pierced through the heart

and i'm still waiting for a life that never was

Alys staggered into the Citadel, holding the stitch in her side and shaking uncontrollably. Her dark curls were matted to her neck, sweat-slicked tendrils framing her face even in the depths of Deepfrost. She still carried her bow and her quiver, but they hung loosely in her free hand, useless now that the danger was past and the adrenaline that had gotten her back to safety was working its way out of her system.

Sascha was gone.

The yeti hadn’t even touched her, and yet her soul seared with a pain that she knew she’d never be able to describe. Inside the Citadel walls, the seer dropped to her knees in the snow, her bow and quiver discarded nearby, and clutched her arms around her middle as though that could hold her together.

Sascha was gone.

She fought the nausea that threatened as tears rolled down her cheeks. Nothing had ever hurt like this. Nothing could ever hurt like this. It was almost enough to make her wish she had died alongside her companion - anything would be better than this soul-rending grief, better than the guilt that burdened her in the aftermath of the absolute disaster that had been the battle against the yeti.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to die.

But no matter what she did, Sascha would still be gone.

Alys

Tal was not the one who found Alys first.

Finishing up his last delivery for the day, the messenger wasn't far away from the gate but it was Boreal with her draconic senses who smelled the blood and went to investigate. The dragon circled overhead in confusion at the conflicting sensory information; 'blood' and 'Alys' were not usually smelled together, and though she smelled the lingering trace of Sascha's scent from Alys's person there was no sign of the little bear. Worried, she folded her wings and dropped to the snow nearby and bounded over to the kneeling Seer. This close she could smell the sweat and fear and grief and a croon was startled from her throat, a low rumbling keen of anxiety as she reached out for Tal and pulled, even as she pressed herself to Alys's side and spread her wings wide to curve around her. She wasn't large enough to cover her human's mate fully beneath their shelter but she offered what comfort she could in the minute it took Tal to arrive.

He careened around the corner of a building, something close to panic on his face as he tried to parse Boreal's jumbled mental call. The dragon couldn't explain what she didn't understand, but as soon as Tal saw his partner it no longer mattered. He flung himself across the intervening distance, skidding across the snow on his knees as he bundled Alys into his arms, pulling her tight against his chest as he buried his face in her hair, heedless of sweat or ice that might cling to it. "Hey, hey, I'm here. We're here. What happened? Are you hurt?" He was babbling and asking too many questions too fast, but he was too frantic with worry to realize what he was doing. Something had happened, had gone wrong, and he was terrified that Alys was hurt somewhere he couldn't see.

and i'm still waiting for a life that never was

Alys wasn’t sure how long she knelt there in the snow, clutching silently at the tattered remains of the bond that, until today, had been so alight with life and love. All she knew was that tears coursed silently down her face, dripping from her cheeks onto the icy landscape beneath her knees. She was vaguely aware of the cold as the snow melted against her warmth, seeping into her pants and sending shooting, icy-hot pain tingling up her fingers, but it hardly seemed to matter. What good were a couple of fingers when Sascha was permanently, irreversibly gone?

Boreal’s arrival barely registered; the seer mumbled something incomprehensible as the dragon wrapped her wings around her. The warmth of her partner’s companion contrasted with her frozen heart so painfully that the tears thickened, falling faster and faster as a choked, keening wail rose up in her throat. Boreal was here, but Sascha… the little ursur who had followed the dragon around like a lost puppy, who had been a constant shadow in their lives… how was she going to tell them?

It was all her fault.

Tal found here there, frozen in place with Boreal wrapped around her, and skidded to a stop in front of her, pulling her in tight. He was speaking, but she couldn’t answer past the boulder that had lodged itself in her throat. How could she explain that a part of her soul was just… gone? That somehow… she knew she would never be the same without it?

”The Void -“ she managed, struggling to force words through teeth that chattered, her entire body succumbing to shock and beginning to shake violently. ”I - Sascha - she -“ Alys pushed against Tal just enough that she could look up into his eyes, her own wide with grief and pain beyond imagining. She clutched at her partner, balling his shirt into her fists. ”She’s gone.”

Alys

He had never seen Alys in so much pain before. Had hoped to never see her so wounded and torn by grief, and it ripped a hole in his chest that not even Frey's Ring could heal while his partner shivered against his chest, cracked through until her heart bled out beneath the Deepfrost sky in waves of pain that he was helpless to staunch.

He didn't even know what was wrong--

And then she moved against him, pushing him away, back, and he reluctantly loosened his grip until he realized she needed to look at him. Needed to see his face and he looked down into hers with eyes that had already widened with surprise and fear at her mention of the Void. Was she infected? Had the Family tried to take her the way they'd taken Soh?

Sascha.

Three heartbeats passed in the space of three hours. Three months. Three years. Tal stared down at his partner, uncomprehending at first. Unable to wrap his mind around the enormity of her words. Sascha, the little bear who was as much a part of their lives as Boreal, inextricable and intertwined with both their hearts, was far too small to have found herself in danger. No threat to anyone, no reason for anything of the Void to target her, no possibly way that she could be gone--

A human mind could refuse to believe the truth of the world, but a dragon's mind was much simpler. Much clearer. Boreal picked the images from her human's thoughts, the meaning of Alys's words transmuted into emotions that she could understand, and the dragon grew very still against the woman's side.

And then she tipped back her head, a keening howl of purest heartbreak rising from her throat to fill the air with the wailing ululation of a lost soul. Her shadow. The little sister of her heart. The pup cub that she had helped to raise was dead.

And their family would never be the same again.

It was Boreal's grief that brought home the reality of Alys's words to Tal. The courier's eyes, still disbelieving, filled with unbidden tears that spilled over, streaking down his cheeks as he crumpled over his partner, pulling her in close again as he drew in a shuddering breath that came out in a strangled sob. "Alys. Alys. Gods. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry..."

Like a self-contained blizzard, a white dragon snarls overhead with an ursur clutched between its claws. Flying towards the high cliffs that no doubt are its home, it’s probably a good thing that it already has its dinner for the evening, lest you have become its meal.

---

You’ve encountered a White Dragon. This counts as a rare creature encounter for the purposes of levelling, but does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention. If you choose to follow this creature, you do so at your own risk, however, just having it in this thread is enough to satisfy your levelling requirements. You may not kill your rare creature without admin permission.

White Dragons (Rare/mythical): Living in underground tunnels that are warded with ice and snow, white dragons hoard treasure and anything they deem beautiful. Often this means that one might find gold, gems, and frozen humans stored in their caves. They can speak the basic common tongue and can communicate telepathically with the attuned, though they are secretive, vain, and usually aloof and unhelpful.

and i'm still waiting for a life that never was

Alys saw the moment the truth crashed down on her partner, and the sheer amount of pain on his face only served to double her own. Her mouth twisted, her face contorting as she collapsed back into Tal’s arms, burying her face in his chest as she sobbed, their combined tears falling upon the background of Boreal’s keening.

A snarl sounded nearby, and Alys jerked out of Tal’s grip to look up, panic flashing across her face. Had the yeti not been defeated after all? Had it followed her here, determined to finish what it had started?

But it was just a dragon, and Alys might have let it pass on by without comment if not for the sight of the ursur between its claws. The creature was too big to be Sascha, but it hardly mattered; Alys’s head fell forward, her eyes squeezing shut against the weight of her loss and the heart-rending pain that radiated from her chest.

”It’s my fault,” she cried suddenly, shuddering in her partner’s grip, her hands slipping from his shirt in favor of wrapping them around her middle, holding herself together. This was more than just grief. The loss of such a profound bond had left her adrift, no longer sure who she was or where she belonged. All she knew was that it was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, her mistake that had cost her companion her life.

Alys

It seemed that they could not even grieve in peace. Their mingled sorrow - too soft a word, too tame for the torrent of emotion that twisted through them with the force of an avalanche - was still piercingly fresh when the dragon crossed the sky overhead, it's primal voice sending a spear of ancient fear through Tal. He felt Alys pull away and he followed her gaze even as he reached for her again, unwilling to let her go as a far deeper panic into his soul.

He couldn't lose her, too.

It was a cruel mockery, then, to see the dead ursur in its claws. An unwelcome reminder that it was not just the Void that brought destruction and loss. Why the fuck couldn't the dragon have taken on the Void threat? Why didn't Caido fight back instead of leaving it all to them?? Theological questions that Tal could linger over later, when his heart and mind weren't in such disarray. Now, in this moment, all that mattered was Alys. Was getting her somewhere safe, and the safest place that Tal's soul grasped for was now within their reach.

"It's not," he promised her, his own voice cracking under the weight of his tears. He pulled her back against him with one arm, but his other groped for his pocket, for the comforting weight of the Constellation Compass on its chain. His hand closed over it and he squeezed, seeing the Peregrine in his mind's eye and willing them both to the safety of her cabin.

The world shifted around them, a sense of movement without taking a single step, and in the next heartbeat all three of them - not four, never four again, not the same four that they had been - huddled together within the protection of the skyboat. Hidden, at least for a short while, from the cruelties of their world. "Th'Void... y'said it was th'Void that did this t'her... th'fucking Void," he growled out through his tears. "That's why she's gone. Not you." He might not know the details, but the certainty in his voice was unshakeable and as raw as the grief that came out hoarse and weeping alongside it.

and i'm still waiting for a life that never was

But it was her fault, however much Tal might insist that it wasn’t. He didn’t know the full story, didn’t know that her own stupidity had gotten her companion killed. He didn’t know how close she herself had come to death out there on the tundra, didn’t know that Sascha had sacrificed herself so that her bonded might have the chance to live. He didn’t know that Alys might never recover from the glaring, barren hole where her heart had once been.

Or maybe he did know that. After all, he had Boreal. And this, losing Sascha - it wouldn’t be a huge mental leap to think about what might happen to their dragon, if they weren’t careful.

The world shifted around them, the frigid white of the snow replaced by warm browns, and when Alys blinked, they were safely aboard the Peregrine. Her tears had started to slow, not because she felt any better, but because they were quite simply running out. And in their place came a devastated silence that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to break.

His quiet faith in her - that this couldn’t be her fault, that she couldn’t be to blame for the destruction of their little family - was what drove her to speak, and when she did, it was in a voice that sounded far away and empty. ”She wouldn’t have been out there if not for me. I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help, but then -“ Her shivering worsened as she remembered the violet-tinged monster that had awaited them. ”There was a yeti, but it was infected, and - I never would have gone out there if I’d have known, Tal. I swear.”

She was babbling now, clutching at the single lifeline that remained to her - her partner. Gods, but he would hate her for this, wouldn’t he? He would realize that she was stupid, and weak, and not worthy of his love, and that would be it.

She couldn’t lose him.

Tears welled again, just when she’d thought she had no more to cry. ”I tried to distract it with an illusion,” she choked out. ”And Sascha ran after the illusion to trick the yeti into thinking it was the real me. She - sacrificed herself -“ Alys sobbed. ”And I couldn’t save her.”

Alys

There was noise outside the skyboat; the sounds of a busy skyport, with crews loading crates of goods into holds and passengers heading to or from their ships. The hull of the Peregrine muffled the noise, however, providing at least a slight haven from the world as they shared their grief and came to terms with the loss of a precious member of their family - and of a piece of Alys's very soul, now taken to Mort far too soon.

It was impossible to him to think that any of it could have been Alys's fault, however. He knew that he could never harm Boreal or knowingly put her in harm's way, but Caido was not a gentle world and harm had a way of happening to even the most careful of its inhabitants. The arrival of the Void and its twisted effects on the flora and fauna, turning them strange and more aggressive than usual, only made that even more true.

If Sascha's loss had not already broken his heart, the dull emptiness in Alys's voice would have done so as she began to speak. "Hey, hey, I've got you," he murmured by rote, wrapping his arms more tightly around her to try and quell her shivering. He didn't try to interrupt beyond that, letting Alys speak and rocking them both gently as the words came tumbling out of his partner until they turned back into sobs. He kissed her hair, heedless of the tears that started to flow fresh down his own cheeks. "It's..." He trailed off, choking on the word fine before it even made it past his throat. It wasn't fine, and it would never be fine, and he wouldn't insult either of them by lying about it. "It's not your fault," he said again instead, voice rough with all the force of his emotion that he put behind the words, willing Alys to believe him. "Y'didn't know. Couldn't've known. An' she... she..." He swallowed hard, muscles tensing as he growled his next words into her hair, grief twisting into something fierce and sharp in his chest and aimed right for the thrice-damned island in the Arclight. "It was th'Void-fucked yeti that killed 'er. Not you. Never you."

and i'm still waiting for a life that never was

The sounds outside the Peregrine hardly registered. This was wrong - it was all so terribly, terribly wrong. Nothing aside from the hole where her heart had been mattered. Tal and Boreal were the only things holding her together; if not for them, she feared she might shatter into fragments so small and so fragile that they might be blown away on the breeze, never to be reunited into one piece again.

He had her, and although it didn’t fix things, it made it somehow marginally more bearable. She should have died, but here she was, and Tal’s arms around her was the proof she needed to believe that this wasn’t some horrible nightmare, but a cold reality in which she had made a mistake and her companion had paid the price. This was her burden, and one that she would bear for days and weeks and seasons into the future.

And maybe it wasn’t Alys who had struck the blow, but it was the seer who had led her gentle, loving ursur into harm’s way. Sascha, who, despite her age, had always been the cub of the family - their youngest, smallest, arguably most in need of protection. She was gone, and Alys was here, and none of it was right, or fair, or fine - but it was real, and there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it.

So no matter how much Tal insisted that it wasn’t her fault, that she didn’t do it… she couldn’t help but disagree.

But arguing the point seemed like such a waste, like it would take up so much more effort than she had to give. So the seer nodded miserably and buried her face in her partner’s shoulder, her arms wrapping around his middle as they held each other, trapped in her own grief.

Alys

He held her as tightly as he could without hurting her, pressing her to his chest even as Boreal leaned against her back. Her keening had fallen away to a low, sobvocal whimper but Tal could feel it in his heart as the three of them reverberated with the unimaginable loss of their youngest family member.

But losing Alys would have been even more devastating. A thought that would haunt Tal in the weeks to come, filling him with guilt over the wicked twist of cruel relief buried deep in his heart that he hadn't lost both of them. For if Alys had been the one to fall, Sascha would not have survived long without her bonded no matter how desperately Tal and Boreal tried to sustain her. And then they would have had nothing at all to hold on to.

It was too soon to dwell on that, however. The grief was far too raw and overwhelming, even as anger shaded its edges and Tal placed the blame for the ursur's death squarely on the Void and the Family that sowed its unwanted seeds around Caido. He shifted to wrap his arms around Alys so that he could hold on to her shoulders as well as her waist, tucking her close against them while they mourned.

~Fin