Her mother had healed by the time that Breach had found her, but not woken up.
Her body had pieced itself back together, tissue regenerating after the poison and the vines had done its best to tear her apart, but she lay quiet, the tigress’ eyes closed—the heartbeat slow.
Breach, for the first time, had felt panic.
Had felt horror.
It had been one thing when her own body had torn apart. When she had felt her leg severed and removed from her body, but it was somehow worse to see the same thing happen to her mother. To see her mother have to fight so hard to stay alive, to have her mind trapped beneath the curtain of the effort of it all.
She had shifted then, the elephant body heavy and difficult to control, but large enough to scoop up the deadweight of Sochi’s comatose body. She had carried her back to the Cove, to a corner where no one could find her, and where she could rest. Rest, she reminded herself. All she needed was rest.
It had not taken her long to find her father, her brother, to let them know.
And then, the frenzied need to do something had set in.
She had heard whispers of the panther-shifter in the Hyaline mountains. She knew that without her mother, the pack would fall apart—the dream of it shattering before it was even realized.
And she knew that she was right where Sochi was wrong.
They needed to dream bigger.
So she shifted into a hawk, taking to the skies and ignoring the agony of fear and misery within her. Ignoring how close Hyaline was to Ghaul and the place of her first death. She flew until she found the panther—until she could tell him of her plan, her goals. Until he could agree to them, on the condition that the white mare was to be left alone. To be given amnesty in this new birthplace of her plan.
Breach did not like waffling on her morals on the very first day, but she needed the land.
So she agreed.
When she walked away from him, the full weight of what she was doing settled across her shoulders—the fear, the apprehension, the sorrow, the guilt—and she stared out into the lake spreading before her.
The only thing she knew to avoid it all was get to work.
And so she would.
I want to swim until we both begin to feel the weightlessness sink in
this is mostly for plot purposes, but you can reply if you want!