Swallowbane hurts. He’s reached the first case he wasn’t able to help, the first one he wasn’t able to save. Sven. Natu’s son. Tell her, tell her, tell her that her son is sorry. He wants to throw himself to the grown, he wants to throw up, he wants to cry. There are so many things in his veins and in his bones that he wishes he could do and wishes he could feel, and there is Bane. There is Bane that cannot do anything other than keep going. All he wants to do is run, but he has a purpose. He has a purpose that brings him back to life. Breathes it back into his system. A purpose. A message.

A message to deliver to Natu. Brightly flecked eyes, moving across the ground with a certain shake and a certain feeling in his bones. Scanning over and over and over again for Natu, the pale woman that his sister had named their spider. He wasn’t aware of the situation with her pups, or where she had gone, but he would find her. He would pace the length of the river until he caught a scent (tracking having been one of his talents from a young age). The healer couldn’t help it. He just was. For now, he just was.

He thinks for a moment, then sits beside the river itself. Carefully tipping his head back, he lets go a howl. It’s a strange sound, a keening sound, and Natu’s name is on his lips. It’s the easiest place to call for her, a mournful sound. Why did he have to bring the bad news? Well, because Sven asked him to. Sven wanted him to tell mom, to tell Natu, and so… and so here he was. Waiting for her to come closer so he could tell her what he needed to. Careful gaze. Careful look. Yes, in the spring midday he would find her.

Fuck. Bane wouldn’t know what to say when she did come to him.