A Ballad of Sacrifice

Caedes watched as the second and third pups entered the world, their cries echoing against the walls of his den. He carefully cleaned and placed each one at Aurelia's side, his movements precise yet tender. He could see the toll this had taken on her, the weight of the emotional and physical pain evident in her every breath. He could see her struggling, the exhaustion and pain written in the lines of her face, in the way her body lay so still, almost lifeless. He knew she was at her limit, her senses dulled and her world reduced to a haze of weariness. He nearly reached out to gently brush against her face, to wipe away her sweat and offer some small comfort he wasn’t sure she would even feel before the drugs wore off, but he never got the chance.

Sephiran crashed into the space between them. The force of the collision caused Caedes to stumble back, his eyes wide and fur bristling. He couldn’t have predicted what would come. What would happen before his eyes, and what he would feel.

Sephiran's venomous rage filled the den, each hateful word cutting through the fragile peace Caedes had fought so hard to maintain. His eyes burned with a cold fury, the detachment giving way to a fierce, protective anger that boiled within the pit of his stomach. In his mind, he was surging forth, knocking Sephiran aside and shielding Aurelia with his body, come what may. He was attacking Sephiran, killing him, mutilating him — he was doing anything and everything instead of watching the mad man do this to her.

But…. that was not what was truly happening. He was not moving, he was still. Limbs planted firmly onto the ground, because if he moved now he would surely kill Sephiran this very moment. And what of his life? Of his love for Mariah? What then?

His mind ceased rationality. His thoughts stilled.

Sephiran seethed, his voice cutting through the haze but failing to reach the core of Caedes' awareness. The sight of the lifeless pups hitting the ground, the blade tearing into Aurelia's shoulder, the grotesque beheading — it all registered in a detached, almost surreal way. Caedes felt as if he were watching a terrible nightmare play out from behind a pane of glass, unable to break through, unable to intervene.

Caedes was simply rooted to the spot, the world around him narrowing into a tunnel of detached numbness. Sephiran's rage-filled voice became a distant echo, his venomous words blurring into an incomprehensible drone. The gruesome scene unfolded before him in slow motion, each act of violence another weight pressing down on his already burdened mind.

Sephiran's voice, his every word was a growl, dripping with venom as he assaulted her. Caedes' muscles tensed, his instincts screaming to intervene. Why. Why. Why did he have to watch this? Why was he watching instead of acting? Please. Why.

As Sephiran twisted the blade, mangling her shoulder, Caedes could feel his control slipping. The smell of blood, the sound of Aurelia's pained whimper, the desperate cries of the newborn pups — all of it fueled a burning rage within him. But he did not move.

‘Are you satisfied now, Aurelia?’ Sephiran's words were a bitter snarl, his actions grotesque and inhumane. He rubbed the severed head against her face, the macabre punishment meant to break her spirit further. But she was already broken.

Enough. Enough. Enough!

Sephiran's snarls cut through the fog, but they did not draw Caedes back to the present. Instead, he felt himself sinking deeper into the abyss of his own mind, retreating from the unbearable reality before him. The severed head of the pup, pressed against Aurelia's face by Sephiran's cruel hand, was a grotesque image that seared itself into his memory. Yet even this horror felt distant, like a terrible story told in a language he no longer understood. He could only watch as Sephiran forced her to swallow down her own stillborn babe’s head.

Caedes' body felt heavy, his limbs unresponsive as if weighted down by an invisible force. His vision tunneled, the edges of his sight darkening and blurring. He could hear his own heartbeat, a steady, oppressive thud that seemed to drown out everything else. The world narrowed further, his perception shrinking to a pinpoint of awareness that held only the barest semblance of the brutal scene playing out before him.

Aurelia's voice, weak and broken, echoed in his mind from her earlier in her labors. but he could no longer grasp the meaning of her words. Nor the meaning of Sephiran’s now. The cold, clinical part of his brain noted the signs of her pending expiration, the fading strength in her body, the slackening of her muscles. But the part of him that should have acted, the part that cared so much, was buried under layers of dissociation and numbness.

He was aware, on some distant level, that he should be doing something — anything — to stop Sephiran, to protect Aurelia and the children, to stop this madness. But that awareness was a dim flicker, lost in the overwhelming tide of his disconnection. He felt like a ghost, present in form but absent in spirit, watching helplessly as the scene played out before him.

Sephiran’s insanity echoed against the walls where minutes ago there was the serene sound of crying newborns, now drowned out by the sick crunch and wet squelching of Aurelia’s skull reduced to nothing. Nothing. Just mash against the cold ground. Her life snuffed out by this creature before him that was no longer his cousin. Caedes watched as the last vestiges of her life ebbed away, his mind desolate of emotion while his body burned like liquid fire in a disjointed sense of body and mind.

The last thing he heard before the world went completely dark was Sephiran's voice, dripping with hatred and malice. But what was he saying? Caedes could barely hear.

And then, silence. The world slipped away entirely, leaving Caedes adrift in a void of his own making, cut off from the pain, the horror, the unbearable reality of what had just transpired. His body stood silent, watching, void as Sephiran killed her.