Shadowwyn Moor find my nest of salt, everything is my fault

for whenever you have the time <3 no rush! kinda sorta continuation of this thread!

Wren wasn't entirely sure why, but she had gone with the woman @Tauris. Perhaps it was the offer of food for her lurching, desperate stomach; perhaps it was the biting urge to get away from herself.
To talk to someone. Someone that did not know her.
Someone that had not caused her pain.
She is silent for a time before her quivering voice chokes out an I'm sorry.

Numbness returns. Her mind grasps for the right words of reassurance and fails to find them. She stands over the cache, mouthing a hare. Germanicus had filled it. The pups were weaned, their hunters were few, and Germanicus had come to fill their caches.

Turning, she makes a gentle offer of the rabbit, eyes running over the sharp protrusion of Wren’s hips and ribs. She beds down at an unimposing distance, staring languorously ahead.

Had Kvarsheim not condemned this woman? Had they not been harboring a dangerous man? And worse yet- two? For Gunnar, she had tried to give credence to Bonario. But the state of Wren, in her grief, Tauris did not know what to think or who to believe, and now Gunnar was no longer around to temper her judgements with goodwill.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” comes the low pitch of her voice.

She offers food. A hare.
Wren takes the nape between her teeth and begins to tear, slowly, meekly. And she does this in silence for a while, a long while, before she stops suddenly with a brewing nausea. It grips her stomach and plants her feet firmly upon the ground.
And she isn't sure why, but she begins to tell this woman everything.
The story from beginning to end; Moss, dead, the child wriggling at her bosom and searching for the warmth that was not to be found. The strange man. Mae. How he'd snapped at her, how he circled Moss's corpse like a vulture. How she struck first; started it. How he sought to finish it. How she hadn't known. How he hadn't stopped.
Gunnar's appearance at the border, demanding she pay for what she had done. Akavir's defense of her. The guilt that tears at her. I am a monster. I do not know my own strength.
And then there was Silvertongue.
She recalls the story of how they met; how a chance upon Riverclan's border blossomed into more; the trips between two lands. How Silvertongue had nursed her to health after the fight. How Germanicus had unravelled her — stolen her, robbed her of a life free from pain, and now she was gone. How she loved her.
You and your people deserve the truth, she mutters then. and that's all of it. And I'm sorry.
There was nothing else left.

In a thousand ways this woman had been wronged, but if Tauris believed there would come answers, that all the pieces would fit together and reveal a full picture of what had plagued the valley, she did not find it in Wren’s recounting. In her mind came only the squalling of more unanswered questions, dimmed in confusion and exhaustion.

But she understood clearly Kvarsheim’s culpability in opening their borders to a slaver.

How could Germanicus do it? How could he devalue a life like that? Had Gunnar known? Had he even tried to pursue forgiveness? Yet she knew: this was a crime he could never be exonerated for.

And Silvertongue… she had been so quick to condemn her.

The air is thick with listening silence. After some time Tauris’ eyes return to the woman.

“What comes next, Wren?” She asks, a question for them both.

I left Swiftcurrent. I'm going to go find her. And then... I don't know.
Because she didn't; she didn't know what would happen to her from here, what she would find in the desert when her feet grace the dry soil. If Silvertongue would be there. If either or both of them would return.
All that she knew was she could not go on wading through uncertain waters any longer, and she had nothing else left to lose.
All I know is that this, this guilt is gonna be the death of me if I don't do something about it. I don't want to burden Swiftcurrent or Kvarsheim any longer. I want — I want peace. Between the two. And I think the only way that can happen is if I leave.
She lets go of the breath that had been held in her aching lungs. Kvarsheim had housed an overseer and a child thief. Their leader had come knocking at Swiftcurrent's borders and had the nerve to call them the violent ones. But it was more complex than that; much moreso than Wren could ever understand. And for her own sanity, she let it go.
Tauris meant no harm. Gunnar, in retrospect, probably hadn't either. And who was she to spew venom in their faces? Who was she to blame anyone but herself when it was her teeth that had started all of it?
Neither pack had place for someone like that; like her. Tauris hadn't known Germanicus's truth, the same way Wren hadn't known Bonario's — but that same logic, of course, did not apply to her in the haze of misery that still held her in its shackles.

Her nod is faint, silver eyes fixing remorsefully upon her paws.

“No- this is Kvarsheim’s wrong to right. Do not believe you are the problem, Wren. I am sorry for the part we’ve played in all this, how we have hurt you and your loved ones,” her brow lowers.

“If we had known-" would it have made a difference? And Bonario- had he known that Moss was a soldier of the creek? Had he been so eager to tear a pup from an allied pack? She bristles at the thought of repeating the same mistake. She wouldn’t let that happen. He would answer to the creek or she would drive him from this place with her own teeth if she must.

She regards the former creek wolf quietly again.

Kvarsheim's wrong to right.
Kvarsheim's wrong to right as the grizzled man cast a shadow over her head. Kvarsheim's wrong to right as she had watched Akavir and Arric disintegrate into the madness of stress. Kvarsheim's wrong to right as Wren had stepped from her post as gamma, turned her back on her family; Kvarsheim's wrong to right as the flashing black-and-blue memories of that day upon the mountaintop flooded her.
The switch is flipped.
Tauris was right, as was Akavir. Wren had defended herself, her pack's children, her family. What anyone would have done. She had done her dues, taken her responsibility; and yet that man, that boy, whoever he was, roamed free within the grasslands of the stone circle.
She leans forward in an effort to raise the smoky gaze back toward her, to watch the befallen expression crystallize into sincere remorse. It was not all her fault.
Did you really not know? About Germanicus, and-- and that guy? the question rolls from her earnestly, genuinely; tone suddenly lightening as if they were merely girls gossiping, as if their lives hadn't respectively crumbled before them in the past weeks. Did Gunnar not know?

She flinches at the question, recoiling as Wren draws in, staid in the agony of the revelations.

“No,” she responds softly, thoughts lingering on the ranger even if she did not want them to. He’d always been honorable, treated the wolves of Kvarsheim with respect. She could not have known he was in the business of selling others-

“I do not believe Gunnar did either. He was a good man. A fair one. I have to believe he would not have chosen to endanger his kin like that,” she shifts as the weight of grief presses down again.

“Bonario,” the second man is named, “I know what Gunnar has told me- and now your account.” It was not for Tauris to judge all the choices made on that convoluted day, and getting a clear idea of what happened was too difficult. She knew only that the wolves of Kvarsheim had a hand in it- had wronged their allies and added to the unrest within the valley. A wrong she intended to right.

in that moment, it hits her.
was.
was? wren chokes out amid a small, breathless gasp. oh, tauris, i'm so sorry, i-- i had no idea.
gunnar is gone. gunnar is gone, and one of the last things he had done was vilify her; crucify her. a fair man. she longed to spit it in her face, and yet she could not bring herself to do it; not when the connection is made that the nornir's hoarse voice and glazed eyes came from the crushing weight of grief.
wren can feel herself spinning out. what do you say to someone in this state? she shuffles her weight, lips twitching before they settle into a thin line. i wish i could have seen him the way you do. i don't think he, um, i don't think he ever liked me. not that i blame him.

sorry for the sudden all lowercase i'm experimenting LMAO