Bellamy does not expect to have been heard by any wolf, but when she lifts her gaze to see one of Ethne’s newer members standing at the edge of the creek she frowns deeply. Her ears, still pressed against her head, give the slightest of movement as she slows her steps to a stop. Her mind has grown loud, and worry about making her daughter worse again with these feelings has kept her from speaking with her fellow Leader. Those thoughts are like an angry hive, buzzing and vibrating within her head, repeating over and over. She feels on edge, sick, and full of shame. The wolf before her, Eltrys, is offering comfort, but Bellamy’s gaze falls to her paws. Was she deserving of it? A heavy sigh passes her lips and the old wolf lowers her rump to the earth. Perhaps… speaking of it to more wolves will help.
“It is hard not to feel that way when your whole life you have carried with you traces of blood and the souls of so many upon your consciousness.” The woman does not lift her gaze and instead lets it fall to the creek to watch the flow of the water. “There is a lot of weight, years of guilt… of weakness.” Her tone betrays the blame she places on herself. Another sigh leaves her. For him to understand, and truly understand what she is facing now, Bellamy knows she will need to open up about her past to him as she had to her daughter. It is something that still makes her uneasy, revealing a side of herself that she had hoped never to have to share with anyone.
“For you to truly understand… I need to go back to my youth, to lead you up to everything.” Bellamy shakes her head. “It all began when I was barely allowed out of the den, playing with my sisters. There was an accident, a cave in… Ana had been within. Rosie and I ran to get our parents who began trying to dig her out when wolves of the Empire came.” Even now, years after the events had happened, she still remembered the approach of the Kedieo soldiers so vividly. The cold looks in their eyes chilled her to the core, freezing her with fear.
“They demanded my parents give them my remaining sister and I… My father refused, turning to fight them.” He had been a strong man, tall, but still short of the dire wolves that turned on him. “It… was a losing battle. My mother tried to help him, but in the end I watched my parents be torn apart before my eyes. Then they set their gaze on Rosemary and I… and… my sister moved to avenge our parents.” Bellamy squeezed her eyes closed. “Her life was over in seconds… They killed her as if she was prey, snapping her neck and dropping her body to the ground… I was so terrified… I… I couldn’t do anything…” Some small part of her knew why. She had been a child. What had she expected herself to be able to do?
“I was taken into the empire… part of the Empress’ new project to weed out resistance as she went about conquering the packs of Lyenne… an army of children.” She opened her eyes again. Pain and loss reflected within them. “Those times were ones I had hoped to shut away forever… but I still remember them so clearly… the beatings, the threats… Obedience was the only way to survive… and when it came to fighting, you fought for your life. They wouldn’t waste herbs on the injured… you would be left to die or meet your fate at the paws of any other resistance that happened upon you.”[/coolor] Bellamy shook her head.
“I was less than a year old when the raids began, sneaking into camps to steal the lives of those who slept… Cowardice is what kept me alive… choosing to take the lives of others rather than die with honor as my parents and sister had standing for what was right…” Her claws dug into the soil and Bellamy’s body grew tense. “The divinities only know how many lives I’ve taken, how many wolves I encountered on the battlefield and fought to steal them away from their loved ones, just as the soldiers of the Empire had done to me…” Only she would leave no survivors. She had been so afraid of death…
“I was an adult before I managed to resist them at all… all over a young Tasmanian Devil, my companion now… They were torturing him and something snapped inside. I defended him, despite the rain of blows that fell as a result.” Another sigh. “Days later… I took an opportunity of a lapse in the guards watching over us. I killed them, and, on my way out, slipped into the heart of the territory where the empress was. They were so confident in our obedience, in the ability of their guards watching us that they didn’t think anyone would get close enough to her. I killed her in the same way she ordered us to kill those who fought her will, and I fled.” Bellamy lifted her gaze to Eltrys at last.
“Ghosts follow you… They’ve followed me my whole life, showing again when I return to battlefields alongside others, and what I see shifts present with the past like the waves of the rolling sea.” Would that make sense to him at all? “It… had been so long since it last happened that when strangers came to Ethne’s borders in the night that I didn’t think. I woke up reacting, perhaps in fear that the past sins I’d once done were coming back to light against me and my family. I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was so angry… and just like then… the battlefield began to shift…” And then the shame of it all… her gaze fell again, her posture shifting to reflect the guilt she felt.
“I… I remember a child approaching me… and then my mind snapped… Everyone was fighting around me. By the time I could recall anything of what was going on one of my packmates was on my tail as I fled the battlefield, telling me that I had maimed a child…” Her voice became quiet. “I don’t remember the fight at all… but… I know I was furious with their arrival… there was no reason… I…” Bellamy drew in a shuddering breath. “Unwell mind or not… it doesn’t change the fact that she had been maimed… her blood is upon my fangs… It is my fault and responsibility to bear… and… and now that action undoubtedly will bring trouble for our pack… the place of stability I’d hoped to create for my family…” She didn’t lift her gaze now, tears pricking at her eyes.
“The Divine know of my sins… making me reflect, seeing the error of my ways in the youth of our pack… reminding me of what I did to a child… a child that was like them…” The woman scoffs softly. “What wolf would ever believe I was anything more than a monster…?” She had left out the struggles she and her family had faced. Of the murder of her mate, and the toll it had taken on her heart and soul. But it was all laid out before Eltrys, a woman full of grief and regret struggling against herself... believing herself to be the fault of it all, even with some of the circumstances beyond her control. In many ways it revealed the child she had been all those years ago, still grieving and hurting over everything had gone so very wrong...
"Speech," 'Thought.'
Berserker
