Leave a light on

How long had it been since the incident? Time meant little when you were just going through the motions, trying to ignore the pain and the emptiness left inside from having something so crucial to you ripped away. Saracyn hadn't even tried to put on a brave face. The Commander did his duties as he was required to, nothing more, nothing less. When he wasn't working, he had tried to give some comfort to Avacyn, but each time he tried, his mate looked like his very presence was hurting her. Every time he tried to touch her, it felt as if she would cringe away at any moment, like he was made of fire and would burn her. It crushed down his broken heart even more and convinced him more and more each day that he had made the wrong choices by stealing her away from Albion. He had gotten what he wanted, but at what cost? He had failed to give her the family she deserved, couldn't help her secure her claim as Matriarch, and now his very existence felt like he was poisoning her.

After several days of failed attempts to comfort Ava, Saracyn retreated into himself, only interacting with Avacyn when they would need to discuss matters of business and to lie beside her in their den at night to sleep, but keeping a buffer of space between them. He didn't want to make her any more uncomfortable than she already was around him. In the space in between, there was only one place Saracyn ever was—their children's graves. The crimson brute had spent every day since their burial there, gazing down at the modest pile of rocks that marked their resting place while he stood guard over them, the same way he would have if they had been napping or playing. It didn't matter how cold it got or how bad the weather was; Saracyn was there every day. At first, he was silent during his post. Then he began to talk to the pups, lamenting all the things he had wanted to do with them, all the memories he'd planned to make, and how he fully expected to be an awful father to them. He would sing them the lullabies his father had sung for him when he was a child, he would listen to the nearby waves on the coast, describe the world as it was that day, anything to kill the endless silence. Eventually he went back to being silent once again, lying guard over his children like they were still there.

Snow was falling in gentle flurries down from a heavy cloud-laden sky, covering the island in a fresh blanket of powdery white. Saracyn laid curled around the stone pile for their children as if trying to keep them warm, staring blankly up at the sky while his coat was slowly covered like a powdered doughnut. The world was completely silent; almost eerie in the dreary winter day with the rhythmic lapping of the ocean close by. He didn't know how long he had been lying there before the sound of paws rushing his way caught his attention, white-tipped ears flicking up, followed by his head raising and breaking some of the layer of snow off of his coat. He could see the violet form of his twin coming his way in a hurry. He stood, letting the snow crumble off of his fur as she came right up to him. Sara didn't say a word, just looking with concern to Ava as she looked up into his eyes. He expected her to be reporting some sort of trouble he needed to handle, or some pack matter that needed looking into.

Instead, Saracyn got a wordless whine before his mate was pressing herself into him for the first time since the deaths of their children. The sudden affection took Sara by surprise, and it was enough to break something inside the brute. His chest heaved with a smothered sob, his head leaning down to rest atop her own while another sob shook his whole body. He couldn't speak. There was nothing to say anyway. From the chill on his body, the snow still encrusting his coat, and the Saracyn-shaped hole in the snow around their children's graves, Ava would know what he had been doing for the past Ancients knew how long. Sara felt like such a failure. If he perished out here in the elements with their pups, then it was the least he deserved. At least then it would make up for the waste of an Ancient soul he was.

"Avacyn & Saracyn"