midas
TW for sort of? suicidal thoughts
11-06-2022, 06:58 PM
WC: 1271
The pressure clung to her, shoved her down and up and side to side -- as if she was deep underwater, getting crushed -- and so persistently, violently so that she could hardly breathe through the knot in her throat and the pounding in her ears. Her head throbbed. Her vision blurred. It had gotten worse over the week, worse and worse and worse and -- her thoughts spun in circles like an infinite spinning top -- it had been bad, but it had grown so bad that this night, she couldn't settle for a minute to try sleep. Shadows appeared in the corners of her vision when she wasn't paying attention, but then they'd progressed to lunging at her, making her jump and twirl about, snarling and pinning her ears back at what would then actually turn out to be nothing when they disappeared as if they had never been there as soon as her eyes turned on them. And after that came the laughing, the screaming. None of it real, but all of it seeming so vividly to be that she couldn't put them out of her brain either. They were just behind her, always, stalking her, getting closer and closer and closer --
She threw herself up out of the bed, growling lowly in the dark as the cold seeped ever further into her bones, crawling up her veins. The shadows swirled just out of her sight, but they didn't hide from her hearing. Buzzing, ringing, and then more concrete laughing and snarling and crying out like lost little puppies she couldn't save. They would kill her -- that was all she knew. And so, she knew nothing. She knew that she knew nothing, and she knew that the shadows -- the ghosts, she thought suddenly, not wanting to -- also knew that she knew nothing. She could scream, but no one would save her; no one could, and trying would only hurt them too. Like a wolf she'd once loved, a mother with the sharpest fangs and the biggest heart in the world, a wolf that had gone insane and tried to kill her own wife, a wolf that had died protecting the pack she loved, since she could not live and protect them still. Would Avantika follow in her footsteps?
She had to get out.
As she raced out of the castle and sprinted across the fields at a breakneck pace, quickly enough to nearly trip over her own paws, a conversation with her brother echoed in her ears. She'd been angry. They'd both been angry. He'd brought up Resin, compared her in the darkest time of her spiral towards death to her -- 'You look just like mom did, right before the end'. But she was worse. One of the ghosts howled with laughter. Oh, she had been so much worse. 'You made her feel so unloved that she couldn't stand to be in the same place as you.' You're terrible. You only ever hurt people. Why do you even try? If you trick them into thinking that you love them, you'll only disappoint them; you'll make them sad. One shadow unfurled itself into a sort of abominable version of Art, a bluish monster with huge teeth that towered over her, whose eyes were more furious and hateful than she'd ever seen; even when Art had been angry and rebuking her before, it had always been because he cared, and because he felt that she deserved to get better. This Art would burn her alive. You should be dead already, he hissed. You don't deserve to be a part of the Hallows and you were never really part of our family. Your real parents should have killed you, long before you ever even met me.
Another shadow stepped up next to the shadow Art. Rudy, cold and mean in a way she couldn't bear to imagine, growled, Go back to your patrols, Tika. The name he'd always called her twisted mockingly in the shadow's mouth. You're no fun anymore. I believed better of you.
Tamsyn and Resin. Bowen. Laeta. Ezra. Dozens of shadows, shaped like each of the Hallows wolves, each looming over her, their fangs and eyes and tongues all ready to tear her apart. They were her betters. If they wanted to kill her, she'd let them. She'd sworn it, again and again, and for all the promises she'd broken, she'd never break that one. No matter how it had to be proven. "I love you," Avantika whispered, a plea chased by the wind that silenced it. None of the shadows seemed to hear. Even if they did, they would not have cared. Her words didn't matter, not -- not when --
The next one, standing at Art's paws, was Audra. The same height she had always been, small and weak and deserving only of protection. She was the most realistic of any of the shadows in all ways, which was fitting since she alone was the form she could trace in her sleep. Avantika held her breath without realizing it, waiting for whatever she would say. It would be the worst, she knew. But Audra didn't say anything at all.
She didn't have to; Avantika understood.
The Hallows shadows blotted out the sky, a circle enclosing her. Avantika spun around, growling weakly. What could she do? She couldn't fight them. Her heart, her body, her life itself was theirs. It was time to push that to its logical extreme. She dropped suddenly to the ground, not feeling the impact at all as her head screamed in pain and her ears burned with the fury of all of the wolves she loved and the pressure swelled and swelled and --
It popped.
Avantika stood up, now all alone in the grove. It was dark and silent, in a way that couldn't be described as either comforting or frightening, but simply nothing. Her eyes darted about herself, but it was true, the shadows had entirely disappeared. Her heart still raced, but as she took deep breath after deep breath to steady herself, it gradually slowed to a more reasonable rate. She glanced down at her paws, which would not move. It was strange, but even though the panic and the pressure had released their grip on her, she couldn't bring herself to go back to that room in the castle, that lonely room still decorated for two. Nor could she head out to the border for the patrols that had once occupied her every waking moment, the patrols that had been her twisted sort of refuge from actually having to face the wolves she had so dearly pledged that she would die for. She didn't know where to go, so she supposed she could stay at least for a while.
A few minutes passed in the quiet.
Avantika's mind, now that it was calmer, now turned in the completely opposite direction, almost palpably itchy with a need for... something. No, she knew what it was, though she didn't really want to think about it. She wanted Resin. She wanted her mom. Resin always knew what to do. If no one could fix her, her old leader, her mother, the wolf she both longed to be and was terrified of suffering the same fate as, Resin could try. "I love you," she murmured again, too soft for anyone to hear, even if they were there. It was a prayer and it was a promise and it was a plea for forgiveness against the sins of her past. Maybe a shadow would return if she wanted it to enough. Maybe it would be kind and pretend for her.
Avantika is prone to panic attacks. Keep in mind when roleplaying with her.
Her companions, a female sharp-shinned hawk named Kaata and a black-thighed falconet named Kit can be assumed to always be close by unless otherwise stated.
Her companions, a female sharp-shinned hawk named Kaata and a black-thighed falconet named Kit can be assumed to always be close by unless otherwise stated.