable dread he was feeling, not Vesta's brutal death nor the slavering bear.

The boy's mouth went dry, tasted of ashes and filled his throat with burning embers. A quiver wracked his spine. Merrick's voice was unlike anything Aventus had heard from the bruin's maw before, and he was falling into step as well before he realized it. He paused only because Arielle appeared in his periphery, and turned a numb, almost unseeing eye on her. On the outside, perhaps he looked collected, but on the inside, he was fighting to control a murderous, reckless impulse he had never known. His father and sister surely felt the same tempest inside themselves. It was his job to ensure they did not get themselves killed.

Oh, how he wanted to throw himself senselessly upon the Saints and exact vengeance for everything those sons of bitches — no, that was too unkind to bitches everywhere — those sons of cravens had ever done, but Astara would not want that. Not for any of them. They had to win, not die.

Protect Ursus, he pleaded, knowing that he could not allow them to depart without him.

the look in her brother's eyes nearly sends her into another spasm of grief. she's never seen it upon his countenance; it makes the situation all too real, and she quickly notes the presence of another before taking after her father, giving Merrick a brief nudge to the shoulder to turn him slightly in the right direction.

then, without another word, she leads her family down the mountain, moving through trees as swift and as hot-bright as a forest fire. 

when she bursts into the clear and onto open ground, she is at full gallop.