Times were tough, but the alpha was doing her best to fight through it. Valhalla would be going to war, and although it had once been talked about years ago, this would be the first time that such violence would overtake the good natured pack. Her father had managed to make this a good place, a place that all who were a part of it could be proud of. She couldn't help but worry that she had broken part of that, that she had made all of the wrong decisions along the way and that the war she helped breed would be something that her father was ashamed of. Surely he was angry with her, for failing to keep the peace and protect her members. It pushed her to work twice as hard to get them back, but the disappointment that he would feel if he were here...


He would probably renounce her as alpha and pick up the pieces she had scattered about himself.


These were the thoughts that would plague the woman as she fell asleep for the first time in days. Scouting and worrying and training had taken up her time before hand, but she simply couldn't stay standing anymore. The cold winter night would slowly lull her to sleep, the sounds of insects in Valhalla's grasslands an unwanted lullaby. As soon as the woman laid down her eyes were closed, and she was asleep despite wanting to push herself further. Her warriors needed more training, the pups needed to be escorted to Seracia, and her leg needed to be seen by a healer after her latest fight with Isardis... but it all fell away as she fainted, her final thoughts that of an apology to her father. He had been such a great alpha - a legacy. A legacy that she was failing to live up to entirely. She had given up and let go of Liberty after her mother had died loving and protecting this pack. She had submitted to the monster instead of dying fighting like she should have.


Syrinx could have picked up the pieces for this war to continue on.


She was so sorry.

The sun cascaded into the night yet again and it was another day come to pass in the lands of Alacritis. Still, he merely waited, perched in his ethereal existence watching over them. Pride and knowledge being the bane of his existence. There was so much he knew about the world as it was, but he could not tell them--would not tell them. It was forbidden and the course of things could be gravely altered. Not a hint, not a gesture, all was for them. And while he could see them in his after-life existence he was forced to act as though he were a dream to them. they could never know of his true existence and watchful protection. He yearned to make sure they were well cared for. And as his thoughts ran wild, here she came unto him, his baby drifting into slumber--into his embrace.

eyes darted to the sky, and it was as if by command, a scene was forged. A massive valley and a sky with millions of stars overtook the night. the sound of crickets broke into the background and he came into view, body leaning against an old tree. However, he was not the old boy he had died--no he was the youthful glorious warrior. Something they had never had the privilege to see. His body was, again, well chiseled and powerful, and every morsel of his cortex quaked yet again. It was nice to appear so firm and strong. It was night to exist as this--even if only for a small time before he slipped into his slumber yet again.

Eyes would see her in the distance, and he would only twist his head in curiosity at her. She would come--she had to. Curiosity would -hopefully- consume her, and oh how he lingered to be near her again. To hold her and tell her everything would be alright--even though that was entirely up to her.

The first time that she saw him, she didn't have the courage to step forward. A dream within a dream, seeing her father, seeing him as he once was, alive and healthy and so very young - she couldn't do it. Seeing him at his greatest point, seeing how tall and proud and beautiful he was when he was leading young Valhalla, the woman's feet would not propel her forward. And so she would close her eyes and let it all fade away - waking up only moments after falling asleep.

------------------------------------------

It was after the war that she would faint, fall so deeply into slumber that she was haunted with the same dream. Her dreams it seemed, would haunt her with the faded reflection of her father, pristine and elegant as he once was, her heart pounded at the scene - just as fresh and new and breathtaking as it was the first time that she had seen it. It was as if it was in the same place that she had left, as if he had been waiting - waiting for her. Her lips quivered, and her heart throbbed painfully as she realized that even here, her vision was impaired. Never again would she see out of her right eye, not even in her dreams. She could only wonder whether it was an ugly a scar as she felt it was, a glorious beacon, shining harshly upon her inadequacy. Never would she be anything like her father, never would she carry Valhalla high and mighty as he once did. She knew it, surely her siblings new it, and now Glaciem knew it for sure.

They would be back, and there was nothing that she could do to stop them.

Nothing would ever be alright again.

"Father I..." She would slink forward, her nose nearly touching the ground. Inwardly she would weep for the legacy that he had left behind, and that she had singlehandedly let die. Valhalla had lost, the pack's lands were in ruins... "I failed you, failed Valhalla..." Surely he had appeared here to scold her, to tell her how badly she had failed him, to tell her what she already knew. "They took three men, injured so many..." And she had fainted on the field, lost her eye to their Queen. "I didn't defend them," At least, not the way that she had wanted to. She should have died fighting out there. Not the man they had slayed on their borders... innocent should not have been blighted - not on her territory, not because of her mistakes.

"I'm sorry." Words could never recover what had been lost or repair what was now in ruins. But perhaps within her own dreams, she would be able to come close to conveying her regret.