Aela

Bio by Styx

TW: Self harm, etc
AELA sat on the floor of the supposed haven where she was placed in since her death, staring into the distant horizon, where the setting sun always stayed in the same position. She couldn't keep track of the time, not that it mattered to her.

She wasn't even sure if anything mattered at all at that point.

Aela had watched the dark-coated wolves who called themselves Shadows yank away her mate and her leader forcibly from her paws, claiming that they were there to give him a better life.

To make him "immortal", or so they told the members of the pack.

No one in the pack believed them, of course, but none's power could match that of the foreign wolves'. Aela had tried her best to negotiate with them, but the best she could get from them was that they would try their best to make it up to her.

And then they were gone.

Aela knew that the beautiful prison she was in, and had been in since forever, was the "gift" they told her about. But no matter how pretty the unnatural purplish-blue grass was, no matter how rich the stock of prey, no matter how much she loved sunsets, it all felt empty without the presence of her mate, Orion.

She had failed to protect him. Maybe if she had not convinced him to break out from his native pack to build a new one with her, maybe if she had just tried to sweet talk the Shadows a little more…

Maybe…

Just maybe…

But she would never know what might have happened should her choices have been different. Because it was all over. Honestly, Aela would have preferred a quicker death, a memory wipe for her to start all over again, compared to the lingering state between life and death she was stuck in.

For eternity.

It seemed to be a suitable punishment for how badly she had disappointed Orion.

It was worse when she first moved into the haven, though. She would cry, howl, scream. She would run around madly and bite everything and everyone she saw. The Shadows had to restrain her with their brute strength more than once, knocking her out when she got too close to the point of insanity.

But how could she not?

Mating was and still is such a pure and beautiful thing, but by taking him away from her and doing who-knows-what to him, the Shadows were robbing Aela of her faithfulness towards her partner. She should never had allowed anyone, much less strangers, to take him away from her.

Only till death shall we part.

The sentence had rang in her head again and again during the first era of her life in the colorful place, forcing her to replay the memory of them separating again and again, allowing her mind to point out again and again how she could have saved him from being "immortalized".

It was hard.

It still is.

But what can she do? Nothing.

Once again, the powerlessness rushed back at her, and Aela closed her eyes, howling…

Howling at the setting sun…

Howling at Orion…

Howling at all the unfairness in her life…

Howling.