Echoes of the Everlasting (original) (raw)

Thunder rolls across the night sky, rumbling above the forest. Spring rain pours steadily down, rushing down the sides of a hallowed out old tree, swelling up and dripping monotonously onto the muzzle of a young she wolf. Piper blinks her emerald eyes once or twice as she watches the drops of water splash on her muzzle. She doesn't seem to mind; in fact, she doesn't even seem to notice. She just watches it drop drop drop, her expression a bit glazed over. It may be the result of not sleeping in days. Or eating, for that matter. She's spent the last few days covering as much ground as fast as she can. Only the spring thunderstorm had convinced her to stop for a bit, curled up in the hallow tree stump, with vague hopes of sleep - as of yet unfulfilled.

The black-caped wolf sighs as she remembers the reason for her flight. Just a few days ago now, she's not really sure how many - they all blend together at this point - she'd left Ekram, whom she'd been traveling with for a good season now. It was so nice to have someone to travel with, too, but... She ran away. Maybe she shouldn't have, it doesn't matter now. Ekram's who knows how far away and here she is, alone, huddled under a tree while the night stormed around her. Maybe she shouldn't have gone. No, she shouldn't have; she was happy with Ekram. He was kind and fun and he listened, never laughing at what others so frequently called her naive and foolish idealism. But she had... she'd run away. She told him. Told him and the whole world that might have been listening. She'd admitted it. Worse yet, she'd admitted it to herself.

There was a red haze over the once gentle meadow of Forest Deep. It had been beautiful, once. Not now. Death lay over her home. They had come with the setting sun, slinking in through the shadows. The fighting had gone on through the night and though the Killers were brave, they were outnumbered. The night had taken many, and the sun rose to a blood soaked morning. Minion, Finora, Icedeath, Chame, Seroko: her clanmates' bodies strewn beneath the red sky. Aurore and Delwyn, Sarquint's two daughters, lay side-by-side, having fought together. Railen, the beta, alone surrounded by at least four that he had taken wit him. Sunflash, the Earth Wolf, sister of Kmitza, her light-hewed body broken against the rock where she had made her final stand. Nervelli, devoid of magic as she had been, was one of the last to go, fiercely protecting her charges, the clan's pups. Lunaia wasn't there, but amongst the Death Makers' dead bodies she recognized Darinya, Dymlos, Edanya, and Ishtar, brought down by his father. The only who still had breath in their lungs as they sun rose higher were her mother, Windchaser - whose tears were buried into her sister, Genesis' fallen body - and her alpha, Sarquint.

"Windy?" Sarquint called without lifting his head from the cold ground. "Are those your tears?" His voice, for everything surrounding them, was soft and calm, full of love.

Windchaser's blue eyes, still shining with tears, lifted from Genesis' light grey coat. "Yes," she replies quietly, her voice breaking, "it's me."

Sarquint smiles. "I thought so." There was a pause. Sarquint still hadn't moved, perhaps he could not. His fading black coat is soaked in blood, others and his own. "I'm glad it's you. It won't be long now, you know."

"I know," Windchaser answers and, with great effort, pulls herself closer to Sarquint. She rests her head on his paws, but only lightly. Shadows have clouded his eyes - the same ones that must now be darkening her own. "But look," she tells him with a smile, "the morning has come to bring us away."

Sarquint's eyes close. He does not move to witness the dawn. "Windy? You know I love you, like my own daughter."

"Yes," Windy answers, her own eyes closing now. "I know, Dad. I love you, too."

Both of them lay there, together as the sky cleared and the breath in their lungs slowed. "How beautiful the dawn is," Sarquint whispers. "Let's go with it."

And then silence.

Piper awoke to silence. Startled, her stomach churning. The same sick feeling that had haunted her throughout the winter and followed her into the spring weighing heavily into her. Slowly, though, the sounds of the forest return to her ears, and Ekram's quiet breathing beside her. Still, she can't shake the images of her dream from her mind. Shifting, she lifts herself up, sitting in the early spring morning. Unwittingly, tears well up behind her eyes and, despite how much she might fight it, fall down her cheeks. Why am I crying? she thinks bitterly. It was just a dream.

All the same, she can't hold back the tears spurred by the all-too-vivid dream and soon Ekram stirs awake. Piper tries her best to hide her tears, but is too late and the other wolf moves slowly towards her. "Piper?" he asks quietly, "are you all right?"

Piper looks down, ashamed and not wanting to show the tears she's shed. "I'm fine," she answers. "Just another dream. I have all these bad feelings about home and I just..." She breaks off for a moment. "They're just so vivid."

Ekram moves to sit down next to her, though still giving her distance. He studies her for a moment, thoughtful, before venturing, "If you want, I'll go back with you."

This catches Piper's attention and, abruptly, she looks up, her green eyes intense on Ekram. 'Go back?' The words bounce incredulously through her mind. To some desperate part of her, though, the suggestion is filled with yearning. Home. But no, not yet, she can't. After all, there was a reason she left, wasn't there? Her expression softening, Piper shakes her head. "No," she answers, "no, I can't go there."

Ekram, on the other hand, had watched for the past season as these feelings had haunted Piper, worrying and fretting. Occasionally he'd made the same offer he just had, but it was always met with a now expected evasion. He didn't have to be an empath to sense the insecurity locked deep down inside of her. Still, she had never given any indication as to why she'd left - except to see the world, which he figures is only the surface of the answer - and he was sick of watching her tear herself apart over it. "Piper," he starts, kind by firm, "you can't keep on like this. What's keeping you away? Why won't you go back?"

"I'm not ready yet," Piper answers, her eyes turned down again. Inside, she bristles a little. This conversation isn't taking a turn she's particularly comfortable with. She can feel his gaze, though, and the way the question hangs in the air. She can feel his thoughts - there's more. "I'm just not ready, or I could go back. They didn't send me away, or anything, they wanted me to stay but -" She cuts off and sighs. "Not yet."

Ekram moves a step closer to her, but doesn't sit again. His eyes watch her. "I know there's more to it than that," he tells her, his voice maintained measured and calm. "I know there's a lot you haven't told me, about why you left, why you're here, why -" he pauses, "about yourself. That doesn't bother me, except that I can tell it's bothering you. I saw it in the way you interacted with that other wolf, Egan-ru, and the weight you carry around, and the way you look at the shadows of the trees, as if something were following you. What is it, Piper? You're so open with others, why are you so guarded with yourself?"

Ekram's uncharacteristic confrontation takes Piper off-guard. Very uncharacteristic, which makes it somewhat more disquieting. She's not quite sure what to think and, for awhile, she's at a loss as of what to say. "I left because I wanted to," she replies, a little fiercely. "Just like I told you before, I wanted to get out and see the world, outside of just my clan. I wanted, I needed to get out, I - " She trails off, her focus suddenly distant, as if recalling events from so far away. "I could feel them all. All of them, I could feel them. And I was afraid. I didn't want to learn. They treated me differently, except WindChaser, the ones who... The way they looked at me, what they expected. I don't want to be what they saw; I don't want to be just what they saw." Piper stops. Ekram doesn't know, the thought flickers through her head, he still doesn't know. There's no reason to ruin that. If only she didn't know and they didn't know. But that wasn't really the reason, was it? That just made it all the worse...

"Besides," she says bitterly, "I'd never be a Killer."

She doesn't have to look up to see the look of surprise on Ekram's face. She knows it's there; she can feel is sudden surprise. His intrigued curiosity. And she hears his voice, still calm, always measured, "Why... why would you say that?"

"Because I can't be!" Piper snaps, suddenly and inexplicably angry. It's not really anger at Ekram, though she may turn it towards him. She turns on Ekram, getting on her feet. "Even had I stayed, they would have found out. How would you understand, anyway," she growls, something desperate in her tone, "you've never even had a pack!"

Piper knows that cut Ekram deeply, maybe that's why she said it. She really isn't sure right now. Right now, she isn't sure of anything, she's too angry, and too afraid. Too vunerable. When Ekram speaks again, despite the obvious hurt in his voice, it's still kind and patient. "Piper, calm down. I didn't mean to upset you. But they're you're pack, they love you. If you wanted to go back..."

"I can't even hunt!" she confesses, not entirely knowing why. "I'm not one of them, I can't be. I'm not a Killer and I'm - they except so much from me and I - I don't even follow the Old Ways!"

There, there she said it. But right now, she doesn't feel any better. In fact, the horror of her admission begins to set in on her as Ekram, sympathetically, moves closer to comfort her. Terrified, Piper lashes out. Unsure if it was her or some burst of magic, Ekram is sent sprawling across the forest floor and lands in a heap, seemingly unconscious. The anger drains from Piper, replaced by a sick and horrified feeling. But before she can think, before she can move to help him, before she can even go see if he is all right, she runs.

She had run until she broke down, sobbing with the realization of what had happened. But there was no one there to comfort her. And why should there be? She didn't deserve it, after that. So she picked herself up and continued running, until she broke down again. But she got up again, until she finally - exhausted and worn out, emotionally drained - she got here, in the midst of the storm. She couldn't sleep. She was still too haunted. But right now, as the storm shows no real signs of stopping and the sun fails to rise above the dark clouds, she finds herself drifting, in and out, until...