A stitch away from making it

It wasn't fair. The two embracing wolves had done nothing to deserve the type of pain and torment they were both enduring with a steadfast resilience. They were innocents swept up in the chaos and the shit and there was nothing they could do except endure—endure and hope they made it out on the other side. Briar was completely coming undone, all but bawling as she wept and shook harder against him. Artorias tried to replicate all of the soothing motions she had done to him only days before, craning his neck around hers to give her as much physical contact as possible, his paws rubbing slow circuits along her upper and lower back, occasionally extending claws to gently scritch at her skin. He wasn't going to let go of her ever. Briar was his friend. His. Nobody and nothing hurt the wolves he cares about, not while he was alive to do something about it.

True to his vow, Artorias did not let go of Briar, keeping his forelegs wound tight and secure around her while she let all of the bottled up emotions come tumbling out like a tidal wave. He didn't know how long they had been sitting there for, but eventually Briar began to settle down again, her sobbing turning into gentle quivers and shallow breathing. Still he refused to let go of her. There had been a time only a couple of days ago where he had been afraid he had lost her forever to infanticide. Sirius' words haunted him, especially now that he had seen the marks where the Warlord's fangs had pierced her throat. The worst part of all that was how impossible it would have been for him to do anything about it. Had Sirius bitten a little harder or shifted a couple of inches, Briar would have died almost immediately, and he would have been a whole continent away. She would have been killed, buried, and mourned all without him ever knowing she was gone. The thought that she could vanish so easily and permanently terrified the boy. He couldn't lose his Briar.

Once he felt Briar's sobs taper off, Artorias slowly opened his eyes, staring blankly into space somewhere between the snow and the plains, still just taking in the moment as it happened. Briar's quiet comment about her getting his coat wet made the corners of Art's mouth twitch with the ghost of a smile. She still had her humor; that was good. "I don't mind," he replied in a just as subdued tone. There it was—her laugh. Even distorted with anguish and choked sobs, it was that bright sound that lifted his spirits, so uniquely Briar in every way. That brought a true smile to Art's face again. Gods, was he happy she was back... He squeezed her a little tighter in his hold, burying his nose into the fur on the side of her neck, whispering, "I'm so glad you're safe..."

The sensations of those honed feline claws scratching gently over his back where her paws lay drew those familiar deep-seated murrs from within the boy's chest. It was a lovely sensation that sent electricity through him. She was well on the way to putting him in a trance with those scritching paws that Artorias only barely caught the question she asked him. He blinked happy, half-lidded eyes back open to focus, then released a heavy sigh. "When your dad brought my mom back home, I confronted him about why she was in such bad shape... We ended up in a fight, and I managed to get his knife off of him," he began to explain. He left out the details that Sirius had been the one to arm him with the knife and hadn't put up much of a fight, reasoning that Briar didn't need to think her father was suicidal and had tried to get Art to kill him. "He started saying things... I think he was trying to make me mad... He told me how he was the one who hurt my mom..." Artorias paused, swallowing back the lump in his throat that was stopping his breathing. "...He told me he almost killed you..."

It was almost worse that Briar didn't sound accusatory or faulting of him for what had happened. It would have been easier to explain the story if she had been. Then he could just confess to his actions and accept the blame. "I just... I lost control. I've never felt so angry as when I thought he had taken you away from me forever. The thought of anyone hurting you..." He drifted off, biting back the anger. Calm, stay calm, Briar was fine and she was here with him now. "So I stabbed him... I stabbed him a lot, and I nearly killed him." His jaw clenched and he squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to think about her reaction. "I didn't mean to hurt him as bad as I did, and I'm so sorry... But the thought of losing you like that..." He couldn't say it, couldn't bear to think it. He had been dreading this moment of facing Briar after having butchered her father the way he did, terrified she would hate him, that she wouldn't want to see him again, all because he didn't have better control of himself.


"Artorias" | Thoughts | "Corbin"