OOC: M for death yadda yadda. Askan has a lot to post but don't use that as an excuse to be lazy for the wordcount with this prompt plz!

Askan was tired, exhausted beyond words and reason. It didn't even feel as though he had a body or form anyone, he was torn at the seams, dripping as he dragged himself along, eyes hooded. He could barely remember what had happened, his thoughts were like smoke, wisping through his grasp as he tried to...just be and think. To live. Even that was hard, as if asking for too much. He didn't even feel the cold or hear the wind as it roared in his ears, screeching at him to keep fighting, to push on and make it home. He closed his eyes, sucking in a rattling breath as he saw the grey stone walls of the castle and the distant blobs of his packmates standing high upon the ramparts. He didn't have friends, there was no one who'd taken a shining to him except that damn goose and Resin and yet...he missed it, the comfort and familiarity. Safety and security. All concepts that felt so distant to him, as though they'd never been real to begin with. Perhaps it was sheer stubbornness that kept him slugging along,  bloodied teeth gritted as his skin struggled to stay attached where it ought to be. Maybe Askan just didn't want to die alone. Or at all. He wasn't sure.

Either way that didn't seem like too much to ask for. But you know, cats will be cats no matter how great or small they all had a mean streak. That's all there was to say about it now, all he could think of. One fuck up after enough till he was buried in it. A disappointment to the very end, just Askan things. He grunted, the stone of the Fjord rubbed against his cheek, the haze of his thoughts swayed back and forth, as though stuck in a never ending loop. Panic set in first, the pain was blinding, overwhelming for the sharpest most horrible moment. And then it dulled as a feeling of knowing, understanding almost settled right in as though this was inevitable, like he had no reason to be surprised. What ifs and whys swirled around in his mind, only for a sudden snap of apathy to take control as he let out what could only be compared to a sigh. But all wet and gurgly, blood was were it shouldn't be. It was everywhere.

It was slow and inevitable.  Where was his sense of pride and dignity? He just wanted it to stop, to all be over already. Even if only just in cause they came back, those cats with daggers as teeth and malice in their eyes.

His vision blurred around the edges there were figures approaching, no doubt lured in by the scent of blood and innards and all of Askan's insides, outside. He barely squinted, white dots pressed at his eyes and he only just recalled that it was snowing. That it had never stopped.

"Fuck you." Was all he managed to rasp, one final venomous hurrah. Stubborn to the end.

Kuroki knew what death smelled like, coppery and bitter at the back of his nose as he struggled through the white of the storm. When he'd started trailing his Father earlier that day he had no idea the Shogun had intended to venture out this far, he was a bit of a pest for sure but if he'd known better he would have turned back long ago. But a deep and resounding feeling in the pit of his bones made him feel as though it was too late for that, he'd lost sight of his Father long ago and now everything was all wrong. Not shining and bright, the adventure he'd put together in his mind. It was all awful and Kuroki now knew he had really really really messed up.

He froze on the spot, toes curling as he sucked in a breath so cold it made his lungs ache.

Through the white haze he barely made out the strangers figure, stained red and pink, with a scent so horrid he almost lost his breakfast. Again the little Prince was no stranger to death, he'd toyed with dead squirrels and pulled them apart in morbid curiosity but the scene that laid out before him was far beyond what a young boy was capable of dealing with. Raw and violent, suffering at its bases nature. This was horror, blurred around the edges as though not real...when every single of his senses were screaming at him that it was. That it was time to see and know and....do. Whatever. Something anything. Please.

He rushed to the strangers side, panic slurred words spilling from his lips as though they would do any good.

"It's okay! I can help- I-I." He fumbled, almost tripping over his own paws, much like his own sister.

Blind with optimism he wasn't sure what could be done. Things died when blood came out so he ought to...try and keep it in, right? But again it was everywhere, spilling, already making Kuroki's dappled coat slick and red as he pressed himself up against the line of the mans sides. The fading warmth of his...squishes keeping him warm despite the cold of it all.

There was no way Kuroki was going on an adventure without her. Ignoring the cold and the pack borders, she stalked her larger brother, even as he in turn stalked their father. Hattori inevitably led them on a merry chase through open icy fields, and and down to the rocky fjord that bordered the ocean inlet. The cold had made her paw pads numb, and her nose was sniffling. She was regretting leaving the pack lands, where she could have crawled into a warm den or found Takē to bury her numb nose into.

Her sniffling was distracting her, and she lost sight of her brother for a moment. With a muffled cry of alarm she picked up the pace, running across the snow until he was back in her line of sight. However, he was not alone. There was a wolf lying in the snow beside her brother, and a mess of red all around. It was like when she got a little overzealous ripping into one of the dead prey her parents occasionally brought them. Gore splattered everywhere. Of course, in those instances, the creature was very much dead.

She had never seen a dead wolf before, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Wolves weren’t supposed to be dead, that wasn’t how the world worked, right? With great caution and trepidation she inched closer to her brother, holding back little noises of stress as she pressed herself into Kuroki’s side. Searching both for warmth and comfort, before she leaned over the larger brother to look at the wolf.

She had started to take healing lessons from Baba Kiyo, though she was wholly unprepared for what lay ahead of them. First, she started to search for his pulse. With her numb paws and the pounding in her ears she missed it the first two times she desperately sought it. On the third go she felt the thready, weak pulse. “He’s still alive” she whispered to her brother, even as she picked some wounds herself to attempt to cover. “I need something to bind them! He’s losing too much blood”

Speech

Kuroki nearly let out a yelp when the fiery form of his littlest sister emerged from the swirling white abyss. Kit did well to hide it but he could see the distress in her eyes, her blue eyes seemed darker than he remembered, as though the world wasn't quite as soft around the edges as they'd once thought. But instead of floundering as Kuroki had she was quick to try and put herself to use, to act in a logical and rational way, just like their Sire. She reached out with a trembling paw and pressed it against his neck, stating that he was still alive. That was good and despite the stress and the terror settling in his bones the little prince couldn't help but feel a glimmer of relief. Bad situations didn't feel quite so when he wasn't alone. He'd been with his siblings since the day he was born, it was in essence his natural state of being.

But what were they supposed to do? Cover his wounds with what? Kuroki looked about, eyes wide and frantic as he tried to set his gaze on something, anything that wasn't infinite pale. A wave of shivers wracked his form as he tried to gently nudge the stringy insides back where they belonged, as though to hold them inside with his front paws. He expected some sort of protest from the man but he was still, limp despite the faint thumping of his heart that was easily drowned out by the roaring of the wind. In a way...Kuroki just wanted to close his eyes and pretend this was all a bad dream. They weren't ready and really able to do anything, no matter how they tried and yet more than anything the pups had thrown themselves into helping. Without even a thought for their safety, their rose tinted glasses now stained with a strangers blood.

With each passing second it was inching towards being too much. As busy as Kit was making herself Kuroki could tell...he knew.

But when things got bad they inevitably got worse.

As he huddled there, his paws bloodied and scrambling he heard yet another roar, one very much unlike the wind screeching in his ears. He straightened a little, eyes snapping wide as he noticed the approaching figures, grey and looming, with massive paws crunching against the snow.

"Kit...." He trailed off, his voice quaking. Did she see them too or was this his mind playing a terrible trick on him again? His imagination spiralling out of control and conjuring images of sabred cats with blood coating their faces. As if that was a normal thing a kid of his age thought about.

She had no idea what to do. She was freaking out inside, and her paws were covered in blood. This wasn’t like learning how to hunt a bunny! This was a living breathing soul, dying in front of her. But Kuroki had looked at her. Her dear, sweet, taller brother had looked at her like she knew what she was doing. How could she do anything less than her best?

“We could p-pack the wounds with snow” it was all they had. It was all they had, and the cold would slow the bleeding, right? It might damage the nerves. She felt like she had heard something like that before, but the man was dying. What choice did they have? She wished she had an adult to tell her what was right. She wasn’t sure she liked this feeling of figuring it out for herself. Not when she knew so little.

Her brother had called out her name, she had been so distracted with her ‘patient’ that she had dismissed the cries for the howling of the wind. She looked at the wolf dying in front of him. She looked at him, and for the first time considered how he had gotten his wounds. She looked at Kuroki, who’s quaking voice told her he was as lost as he was. Afraid. She swallowed hard, and put a bloody paw on her brother's much taller shoulder. “Pack his wounds.” She told him quietly, unwilling to give up on their patient.

Kit herself got to her paws, moving a few steps forward. The tiny creature with shaking limbs and slicked-back ears set her paws in the snow. She raised her head, and stared down the approaching cats. She was small, so small. Destined to be the tiniest of the lot, but she would not move. She placed herself, quite clearly, between her brother, and the approaching danger. Thinking of their father, who backed down from nothing, she envisioned he was at her side, bolstering her. She started to growl a warning, telling the cats to leave.

"Speech"

It didn't even occur to Kuroki that they ought to use the snow, that something, anything, was better than paws with plenty of gaps for blood to seep through. For all his laidback nature he did not have a gentle touch or healing paws, through ill intent or not he seemed to destroy and damage everything his talons touched. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, the flecks of snow falling in slow-motion as he wondered if this was to be his fate all along. He wanted to follow in his Father's footsteps, to be a shinobi and warrior. To do what needed to be done. But could Kuroki really do that? Was there even a slither of a chance he could grow to be half of a man his sire was? The prince was still a child, soft around the edges and with all the naivety that came with his age but the few times Hattori had described his childhood to him made it feel as though they were raised worlds apart. Kuroki was weak in all the ways the Shogun was not and that...it made him feel bad. Terrible beyond words. Except that once Kuroki had asked in passing how many his Father had killed, this was long before the concept of death really sank in, long before this aching and terrible moment. And all Hattori had said, in complete and utter seriousness, was enough.

Maybe it wasn't something anyone got used to. Maybe it was awful every single time.

The prince's gaze snapped to Kit, almost baffled as she abandoned her station and took charge, as though she stood a chance against those beasts. Sure she was a great wrestling partner, one of the best in Kuroki's not so humble opinion but just WHAT was she doing? His paws fumbled, gripping the snow between his toes as he hastily tried to seal up the shredded flesh and skin of the stranger, only to let out a snarl of frustration as he clambered over the still brown form of their patient. The man let out a wisp of a grunt at the pressure, he was holding on barely and didn't seem to much appreciate all their efforts. Not that Kuroki really noticed. The best way to put it was...sensory overload, to much too many things at once with only the big picture managing to remain at the forefront of his mind. Barely.

"Kit no!" He shouted as loud as lungs would allow but the wind seemed to steal his voice, cast it aside as though his words meant nothing. He pressed his shivering form against her, shoulder to shoulder as he adjusted his stance and squinted against the freezing gale. Two snarling voices were better than one and if this was the approach they had to take then it would be better to be together. And if nothing else they'd gain strength and warmth from the other's form, not feel so alone. "Go away! Leave!"

The shadows loomed closer, paying little to no heed if they even could hear them.

With all the rage of a child who had never truly been in danger in all her life, she planted herself there. In the space between the approaching threat and her brother and thought thought herself 'I can not be moved' like a dramatic heroine in a story. A dramatic tale that no doubt involved dragons, and foxes that always had a cunning plan. Not that Kits plan was terribly cunning. It boiled down to unflinching, to intimidation, to bluster the enemy with her own certainty. It was sure to work, right?

It was easier to believe a beautiful story then to think that a man was dying behind her. His life blood leaking inevitably from his terrible, numerous wounds. His fluttering heart beat slowing to a crawl, and his soft gasping breaths. Any of which could be his last. No, a heroine Fox facing down a terrible danger was much easier to stomach.

Despite her fearsome bluster the cats kept on coming. Slinking over the snow like ghosts, blood still gleaming on their fangs. Kits breath seemed to catch, and she forgot for a moment that she was an invincible, immovable force. Then Kuroki was there beside her. His side pressing against hers, his voice bolstering her. She couldn't bring herself to ask about the man they have left behind them. The injured didn't die in her beautiful story. "We are the great tree that blocks their path." She whispered, but if it was to encourage her brother or herself she could not say.

The cats arrived and fanned out before them. Assessing them for all of a moment. Their lightly panting tounges seemed to laugh at the children. Their was blood in their saliva. Kit began to tremble at her brothers side. "Leave! Leave or die!" The bluster tumbled from her lips. She needed the words to hide the cowardice that had begun to creep like a poision to her heart. She had never tasted fear before, and found it bitter on her tongue. She didn't want this to be real. She wanted to scrunch up her eyes and when she opened them again, someone would tell her jt had all been a terrible joke.

However, when she blinked, all it did was bring into focus the cat that leaped across the snow at her. She let out a terrible shriek as it teeth sunk into her neck. It ripped her off the ground lime she weighed nothing, pulling her from her brothers side. It did not take her long to realise she could get no leverage. She could not even scratch or claw at her foe with the way it held her. She screamed in fear and rage as it shook her like a rabid dog, it's fangs sinker deeper into her scruff. Her vision was scrambled but the shaking world. Yet somehow, in the encroaching darkness, she thought she saw a shape she recognized. She scrunched up her nose and eyes and screamed with all her might. "DAAAAAAAAAD!"

Though they shared flesh and blood Kuroki couldn't help but sometimes get a sense of otherness about his Father, as though no matter how hard the little prince tried they would never ever be the same. Having been the one to trail after the Shogun he really ought to have thought to call out for him sooner, to home he was near by to save them from the mess they'd both dived headfirst into. But...in a sense he almost didn't want help to arrive. What would he think? Would he be furious, silver eyes glazed over and cold in that way that made a shiver run down Kuroki's side. That was worse than being outright shouted at, knowing he had disappointed his Father yet again.

But as Kit was snatched up by the scruff of her neck Kuroki found himself mindlessly rushing forward, eyes wide with panic as he narrowed in on the cat that held his little sister in it's clutches. He could not let the past repeat itself, he would not see his sister in the same bloodied, torn mess the stranger was. And yet it would not come to that, not when a orange blur barrelled onto the scene with all the fury of a crash of lightening. Almost heaven sent but not quite, vilified and vindictive.

Kuroki could barely make out the shape of the Shogun as he rushed and blurred, a glint of metal caught his eye and the squish of rending flesh managed to reach his eyes despite the howling winds. There was no snarling or snapping from his sire's lips, just silent and focused actions, all streamlined purpose with no bluster. He did what he needed to do, that was all. Nothing more and nothing less. And then Kit was tossed down beside him, none too gently, and Kuroki was quick to offer her a reassuring nudge with his bloodied snout. His Father's companions were quick to usher them back, rumbling in their native tongue as paws and wings sheltered them from the cold.

Despite that Kuroki found himself trying to peek around the companion's protective forms. He expected to see rage smeared across his Father's features, perhaps even horror of what could have happened to his children, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. Not even the strain of effort. He slit and cut, slipping his tanto into one of the cats throats with almost bored ease. If killing had ever bothered him once it certainly didn't now and that...frightened Kuroki. To see his old man look so empty and soulless, a husk of a man. Silver eyes glazed over as though he too was dead.

And then it was done. Either the rest of the cats were dead or had fled, Kuroki didn't think to check as he stared up at the looming figure of his Father. The Shogun said nothing as he regarded his children, the look in his eyes offered no reassurance or relief. He was mad to be sure, they would both get a tongue lashing whenever he saw fit. But for now he simply looked to the brown wolf and clicked his tongue, again he would do what he must. Make the call that neither of the pups were capable of.

It took all of Kuroki's power to not burst into tears, lest they freeze on his cheeks.

She tumbled to the ground with a cry. Apart of her somehow expected her father to catch her. She hit the ground hard with a whimper, and when she rolled to her paws, it wasnt her father, but Kuroki at her side. She let out a little cry and lunged at her brother, burying her head in his coat for a moment. Her heart felt as fragile as a bird, flitting away in her chest as throihh born on wings. She pulled free of her brother as her father's companions ushered them to the side. Kit was less gentle about throwing her nose through a gap, and watching their father.

Seeing his dispassionate killings, his utter lack of reaction to his children... she felt no love from him, and with it went her relief. Perhaps she had created a story in her head of her father too. There was nothing warm or fatherly about the man that defended them. When his eyes landed on Asken. Her patent, her very first, she felt the horror rise inside of her. 'No!' She thought, and at first the protest was silent. Then, quite suddenly, it was not. Fear and stress and agitation made bold and rebellious. The broken heart in Kurokis eyes made her mad.
"No!" She said again, scrambling free of their protectors and racing to Askans side. She planted herself before her father and the man as firmly as she had between the snow cats. No! This wasn't how it ended. It couldn't be. They didn't suffer al that for... this. She placed two paws over Askans chest, glaring at her father over the dying body. "No pappa, not like this." She cradled Askans head in her tiny paws for a moment, fighting back sniffles. He had lost so much blood, and she could barely feel his irratic, fading pulse. She kissed his nose. "If he's dying surrounded by strangers, then he deserves more." She didn't know who he was, or who would mourn him. It wasn't fair. She had never felt such injustice in her entire life, but it wasn't fair.