~ Tw vague mentions of death, injury, blood ~ ~ This is probably bad but it's eleven on a school night and I just wrote this in one sitting so I actually don't care lol ~ ~ There's a lot of things Ripplespirit doesn't know. She hates to admit it, of course. Even to herself. So she tries to ignore it. She ignores the butterflies in her stomach, she ignores the whispers in her mind, she ignores the urge to leave it all behind. One thing she does know, however, is that some things, no matter how hard you try, you cannot forget them. The way someone indestructible, untouchable, infinite can be ruined with one blow. With the absence of herbs. The way life leaves so fast, but warmth lingers. The way a body slowly loses heat, how when it's wrapped around you, it feels as if it's sapping you of love and happiness and warmth, draining you until there's nothing left but grief and the freezing, icy cold. The way the soft earth covers their fur and then they're /gone/ and you'll never see them again. The way it feels to cry and cry and cry until you just can't anymore for the first time. She can't go back there. The way time seems to suspend when your paws aren't on the ground, when you're flying through the air until you're not anymore. The excruciating pain as cold stone pierces your fur and skin, the way your vision and conscience fades before you can even see the red stream starting to flow. The way it seems like no time at all until you wake again, aching and broken and never to be the same again. It had been a day. The way it feels to wait and wait but they hadn't come back. The way your body seems to turn to ice when you see them, bleeding and changed but /alive/. The way your entire body feels like stone as you desperately fight for them, for them, always for them. The way you wake up and barely make it to their nest, but you did, and at least you're together. The way the whole world stops when you realize you might lose them- them, who are the air you breathe, the ground you stand on, the stars you can no longer see in the pitch black sky- so you walk. You walk until you collapse. They're still alive. The way your mind seems to fracture under it all, tiny cracks, invisible to everybody, even you. The way you run away from it all. The way it all comes crashing down on you, shattering everything, and you try to block it out, but you can't. The way their touch burns against your fur, the way they leave you standing there, the way you can't stop them. The way their eyes seem to drown the moment before their last. The way the creature lets out a screech so loud it shakes the earth, but you can't even hear it over your own. The way you run. She left them, and they know it. Even as the world changes and shifts and burns to the forest floor, these stay in her head. In her dreams, it all plays out, over and over until she wakes. She knows it'll never truly end. Oh, no. She may not know much, but Ripplespirit knows that. ~
