Redhawk Caldera i hit the sunday matinée

There had been another disagreement last night.

They had tried to keep quiet, but Sorana was a light sleeper and overheard a little of it. She'd jammed her head into her elbows and covered her ears, trying not to listen, but with limited success. She fell asleep again before they came to bed, but not without some uneasy tossing and turning.

She was alone now, playing with colourful rocks near the water and trying not to think about it. There was a mommy rock, a daddy rock, and five little baby rocks in various colours. She was playing a fun game where the babies played hide and seek with the parents, only daddy rock said, where have you been? to mommy rock when he found her hiding under a leaf and Sorana was reminded all over again.

She scuffed her paw over the baby rocks, sending them rolling, and lifted her eyes to the opposite shore. She wished she could go visit Jay and Chickadee and Aiden. She didn't blame her parents — they were without fault in her eyes — but she was getting older and her feelings were becoming more complex. She was having a hard time processing them lately. Her friends were good at keeping her mind off it.

Sora licked her lips and glanced around. It hadn't been so far when Teya carried her. The water was cold, but nothing she couldn't handle. Mommy and daddy both often said how strong and big she was getting. She licked her lips again and left the rocks where they lay, stepping gingerly to the edge of the lake. She dipped her toes in, withdrew them with a gasp, then slid them forward. When her paws didn't feel so cold, she moved a little more, until the water was up to her elbows. Then a little more, until her belly was submerged. Then another step or two, and Sorana was floating.

She began to kick her legs, seizing upon the ancestral instinct to paddle. Sora leaned back her head and puffed above the surface, and was pleased when she did not slip under. This was easy! Now she could visit her friends whenever she liked! With her confidence boosted by the taste of success, Sorana began to paddle harder, casting away from shore and bobbing out into the lake. Water tickled her ears and slicked back the fur on her cheeks.

She wasn't even halfway across when her inexperienced legs began to tire. There was a burning ache swiftly growing in her shoulders and hips. It was getting harder to keep her head up. Sorana's breath came in faster gasps as her heart and chest grew tight with panic. Her paddling turned to thrashing and floundering. She wasn't going to make it!

She tried to turn around, but the island felt so far away, too. As soon as she realized how much trouble she was really in, the sucker punch of true fear in her gut, Sorana screamed for help around a mouthful of water.

Hope this is ok & 'scuse the ramble...

After a restless night of little sleep, Reyes had watched the dawnrise and then gotten up to start his day. He might've slept an hour or two of true sleep but there was no tracking it, not really. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach - nauseated and hungry at the same time, or maybe it was purely stress that churned inside of him.

Deep down it hurt to think that Teya would replace him. Wasn't that just the way of womenfolk, though? He loathed himself for a moment, thinking that. What would his mothers say if they could read his mind? That he was being just like his own father, maybe. But he wasn't — he refused to be anything like Firefly. He was still here, more than a presence in his daughters life, but a force for good. A protector. He told himself that over and over; that he was protecting his daughter in every way he knew how.

It wasn't his fault that Teya dabbled. That she roamed the night for company other than her husband. (Some piece of Reyes knew the truth and squared the blame upon his own shoulders, knowing that something had changed between them, but he could not face that; Sorana had changed so much, and he refused — entirely, obsessively refused, to place any blame on the girl for existing.)

In his early wandering he found  a cache and dug in to it. He dug, and scraped, and beat the earth until he was blue in the face and his tongue lolled from his mouth, punishing himself with the excess labor and cutting in to the ground. His shoulders burned from the effort, and the cache was in the end, destroyed beyond repair. Reyes drew a piece of something out of it that looked almost edible and, with a sigh, cast it away with a heave. The rustle of the object in to the underbrush was pierced by the high-pitched shout of Sorana.

Reyes hadn't noticed how long he'd been awake; he hadn't realized Sorana had been unattended and sought the path back to the den, moving so fast that he was stumbling among the trees. A thin branch thwacked at his hocks and he didn't notice the red line left behind. Near one of Sorana's playing spots was a series of stones — but further out was a bobbing shape struggling in the water.

Reyes didn't think, and ploughed in to the water after her, roaring so loudly that the whole of Brecheliant would hear him: Sorana!!!

she had not slept either.
not a wink, and not inside the den. teya had laid outside in the open air and seethed to herself. these arguments could not keep happening.
she felt bruised. her love for reyes had not dwindled. it had not become less. it had only become something tangled now, and its new form kept her returning home each night.
the raven recalled the anger in his eyes and shut her own. she lay her head back upon the soft grass and —
his voice. reyes. again. there was a surge of irritation and then worry. teya sat up and lifted her ears. there was terror in those tones.
she had fallen asleep? had she dozed off?
teya was running now, stumbling — she saw reyes splash into the lake and then, farther out — "oh no, oh no, sorana! sorana!" the scream was visceral, and at the edge of the bank the violet performed a neat leap and splashed after them both.

Sorana's legs churned slower and slower while the lake water wrapped insistent hands around her small body and tugged at her. It washed up over her muzzle and she snorted wildly to clear her nose, heaving rapid breaths that did not buoy her as air should, but made her feel heavier and more tired. Never had she imagined it would take so much energy to cross the lake, and never had she imagined this would be the way she left the world.

She had no concept of death, but instinctively knew that was what loomed before her if no one heard her shouting. She shouted louder, and strained harder, and nearly passed out with relief when two equally panicked voices answered.

There was the dark mahogany pelt of her father visible above the rippling water, and then the tawny-cream of her mother leaping from the shoreline. Sorana opened her mouth to call for them and gurgled on another mouthful of water. She spat it out as best she could, but her attempt to take a breath was stoppered by another mouthful. Her legs weren't able to keep up their kicking much longer. They hardly ached anymore, but their movements were sluggish no matter the effort.

Sorana struggled this way a while longer, long enough that both her parents were very close when her head slipped under the water. She held her shortened breath and thrashed harder, but couldn't seem to find the strength on her own to surface again.

The water hit his chest and slicked his sides and he felt it rolling up the his cheeks, slamming in to his nose, tasting it; forgetting to close his mouth because he was trying to suck in air to yell her name again. He could hear Teya screaming too, and maybe there was a crash as she dove in he couldn't tell, his heart was hammering in his chest.

Trying to keep his eye-level suspended above the water, at least. Water in his eyes, stinging; Reyes hadn't felt like this in years, but he hadn't gone near deep water like this either. At least it wasn't the ocean — the endless power of the sea sweeping her little body out to nowhere.

He saw Sorana bobbing pathetically. Almost there, gotta kick harder! Grab her somehow; she's so small what if she breaks? What if she sinks what if she's already —

Sorana, I'm almost there baby just hold on —!

Sinking, she's sinking!

Keep paddling I know its hard, I'm almost --!

No, she was already gone!

Reyes sucks in a furious breath and tries to dive and get a hold of her. His mouth fills with water and a sphere of air, once pocketed inside his muzzle, gurgles free and ascends beyond him; but he's got a hold of the little girl now and pulls to the surface. There's a ways to go before she's out of danger but he doesn't know which way is faster — the island or the other side?

this was it. she'd done this, she'd manifested it somehow. between remembering near daily that sorana hadn't been wanted, and then the night before conjuring that — add that energy to the harsh reality that she and reyes really were together for convenience now —
it seems like you wanted her gone. well. now look. you've got your wish.
that voice was cruel, the same one from only a handful of hours before. it curled around her brainstem like a wicked slug, and refused to be dislodged as teya finally could no longer hold to logic and truly started to panic.
she was swimming valiantly; she was churning her legs and remembering all the times she had entered a lake or fallen into one during her fishing.
teya's heart lurched with a sickening rush as sorana dipped under the water and did not come back up. her whole body turned to iron in that moment, even as she stared at the eddies in the surface that reyes had left behind.
a bubble floated up and teya kicked toward it. her husband breached the lake like a crimson shark, and in his jaws —
teya was panting. a stitch in her own side spelled danger but she ignored it momentarily. "there, reyes, there," she coughed, water slapping against her chin and lashing into her bottom teeth. teya pointed with her muzzle toward a tiny stretch of lakeshore off the mainland, forming a sort of muddy sandbar. 
sorana — teya knew she would start screaming if she looked down.

Silence.

The press of it in her ears was oppressive. It was worse than being unable to see or take a breath. There were vague sounds in the swishing of her exhausted limbs, but most of it was drowned out by the perpetual, fatal drone of deep water enveloping her. Sora could feel the weight of it all around, cocooning her and miring her limbs until they stopped moving altogether and for a moment she was suspended there.

Then her lungs screamed for air and she could hold her breath no longer. Bubbles erupted around her nose and mouth as her jaws parted and sucked in water. There was more panic now, but it seemed far away.

Then she was hauled upward and her head broke the surface. They were just in time. Sora's eyes fluttered with the threat of unconsciousness, which would only spell death for her, but she fought with all she had to take a breath and wound up hacking. Water dribbled from her mouth with each weak cough. Then there was land under her, and Sorana had no strength left. She could not even lift her eyes to reassure herself with the sight of her parents.

She went limp, wheezing and coughing and helplessly sobbing in the gaps between.

It was Teya's voice ushering him to the edge of land. Home island or not, Reyes knew it didn't matter where he moored himself and pushed himself to swim harder.

He climbed ashore and placed Sorana down.

Was she breathing? She was cold; did she shiver? Had he held on too tightly? The man was frantic. He heard Teya scramble beside him and tried to lick Sorana's face.

She coughed and then a cry erupted from her, as well as rivulets of water. Reyes wheezed and looked to Teya and practically collapsed  beside their daughter.

reyes lay beside sorana. teya lapsed alongside him. she weakly pressed closer to sorana. the sound of the girl's sobbing tore at her but it meant that she breathed. that she lived. the raven nosed into the girl and wrapped her forelegs around their daughter's body.
water streamed down her mouth, her chest, her ears.
"we need to leave island," she said softly. she had meant it to be her prison, a place to martyr herself on the altar of motherhood. and look. she had almost never stayed that.
guilt choked her and tightened her gut. she held sorana and at last looked toward reyes, her eyes clear of conflicted emotions for once.

Her parents surrounded her. Sorana shivered and cried until her throat hurt from it, and then cried more, trying her best to seize control of herself. It slipped through her fingers like sand, but eventually, she managed to get enough air and comfort to try to speak.

I-I j-juh-juh-st want-tuh-ted to see Juh-juh-jayyy, she sobbed into her father’s nearby shoulder, curling so her back was pressed into Teya and she could absorb warmth and comfort from them. She could have died.

She was alive. The relief of it made her feel dizzy and weak.

Sorana sobbed. Teya held her, and Reyes watched, feeling his heart race.

Their daughter sobbed around an explanation and Reyes wanted to tell her to stop, because it didn't matter why she had gone in there, only that she was alive — but he didn't have the energy; he licked the crown of her head and then her cheeks, trying to warm her up, and to prove to himself he had succeeded.

Not drowning. Not dead. Listen, she's here and she's alive and you did that.

Its, its alright, Sorana... Its okay, he finally managed with a tone that was still pitched with adrenaline, Just rest now, baby. Shh. Sleep first, then they'd figure it out together.

she wanted to tell reyes no — don't tell her to sleep. not now. not ever. teya lived in these seconds for the sound of sobbing and the good, rich inhales of air taken by sorana. 
her eyelids drooped. she curled closer with a shiver. reyes' warmth was welcome.
wanted.
"rest now, sora. we okay. it okay. we together."

She coughed again, the taste of dirty lakewater curdling on the back of her tongue. Sora lurched away from her parents just in time to vomit more water on the edge of the sandbar. It was whisked away by the wind.

She returned with stumping steps to Reyes and Teya. Her vision was beginning to swim with exhaustion at the edges. Sorana lifted her muzzle, blinking blearily toward the sloping mainland shore, which was closer now than their island home. The gravity of Teya's suggestion that they move elsewhere, that she was never returning to that home, had yet to hit her. Her muscles and lungs screamed for rest.

T-tired, she stammered, slumping against Teya and turning her muzzy expression toward Reyes.