For the first time since waking up from death, Khaz felt the burdens that had been absent since life. His heart pounded in his chest, hammering against his strained lungs. His head filled with pain and blurred out sometimes, turning the world before him into a green blur as he raced through it. His breath came in pained gasps. But none of these came from the ties to a body. It came from the pain of thinking that any harm or suffering should befall Kipcha.
Despite his focus issues, he darted artfully through the forest that had been his home, barely pausing to catch the scent on the trees that he knew so well.
His ears and flank snagged on twigs and branches, his paws slipped and were grazed by sharp rocks, but he dimly felt the pain. These objects were deceptively solid for the semi-spiritual realm he now found himself within.
His ears pricked up as a sound reached his alert senses. He recognised it as the river, with its two beautiful waterfalls, cascading over edgy rocks.
He subconsciously quickened his pace, eager to see the scene of this as he had done before, eager to feel the calm that it brought him.
Before he knew it, he was emerging from the trees, the calm spreading through him from the lull of the waters.
But that calm was to be shattered as he looked up the river's length, and spotted his pack, running alongside, crying out to two wolves who struggled within it's depths.
Khaz ran to the waters edge where a small, browny-gray wolf lay on the banks, sodden and weary. It was Bran. The pack passed by him, chasing the wolf still in the waters. They were oblivious to his presence. Huttser was in the lead, calling out, calmer than the others, but more desperate.
"Swim, sister! fight the currents"
But his words were caught on the wind and did not reach the wolf still floating toward the second drop.
Huttser stopped at the clifftop, staring desperately out, now only able to watch what would happen to his sister.
At this point, Khaz overtook Huttser, sprinting by faster and harder than he had ever done. He took a flying leap, pouncing down to a rock by the water's edge. The rock was slippery, but he held his ground. He was of no use to her if he fell in.
He stared up the running water, waiting for her to emerge.
And there she came, scrabbling, around the rock that had obscured her from his view, desperation to fight still flowing off her.
Kipcha.
Khaz began to feel panicked. He whined and flattened his ears, but fighting for composure, he reached out to her with one paw as she drited into reach from her feeble paddling. She was whimpering, but the currents were wearing her down.
"Fight Kipcha, just fight" Khaz growled through his teeth, but he could not be heard. His paw grazed her shoulder and she shuddered, limbs going limp in the water. She wasn't fighting.
"No… NO! Fight! Keep Fighting!" Khaz moaned, though she still could not hear his plea.
"Khaz…" She sighed, letting the currents take her.
Khaz reached out again, trying to pull her in, but, whilst he made contact, her course was not altered by his touch.
"No…" Khaz said in sorrow as Kipcha disappeared over the fatal second waterfall.
Khaz made his way down to the rocks below, after his pack left in despair. Khaz had to know. He remembered the nights before he had died, and knew that more than one life had just been shattered on the rocks.
His whole body was shaking, and cublike whimpers escaped his muzzle, a feeling in his chest causing him to either want to wail or die, neither of which he could do. It threatened to turn into a howl, but he couldn't catch the feeling to pursue it.
Springing down into the water, he walked painfully over to the rock that held her body, her blood staining the water a deep red. He pressed his nose to hers, tears burning in his eyes that, as a wolf, he could not release.
She didn't look peaceful, and why should she, when she had been taken in such a brutal way? She looked like she was still in pain, as though for each of Khaz's cubs that she bore, she had died again. The feeling intensified, and Khaz found it hard to breathe, but knew that death would not be a mercy to follow.
If Khaz could find a way to tear Morgra apart for this, he would commit it several times over. He licked Kipcha's wet muzzle, tilted his head back and released the feelings into a howl that could have awaken the dead. If only that were true.
The waterfalls held no beauty for him any longer.
