Eligos had not resurfaced from the morasse of despair and shock that he had sunk into. With each step the weight that swung from his jaws jarred the stiffened muscles in his neck sending pain screaming through his otherwise numb body. He passed the pack borders without stopping, passed by all the pack dens without looking away from his path or faltering so much as a single pained step, until he reached his destination. Then he hesitated, staring with distant, dry eyes at the sight of Riva's apothecary, at a loss. He steeled himself, took a step forward... and his attention was drawn abruptly away by Riva's voice, not in the building but further away. His resolve nearly quailed at the abrupt change, but he closed his eyes, drew a breath heavy with Danta's scent and blood and death, and turned towards her voice. He stopped at the entrance to a cave, not fully able to fathom why Pyrrhic stood guard over a door there but oddly relieved that there would be closure. Throat suffocatingly tight, he gently lowered Danta's still form to the ground at Pyrrhic's feet, her body curled like she had simply fallen asleep being carried but so, so still, and lifted his blood-red gaze to Pyrrhic's. "Pyrrhic..." he rasped but his voice failed him, unable to articulate what he needed to say. I'm sorry? I killed your daughter?

Pyrrhic was doing his best to reason with the unreasonable. He had to keep reminding himself that Riva wasn't herself right now. She was ill and desperate under the curse of the sickness. While that helped his conscience it did little to lessen his fatigue or ever fraying nerves. He slept little and ate even less. So when Riva became belligerent again he did his best to be understanding but couldn't keep all of his frustration out of his voice. "You aren't well," he said a little too firmly. "I'm not letting you out, I won't let you out, and I need you to listen to me, Riva, I-"

He went cold as his gaze fell on Dantalian's crumbled form. It skipped over Eligos entirely even though he was vaguely aware of his brother's presence. That was his baby girl laying there. She was so tiny, so innocent looking, at her uncle's feet. Numbly Pyrrhic stepped away from the door and towards the still body. He stared at her uncomprehendingly. "How...? I..." He shook his head in confusion. Familiar coping mechanisms began to rise in his mind. This was not real. "Eligos?"

“I have to get out!” she yelled, begging, pleading with her husband to understand. Why did he keep her here, locked in the darkness? There were eyes in the wall. Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he see them? He was trying to reason with her. His voice giving her something to hold onto in the darkness. She would have argued with him all day, if it just meant she could hear his voice a little longer.

So when it fell silent, she perked up her head, frowning. It was then she realised the door was ajar. A small bit of light bleed in, and she heard Eligos’s voice, muffled. Then Pyr spoke, pain and confusion lacing his words. Almost more afraid of what lay outside now then in, she crept forward. She poked her head around the corner, and her eyes fell upon Dante. She let out a soft, keening cry of pain. “No, no!” this was a hallucination. A delusion. This could not be true. She threw herself out the cracked door, and collapsed at Eligos’s feet. Her paws reaching for Dante. “No, no. my girl, my baby girl.”

Eligos quivered as he met his brother's eyes, at Pyrrhic's disbelieving words. His mouth opened to say something, anything, but no words came to him. I think I killed your daughter. I believe I am a murderer. When Riva cried out and flung herself at his paws, to clutch for the body of her daughter, Eligos visibly flinched. Shame, remorse, and self loathing burned through him, and he found himself dropping his gaze from Pyrrhic's and looking aside. They should never have trusted him to lead, none of them. He never should have tried. He was worse than a failure, he was a monster. Maybe Archon had been right. Maybe he was just like him. "This is my fault," he ground out, forcing the words to come. He didn't look at Dantalian, didn't want to find his gaze furtively searching her throat for wounds, so he kept his gaze to the side. To actually see what he'd done would be worse than just believing it. He couldn't bear it if the sight triggered a lost memory out of that blankness in his mind. "I did this. The madness..." He hesitated, and ended simply before he could find himself giving excuses for what he'd done. "I... I killed Dantalian."

Hoping for answers Pyrrhic reached out and touched Dantalian's cheek. The chilled fur only confused him further. That was wrong, this was all wrong. How could this happen? How could that be his child? Pyrrhic had seen her earlier in the day. She'd gotten sick, sure, but she'd been ali- His eyes slammed shut and he bristled as he refused to think the word. To admit what she had been then would be to give credibility to what she was now and Pyrrhic wasn't ready for that. What he needed was to step back. He needed time and space to think because there was none here.

As though from a distance voices came to him. Eligos and Riva, both upset. He felt suspended outside of the situation almost as though things were playing out without him. Nothing more had happened and yet everything was happening too quickly outside his reach. It was too much to process. He knew he should be grieving, that he should be angry, that he should be something other than frozen, but he didn't know how to get back there.

Pyrrhic took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and forced his eyes open. Everything was right where he had left it. This was happening. With that sliver of understanding the floodgates slammed open. He stepped up to Eligos and sought to slam a paw into the middle of his chest. "You're lying," he hissed between clenched teeth. Another jab. "Don't you lie to me. Don't you lie to me, Eligos." He refused to accept his brother's word. It simply wasn't possible.

She looked up at Eligos, confusion and fear shimmering in her blue eyes. Her paw held gently in Dante’s coat, but her eyes were for Eligos. She needed her Alpha to tell her this was all a mistake. An illusion. Something, anything, then what it was.

Then Pyr was there, between them. His paw shoving into his brother's chest. Riva reached over, wrapping little Danta into her arms, as through to protect her from whatever was about to transpire between the two brothers. The little healer rocked the tiny body, pressing a kiss to her daughter's forehead. Waiting for the little girl to open her eyes. Waiting for the life and allegiance to return to her. Eyes shimmering with tears, Riva was lost in a dream, a nightmare. This wasn’t real, none of this could be real.

Eligos looked down, met Riva's eyes, saw the fears laid naked there and had no answer for her. No matter how it tore him apart to see her pain he could not fix this for her. Couldn't change what he had done.

Pyrrhic was suddenly in his face, shoving him back a staggering step with his paw to Eligos' chest. Eligos' jaw worked for a moment, the madness trying to flare up again to tell him to remove the paw that was shoving at him from the paw's owner, but black guilt and despair drowned out the tinny voice in his ears. "I had already attacked her once, not knowing it was her," he said quietly. "I knew I was capable of it, because I had hurt her. She was trying to help me. To..." His brow furrowed. He couldn't quite remember what she was doing. Trying to give him something? The edges of the memory were blurry and odd. "She tried to help me. I lost control. I blacked out. When I came to -" He took an involuntary breath. "When I came to, my jaws were on her throat. She was gone. There was no one else there with us. There was no one else who could have..." He trembled and dragged his gaze away from Riva's to his brother's. "I killed Dantalian."

A savage rage settled over Pyrrhic and he began to quiver. What held him from action was indescribable, but a blessing, as in that moment he wished the most horrible death he could muster upon his brother. He wished to sink his claws into his eyes and dig until Eligos was dead. To press the life from his neck with vengeful paws. He wished to tear Eligos' heart from his chest and present it to him because was that not what he was doing now? The murder of a child was a crushing, terrible thing. Pyrrhic felt as though his heart had been ripped out. He wished the same for his brother. That and more; as many deaths as needed until Pyrrhic felt peace.

He recoiled from Eligos as though he were fire and from a distance regarded him with open contempt. "You-" Hatred tied his tongue and in frustration Pyrrhic ground his teeth so hard they squeaked. He tried again. "You must leave the Abraxas, Eligos. Disavow Aerie and go. We cannot - will not - suffer the presence of a murderer. Your own niece, Eligos." A shudder shook Pyrrhic from head to toe before he laid down an ultimatum. "You will leave or I will kill you."

She cradled Dante, pushing fur from her eyes gently as she waited for her daughter to wake, for this nightmare to end. She waited, and waited, until the sounds of the brothers intruded on her reality. She came back to herself, staring at the lifeless form in her arms, listening to the sounds of her husband and Alpha, and her healer training hit her like a four by four.

Danta was dead.

She laid the body gently on the earth, kissing her crown, feeling like she was outside of her body as she went through the motions of it. She straightened herself then. The tiny wee mother looked at Eligos as he professed to murdering her daughter, and her husband as he told the man to leave. She pressed herself gently to Pyrrhics side, looking up at the man she had once respected. The man that destroyed something precious and beautiful. “Why?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Why, Eligos?”

"Speech"

The weight of his brother's ultimatum settled over him like a heavy, wet blanket, smotheringly. He stared back at Pyrrhic without expression for a long moment, until Riva stood and came up beside her mate to confront him. He flinched away from the accusation in her eyes and her voice. "Do you think I wanted this?" he snarled. "That I do not love your children as though they were my own? I didn't want this!"

He snapped off the last words, tilting his head to stare at the sky so he did not confront their righteous hatred of him. The ooze made new tracks down his fur like the tears he had never been able to cry, but he ignored the sensation. His eyes closed and as they did a sense of peace flowed over him, of acceptance, cushioning the weight of his brother's words, of Riva's. He looked to Pyrrhic once more.

"I will leave you to mourn your daughter," he said. "I will leave pack lands to give you time to do what needs be done for her. But I will not willingly abandon my name or my pack. I will return. You may have your reckoning then. Do what you must."

He dropped his gaze to his niece, then turned aside and walked away. He would leave pack lands, not returning until the disease had either subsided or killed him. He couldn't risk the madness rearing its head when Pyrrhic finally had his vengeance for his daughter - he would not harm his brother. Let him do what he must.

-exit?-