Sanguine Cove just married [m]

February 20th 2023. RE: Sephrina, you encounter a bear that's woken from hibernation prematurely.
Early afternoon, broken clouds, 19F/-7C
This will be Sephrina's one and only post in this thread. She cannot be saved. This thread is AW.
This thread is rated M for description of drowning and reaction to death of a child.

They had been at the mountain back for a few days, and Sephrina was doing her best to be on good behaviour. Not because she particularly cared about being seen as a good child, but because she knew this was some kind of a test. If her and Isla were good on this visit they would probably be allowed to go out on their own more often, and maybe come back to the mountain too. So she would be on her best behaviour, lest one of the Sanguine wolves say she was being bad and she got put on lockdown forever.

So she stuck to the pack territory for now, which was fine, there was a lot of new territory to discover and explore. This afternoon was mostly sunny with clouds listing lazily through the sky. It was decently warm out, though colder than it had been back home, something about being higher in the sky. Sephrina was tracking an intriguing smell, one she had never seen before when she got led to a small cave near the edge of the territory along the coast. Snuffling deeply, her vision was too blurry to realize what she was doing.

It was only when she heard the groaning growl that the pup realized she had made a mistake. Scrambling backwards, Sephrina gasped as the bear suddenly loomed large over her. She couldn’t think anything, couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat and the bear's angry vocalizations. The child was backpedaling, and fast until she was out of the dim of the cave and out onto the shore. Then she turned and tried to flee.

White hot pain slashed through her as Sephrina’s legs got swept out from underneath her body, sending her sprawling across the ice. Blood stained the white and she pulled herself back up quickly limping her way out further with a painful sob. She kept moving, pushing forward, not realizing that the bear had turned tail and headed back to her cave at the sound of the first ice creak. Sephrina also didn’t recognize what should have been the familiar sound of the lake protesting against her paws.

This time Uncle Vayko wasn’t around to save her, or Uncle Rochus, or her father, not even her siblings. This time no one was close enough to grab her scruff and hoist her out of the icy depths as they surrounded her. Her leg screamed in protest as she tried to paddle, and then the cold set in and she found herself stiffer and stiffer. In less than a minute Sephrina couldn’t swim anymore and she took one final breath and then slipped quietly under. All the panic faded away into a strange sense of calm and peace. She opened her eyes, and for the first time, it felt like the picture was clear.

(This post was last modified: Feb 21, 2023, 12:37 AM by Viorel.)

covers eyes and posts.
consider this also isla's only post

A bear.

Her sister. Blood and ice and coldness.

Isla had thought she was prepared for the world, for these things. She had wanted to shed blood, break teeth and claws upon bones of others. She had not expected the bear. She had not expected her sister to be taken from the world. Ripped free of a mortal realm too early and jarring.

She had not seen everything. Only bits and pieces of a broken picture. Broken ice, blood, a bear lumbering off.

It was all clear enough to pick apart what had happened. Who had won and lost. Her gut twisted in a sickly way. Disgusted and foul. Upset that anybody had dared to let her own sister go near the lake. Had anybody even listened?! She walked off for one moment and -

She vomited across ice.

Across her sister's grave.

Anxiety buzzed electric through her. She had never been scared. She had never faced a real world and now it strangled her like the bear's teeth. She couldn't face it, she couldn't fathom to think her sister was never coming back up from that broken surface. She was scared. She was horrified

And she ran.

He'd heard the sounds of it all, and had spent all his breath on trying to get to them in time to make a difference. He saw one dark girl fleeing and the other still hadn't broken the surface again, and his own paws slipped and scuffed about as he desperately flung himself across the groaning ice toward that shattered hole.

It gave a few feet out, and he did his best to ignore the biting cold of the water as it doused him and forced its way deep into his fur. He searched for her until his extremities had gone numb and longer, seconds that felt like minutes, and then he found her. Chan grabbed hold of the thin body and pulled, trying to get back to ice that wouldn't cave. Every attempt the ledge broke away from him, the hole growing steadily larger.

He changed tactics, tried to push her up onto the brittle shelf, but all his efforts failed. He needed another wolf to help.

The moments were too long before she happened upon the scene, the bear's scent permeating the area but the beast itself far enough off that was not her most immediate worry. Out there, in the broken ice, who was that? She let a desperate bark ring out in case anyone else was near as she broke into a sprint.

The light-footed Vuesain was able to reach the edge, where Chan was struggling without further dislodging the fractured ice, though it creaked and groaned beneath her paws, stress lines darting across its surface. She didn't realize at first that there was someone else there, as small and dark-furred in the dark water and still as she was. Stella's heart lurched as she recognized the girl as one of their young visitors, even as the ice groaned beneath the stress of the ongoing struggle.

Chan was trying to push her form up onto the ledge but she was so, so still, the surprisingly heavy dead weight was making it impossible. Instead Stella tried to grasp Chan's leg or scruff with her jaws, planning to haul backwards and hoping he could hold on to Sephrina and haul them both up and out with some help.

Chan was relieved to see another face appear, but then he recognized it as one of Aleister's eldest and that feeling fled as she stepped out onto the ice. They didn't need this tragedy to get any worse, and every step she took he imagined her falling through suddenly. Sephrina now held by the nape by his teeth, he didn't dare let go and lose her to ask Stella to stop. All too soon she was there, putting herself in danger to help.

He was scared to put anymore pressure on the ice at the young girl's paws, and almost pulled away from her grasp. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to have hope. His paws clambered and his legs heaved, giving it his all in one great movement. Whether it was safety or death, Chan might as well get it over with quickly.

By some miracle, the ice held. Exhausted, frozen, he still moved, herding Stella further back while pulling himself and the drowned child closer still to the shore, where the shelving was thicker.

"Call for help," he gasped once finally able to let go of the Backwater child's scruff. She was utterly limp, and he pressed an ear against his chest, trying to sense any kind of heartbeat. Nothing. He tried to position her onto her back and applied pressure to her stomach as he had been taught, but there was no kind of reflex. Muttering to himself, he tried to recall that last-resort technique of practically crushing a wolf's chest to squeeze their heart into beating. He took a breath, aimed, and slammed both forepaws down upon Sephrina's sternum until it gave and depressed with a cracking sound. His legs shook while he lifted and stomped again, and again, until finally they wouldn't work anymore and he more or less stumbled back down onto the ice beside her. Never once did she respond, and he was too exhausted to try anything more, even if he thought it would actually make a difference.

She wasn't coming back.

that's right. chan knows cpr.

(This post was last modified: Feb 22, 2023, 06:24 AM by Chan.)

Stella thought she saw something in Chan's eyes when their gazes momentarily locked, and for an instant she thought she had lost them both. The moment flashed by as quickly as it had come, her grip and the ice held and against the odds the three of them lurched backwards and up out of the water as one desperate form.

She did not need further encouragement, or to think even as she and Chan scrambled across the splintering ice, their combined weight leaving the ice groaning and finally breaking where she alone had not as their paws leaped away from the hungry waters.

"Over here," she gasped. They had made it to a thick, solid span of dark ice that had not yet rotted through. At Chan's words she nodded and filled her lungs with another gasp of air, sending a high, wavering call out that should let anyone within the area know that an emergency had arisen, had her bark not already reached their ears. She prayed for @Leo or @Nash to hear. Then she glanced around for any signs of the bear, her own adrenaline subsiding as she turned her gaze back to them and felt her blood go cold.

Sephrina was deadly still where she lay on the ice, Stella's could see it did not look good at all. The yearling Vuseain felt numb, the moments sliding by as she watched Chan try and tend to the girl, only to have that sensation shattered as the Eastfall man began to pummel his paws and weight against the girl. "Stop! What are you doing?" she did not understand, moved beside them to intervene, though he did not seem to hear her. Only exhaustion finally seemed to stop him.

"Chan." They still needed to get him off of the ice, somewhere warmer and away from that bear. And Sephrina... gods, what could they do?

It wasn't until he had given up that Stella's voice finally broke through, pulling his mismatched gaze to her for a moment. Had he been able to think clearly, he would've swiftly made the connection that she had never been exposed to what he'd tried before, that it had likely looked violent, and maybe even been traumatic for her to witness. That wasn't the state the eldest Eastfall brother was in, however. His thoughts were disorganized and stuttering, and then they were gone altogether.

"I... I..."

His mouth tried to find words for her, but nothing more ever came. His eyes went back to Sephrina, barely resembling the wolf she had been so shortly ago. Dead, still, just like his own trio. For what? Chan just stared.

Leo had been walking the border when he came across the smell of the bear, awoken from its winter sleep far too early, and much too close for comfort. Though he immediately set off to find Nash and warn him, he was already too late. Stella’s howl reached him halfway to the communal den, making him turn in his tracks, swearing under his breath. When he reached the scene, it was already chaos, and he struggled to make sense of it as he ran to his sister’s side. The ice was broken and the stench of blood and bear hung in the air. At first he only saw Chan, drenched to the bone, but seemingly uninjured; Did the bear fall through…? Then he spotted the body, mangled and lifeless, unrecognizable but for the dark fur which could belong to several of the pups; Oh god! “Wha-What happened?” he breathed, looking back and forth between the shellshocked faces, his own eyes wide with horror; “Wh… Who…?” the word choked in his throat as he looked down at the body, fearing which of his siblings or cousins he might see. The sight of the pale muzzle threw him for a moment, before he remembered; Oh… Oh NO! Thoughts ”Speech”

Lakela @DA

Nash is calling for the pack. @Oksana @Aquene @Woya @Auburn @Spartan

He'd heard the call, heard the panic in Stella's voice, and Nash ran. He ran as fast as he could. He came from the opposite end of the territory, where he'd been marking the territory, only to find that once again he was too late. The leader skidded to a stop in the snow, staring at the pair of yearlings and his brother. The stench of bear was quickly being overwhelmed by the wolves but Nash caught it, and the hole in the ice, and the hollowness in Chan's eyes.

And then he saw Sephrina's small, still body.

His heart stuttered and he thought his knees might buckle as he sprinted the last few steps and began nosing the pup's form. One leg had an injury, one that didn't come from the ice, and she wasn't breathing. "Sephrina!" he shouted, as if his voice might shock her back awake. It didn't. He looked at Chan. "No," he said, voice breaking. How had this happened? How would he tell Viorel? How...

Nash closed his eyes and took a deep breath, straightening. He could panic later. Right now, he needed to be a leader. Green eyes turned to Stella. "Find the rest of the pups. Get my mother and Kajika and tell them to keep them at the pack den. Then I need you back here. Fast. Now." He had no idea Isla had witnessed her sister's drowning and run; he thought she was still somewhere within the territory. He trusted Stella to do as she was told as fast as possible. Nash tiled his head back and called for the rest of the pack, his call not a request but a demand. They were expected to be here and now, or there would be consequences.

They were going to deal with this bear right now.

As Leo arrived, meeting them out on the more solid ice, Stella regretted that she could not spare her brother this awful moment. But as the seconds went by it was clear there was no getting the girl back, they would have to face this tragedy and whatever it meant. Even if they had pulled the young girl from the lake, the icy water had managed to claim Sephrina's life. To steal it away. She turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stay calm.

Then Nash was there, too. Shouting the girl's name. Would she have to see the folly of hope die again and again with each new arrival? She couldn't stand it. "We... we should get her off of the ice," the yearling blurted out. But Nash was speaking to her too, issuing instructions and an imperative. Now.

Nodding numbly, Stella looked to Leo for a moment. She couldn't answer his question, how this had happened, she had only happened upon the scene in its last chaotic moments. "I don't know, there was a bear..." she glanced along the shore before shaking her head to clear it. She had been charged with a task of great urgency. "Of course." Stella took a breath, then she turned on her heels and set off at a run toward the cove's rocky heart, trusting that Nash would do what was best. She would go and return as swiftly as she could.

-exit-

(This post was last modified: Feb 28, 2023, 10:06 PM by Stella.)