ooc: guess who just barely now read that larka was marked deceased?! haha anyways here’s some emotions!!! tw: death of a loved one/grieving

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Gone.

Zevulun… I am ashamed of you.

Was it only a year ago he had heard those words? They still stung like fresh cuts, lancing deep into the heart that beat so proudly in his chest.

If you leave… I cannot follow.

His pink muzzle tilted upward, blue eyes glossy and catching the shine of all the stars that glittered above the Prairie, unobstructed from trees or mountains, stretching across them like a blanket. She was the one who had left; She was the one who had gone where he could not follow. Why was his last memory of her one of disappointing her? Of arguing back instead of listening to her council? If only he had... it would not have stopped the passing of time, but it would have given them more of it.

A few tears finally fell, racing quickly down his angled, pale cheeks and lost on the thin yellow grasses that shivered when the autumn wind rushed by. He shivered too, but not because of the cold.

Regardless of how my heart might long for it.

A sharp breath was sucked in suddenly; chin dropped; eyes pinched closed, tight; lips pulled taut. His entire body shook again with the sorrow that was trapped inside it. Screeching, clawing from his heart outward and filling every piece of himself until he was overflowing with it. The hot, choking pain like fire across his lungs. Then, all at once, he crashed down to his knees as the first sob escaped him. The grass rippled around him, flattening beneath him as he fell down below its surface.

His cries were loud; he could not tame the sorrow this time or hide it from his loved ones; never wanting to see him crumble like this. She had been the only one who ever had. For years and years and years despite the heartache he trudged through, he’d mostly managed to keep himself together. He’d tried to stand strong every time life dug her claws in… but this strike was a little too hard.

Promise me instead that you will love me while you are here.
That promise is all too easy to make. I will love you for as long as I am here, Larka.

It was a promise he would never break.