there's an albatross around your neck

She had been whole once upon a time, so long ago and too distant and lost for her to remember. After that, after the breaking all she had had left was the circle, the repetitive cycle of her broken mind that went around and around in an endless agony. Now? she no longer even had that. The memories where resurfacing and she could feel them bubble and boil beneath the edges of her awareness, and they terrified her. She was so frightened of her own mind and for all that she had drowned herself in her insanity it seemed that the she had come full circle and this time there was no escaping them.

But she could not say she had nothing not with this wolf standing tall above her, guarding her, grounding her and keeping her alive when otherwise she might had screamed, and run into the depths of the ocean to drown herself in a whole new and brutally physical way. No, she had Altavero and here he was, promising to keep her alive, promising that he would save what he had created.

He told her that she was going to be alright, and she clung to those words, looked up at him through her grey mists and believed more than believed, she hoped for the first time in a very long time. ?Then my fate is yours? she said simply, incapable of controlling it herself, and terrible relieved to be free of its burden, she would sink further into the sand, sink and move at the same time until she was curling up at his feet like an overgrown puppy, needing his warmth and protection.