- ƒᴇʟʟ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʀαᴄᴋs

"ALL OF THESE YEARS, YOU U S E D ME!"

Vocals howled themselves hoarse to careen through the wind of the storm. Trees groaned in painful song around her as the mangroves she had defended for so long threatened to uproot themselves. Rain pelted her with stinging bites and the wind screeched at her defiance, sheets of water cascading down upon her. "You fucking USED me!" The realization drove the tightness in her chest to pure and utter agony.

"SONG!" Banshee screech snatched itself away in the wind to god-knows-where. "MARVEL! ARIA! GERHARDT!" Jupiter called out the ghosts of her past. Some were dead while others still walked this earth in comfortable leisure, comfortable on their crowns without guilt or remorse. "And FUCK you all for doing it!"

Toes c l e n c h e d into the silt as the water tore at her paws, trying to tear them from her. The salt drove into her scars with bitterness unmatched, pain mixing into her snarls. The breakdown had been inevitable and now it churned down on her like the storm, threatening to rip her apart like the mangroves of Ludicael. Lover's Mangrove was not an apt place. Love lurked here no longer. Only hatred of a mother who had nearly lost all of her children, of an enforcer who had fought to the death for what was right, of a dethroned queen seeking retribution.

"Come and face me, you fucking cowards!" Lips were curled sharply upwards to reveal yellowed ivories, bared in defiance at the world that had betrayed her so.