Duchess didn't know how long she had been here... not because of the haunting moon on the horizon because she couldn't see that anymore. But because being in this cell, sightless, it made the minutes feel like hours, and the hours feel like days. She tried counting meals she was given instead, but lost track easily. Being enclosed somewhere like this, hearing the other occupants in the cells around her made her almost stir crazy. They almost sounded like ghosts through the crystals in her ears. It was hard to keep her focus on anything especially while she her senses were marred.

She wasn't going to die here, though she didn't expect the alpha to let her rot or kill her. She had been taken care of appropriately. She did think that the illness was what would kill her. And it did make her think of what she regretted in her life.

She waited until after the residents of the pack gave her a meal and left before going up to the metal bars of the cell, a plan she had thought up herself, and put the new grown crystals snug along the bars. The crystals gently tinged against the bars before she locked them in, and prepared for the force she was going to have to use to bend the bars.

The pain was almost worst than her extremely traumatizing birth, she couldn't help but wallow in pain but kept pushing as the bars started to pull apart. She only needed them a little more ajar than they were made to slip out. But just as she was starting to get somewhere, the crystal on her shoulders she had locked against the bar snapped. She flung forward onto the ground, but found herself quickly back up to finish job before someone found her.

Locking another crystal, she pushed again at the bars until they were bent enough to let her out, the ooze along her one side from the irritated and broken crystals making her slide like oil easily out. She walked down the halls trailing the scent of the traffic that came in and out from the pack lands, her crystals bumping along the many other cages and cells that hosted others on her way out.

It was easy to find the ocean once she was outside, but navigating her way to the mainland was near impossible while she was blind. She swam as long as she could, thinking she was heading in the right direction. Before she knew it, everything went black from the sheer exhaustion of swimming around blind, though maybe that meant it would be a peaceful death.

She washed up along the shore of the cove, unconscious and oozing mostly from the break in the crystals that she had forced against the bars.

"Duchess"

Duchess had been missing for weeks. While Emersyn hadn't been worried initially, as the days crept on, she began to wonder if the band's most suicidally depressed member had actually gone off and killed herself. Indigo, whom she thought Duchess had been hiding away with, had also not seen her. So Duchess had just wandered off. She was prone to doing shit like that, so maybe she was just out looking for a pity fuck? Still, with the world going as screwy as it had been, Em resigned herself to the task of setting off to find the smaller woman. Whether they liked each other or not, Duchess was still a member of the band—the band that she was now responsible for while Indigo got his shit together.

Duchess' trail had since gone cold, but she had a heading in mind. She'd been seen heading south toward Auster, and after spending a few days searching around for a trace of Duchess, Emersyn found a faint trail that led her to the edges of a pack on an island. Em eyed the island from the shore, trying to suss out what was going on. Had Duchess been kidnapped by a hostile pack? Had she abandoned the band in favor of another group? Or was she simply sucking as much dick as she could get her paws on and the pack scratched that itch for her? Emersyn scowled; Duchess' reckless disregard was going to get her killed one day, and she would no doubt drag as many wolves down with her as she could manage.

Prowling along the shore, Emersyn made her way past some tide pools towards the island. She would call for the alpha, try to hold an audience and ask for her wolf back, and hopefully things wouldn't turn violent. However, as she made her way up the coast, Em noticed a silhouetted lump on the rocky shore, just barely visible in the dimly lit world. It looked like a dead body, but she couldn't be sure. Quirking a curious brow, Em diverted course to wander closer to the body. As her eyes began to adjust to the dark, she began to get details of the wolf—most notably her black and amethyst fur.

Emersyn gasped in shock and rushed up to Duchess. There was no doubt this was the woman she sought. But what in the name of all the gods and devils had happened to her?! Duchess had crystals sprouting from her eyes and ears, with a glowing ooze dripping from around her wounds and her nose. "Duchess! Duchess, can you hear me?" Em tried to shake the limp wolf, praying she was merely unconscious and not deceased. She made sure not to touch any of the strange growths or the ooze that was coming from the smaller fae while she tried to wake her. Fuck, what if that pack had killed her? Drowned her and left her to float up on the beach? She'd have to bury the body; it was only respectful.

"Emersyn"

Duchess may have appeared dead for even a few moments after Emersyn had found her. What really woke her was the shaking, because it was mostly hard to hear. As she came back to consciousness, her lungs retracted into a cough and heave as they spilled the water from in them. She stayed laying down, her sightless eyes looked forward as she tried to focus on what was going on around her. The scent alone was enough to tell, but Duchess heard her voice too through the crystals poking out from her ears. "Emersyn?" She questioned, her head and eyes moving to look up at her even though she couldn't see. The crystals suggested she was deaf, though only if she wasn't responding to anything Emersyn was saying. But her sightless eyes were otherwise completely normal. No milky appearance, the crystals made a trail from her ears and under her eyes across her cheeks, her eyes were still functioning while looking directly at Emersyn. She didn't attempt to stand though, she wasn't even quite sure how to address her current situation now that Emersyn was here.

"Duchess"

The sudden confused movements of the Duchess corpse startled Emersyn, who recoiled at the sight of the pitiful-looking wolf. Duchess spoke her name as if in a haze, unable to see or hear her clearly and looking confused by everything around her. It was a pathetic sight, really... Em breathed a heavy sigh, ears folding to her head while she shook her head and muttered, "Oh Duchess... what have you done now?" Gods only knew what had happened to get her in such a state. For a brief moment, Em looked down at Duch while she considered what she should do. Duchess had clearly come down with some sort of horrible illness. What if it was contagious? She couldn't risk the health of the rest of the band. Plus the small violet fae was basically useless again. First the pups, now this? It was like Duchess was a walking Pandora's box: one calamity coming from her after another.

Emersyn's duo-toned eyes shifted from Duchess to look up at the dark, choppy waters of the sea. It would have been so easy for her to drag Duchess into those abyssal tides and hold her down until the bubbles stopped and the bitch was limp and lifeless. It would be the most beneficial thing to the band, to Indigo, to everyone. Hell, it might've even been a mercy to Duchess at this point. Ah, but as tempting as that idea was, she could hear Indy's voice of disapproval in the back of her mind. Pursing her lips, Em instead reached a paw slowly up to stroke Duchess' back comfortingly. Duchess had to live; she was her responsibility now. To die would be a failure on Emersyn's part to protect her.

"Yeah, it's me," she replied, unsure if Duchess could even hear her, but answering her felt like the right thing to do. "C'mon, we gotta get you home." Emersyn leaned down and nudged Duch's side with her muzzle, hoping to urge her up to her paws. She would try to get Duchess up so she could lift the dainty fae up onto her back and carry her back home. That would be a damn sight easier than trying to lead the blind wolf through the dark woods across a continent back home.

"Emersyn"

In all honesty, Duchess felt relived that Emersyn was even out looking for her, like maybe somehow she did mean something to the band and even her. It was almost like a light at the end of the tunnel, or at least just in this moment. Any harsher feelings Emersyn may have thought even right now while looking at at Duchess' horrifying state were unseen by her. She felt like she was cared for.

Emersyn poked at her to get up, Duchess had heard her say 'come on' with a little bit of mumbling. She stood without much of an issue, but before it was too completely apparent that she was blind she spoke out, "Em, I can't see." If Emersyn had offered to carry her on her back, she was wary. But really she didn't have much of a choice. It would take much longer for them to walk back together side by side. But she couldn't help feeling embarrassed after everything that had happened between them.

"Duchess"

Duchess

The sickness deepens... The next time you pee, it glows brightly for several minutes.