. . tw for anxiety attacks and extreme self-depreciation! || . . . At some point the dark thing in Prince's gut had tried to escape. It had moved upwards, and he felt it like a buzzing in his chest, a swarm of angry bees, a tension like claws gripping his heart and squeezing tight. He felt everything and nothing at once, his emotions still dangerously far away but the tension in his chest slowly dragging him further down into a constant anxiety. He had to get away from here. Prince was never one to stay in one place, and he found it all too easy to stray further and further away from the Chateau, much farther than he'd traveled in a long time, until his tight chest couldn't reach a breath and his already-aching bones felt close to collapse. He could have gone in any direction. He didn't know what led him here. Before Prince a tall, leaning stone stood out against the treeline, not his previous Castle but one that had come long before, a place where he had lived but had never felt like home no matter how hard he had tried to make it be. He remembered the first time he'd come across it, hardly more than a kitten, how he'd stumbled towards it thinking it would only be a temporary shelter. He approached much the same way now, pawstep after weary pawstep, the cave's entrance looming over him like something between an escape tunnel and a mausoleum. Dried moss crunched underneath Prince's large paws as he entered the den, and memories floated around the space like a dream; he remembered the moons he'd spent here, lounging atop this rock and pretending it was a throne, chasing away his worries with smiles and good deeds and games played to lift others' spirits and to secretly distract himself from the dark pit of his thoughts. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, he was never happy here. This place had never felt like a home. Prince felt the tension gripping tighter at his chest. On the walls of the den there were drawings, made by young paws wet and sticky and grimy with mud. Most of them had faded away with time, but a few near the back of the den still clung on for life upon the weathered stone. Prince froze when he reached an image of six shoddily-drawn figures. Though they were hardly more than blobs of dried mud Prince knew exactly who they were supposed to be—Tristesse, Kelpie, him, Clematis, Zephyr, Dream, all sitting together and lined up perfectly as if posing for a family portrait. After a moment of staring, mind spiraling yet somehow completely still, he reached up to cover the figure of his own younger self. Prince had spent his entire life reaching for a family, for a home, trying so desperately to return to those first few moons when he had been innocent and carefree and happy. How foolish he had been, to think he could go back to that moment. How foolish he had been to think that moment could ever exist at all. After all, he'd been so young when the world began to pull everything out from under his paws. How had he thought it was nothing? How didn't he know that everything was doomed from the start? But after all this time, he really thought he'd found it. He had friends, a family, children, a place that felt like /home/, and oh stars, for once in his life he had been well and truly happy. Not even a moon later it was all snatched away again. Why had he ever thought it wouldn't be? Why had he thought that this time would be different? Prince was never going to be happy, was he? ̶H̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶—̶ No matter how hard he tried Prince couldn't get a full breath through his lungs. The claws were gripping too tight. Because Willow really was gone, wasn't she? Even after seeing her body, after burying her in the ashes of the only place that had ever felt like home, he hadn't truly believed it, had been too busy taking care of everyone around him (because they were hurting and they deserved the help, he was Prince Altesse he could take it he had failed he deserved—) and building up an entire new Chateau from scratch, but now, staring at this picture drawn by a hurting child, the weight of everything came crashing down upon him like a monster on the thunderpath. Willow was dead. Prince's lifelong best friend and the mother of his godchildren and the one who had saved him and who had always stood by his side no matter what was dead and it was all his fault because he had failed to save her because he wasn't strong enough because ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ Willow was dead dead ̶d̶e̶a̶d̶ and she was never coming back and she was With a ragged keen Prince let his paw slide down the wall. The drawing smudged under the weight of movement, dried mud cracking and turning to dust in his teary eyes as the image that had been there was destroyed beneath his paws. That dream was gone, and that was just as much as he deserved. +
+ "Dead." The word was foreign on his tongue as he drew back his paw, tasting of bitterness and salt. He hadn't even allowed himself to confront it before, but now there was no escaping that reality. He'd pushed away those feelings for too long, and it had only been a matter of time before he broke. And so, for the first time since Willow's death and since long before, Prince Altesse cried. He could not stop the tears that flowed down his cheeks, the ragged sobs and harsh breaths that escaped him the only sound in the otherwise silent den. Unbidden his paws rose to the bow around his neck, and around strangled gasps managed to pull the tattered cloth over his head. Dirtied by years of travel and soot, the thing fell easily from Prince's paws and to the floor with a soft thud. Prince absently rubbed his throat, still choking back sobs as he stared down at what had been a gift from his father, the last symbol left of the home he'd once had. Even freed from the pressure around his throat the bees still swarmed in his chest. He knew he had to leave before he went completely insane. And so Prince took one step back, and then two, breaths shallow and uneven as he turned and fled from the den. He didn't know where he was going, but the mountains sounded nice. Anywhere but here, where ghosts followed him from sleep to waking and the empty space beside him served as a constant reminder of his failures and all that he'd lost. He was Prince Altesse, Prince of nothing. The thought was almost comforting as he ran, away from his old den, from the Chateau, from his kits and Woechime and everything he had ever known. He ran and he didn't look back. . . . This marks the transition from Prince's current arc into the next. After the Castle burning down and the death of Willow, Prince has understandably been hit extremely hard, and has developed PTSD and is grieving. However, because of his extreme guilt over failing to save her, he has been taking care of everyone but himself, working without rest to build the Chateau when he's already injured, and has been unable to truly process anything that happened. Now he has to. After this Prince will be traveling to the mountains, driven by panic and grief, but he will only make it halfway before he turns back, realizing that he's about to do the same thing to his kits that Tristesse did to his younger siblings. He will go missing for around an irp week before he returns to the Chateau and enters his healing arc, and while it will be slow after everything that's happened to him he will try his best to be there for his kits. Yap session over. I'll respond to rps now, I swear </3 I should write an essay. Fun fact, I wrote the original version of this a month ago BEFORE the fire and it had a happier note and ending, and then the fire happened and I had to rewrite the whole thing and make it sad.