i've given you all and now i'm nothing

Theory · 01-06-2024, 04:09 PM

It was a strikingly hot summer day. The height of the afternoon sun had burned away the typical fog from the swamp, leaving everything sticky and heady and uncomfortable. The air still held on to the moisture tightly - it felt as if a wet cloth was folding in on her, drawing closer and closer. Theory plodded quietly through the water, watching the ripples disrupt her reflection.

She couldn't remember the last time she got a good look at herself. Time had not been to kind her. Her coat hung heavy and patchy on her frame, weighed down from a poor springtime shed. Unruly clumps of undercoat peeked through her typically sleek black fur. Above those patchy clumps on her chest, beginning along her neck and speckled along her muzzle was a wash of grey. She paused for a moment, allowed the water to still, and inspected what she saw there.

Strange, not to recognize yourself. Theory's striking blue eyes found their mirror and stared back, dumbly. Who was that old hag? Her shoulders poked out at jaunty angles, her cheeks were just a touch gaunt. And that grey along the muzzle... She licked her lips nervously and tried to offer this reflection, this shadow of herself, a smile. It came out as a grimace. Theory rolled her shoulders back and set ahead, following the faint scent on the breeze. A familiar one, cemented in the recesses of her memory.

It was growing stronger as she approached the other side of the swamp. The wetlands were giving way to swaths of grass and fertile soil - just on the other side of a small gulley, she could spy the sparse beginnings of an orchard. Little striplings, bending easily in the wind. The scent seemed to pool and mingle there. She could pick so out so many varied threads of it - like it, but not quite the same. Like the same melody but rearranged. A family. He must have a family She lingered then, her heart collapsing in on itself. She didn't want to cause trouble for him.

But she wasn't sure what she wanted. Maybe just the comfort of a familiar face. It would be easier to turn around, retreat into the muggy swamp and try to make her way somewhere new... but she stayed where she was planted, teetering just on the edge of this pack's border. She was at a crossroads. No matter which way she chose, the rest of her life was waiting.

Her mind was sound. She'd missed so much. She'd lost so much.

Thoughts of Abaven would be a forever wound. Perhaps it would one day hurt less, but it would never close. It would never heal. This grief was her millstone to bear, tied around her neck until she choked. Was it selfish to do this? To appear as if a ghost? I didn't die. Not really. She could stand on this side of the swamp forever and remain dead, or she could step forward and call out. She could chose to live. She could chose to be remembered, and bear this pain forever, and be stronger for it. Wiser for it. Older for it.

She could.

Theory called out for Corvus.

"theory speaks!"

Thread Move Log
Thread		Forum	From	To
1.	i've given you all and now i'm nothing	Corpseghoul Swamplands	04:09 PM, 01-06-2024	11:38 AM, 07-16-2024

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