this isn’t really an ending at all;

[Femur]

We all know that when horses die, they just die. Ants claim their flesh and crows claim their eyes. The sun will bleach the bones until the dirt and dust pile up over them. But what if in some instances, there is something more magical in the death of a horse?

What if one becomes a star, hot and fierce  in its prowl across the night sky - almost like a wolf. What if another glimmers more softly as it trails after, either in pursuit or just because. Like a comet and its tail, they go round and round through the night. More star than nothing since even death could not entirely dismiss them. 

Maybe it was love and not magic that said they ought to be more than his bones on a plagued plain and her bones on a sad desolate beach —

Femur was heavily pregnant and long overdue by the time it hit her like a punch to the gut. There is no explanation for how she could have known but she knew. Oh she knew! Knew of his passing from this world in a very real and very visceral way that only a lover could know. But not just any old lover - a one true love. His death sucked all the love and life right out of her and into an untouchable void. 

Femur only continued to breath day by day because of the last memento of their love that hung safe and low in her belly. By the stars it hurt though! To find his disease-blackened flesh amidst the once-golden plains far from their island paradise... to nuzzle and nudge forlornly at the blood-flecked muzzle of the great blue warg and know that she’d never feel the plush of it against her face because now it was cold - so cold! No life left in him for her to call to and already she felt a strong pull from the other side as Love beckoned from across the veil.

Soon. she crooned.

More to lifeless blue flesh than the foal inside.

Soon. she sang each and every day thereafter. 

Femur sought out her best and longest friend - Wound. Made her promise to rear the foal despite the tears that both of them shed as the friends said their goodbyes. One knowing it would be forever but forever really is such a short time in the grand scheme of things. 

In the way that all mothers know, she knew this wasn’t going to be easy. No, it’d be life-altering and ending in fact. That’s exactly how it happened:

Femur has only eaten enough and drank enough to sustain the foal. So when it came to push and labor, the strain of birth left her enough strength to rip the birth sac from the foal’s nostrils but Femur laid lovely little head back in the sand and never saw if it was a boy or a girl. Her heart had burst from the strain of labor and loss both. 

She had made Wound promise —

Tell it about it’s siblings.

Tell it about us.

Tell it it’s name that neither mother no father never got to say so it’d know their voices - Sawtooth.

But it would be a few days —a week at most— before the filly was discovered. She had been strong enough and resourceful enough to suck at the cold but full teat and take what she needed. Then she had shifted and learned of her other shape and the pup had given into the wolf’s hunger for meat. So Sawtooth ate a good amount of her mother to survive - cannibalism at its finest before stumbling away from the beach in horse-form by her new mother’s side. 

and poor Femur lay there deader than dead. But somewhere... just somewhere ...a blue warg is joined by his gold-and-white mate who runs hot and fast after him like a star chasing the original supernova. Through fire and dust and death, they’re together somewhere.

@[Longclaw]: forever and always, my love. no other words are necessary. ❤️

@[wound]: best friend, our time together was short but beautiful. thank you for everything. 

@[Warrick]: friend - good friend, remember me when you look to the stars.

@[Scyla]: also a friend, hope you’re doing better wherever you are.

Wildling/@[Gansey]/@[Valensia]: my first trio of darlings, how I love thee. be strong. be proud. 

@[Wolfbane]: oh my son! king already, look after your sister.

Sawtooth: mind your older brother my girl, learn to play nice with others - sometimes. 

(this was long overdue... :/)

[Longclaw]

Oh, someday they will be. Ghosts, that is - someday they will be. When that day comes he has no doubt that his spirit will find her, bound together as they already are. Longclaw’s boyish inclinations and wishes will come true and, once the curse has rotted everything that holds him together, he will become stardust. Ashes to ashes, after all.

Ashes to ashes, my dear ghost-girl. I've waited and now you're here, welcome home to my touch and my love - let's dance across the sky forever.