What is dead may never truly die

Walk | Talk | Think

Everything was wrong. This was supposed to be a dream, nothing more than something her mind had created in her sleep, but not even telling herself to wake up was working. She repeated the words again and again inside of her head, had even muttered them aloud, but still she was here, within these strangely familiar woods with her mate standing across from her. And, gods, the look on his face. She was hurting him through her distress, though not nearly so much as she knew she would once she explained to him that she was not waking up. That, unknown to her, she never would again.

He drew her to him, curved his neck around her own and held her with a foreleg. Tears spilled as she thought of her plight, understanding what could have been wrong with her but unwilling yet to believe it. She could not be here to stay, as Bane had first thought. She had her children to take care of, her family to raise and watch over. There was so much left undone there in the waking world; how could she have been sent here, to this afterlife, already? Bane consoled her gently, but still he was adamant about finding out the answers to the questions he had already asked, repeating them yet again as he met her watery gaze with his own that was steadier. Oh, how could she tell him what she remembered, what she was beginning to realize? How could he ever take hearing it of her?

"I do not know his name," she finally admitted guiltily, her tear-filled, golden gaze pleading while her ears pinned themselves to her skull. "I don't know anything. When you...when you left, you took part of me with you. I didn't...live right after that. It's all just a blur." Gods, how had she even carried the poor child to full term? And her poor children, seeing her like that... "I am weak when I wake. I go to be with you, by the tree." How pitiful she sounded, how fragile her psyche that she had broken so horribly with his loss. And how horrible she felt to know her children no longer even had her to care for them. "I do nothing else," she whispered, ashamed to admit it, to own up to letting herself deteriorate so quickly. No hunts, no exercise, no time spent with her family. Just endless hours in her grief, chasing the memory of her lost husband. Her eyes filled again, her sadness choking her voice as she stammered, "And now I cannot wake." Did it really mean...? Was she lost now too?