clarity

It was cold here. Even the thick pudge that covered her form did little to keep the biting wind at bay, leaving her shivering as she curled up against a stone wall. She wasn't sure why she'd fled here, or if flee was even the right word for it. She'd just wanted to...fade away, she supposed. Didn't feel as though she had the right to grieve, to even exist any more when surely, so many were hurting more than herself. The thought of it made her sick, made her feel rotten to her core like she was being eaten alive from the inside out. Like the worst parts of her were drapped over her shoulders for all to see. And what a hideous sight she was.

It didn't hurt any less the second time around.

You know when a beloved family pet is dying, and they know they're dying, they try to just...fade away. Find a spot in the home no one would think to look, cram themselves inside, tight and claustrophobic and just wait for the end. Perhaps it was a cowardly move, maybe Ophie was an awful person, but it felt right to her. Was an automatic action, easy as breathing and just as thoughtless. In the same way an animal caught in a trap would gnaw off its own limb to escape, Ophie had felt that very same sense of urgency when she'd left the Armada. Ran and ran till she puked, till it felt like she was dying as well as the cold mountain air filled her lungs.

It was peaceful here, quiet and unseen-close to heaven, if there was one. Surely Zee would be there.

And yet it pained her, like something gripping her throat, to think that she was gone. Well and truly dead this time. Proof and all, undeniable with witnesses and a body left in her wake. She used to dream of fire when she thought about her Mother, cried out as the flamed licked the tan of her form. Twisting and remaking her into something else, brittle bones charred black and left strewn about. Like she meant nothing, no more valuable than a twig upon the ground. The paw prints of the culprits meandering this way and that, calm and at ease with what they'd done. Confident that they'd never get caught.

This time her death felt colder, final. Piercing like the cold air that filled Ophie's lungs, there was no one to blame. No villains to seek out for retribution and somehow that made it so much worse. Made her feel as though it wasn't an accident or a twist of fate, her being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It almost felt...preordained, the falling of a hammer after seasons of delay. Maybe they'd all been clinging onto borrowed time, this was what they deserved for being so selfish. But what it truly too much to ask? Ophie did not think loving their mother and wife was such a bad thing.

Sure, maybe Ophie could have been a better daughter. Wouldn't have struggled so much when Zee tried to give her a bath but...it was just how they were, how things had settled between them. The doting Mother and the troubled daughter. Broken and messy, not perfect as she should be but loved all the same.

Maybe even missed right now.

And yet Ophie felt no desire to go home, to slink back into her muddlie hole. To even offer a shoulder to lean on for her younger siblings, who needed comfort more than anyone else right now. She hadn't interacted much with her siblings, didn't know for sure they would loathe her like the rest but...she felt almost jealous all the same. Like no one was acknowledging her loss, didn't care that she was soft and fragile, just not capable of dealing with hardships the Fatalis way.

Just one more time, that's all she wanted, one more moment with the wolf who had...understood her the most. They were opposite sides of the coin and yet close all the same. The world was acting out of sorts again, she heard whispers up here, voices of those who were no longer amongst the living and so selfishly wondered if... Surely she wouldn't leave her alone, not when her name resounded in Ophie's mind like a prayer. A begging mantra of I need one more moment, just one more time, Mum.

She fell asleep alone...and woke up alone. Not entirely unexpected...but unfair. Like kicking a dog when it was already down, whimpering and curling in on itself. Wishing it could just die, but didn't have the guts to follow through. To do what needed to be done. Arguably what should have been done so long ago, long before she had fallen to this state. Become this.

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