wildestlogs | The Straw That Breaks The Cat's Back

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The Straw That Breaks The Cat's Back

Who: Elle & whoever wants to find her
What: Finally reaching the end of her rope.
Where: Rivendell
When: Day two of being inside the walls
Warnings: Panic attacks, mental breakdowns.

They’re safe.

They don’t need to find their own food water, or shelter anymore. The injured parties are being taken care of. By all accounts, things are the best they’ve been since the group got stuck here in the first place.

Which leaves Elle in a weird place. She’s full of anxious energy and the need to do something. It won’t go away. But they can’t meet with the Green, Elrond is still healing the injured, and there’s no crisis to manage at the moment.

Sometimes Elle pats herself on the back for being relatively well-adjusted. Then times like this come where she can’t handle any amount of downtime and she remembers that she really is incredibly dysfunctional.

On their second day of being actually inside Rivendell she goes through her supplies and catches an all too familiar scent. Her breath stutters and her heart pounds in her ears as she instinctually looks around— but no. The smell is coming from a sprig of Athelas she had put in her belt pouch.

She brings the leaves up to her nose, inhales deeply, and tries not to cry. This has been the longest she’s gone without her pack in… well, since they formed. Every instinctual tug on their pack link is met with an empty silence. But she hasn’t truly sat down and tried to connect, yet. There hasn’t been time.

So maybe…

It’s probably a bad idea, but Elle doesn’t have anything to do with herself and her heart is aching. She wants to be with her pack— her family. Marcus’ scent is overwhelming her senses but he’s not even here.

So Elle finds herself a quiet, hidden-away corner, sits down, and delves deep into her own mind.

She isn’t sure how long it takes. She goes into a semi-meditative state. She’s only just barely aware of her physical form as she’s focused inward, focused on the parts of herself that haven’t known true loneliness in years. On the parts of herself that are bound to the people she holds dearest in the world.

She doesn’t just tug on her pack link, she follows that mental thread as far as it will take her. She's just hoping to find something-- anything. The smallest glimmer of connection that she can hold onto until she gets home.

Then the thread snaps.

Elle barely notices as she’s wrenched back into her body with a gasp. The only thing she can think or feel is alone alone alone alone alonealonealonealonealone—

They’re gone. They're gone.

Dread and fear and grief and nausea fill her gut as sobs wrack through her body. Where before it was an aching absence in the back of her mind, it’s now a painful wound. It feels like a part of her is missing. Like the pain of a phantom limb.

She loses awareness of her surroundings as her whole being focuses on the emptiness inside of her head.

This world doesn’t have the same magic she’s used to. It wasn’t built to sustain things like her. The combination of spirit and flesh aren’t natural to this place, and she can feel it warring inside of her as her spirit tries to connect to something that isn’t there.

She so removed from herself that she barely registers her own quiet screams of grief and pain.

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A familiar scent cuts through the smell of the Athelas.

In her current state she barely recognizes it, but some part of her must because she just lets go.

She feels herself beginning to transform, but instead of to Crinos, she shifts into Feline and begins to fight savagely against the person holding her back.

All she can think is pack run danger run pack alone pack run.

Her mind feels more animal than human at the moment as her need to flee intensifies. Her sobs turn into shrieking yowls. Her claws try to rend the flesh of the thing keeping her from her escape.

Well, at least she held on to herself long enough for Stacia to arrive.

Stacia has to blow some of her Rage and shift before she can do anything else. Just because Elle is trying to flee instead of fight doesn't mean that a scared mountain lion can't maim or kill a human girl, and Stacia only heals as fast as any human would in her breed form. The result is an enormous cat being grappled by a terrifying wolf-monster, and Stacia really hopes none of their hosts are watching right now because none of this looks like something you'd want in your home.

She's also not sure how or if Direct the Storm on a Fox Frenzy (why do they call it a Fox Frenzy anyway, do all fox shifters - no, focus), but she's going to assume it make the target a "safe" place or else they're going to have to make some apologies for scratching up some walls. She holds on tight to Elle in spite of the yowling and scratching, snarling as she concentrates on picking a target that isn't her own flesh.

Elle feels whatever is holding her back get bigger and stronger, which causes her to panic even more. She redoubles her efforts to break free.

Then suddenly her attention starts getting pulled from just run to safety is this way. She doesn't know how or why, but she feels compelled to chase that feeling until she reaches that place.

Stacia can't quite pinpoint if it's the feeling of the Gift catching or feeling Elle's movements change, but something changes. She turns Elle loose, rolling off of her and shifting to Lupus to become smaller while still maintaining her ability to heal.

There's not anyone between them and the clump of bushes she picked, thank goodness. Hopefully no one shows up before Elle gets there.

If Elle doesn't get to that clump of bushes over there, she might just fucking die. Those bushes are the only place of safety in the whole world and Elle needs to get to them, now.

She tears off, leaving the thing that was restraining her behind.

It takes mere moments for her to sprint over to them, and when she gets there she dives headfirst into them and curls herself into as small of a ball possible.

Stacia takes a moment to breathe (and bleed, and heal) in the shreds of her and Elle's nice Elven dresses. She wants to give Elle time to calm down, but given how much a mountain lion screaming sounds like a woman screaming, she knows that they don't have a lot of time before someone (armed) comes to investigate. She rises to her feet and starts nosing through the shredded cloth, trying to put together enough that she's not going to be completely mortified talking to whoever shows up.

Now that Elle's in a place of safety she's able to calm down some. She's not screaming anymore so that's a start.

She's hit with a wave of exhaustion as she comes out of the frenzy. Her transformation back to her breed form is abrupt and inelegant. And now she's naked in a bush, which isn't the idea situation to be in.

"Fuck."

Stacia's wolf ears catch the sound of exhausted cursing and she snorts. Yeah, 'fuck' about covers it. She climbs carefully to her feet and hobbles over to the bushes, making a bit of a show of it. Wah wah Elle, you scratched her up good, you should pet her ears and tell her she's a good friend.

Elle lacks pretty much any sense of modesty so she doesn't bother trying to hide herself when she flops over onto her back with a groan.

"Thank, Stacia," she croaks out as the wolf approaches. She tiredly throws out an arm for Stacia to press herself against for her much deserved pets. She would be more active about it but she's fucking exhausted and her bones hurt.

"I owe you one."

Stacia flops onto Elle's arm, pleased, though she's careful to land so that Elle isn't going to be prodding her in any healing spots.

She is so happy to have Direct the Storm back. Sure there are other gifts that have wider and more varied uses, but this one is good to have in her pocket.

Elle starts carefully petting Stacia.

"When you first got stuck on the Rig... how'd you manage being separated from your pack?"

Elle's showing a little bit of her hand here. Even Isaac, who's as close to a wolf as a cat can get, doesn't depend on his pack as much as she does. She guesses that some instincts transcend species.

Stacia heaves a big, dramatic sigh - what, she's got to direct your Rage and talk about feelings, Elle? - before she rolls off of Elle's arm and shifts back to Homid, arranging herself into a position that allows for a little bit of cover. She's not quite as comfortable with semi-public nudity as Elle seems to be.

"I mean, right off the bat, I Frenzied for the first time since my First Change," she says. "It was a combo-platter of things, but not being able to feel Ace certainly didn't help. After that, I pretty much did what I always do: had a little pity party and then tried to focus on the shit I could do something about."

Stacia is a big fan of feeling her feelings when they rise up. She may have a reputation of being mouthy and short-tempered as a result, but at least they don't build up inside her into explosive pressure.

Elle nods. Yeah, that sounds about right.

"I, I don't--" she cuts herself off before she stumbles on her words and tries again.

"I don't know how to do this without them," she says quietly. It feels something between a confession and an admittance of guilt.

Edited 2022-03-15 21:00 (UTC)

Aren't you a cat? Stacia carefully doesn't say, because she is tactful and also not actively trying to be a jerk right now. Cats don't usually have packs, Isaac is a notorious weirdo for being part of packs multiple times.

"Without your packmates, specifically," she asks slowly, "or without a pack in general?"

Fair question considering, you know, cat.

"Packmates." Packmate, if she's being brutally honest. She hasn't really needed Isaac for a while now.

"I know it seems weird," but she doesn't offer anything more than that.

"You're clearly in distress, so I wasn't going to say it, but yeah," Stacia answers, then jumps back to the problem at hand. It's enough to acknowledge that it is weird and that she's noticed it for now. They can circle back to it later.

"I'm sorry you're going through this without your pack to support you. It sucks. I wouldn't wish it on...well, there's a few people I'd wish it on because I'm a petty bitch, but you've yet to become one of them." She sighs. "Best advice I can offer is to talk to people. It's not the same, obviously, not anywhere close, but at least you don't feel so completely alone. Bunny's good at it, I've filled him in on a few things about Garou since he's a nature spirit, and we're both young enough that he's inclined to think of us as kids. He gives good hugs."

Elle's beginning to think that she and Marcus might be kind of codependent.

"I've just had them since the beginning, you know? We have a system and it works. I'm not used to working without it."

See? There are practical and non-emotional reasons she wants her pack, too.

"Yeah. Talking to people-- that's a good idea. I'm not used to staying in one place for a super long time, so it's a good idea to put down some roots. We tend to jump from thing to thing."

"Who in our line of work doesn't?" Stacia asks rhetorically. "We're a bunch of pissed-off furry assholes; I'd take a break from us if I could."

She shifts her weight, pursing her lips. "Maybe incorporate a bit more running into your daily routine? I know the endorphins help regulate my stress levels."

Elle sighs.

"That's probably a good idea. Something to keep it from getting this bad again, at least."

Where's a Shadow Lord Ragabash when she needs one?

Wait...

Where's Elle's Shadow Lord Ragabash when she needs one?

"Or boxing," Stacia says. "I learned how to box from an ex-super hero back in the last universe. It was fun, and no one got mauled or destroyed their clothes in the process."

Ending up sitting naked in the bushes because you destroyed your clothes is just a big mood for all Gaia's children.

"I can box. Well, I don't have much training in boxing specifically, but general hand-to-hand I can do. I'm good at that."

She's really fucking good at that, but it's been a few weeks since she trained properly. She should get back into that.

"We should set up training areas and routines and stuff. Especially for the folks who don't have combat experience. Even if their best bet is to GTFO the moment shit goes down, they still should. know how to defend themselves."

"Absolutely," Stacia agrees, nodding to further emphasize the point. "It's a lot easier to run from something after you've jabbed it in the eyes, after all."

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The Straw That Breaks The Cat's Back

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