Lazy day. The pickings of prey become less and less with each moonset and every sunrise, and it isn't so different for the herbs in his den. The ground worked in mysterious, miraculous ways. Never did the flowers bloom all at once, never did She expend Her resources so utterly and completely, but leaf-bare was not far off. Hard, harder, hardest to come by, Her wealth of most valuable treasures lie dormant, thoroughly cleansed from her grounds when the sun becomes cold and the ground hardens with frost. Pieces lay here and there, souls she has yet to take; and here, only here, will he accept the possibility of mistake by her paws, if only because it was useful for him. For them.
And, most pitifully, an absence of those sun-blooms; petals laced with fibrous gold were... possible to find no matter the season, but so significantly dull when the air would frost over. One, two... a few more, on and on. Staving off the chill in the comfort of his lair, with lazy eyes, he counts. Pauses, at the sudden hustle and bustle of the surface Tufted ears prick with the voices, and more importantly, how Mother rumbles with their return. His jaw sets in idle contemplation, but he barely has the chance before a ruddy face is poking through his walls. Slight jolt, he lifts his head, and with the sputterings of what has come, he can only gape. Slack-jawed, "...Huh?" dumfounded, eyes-wide with alarm. Hardly processing, his gaze is blank; but with the name– one of those oh, so few that sounded bells in his mind– he's...
Pushing his way into the clearing, cobweb snug around a forelimb. Brisk daylight greets him in full, but he can hardly lay aside the time to lament the sun's warmth. Zeroed-in, iced-over pools are round and wide at the disturbance. Panicked faces, some familiar, others not. Blaise's little one unmoving. Nearly a frostbitten statue, woefully still, woefully silent; and she always was, but, oh no, not like this. Blaise's eyes are on him in an instant, raging storm swirling without abandon. Eyes, a million eyes are upon him.
And it's what he craves, is it not? To be revered as a savior, looked to in hopeful adoration, devotion left unoffered to any other. And in one sudden moment, he has it. That crowd-holding attention, helplessness plainly written on face after face. For it was him and only him who had the power. Something to revel in, something that should spread a smile, mountain high and sun bright across his face. And oh, he is. He's simling, but only because he knows that would be a lie. Divine touch and godly eye aside, her neck is slit and her blood is pooling. The trek had been how long, how long? How long for her innards to spill like water and for her soul to detach from her body?
And he, he most of all understands the nature of things. He welcomes death with open arms, for that is how the world works, and thusly, should not be stopped, nor refuted, nor hated. A universal thing in that it was something everyone would experience. Even him, immortal-bound soul, would feel it all around him. Never one to cry, never one to mourn. He does not dwell, he does not fight. And yet, today of all days, no sin feels deeper than just that. Not when Blaise looks at him like the very world rides on her life or death. And is he to speak mistruth? To lie and to pray when he knows what is to come? It would be nothing less than bitter sacrilege, and yet, and yet...
"H-hah...? U-um..." It's unnatural, it's wrong. It's often that he stops and stutters, but words like these– pure filler; it's wrong. "Kh-HAHA! U-um... We..." Laughter, because that is what he did. What the both of them did. And he swallows, presses teeth to his lip. "We– we'll... We'll s-ee..." We, we, Mother and him, for only an act of god could truly...
A thousand, million eyes on him; and he can't help but shudder. And he isn't cold, he's so warm it hurts. Sudden compulsion, so unfamiliar; he wants to run, so he doesn't have to see the look on Blaise's face. So he doesn't have to see the weakness of her form and the flickering light in his eye. His smile quavers the further he steps, and so badly does he want to take her and run, away from the prying faces and away from the noise. But really, what more would that do than smear more blood across their floors?
Nearly, he meets her with a halfhearted lift of his paw, to start working, tending to her wounds. But, hesitance, hesitance because he knows it's in vain. Could her breaths be any shallower? Her neck any more bloodied? "I..." Guilt burning in the back of his skull. Just how did he look? A traitor? Unmotivated? Unwilling to heal? And that isn't it, it isn't, he swears. Jitters, tapping of his hint leg. He scratches for a name, her name. "M-Morningpaw..." he remembers. And it helps, that he remembers what Blaise had said, that she was named after him. But it also helps that it's her. "C-can you hear me? Us..." His smile fights. No longer wide and bright, but tight-lipped, strained. His eyes pinch the corners of his eye, and he's... struggling.
