What's Important

All through the coniferous woods lay a trail of rampant destruction. In his unstable emotional state, Saracyn had torn apart anything he could get his paws on. Brush was crushed and shredded, tree trunks were torn and clawed, and the occasional unlucky squirrel or rabbit that hadn't gotten out of the enraged dire wolf's way in time had been eviscerated and left in his wake. Manea would have to step through a veritable battlefield before she eventually found her son where he had tired himself out. Sitting slumped over in the middle of a small clearing, the despondent Commander just stared down at his own bleeding paws, injured and splintered from lashing out at the sturdy trees he'd marked up. His eyes were wide open, but glassy and distant, staring off into nothingness. Saracyn was broken and empty, unable to move, unable to speak, scarcely able to breathe the pain in his chest was so intense. That was how Manea found her son.

Saracyn didn't even look up when he heard the approaching pawsteps of his mother. He was frozen in place, petrified in a pained stupor like a statue. It was his mother's presence that finally broke him out of his trance. The moment she leaned her shoulder into his, Sara all but crumpled under the emotional toll he had endured for the sake of his sister. He had tried to keep himself together, to be strong for her, but it had been slowly killing him inside, whittling him away until he was hollow. Now with no one left to put up a facade for, Saracyn's true self slipped through the cracks in his mask, and Manea would be the one to see it. "I fucked up..." he croaked out after a long moment of silence. His voice was so hoarse and rough, broken by the sorrow and the screaming he had done during his emotional explosion. "I fucked up everything because I thought Ava and I were meant to be... But all I've done is ruin her life."

Silence for a while. Then Saracyn finally lifted his head, just enough so he could look at his mother with heartbroken, anguished eyes, as if he was pleading with her for an answer that made sense. "Why did the Ancients abandon us...? I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought this was what they created me for, but... all I've brought Ava is pain and loss and a pair of dead puppies. Why would they make me this way if I wasn't supposed to be like this?" Saracyn still couldn't wrap his mind over how this could have happened. Everything he had been raised to believe in told him that this was what was supposed to be, but all he had to show for his belief was a heartbroken mate, a damaged marriage, and a pair of dead twins. Why had the Ancients betrayed and abandoned them so cruelly? Why were they being punished so harshly for doing what they were supposed to do?

"Saracyn Mendacium"