Overexposure is wearing on the fault line

It was early morning, and a heavy fog had settled upon The Nameless Mountain. As hard as he tried, Osiris couldn't see the mountain's peak through the clouds. He sighed, anticipating the inevitable. He had failed what he had set out to do—his siblings were still out there, somewhere, but their whereabouts had eluded him. He had traveled far and wide, doing everything he could to find them. Still, it hadn't been enough.

Osiris had failed.

He was travel-worn and unkempt; his focus had been on his siblings and his siblings alone. Osiris wasn't the confident man he once was. He was tired, pessimistic, and had been knocked down more times than he could recall. Yet, there was still a glimmer of his former self, as he knew what him coming home meant. Osiris would reunite with Leta, his family, his pack. In this familiar setting, he would heal and rebuild the life he had.

Mustering what courage he had while trying to untangle the giant knot in his stomach, Osiris called to @Dirge and @Hydra and to the members of Empyrean to announce his presence on southwestern borders of the territory.

Despite everything, Osiris was home.
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The matriarch heard the call of her son, and her heart soared. 

She was swift to call in turn, and knew her mate needed no coaxing. They, at present, were at the opposite ends of the territory in their patrol; with new life to come (as ever, Hydra was certain their pairing was not fruitless... at least one of those several encounters would have led to something, if not all) she had become all the more diligent. The matriarch was not so close to Osiris to be immediate in her arrival, but not so far that he would be waiting for too long. 

When she saw him, and that he was alone, she was crestfallen. He would not see it, so well versed was she in the masking of such heartbreak—but he would certainly see relief, which she could do little to keep from the forefront of her mind. For all the that had been lost, Hydra had much. And she still expected to find those that had been... it would simply take longer than expected. 

But Osiris was home again, and Hydra moved to meet him. “My son,” she breathed warmly as she drew alongside him, moving to exchange their scents so that he would fully be wrapped up in Empyrean again. He looked exhausted, and Hydra moved to nose his hindquarter to usher him past the threshold he waited behind.  

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Up along one of the higher reaches, Dirge had been in the midst of making a discovery. Down deep—perhaps not too deep really, but too much for his liking—had been the long forgotten remains of an elk that had succumbed to an unseen pitfall. There wasn’t much left of it save the bones and perhaps errant pieces of pelt, but it had been intriguing all the same. There were ways down to it, ways that did not require the means of slipping or sliding into the same fate that had held it so; he had been about to call for @Element, knowing that the grey-furred wolf enjoyed such exploration, when the voice of Osiris reached him.

The elk’s remnants would have to wait.

Venturing the descent, there was some urgency that guided him but did not afford him to beat Hydra to the reunion. Disappointment may have worried at him for a moment to see his son alone and seemingly defeated, but like his wife he too was well experienced in masking such things. Truth be told, it was not the disappointment that Osiris had returned alone so much as it was that he bore bad news, but such things did not stop the eager rumble in his chest as he gently joined wife and son with nudges and bumps of his own body. He could not worry for what was not found, but he could share the mirth that at least those accounted for were among them and safe.

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tag for reference

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WOW SORRY LMFAO

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Osiris's parents weren't near, which left him alone with his thoughts for a while longer. He did his best to focus on his breath and try to calm himself, as there wasn't much more he could do. 

His ears perked and pressed forward at the sound of nearing footfalls, and his anticipation grew tenfold. Osiris knew that he didn't have to say anything—they would see that he was alone once they arrived—but knowing this didn't lessen the burden. 

"My son," Hydra greeted once she was near, as she drew up upon him and began to reassimilate his scent with Empreyean's. Shortly after her arrival, Dirge joined them as well. Osiris's tail wagged hesitantly between his hind legs, his ears fell, and he whimpered as his mother surrounded him. He was overwhelmed by their love—overtaken by their scents and touch— and he felt tears gather in his eyes. It wasn't often that Osiris allowed his emotions to show, but he was exhausted. 

"I'm so sorry," he whispered hoarsely, once he had leaned to lick each of their chins. Tears began to roll down his cheek, and he pressed his forehead to his father's shoulder. 

Once he had cracked, there was no going back. He sank into the feeling, experiencing the release of emotions he had bottled away for so long.

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He looked travel worn, tired; some the road favored, but she could sense it had not been so with her emerald-eyed son. His voice, hoarse; his scent, a clearcut answer should the fact that no one followed him not have been enough. Hydra felt the sorrow too, and was certain Dirge did as well—but the matriarch steeled herself, swallowing the feeling, and stiffened. “There is no need to mourn, Osiris,” she drawled, stepping nearer to him and Dirge, “your brothers, your sisters... they are strong, and capable. We raised you each to be, should you or they somehow lose their way,” and this much was true. It was why the matriarch was so relentless in her teachings; that they knew how to hunt, and fend for themselves as well as one another. 

“But what is lost will always be found. Perhaps not now, and perhaps not soon,” she hummed, “but the one thing that I know for certain is that each of you are strong, in your own ways. Our family is strong. Strongest together, true, but a force to be reckoned with even when apart. If you believe in your siblings as I do,” she drawled, “rejoice in that much. You have done so well, Osiris, in your search—and we will never give up on them, on looking for them. But you are home, now, and we must continue to build something great for them to return to as well.” 

All that was said was as much for herself, as much for her husband, as it was for her son. And saying it... saying it surely helped, though she longed for them fiercely still. Osiris had not found her children cold, alone, and dead at least—and that was plenty more than she could even have asked. That they had not been found meant that surely, be them near or far, they lived. Perhaps they had settled with others to grow strong, while they too searched. These beliefs were better than the bleaker alternative, which Hydra could scarcely believe. 

Because she and Dirge had raised them to be strong, and capable. Mira had taken the head of some bastard, after all—none of their brood that had been with them were mewling, feeble things... she had not allowed it. And felt, now more than ever, very pleased with herself in having raised them in such a way. Her gaze turned to her husband, her partner in all things, wondering if he might further validate all that she had said or if he was content to listen, to support. He was better at that than she, who was no good at permitting herself to feel these awful components, or any sense of failure. 

And she would not dream of letting Osiris think he had failed, either, in the effort he clearly had taken to find any of them.

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All at once, he felt out of place when Osiris broke down.

It was a piercing sort of guilt that barbed him at his side. It was like grief, so profound, and something that he could not say that he had ever once identified entirely with. It wasn’t that he didn’t mourn the missing pieces of their family—he had, in his own way—but he had long made his own peace with it. Either they would find their way to them or they would not, and perhaps they were truly gone. Perhaps what had torn them asunder from what they had known and deposited them in the present had not taken them and they flourished and carried on the best way they knew how.

And perhaps, the thought that had crossed him just once, it was not they who were lost but rather those who were present now. It had seemed such a foolish thing but here it emerged once more as the unfortunate pleasantry of a true barb, and bore its hooks in. Fortunately for him, Hydra took the words right out of his mouth… or would have had he been able to find them to speak in the first place.

Then at once it seemed as though her eyes were upon him and in his efforts to compose himself and blink away the blank stare that had glazed over him in an instant, Dirge rumbled his own affirmative at first. He bumped Osiris again with his snout as though that would be all the assurance the lad would need, though he knew it wasn’t.

“Your mother’s right,” he said softly. “We can only search for so long. The seasons will change soon enough and we’ll have to refocus our efforts… but they’re capable of fending for themselves. They’re resourceful.” They would manage, if they were out there; he had no doubts about that. His children were taught skills to succeed for a reason—he didn’t expect them all to stay beneath or within their pack’s claim forever at that.

“But that said, it doesn’t seem we won’t stop looking. If they’re out there, there’s always the chance our paths will cross one day or another.” After all, it had happened to him, and more than once at that.
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I'm good to wrap this one up if you guys are!

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Hydra and Dirge were quick to comfort and reassure Osiris. His head remained pressed against his father's shoulder as they spoke. They were right—there was no reason to mourn. His siblings were resilient; they would survive on their own. 

Osiris lifted his head once Dirge nudged him, blinking the remainder of tears from his eyes. "You're right," he replied, steadying his concern with a deep breath. "We'll keep an eye out for them. Search for them again." Osiris would do anything to bring them home. 

"Should we head back?" he asked next, motioning to The Nameless mountain with his forepaw. Now that his nerves were gone, fatigue had hit him like a pile of bricks.

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fader at last <3

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The passing of expressions on her husbands face, and her primary concern for Osiris, caused her to miss the blankness that had been there beforehand. And when he spoke, she looked to their son once again, nodding as her mate spoke. Hydra was relieved to see him blink away at what caused his eyes to glaze. The matriarch was a strong woman, though had the emotional depth (when it came to sadness) of a pebble. His affirmation was all that she needed to hear, and to his inquiry she nodded.

No more needed to be said, and she coaxed him into the depths of Empyrean with a nudge, moving along with them in silence. Hydra felt for her tired son, and her own heart ached from the absence of the others he had not come to find... but Hydra believed her own words. Given time, surely they would be.

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