The crack in my foundation

She said nothing, just got to her paws stiffly and got to work. As she fumbled near the edges of the burnt space for sticks, he stood there and trembled. His body shaking with tremors violent enough that he bit his tongue. He clenched his paws in the earth, and forced a deep breath into his body. Down through his lungs, as his eyes slid slowly closed and then open again.

Pain, all he felt was pain, so thick in his mind and his body that it numbed him. He had wanted to love Zee for the rest of their lives. He had wanted to grow old together. He wanted nothing more than to hear her bicker at him as he tweaked her tail, just to hear the wonderful bite of her voice. He wanted to spar with her, the underdog. The little Queen that was one of the only wolves in the world who occasionally managed to knock him off his paws.

He wanted to hold her through the thunderstorms, as she started out shaking, whimpering, and slowly settled in his arms. Knowing he would keep her safe. Trusting in him, over her fears of hearing the thunder.

Tamsyn was back, he hadn’t realised she had pulled over her makeshift sled and was looking at him as he stared blankly into nothingness. She had waited for him, patient, silent. He rubbed his eyes roughly with a paw, and stomped forward. Trying to find that air of dispassion. Callous, cold. He wanted nothing more than to be these things.

He stopped first by Azure, looking down at the bones of his rising son. His heir, who was supposed to be greater than him one day. Whose bear-like paws had been strong, determined. His eyes, quick to anger, were just as quick to protect those that belonged to the Armada. The Warlord snared at those bones. “You didn’t keep her safe any better then I did” he said as he grabbed at the bones, and tossed them onto the woven sticks. If he trembled as he did so, he didn’t bring notice to it.

Once all the pieces of his son were collected, he had no choice. He had to turn back to her, to his Zee. He grabbed at the antlers. Picking them up in his maw, and her head clung to it for a moment, before tearing free and clattering to the earth. He stared, he stared for a long time at those antlers, and the pieces of her skull. He didn’t move, he just stood there. Holding it, as through he couldn’t fathom what pieces of his soul connected to his limbs.

"Speech"