Come Together and Rise [Pack Meeting]

Viv lethargically raised her head from her paws as she heard Aurielle's call for the pack, but for a moment she made no move to join them, just stared at the twin graves within the circle of stones. When she'd returned to bury Harlow here, beside the girl's grandmother, she could have sworn that Gwenevere had been here too, standing beside her with comforting solidarity as she had in life. They'd spoken together, but the glow of warmth and comfort had faded quickly when she'd learned that while she'd been gone from the pack searching for a cure, three pack members had died without her to provide them whatever medical comfort she could. If she had realized that Paladin was so ill, would she have left? Going off on her own, however good her intentions, had left the pack without a healthy, fully train healer. She could not have saved Justice and Domari and Paladin, but she could have eased their passing if she'd been here. If. Instead, they'd died in agony like all the others who had died of that damnable disease. Like Harlow.

Depression weighed her down with apathy so that it was an effort to force herself to her paws, and the bitter-ashen taste of her failures was like a sharp tang on her tongue. What was the point in going to the meeting? In continuing the charade? Even after she'd gone to the Nomads to get fully trained she'd returned to the pack only to disgrace it again. She added no value to Valhalla, no worth. The pack would be better off with one of Aurielle's half-trained daughters as healer rather than her.

But years of ingrained obedience was a momentum all its own and she turned her plodding footsteps towards the meeting stone as was expected of her. When she reached the pack she faltered and turned away from her sister and her remaining brother, slinking in to lurk far at the back, away from their line of sight, and slouched there looking at her paws, waiting. All sparkle and vivacity that she'd always had seemed to have leached away from her, leaving her emerald eyes dull and making her deep golden pelt somehow seem grayer without it.