The Weight of Living
02-17-2015, 10:54 AM
The scent of blood, sharp and cold, rose suddenly from a crevasse as she traveled along it, and her voice cracked the silence with a cry of helpless fear. The scent carried by the iron tang of blood... Shtiya. Peering below her into the crevasse she could not see his small form, but she could see the red so clearly. "Just hold on, Shtiya! I am coming!" Racing along the edge she looked desperately for a way down, repeating her words achingly below her breath like a mantra, her oversized paw came down on a slushy bit at the edge. For a moment she teetered on the edge, unbalanced but so close to pulling herself back, but the whole edge gave way and sent her tumbling. She blacked out when she hit the ground, but swam through fog and ringing ears to consciousness only a moment later. Groaning she made to sit up, but pain tore through her right foreleg and she very nearly blacked out again. She was no healer, had no knowledge of healing, but as she stared at it through the haze threatening her vision she came to the - very correct - realization that it was badly broken. It didn't matter. Taking more care this time she struggled through the pain to force herself, swaying, onto her three other paws. She ached all over... breathing hurt, so very badly, but she limped heavily to her son's side. What breath she had left was spent on a cry of grief as her nose touched his rapidly cooling body. He was gone. For a moment her mind was lost in the pain and the grief, and she could only curl against his body and shake as she sobbed her loss into his blood-streaked fur, but slowly coalesced into one thought; she could not leave him here alone. Gently grasping his scruff in her jaws, she struggled back to her feet and limped forward in determination, dragging him with her. Moving further and further down the icy gorge, she found nothing but jagged, impossible walls, until the walls had narrowed too far for her to travel further. Dully, she turned the other direction, making her way to the other end. Far, far down, but finally she found a place near the far end of the crack that had crumbled, an avalanche of ice and snow building a steep incline. Her jaws still stubbornly gripped in Shtiya's fur she made her slow, painful way up the incline. Slipping, occassionally sliding back but inexorably making her way up it to the lip of the ice canyon, and pulled herself and her son up onto the flat land of the glacial ice. Her eyes stared dully across the land toward Glaciem. So far to go. So... very far. Swaying on her feet she adjusted her grip and slowly plodded out into the melting snow once again. So very, very far... and her breath was beginning to leave her in gasps that sprayed very fine mists of blood into Shtiya's fur. So far... and she could not carry them both any further. She would not leave him alone. She could not... and she could not go further. Gasping for breath now, she let the boy's body go, and slowly, agonizingly, curled her pale body around him. Holding him close, one last time. And slowly, her eyes closed. The gasping ceased, and her body relaxed. Warm, comforting darkness wrapped about her and she was gone. "" |
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