[ AW ] Shards Of Me

[MATURE - TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF SUICIDE - READER DISCRETION ADVISED]

Merrin walked until her feet bled and then she kept walking, numbing herself to all of it. Before she'd departed Ayr, she sent her owl, Nettle, away for the last time on a one-way trip to the College of Eólas. The only place she knew she would find at least one of her children. Nettle knew her children and had instructions to relay the message and repeat it until she was instructed by one of them to stop. If any one of them still roamed without having been hunted down by Nalik...then Nettle would belong to one of them.

She now stood at the edge of one of the pools at, staring into it at herself. Her own reflection glared back at her, the water's surface rippling as the face contorted and spoke back at her what she had heard.

Worthless.

Disgusting.

You made this mess.

Go dig your grave.

What are you waiting for?

Do them all a favor.

Your fault.

YOUR FAULT!

Y O U R F A U L T!

Y O U R F A U L T!

Merrin let everything out, screaming back at her reflection with every ounce of anger and sorrow, the sound of it pure anguish. The image shattered and she inhaled a sharp gasp as she stepped backwards and away from it. Lifting tear filled lavender eyes, she stared outward at the crashing waves of the ocean, watching them churn against the shore. The sky was dark and in the distance she witness lightning strike behind thick clouds as a storm loomed from afar. Merrin's gaze drifted off to her right and she spotted an elevated portion of the cove shed found herself in. She began to take steps towards it, letting herself become drawn to it as she ascended to the top. From the highest peak, the world appeared to be so small...yet, it was she who was small after all, wasn't it?

Merrin crept towards the edge, looking downward at the sharp protruding rocks that made up the cliff side. The ocean water swirled and foamed as it collided with the wall of hardened earth. She shuffled her feet forward, loosening small rocks that tumbled to their doom ahead of herself and she watched. It will be quick...no one will ever have to see... She promised herself, silent tears spilling out over her cheeks as she replayed the happier moments of her life. If there was anything she wished to see before her final breath, it was Luciel's warm, loving gaze and the smiling, happy faces of Lenora, Riften, and Atlas.

I will see you soon, my darlings...

table ; bunny - - art ; Raven

THREAD TITLE MUSE

They had won.

The Imperial Army reigned supreme and it was reflected in the swell of each soldiers chest, the way they held their heads a little higher. A victory right out of the gate was always a moral booster, but he was not so naive as to think the fighting was over. There would be more battles to come. He wasn't expecting Jacob to give up without a fight. Moral would drop and they would struggle. Perseverance won wars.

Those that had fallen during the fight were rounded up. Wounded royalists were tended to by medics, prisoners were given enough care to keep them alive on the journey back to the dungeons.

Narrowly, the Lieutenant Major had slipped away. There was a post battle lull, no one would miss him while troops recovered and officers planned their next move. His wounds had been tended to and most of the blood was washed from his coat, but he was far from the picture of cleanliness. A hazard of the job. Not that it was anywhere close to the front of his mind. He was headed home, back to Yorkshire.

It was aggravating though. He walked with a slight limp courtesy of the injury to his back foot.

A scream pierced the air, a distant sound but so full of anguish. His ears would tip forward before briefly flicking back. There was no explaining what drew him to the sound. Whoever was out there was a stranger, whatever they were going through was their problem. But still his paws carried him closer, inexplicably drawn to that voice. He didn't have time for this, he sooner he got home, the more time he'd have there. Thoughts of his wife nipped at his skin, urging him. forward. He had missed her and while he was eager to see her, a small part of him wondered if she too would let him down.

The air was salty, the sound of the waves crashing filling the summer night. Fluorite eyes scanned the shadowy cliffs until he spotted a figure up ahead. Dusty paws carried him closer until he recognized her earthen coat. Merrin.

Silent, he just watched as she shuffled towards the cliffs edge. She teetered there, her lavender stare downcast as the unforgiving sea below. Would she jump? Was he about to witness his own mothers suicide? He wanted to scoff at the idea, as if he needed more trauma from her, but the wolf made no sound. Standing behind her, she seemed to caught up in her own sorrow to notice anything around her.

"I suppose its fitting." His voice was low, a rumble just loud enough to rise above the waves."You taking the easy way out." He would clarify. Even tones were matter of fact, as if it were just part of life. And why would he expect any less? She had run before. This time she was just running from life. "Though what will your new kids do? When they learn that you gave up?"

speak like this

art + code: clae

[MATURE - TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF SUICIDE - READER DISCRETION ADVISED]

“I suppose it's fitting.”

Merrin spun herself around to face the source of the voice. Lightning flashed behind her and she blinked as she stared at a strange, warped vision of Nalik standing there. “NO! You get away! Get away from me!!" She screamed at him, taking steps backwards only to have one foot slip off of the Cliff's edge. She gasped and looked behind herself in horror to find that once again, she'd been cornered by him.

Her head whipped back around eyes wide and frantic as she looked around, though whatever she was looking for she hadn't a clue. Her lips peeled back to bare fangs as a warning, her hackles raising in defense as though she were a caged animal with nowhere to go. “What do you want?!! Haven't you done enough?! You want to keep me in your basement as your pretty little plaything while you shower Illaria with a love I supposedly never deserved?!! What the fuck do you want from me?!"

At the mention of her children, Merrin's eyes flashed dangerously, her muscles tensing as though she were contemplating lunging at him. “Where are they?! What have you done to them?!" She growled, the sound once more foreign in her own chest. As she kept her sights on him, something dawned on her then. Nalik was half of this unfortunate misery...to rid the world of not only herself, but the both of them...

---

Merrin kicked off the jagged rock without warning and her jaws parted wide as she went for his neck. She did not aim for any pulse points, she simply needed scruff to grab. As she took fur and flesh into her mouth, she bit down as hard as she could, wishing to inflict as much pain as possible while she careened into him and forced her weight against his body.

There they were for a moment in time, Nalik and Merrin tangled in a mess of fur and fear as they teetered on the edge of the cliff side. In an instant they were there and in another they were gone, plummetting down to their deaths once and for all, the relentless ocean tide whisking their remains away, out into the unknown.

---

Merrin blinked and the vision had faded as she still stood there on the Cliff's edge staring at Nal- “Kenzo...?" She felt her mouth go dry with the realization of the mistake she would have made. Her body crumpled into the stone floor and she let out a cry of agony, holding herself as sobs tore through her frame. “Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop..." She begged the world, muttering the words while she rocked herself back and forth.

@Kenzo

table ; bunny - - art ; Raven

He watched the scene play out before him like a divine comedy, a stage in which only two could perform and adding a third would tip the scale, breaking the ground. She was so ready, willing to throw everything away... for what? What did she believe she wouldn't lose, had already lost? What was so disastrous? He didn't understand her... not from the audience, not from the distance in which he made for himself.

And so, as his brother and mother fell to the ground as she pushed forward in an attack, Asher's body instinctually jutted forward before stopping himself. Wait until they've settled, just wait, patience. He couldn't hear what they were saying very clearly, but as the sounds of weeping echoed down from the cliffside, the man's ears turned backwards.

His pawsteps walking up to the pair were light, solemn as he stared down at the mother that felt foreign and... fragile, so very fragile and broken. This wasn't how... he wanted his first memory of her. "Let's get away from the cliff," he murmured to the two, a deep and heavy tone settling into his chest as he bent down to assist Merrin up, prodding her side with his nose. "It's not safe on the edge like this."

@Merrin , @Kenzo

code by claerie

Startled, she whipped around to face him, her lavender stare as wild as the storm that raged. She screamed at him and his ears would tip back. She backpedaled, demanding that he get away from her. So close to the cliff already, one paw would slip free and he reflexively lunged towards her, intending to jerk her away from certain death. But she would right herself, before looking once more at him, but this time there was something different in her expression. Her lips would peel back in a display of aggression, a warning that he not come any closer. Confusion washed over him like a tidal wave. Last time he saw her, had she not been offering to mend things? What had changed?

It only took a few of her words to realize that she wasn't seeing him. She saw his father. Unease spread through his veins like a slow acting poison. That was twice now. Out of all his siblings, he was the marked the most different. Ryker was a nearly a spitting image of their father. Asher took after Merrin. While he inherited his fathers dark grey coloring, and a sprinkling of his mothers gold, he was the only one that was adorned in so much ivory. But still, every time they crossed paths, she accused him of being his father. Was he?

The mentioning of her new kids had her face darkening with something dangerous. There was a quiet threat in her voice as she demanded to know where her children were. Kenzo didn't have the answers though. The man was silent. A new war raged within and he got yet another taste of Merrins hatred towards Nalik. It had him questioning everything he had been taught, everything he knew. It had him questioning who his father was. It had him questioning if they were more alike that he had ever thought, if he would walk the same path. Would Adeline hate him one day?

It was the way her body jerked towards him that made him realize his gaze had lowered to her paws, avoiding her stare. Her jaws fell open and he could only stare at her in shock. His mother was going to attack him. His body stiffened, tightening with anticipation as he waited for her to sink her teeth into his skin. But she wouldn't move, seemingly rooted in place as she stared at him with unseeing eyes that were so full of loathing.

And then suddenly, it all fell away from her face. She stared at him first with confusion, before his name rolled off her tongue with quiet recognition. His lip could only curl in blatant distrust. When she collapsed in a sobbing heap, he didn't step towards her, he didn't try to comfort her. Make it stop. She chanted those words over and over again. It would occur to him that he could. He could grant her wish, he didn't suspect she'd put up a fight. That would be letting her off easy.

Movement from the corner of his eye would garner his attention. Asher. His brother. The relief was like a balm. Asher was the quiet and steady calm in the eye of the storm. The deep rumble of his voice was a welcomed sound. It did leave a bitter taste on his tongue though, the way Asher would approach their so called mother, attempting to shuffle her away from the cliffs edge. Dual toned features pinched, the tension never leaving his broad shoulders. Turning away from the cliff, he was tempted to leave, to continue home with only a parting request that his brother find him after. But he would find himself lingering, all to aware of the fact that Merrin was an escaped prisoner on top of everything.

speak like this

art + code: clae

There was another voice...someone else was there.

Shivering where she rocked herself she lifted her gaze then and blinked up at the now two figures who were standing close to each other. What struck her first was Kenzo's expression, the way he looked at her. The look in his eyes was similar to Ryker's and then her vision focused on who was there with her eldest son. Asher...

Both brothers' orbs held a glimmer that now she saw was shared between her first litter. Why? Why did everyone look at her this way? it made her insides twist, made her want to tear her own eyes from their sockets. She couldn't hear what Asher was saying over the crash of the waves behind her and she could only imagine what it might be.

“No...no, no..." Merrin's eyes widened with fear as they flickered around wildly, as though she expected the rest of her ghosts to make an appearance. “D-don't come any closer to me!!" She warned, her entire body tensing up defensively as she started to shift herself backwards again. “I won't go!! I won't go back to him!! You can't make me do it!! You can't ma-"

She lost her foothold behind her again, but this time the other hind leg did not catch her and came out from over her. Merrin's chest impacted the rocky surface of the cliff with a sickening thud, the air knocked out of her. Gravity instantly began to work against her, the weight of her backside pulling her as she scrambled with her front paws and frantically snapping jaws to try to catch something, anything!

@Kenzo @Asher

table ; bunny - - art ; Raven

Ryker Verlice

Of all things on her brain, Merrin was the one who was the center of her attention, and how it sickened her so. Daddy, Kenzo, Asher, even her "newly betrothed" was on her mind, the boy she wanted to trade places with deep down, all on her mind. But Merrin was there, or rather, she wasn't. She was supposed to be sitting in the cell Ryker first found her in. Instead, she was who knows where, spewing any and all twisted words she could, no doubt. Most importantly, she was an escapee- granted, it would seem any and all jailers and those assigned to guard to cells were surely occupied with the happenings of war which stormed everyone's doors.

She wanted to seek out Kenzo, first and foremost- her first thought was perhaps to Adeline. But what with the events that occurred in the last month was likely to be enough for her to have enough to deal with. She couldnt tell her father, not yet. And really, she couldn't stand to smell the stench of his new.. whatever she was that lingered everywhere around him. Asher, she still didn't quite understand where her brother stood when it came to Merrin, and she knew that there was likely a difference stance towards Merrin for Asher compared to Ryker and Merrin. And then, there was Obsidian: a man she hardly knew, but her father deemed him worthy of getting to know her. He would run off and tell the first higher up, no doubt. But Kenzo? Perhaps he could help ease the situation at hand.

His scent was the first one her radar, her pace was rather quick, breaths working to even out as she went. She tried to remained calm, cool, and collected. But with each step further from the dungeons, the more she felt the rage brewing. She didn't want news of this to reach Nalik, not until they sorted out what they were going to do. Ryker, of course, only wanted for her to be gone and out of their lives.

Her mind was hooked, however, and reeled in by the perfume of her other brother. He usually kept to the shadows of the inner workings of the army, so when she picked up his presence, she moved even faster. When she finally cleared a small hill, her brother's were in her sights. And in their company another wolf. The hues of their pelt, the voice that could just barely be made out in her shouts, the faint stench of dungeon must and vanilla being most prominent, all led her to believe that wolf before her siblings was Merrin. A snarl ripped from her chest, her paws dug into the dirt as she lunged forward into a sprint. Why were they all here? Why weren't they dragging her back to the cozy little cell she had? Why were they so calm around her? Her ears pinned at the sight of Merrin facing Kenzo- had he caught up to her, and this was an arrest? A truce formed between the two perhaps? Her freedom for.. whatever it was that her brother's could offer?

Her first instinct was to bolt between them, leaving Merrin exposed for only her teeth sink into once more. But that instinct fled the moment she saw Asher move closer to her in a gentle way, one that sickened Ryker to witness. She came before them all in a halt, her eyes radiating a most fiery purple flame as Asher attempted to help her. "She doesn't need your help. " she spat, her lips parted throw her bits of rage at them all, but her kissers would only part with a gasp that she held in, refusing to breathe another breath as she watched Merrin choose the difficult way to go down a mountain side. But it would likely be effective, especially on her old body. Her eyes would flash to Kenzo first, then back to Merrin as she grew further from the ledge she just fell from. This was it, an agreeable way out for both parties. or atleaat, for Ryker it was. She could find a way to push her, make her lose any other footing or hold she may have. Though all she did was stare down at Merrin. She could hear and see her brother's to the side of her also watching, hoping neither would make an attempt to help her. She could have just.. stayed in her cell, or not fought Nalik. And yet, here she was. Her fate likely sealed by the three children she left so long ago, here to see to it that her life would be coming to an end. Atleast, that's what Ryker was hoping for.


"speech" "thoughts"

table by rae - image by Wisper

Reality settled as quickly as it stabbed him like jagged, broken chains around his chest while she pled to be let go, to not return to where she had obviously escaped, and as his siblings crowded around to do little more than watch the end of a phantom in their lives. She doesn't need your help," he heard Ryker voice as he stepped forward to assist and for a moment he felt a sharp rush of emotion brace against his jaw before he took a breath to settle his nerves.

"What she doesn't need is an audience that wish only to watch a disaster," Asher voiced for them both to hear, doing his best not to watch their reactions. He wasn't there for them, after all. “D-don't come any closer to me!!" Regardless of his warnings she proceeded to step backwards, back to where she was along the edge of the cliff. He stepped forward.

In his experience, there was no time for negotiation of terms, there was nothing more that he could do for her than complete intervention. And, as she did what he had expected, slipping from her lose grip on the rough terrain, Asher dove forward to snatch her by the scruff of her neck, Merrin's own fangs finding purchase in his shoulder.

With a flinch, he steeled himself and began to pull her as best as he could, no longer willing to let her go until they were far from the stage she so desired to be her last.


@Merrin , @Kenzo, @Ryker

code by claerie

The thud of paws racing towards them would draw his attention. Narrowed eyes searched the shadows until he spotted his sisters familiar face. Of all nights for them to reunite. It seemed almost fitting, the night Merrin decides to end her life, she is surrounded by the children she abandoned, the ones she replaced with new children.

Ryker would spit venom, scowling at Asher for the tender way in he handled their mother. Kenzo would stare at his brother. He'd stare a little harder when Asher snapped at them both, suggesting they were here for a front row seat to see Merrin's demise. Lips threatened to lift. Would Asher feel the same if he had been here minutes earlier?

In a panic, Merrin was reeling backwards, trying to escape Asher as he approached. There was only so much earth beneath her paws. One too many steps and she was falling. Instinctively, his body jerked forward, muscles tightening with the realize that she would be gone. Just like that, she'd be gone from all their lives. He couldn't help but wonder if any of them would grieve her. Asher was lunging then, grasping her by the scruff just as she sank her teeth into his shoulder.

Lifting someone back over the cliff edges was no small feat, no matter how frail her body was. More than that though, he wasn't about to let Asher risk his own life for the likes of their mother. Seconds later, Kenzo was beside his brother, grasping the other side of Merrin and dragging her back to safety. Disgust made his stomach roll. "She needs a doctor." He spoke lowly, vocals spoken quietly enough that they were meant mostly for Asher. She also needed to be far away from all of them, the trouble they could get into for not immediately arresting an escaped prisoner.

speak like this

art + code: clae

An instance of panic that overtook her when she began to feel herself falling backward. It all happened so slowly and yet so quickly, all at once. Memories flooded mind, the best and worst of them. It all was cut short when she felt her teeth sink into something amid her blind snapping of jaws. The metallic taste of blood pooled in her mouth and instead of releasing, she clenched down tighter to pull herself up.

It was when she felt teeth grip her scruff and then another set of daggers join them that her grip loosened with a yelp of fear. The pain associated with the way she was ripped away from the cliff's edge sent her spiraling into a disorienting reaction of fight or flight, but she quite literally caught between a rock and a hard place. Once all four paws were back onto solid ground, Merrin curled in on herself, whimpering as her body shook, completely weakened by her prior distress.

@Kenzo @Asher

table ; bunny - - art ; Raven