The raid was finished and, though Asla had prevailed in both of her battles, she walked away feeling as though she had lost. Fatigue ran rampant through the blonde fae and she barely made it away from the battlefield before she collapsed. Her limbs shook with exhaustion and her vision was a little spotty. This had never happened after a fight before and yet the woman wasn't surprised.

She'd been sick. It wasn't too difficult to hide. Everyone close was off doing their own things, so Asla stuck close to the den or covered herself when out in the light of day. Her coat had begun to dull and her already svelte frame had become thinner still, leaving her looking slightly emaciated. Asla had little appetite these days. Maybe it was because of the illness. It was probably because of the illness.

Once the initial wave of exhaustion ebbed, Asla made her way shakily to her paws and began slowly moving back towards her own den. She needed to sleep and probably drink something. Definitely sleep. She felt so very, very tired.

"Asla Indarra"

The raid was over—the Raiders had prevailed and though Satira had dominated both of her opponents and done her job as a field medic, the rest of the pack's performance hadn't been enough to prevent the invaders from making off with their resources. Inwardly seething, Tira began to make her way off of the battlefield to set up a triage for the more grievously injured of Valta, but was stopped when she saw her mother stumbling away from the fights and collapsing not far off. Concern flashed across the wolf-dog's expression and she was swift to abandon her tasks to go help her mother. The way she was moving, the slowness and unevenness of her gait, it was worrisome. Tira pulled up alongside Asla, her healer's mind racing as she sought any signs of injury on her mother, realizing just how gaunt she was where she had once been so strong. Now... Aslatiel just looked tired. So, so tired.

"Mom...?" Tira called up to her mother as she fell in step alongside Asla, ready to catch her if she needed. "Are you feeling okay? You look..." Satira didn't finish her sentence, just visibly grimacing as she noted the obvious ribcage and vertebrae pulling against Asla's thin skin. She looked like she was dying. But that was impossible. Her mother was the strongest wolf she knew. There was no way she could be this ill so young.

"Satira"

Arcturus sat off to the side with the rest of the wolves that had gathered off of the battlefield to be seen to by the pack's healers. His attempts in the raid had been terrible at best, most certainly his worst showing yet. He wanted to blame the break up and the heartache for throwing him off of his game, but who knew what it really was. Even with his sister's help both of his attempts at stopping the intruders had fallen very short. He sighed and lifted a paw to rub at his sore shoulder while he waited on his sister to finish with the others before she got to him. All in all his injuries were minor enough to ignore for now so he would rather she focus on the others first.

However, something caught his sister's attention and he noticed her suddenly dart off away from the group. With a curious frown he watched her go, not realizing where she was heading until he realized it was their mother in the distance. His curiosity turned to concern and he got to his paws to go after her. He overheard Tira asking their mom if she was feeling okay and seemed to fall short in describing how she looked and that's when Arc started to pick up on it too. He hadn't seen much of his mom lately, but their little family had always been pretty independent from one another, living their own lives and simply knowing they were there if one of them needed the others. Because of that he clearly had missed the fact that something was very wrong.

"Can I carry you to your den?" he offered quietly as he fell into step on the other side of their mother, worry creasing his brow. It was almost too sudden for the reality of it to really hit him yet and instead he just knew he couldn't be anywhere else but here with his last remaining family.

"Arcturus Indarra"

Satira was at her side quickly and Arcturus came soon after. They both worried and this was something that Asla had been trying to avoid. That was why she wore the heavy cloak that suddenly felt as though it was dragging her down into the snow. Against her will, Asla folded into a sit in the snow, maw parting as she began to pant. Had the fight really taken that much out of her?

"Don't..." she wanted to tell her daughter to not worry, but there was reason to worry. When Arc offered to carry her, Asla shook her head. "I just... need a moment." Gods... were they going to have to have this talk now? Today? The sooner she told them, the more time they would have to come to terms with it, right? "Come with me," she instructed her children.

Cutting away from the rest of the raid party, Aslatiel led her children towards the rapids. There was a nice resting place there that she liked to utilize and it would serve as a proper place for the bombshell that she was about to drop on them. Once the trio were situated on the flat stones by the water, Asla's galactic gaze shifted from child to child. "There's no easy way to say this," she began, as ever, a no-nonsense wolf, "But I do believe that I'm dying. Some sort of wasting illness. No matter what I do, things just keep getting worse."


"Aslatiel Indarra"