The Bloodied Moon

*Tahlia* · 11-17-2014, 12:16 AM

Walk | Talk
| Think

Inside the den, Tahlia slept on. She lay curled upon her side, her growing belly testament to the belief she held firmly to even in the face of her husband's doubt. They were going to have more children, another litter to care for and raise alongside their others. Their family would grow once more, given more lives and more love for them to share. It was everything that she had asked for, everything she had dreamed of all these years. It was such a perfect picture, she had been denying herself the truths that had been plainly becoming more evident, the truths that she knew would alter and warp her vision of the future forever.

They were far from her mind even as her husband's tired call entered their den and stirred her from sleep. Stretching, she uncoiled and yawned briefly, lifting her head from the earthen floor of their den as she blinked toward the opening. As her vision came into focus over her single functioning eye, the right scarred and cloudy and useless, she noticed the faint traces of white flakes that fell outside, gently beginning to coat the earth in their cold and chilly blanket. Only after a second did its significance sink in.

Snow. Winter was here. Another year had passed for her mate, another year that he had managed to stay with her despite his advanced age. Last year had been difficult enough, realizing how old he was and how little time she had left with him. This year... It felt as if time was finally ticking down.

Suddenly anxious, chilled though a second ago she had been perfectly warm and cozy, Tahlia dragged herself to her paws, carefully mindful of the litter she carried, and stepped from the den, pausing only long enough to get her bearings. Bane's call had been from above, beyond their den and away from the fjord's edge. With haste, she set off after him, eventually running across his scent and tracking it the rest of the way until she found him propped against the base of the out-of-place tree.

Seeing him there, solid and standing even if only because the tree refused to buckle under him weight, made her wonder how it could be that everything would end. He had always been there, even when they had been apart. She could not imagine life without him. Still not comprehending, still refusing to comprehend, she called gently to him from a short distance, her voice hesitant and unsteady and her ears laid back because deep down she ultimately knew something was wrong. "Bane?"

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