Drooping Willows Coriolanus

You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love...

It was too late. There was no cure. Not for him.

He had done so many things. So many terrible things and now, the end was here. Through the red haze of the rage and the dryness of his froth framed jaw, he could see the darkness looming on the horizon... But he couldn’t just leave without letting her know why. He had made a promise, and he had broken it. He had left when he swore he never would but it was for the good of the pack... for the safety of all. He could only hope that she would forgive him - even if he didn’t deserve it.

He stumbled, his once heavy limp - a leg now dragging in the snow uselessly at his side. The tear at his neck burned, itched... He wanted to turn and tear his own skin from his flesh... but he needed to focus on the task at hand. He was almost there.

His howl was distorted, dry and cracked but the warning was clear. He was back, but he was not safe. He could only hope that his lady would hear the plea amongst his warning. He wanted to say goodbye.

The call opened her eyes and brought out a gasp, the warmth of her breath stirring the still clinging chill of winter's air around her. Her body quivered with an itch of it's own, so familiar as last year when the season of spring was just beyond the horizon. Already, the woman was willing to tuck herself away in a hole and not exit again until it was 'safe'. Last year as not a leader, but a mere enforcer of Jaysyek's rule, Elettra had the pleasure of running off to her Infirmary away from the den for the breeding season. This time, not only as it's Leader but in a dire time for her pack, Elettra held not this ability to run away. She would face it this year, and fight it should even it destroy her in the end.
Already she was racing into the direction which Kanosak was, the smell of himself mingled with blood and disease sending fear in her, where the pale of her gaze would otherwise show no such emotion. He had not been torn apart by them after all, but if he was indeed infected as Kiche believed him so, perhaps a swift death would have been best after all. When Elettra arrives, she heeds the warning of Kanosak's howl, keeping much distance placed between them, her throat tightening from the sadness she felt seeing him in such a state. "What happened...?" She whispers, hoping he might fill her in where Kiche had otherwise lacked.

Heavy. He felt so heavy. Allowing himself to collapse into the snow. Her voice was like velvet caressing his ears, an anxious whine answering the soothing sound of her voice. What had happened? It was all such a blur. Shudders wracked his frame as he bought his good paw up to swipe at his muzzle. The wound on his neck burned and if he had been able to drag himself upwards he would have scratched at it, tearing the skin further from his neck. He wanted it gone. Maybe if it was gone he could get better?

He tried to process the words that had caressed his ears What happened? What happened? Why? Why had it happened? He had asked himself time and time again. “Strange pack... Away... Young ones taken... Hollow. Pass. Gone... My fault... all my fault.” He wasn’t making an awful lot of sense and he knew it. His voice was cracked and harsh. “Cure! They have the cure!” he barked more frantically, clearly half crazed before his breath was cut short. It was as if he had been kicked in the ribs by a buck at full strength, he gasped but no air came. The end was near and he knew it.

As the stars began to dance before his eyes and he resigned himself to his fate, his breath came back with a frantic gulp of air that resulted in a fit of coughing. He gasped and pushed his leg beneath him trying to bring himself upright enough to sit but it was hopeless. He would get half way up and then collapse again. Finally he resigned himself to a position somewhere between up and down, glazed eyes searching for the face that matched the angels voice. There was a pleading in his eyes, begging for forgiveness. He had never meant to abandon her too.

(This post was last modified: Mar 04, 2013, 02:53 AM by Kanosak.)

He whines and shutters in his collapse position on the snowy floor at the Willow Ridge boarders. He swipes at himself, a bit twitchy in his actions and her nose sniffs, only to wrinkle, pin-pointing the festering wound at his neck furthermore. There was obvious infection. By the scent alone, if not the sight of it and his display, there was obviously something very, very wrong.
Her ears are perked high on her skull, her body leaning into the direction of the male as he began to speak, though her placement still far from him. She dared not press further and her body was tense, limbs slightly bent, ready to spring away at any given moment. He mentions a pack, the pack, she could only assume, which had attacked him. Elettra would take this as a confirmation that it was indeed a pack, not just a pair of wolves that Kiche had seen. Kanosak mentions young ones taken, but taken where? Were pups being stolen? Had they, Elettra's pack was at least safe with this aspect, having none currently. What was 'Pass'? After all, she had not heard of this new pack on the northern mountain ranges as of yet. 'Hollow' was mentioned and it struck Elettra, thinking that perhaps he was talking about the Grizzly Hollow pack. Where their children missing? And why, by the gods, was this his fault? There was so much suspicious and so much left unclear.
She means to question, to push further, before he babbles onto a louder madness, speaking of a cure they had told him of, but instantly not to Elettra's belief. If there was such a cure, they would have used it to save the life of their own member whom had done this to Kanosak in the first place. Elettra hesitates, lifting a paw as though to go to Kanosak, who has grown so weak and tired that he could no longer hold himself up properly - not like he had the best limbs in the first place, with that limp of his. "At ease, Kanosak... it is alright." She whispers out to him, her eyes meeting his pleading attention. "This will pass, as all, and you will endure and form yourself into a stronger being... In this life, or the next..." Her words was a whisper, certain that death was upon him, with no way of knowing how to mend his condition. It pained the healer knowing this. Elettra's grey rimmed lips could only pull to a frown, holding back the whine at the tip of her tongue if only to show strength before her dying pack-mate.

Letting himself fall to the ground again he tried to calm his rebellious body. If he lay still, it somehow didn’t hurt as much as the tremors overcame him. If he stretched out further, the gasps were fewer, and he could breath easy for a moment. He had never explained to her why he had left Copper Rock Creek in the first place. He had never told anyone of his deep shame at the things he had done, half mad with jealousy and grief at the loss of so many. Now was hardly the time, and yet, she needed to know, if not all of the old skeletons than at least the more recent ones. But his guilt at his second crime would not be so justified without the truth of the first.

“My sister...” He began, his dry voice hoarse - his aversion to water newly gained with his illness helping little to carry his voice, but enough that the tale might reach her ears without the need for her to grow too close. “Was once a River wolf. While I searched for the missing ones, I came across her trail on the mountain.” His tale was slow, laced with gasps and barking coughs... but he had to let her know, even if she thought him a monster afterwards.

“She had left them, under the cover of night. A litter in her belly borne in deceit. I was so... so angry.” and now he couldn’t even remember why. It wasn’t him she had wronged, beyond the dirty mark that it left upon their family name but there was no lack of those in their history. “Under the cover of a storm I took one while she slept. A boy as dark as the man that slept beside her...” His actions had been reckless and he had paid the price in the end. “She came after me, got trapped on the other side with me and a young one, the three that were left with no mother to care for them...” His remorse was clear, yet unaware that another had gone missing that night. “By the time I got back, two remained... raised by the Lake wolves...” Another coughing fit ensued. But he planned on making the most of his sanity while it remained.

“They... they wanted me to scare a young one, offered a cure in exchange. I just wanted to get back, I wanted to get better for you and your pack!” had he the energy to spare it was clear the broken creature would be weeping, but he hardly had the time left. “It was far from the Lake, strangers I thought...” and now it was clear where his tale was headed. “She had gathered another pack, somehow reclaimed her son, though there was no sign of the girl child... I... My own blood...” his distress was clear as he struggled for breath. There had been a trail of another he had crossed after the realisation no cure existed.

“Tracks.” he muttered again. “Tracks, young, female. Cedarwoods. Over the Mountain.” as quickly as it had come, he was slipping again. Stretching out further to try and ease his breathing, the wolf was a contorted wreck on the ground. He wouldn’t let go yet. “Grey one - sick. Black one... old one - only smell.” His jaws clamped as another series of jerks wracked his body, hell bent on holding on long enough. Just long enough to share what he could. It could after all be the difference between life and death for one of his pack mates.

He speaks again as he lays, between huffs and coughs and quickly she comes to terms with what he is saying. What had happened - what had led him here after he had left the Copper wolves, no longer in existence. She knew not why he was telling her, but kept in hushed on his tongue. Perhaps he felt she needed to know? Perhaps only he felt the drive to tell someone; anyone? She listened to the story. How she had left the River wolves to breed with another, abandoning the pack and running off to the mountains. He spoke of stealing one of the pups but getting caught. An act of pure anger, nothing more. Had he not been caught, what might he have done with the child? Where would he have gone? She didn't know, but only could assume his wounds had been from battle with his sister and/or whatever landslide had occurred to have trapped them both on the other side of the mountains.
The story changes to what Elettra could only assume was these mad wolves again, by the way the distaste marred his lips. They had tried once more to convince him to steal a child, only to be faced with the very pup that was his sister's own and to, at some point, realize that the cure they had promised was a falsehood in a way to try and gain more children to steal. But for what? She would pick up all that she could make out of what he said, with the few clipped words in which he had said it: The grey wolf of the bunch was the one that was infected with the disease. There was a black wolf amongst them, an older male. A young female from the Hollow pack being trailed over the mountains.
Once more, his body quivers and wracks with convulsion, causing his body to bend and break at the will of the disease which raged his body, far now beyond his own control. She bites her tongue, holding back both urge to call out to him, whimper to his despair, as well as rush to his side. Though she longs to be at his side in what seems coherence Kanosak still held, she knows herself smart enough to avoid the very member she longed to confine in. She could not cry out, so she growled, frustration clear on her tongue. "I will find them Kanosak. I promise you, I will find them, and I will end them." An attack on her family would not go without notice. His death would not go without punishment of equal proportions.

Lame death is lame. I just want this over with ;_;

----------

Her promise was enough, and he finally let go. Twitches and shudders would wrack his body for a good few hours to come, but he no longer fought the inevitable. Kanosak was finally at peace, and he let himself go.