Tears & Rain

The steady motion of the mixing stopped at Haydée's blurted confession of how she had been scolded by the man that had maimed her, that she had been ridiculed for the way she led the pack. He didn't lift his gaze from the pot of herbal medicine in his paws right away, but he sat still for a moment as he processed the statement. Not only had this man that claimed to be a leader himself intrude on their lands with his wolves and steal their belongings, but then went on to wound his sister so deeply there was no way it wouldn't scar and perhaps wound her mentally even more deeply than that. His jaw tensed and he closed his eyes for just a moment while he took a breath to steady himself before he continued his work, trying to focus on that instead of everything else that seemed to constantly be stacking against them and crumbling around them.

He had only just picked up one of the rags from the bowl of treated water, ringing it out some before bringing it to the back of her neck, and had begun gently cleaning away the dried blood and dirt from her wound when Haydée spoke again. She apologized, making him glance toward her face with confusion. What did she have to apologize to him for? As she went on to blame this on her being a "weak" alpha he only grew more angry–not at her, but at their situation and this Raider brute that had caused it. "You are not weak," he insisted quietly and firmly while his paws continued to work, his emerald gaze focused on her wound as he cleaned it and get a better sense of how much damage had been done. Somehow having this situation to distract him made his paws move even more easily and steadily, moving on practiced instinct instead of letting himself overthink what he was doing. "Showing care and concern for others and not leading with some diluted sense power at the expense of strangers doesn't make you weak. There is a difference between being weak and being gentle. You are not spineless, you are not weak, you are not dumb. You are smart, caring, steady, and thoughtful. Just because some pigheaded, violent thief says you're weak doesn't–"

He realized as he was speaking that he was starting to grip the rag he was holding far too tight, the curl of his toes making his paw start to ache, and his paw had started to tremble lightly as he got more and more worked up about the situation. He stopped himself and pulled his paw back to take a breath, putting the now bloodied, dirty rag off to the side and instead picking up the medicine he had been preparing. "Just because he says so doesn't mean you are. There is no one right way to lead," he finally finished as he was beginning to spread a light layer of the medicine that would chase away any possible infections and encourage the wound to close once it was stitched together. Once that medicine was applied he sat back a bit with a heavy sigh, putting the pot aside before rubbing his paws over his face. "We're only two years old..." he lamented. "You took this on before we were even really adults. We've seen our father murdered, our mother lose her mind, and we're supposed to just... know how to handle this? To know how to lead or... even just... live our lives? Who is he to criticize you? He's practically an old man scolding a child who was given a job that they weren't trained for."

He couldn't sit still any more so he got up, busying himself with discarding the soiled rag and putting away the pot of medicine now that he was done with it, pacing back and forth across the space a bit to calm himself down. He had been teetering on a razors edge for a long time, sometimes swaying one way or another ever since their father was killed, but the events of the last couple of days were pushing him and threatening to topple him over. He started preparing the bone needle and thread to seal up her wound while the herbs he applied did their job to soothe the inflammation and form a protective barrier across the exposed flesh. "I... I don't know if I can take another hit like this, Hay," he admitted quietly as he looked down at his own paws and struggled with the thread he was trying to feed into the needle, his voice wavering as he spoke. "It's been non-stop since dad died and I don't think I've even really accepted that... that he's gone." His voice broke and he realized with a start that his vision had clouded with tears and he quickly wiped them away.

"Dorian"