(This is the end for Byakko. Please allow Kimster to post first and wait for me to open this for anyone else who wishes to join. Anything italicized is a private mental conversation.)

Sad song to set the mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSn2tc7pPBs

The sun was beginning its ascent, still hidden behind the horizon. A lone figure slowly walked from the dens. Byakko's head hung low, the weight of the world on his back. He was so tired. His ears could hear the rustle of leaves and his nose breathed in the scents of his adopted homeland, finally reclaimed the wilds after it was stolen from Nardir and abandoned by Asylum. He moved like a wraith, his mind empty of all thought, save for one. He wanted to go to the burial mounds. He knew deep in his heart that his time had come. Like any wolf, he had left the den site for the final time without saying a word.

Upon reaching the mounds, he made his way to where Silverstream was buried. Not a moment too soon because the moment he stood next to it, his hips gave out and left him paralyzed. Such was the fate of a wolf his size and age. "Hello, my love." he said in a raspy voice. He lowered his front end down so he was lying on his side and his back was against the mound. He listened to the river flowing nearby, his breathing even. He saw a black shape out of the corner of his eye and looked. For the first time since it started, he could finally see him. Standing about five feet away was a monstrous black wolf with one eye of red and the other blue. He was looking down at Byakko with a neutral expression. The monochrome wolf just took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. So it was true what they said in the old legends. How the Black Wolf came to those who were dying to shepherd them into the Deadlands and then guided them to the Afterworld.

The entity he saw looked ethereal with tendrils of darkness wisping off his body as if he were a ghost. His eyes had a supernatural glow to them, easy to see in the half-light as the sun continued to hide behind the mountains. It reminded the old wolf of how the Fury had made his eyes glow when in its grip. "It ends with me, doesn't it? The curse you set on my ancient ancestor?" he asked. His question was met by a nod but the Black Wolf didn't speak. He merely watched as Byakko shifted his head to look at the river flowing, the wind blowing the boughs of the willow tree above him. Melancholy settled in his spirit and facial expression. He wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed he was missing. Would they even notice in time? It ultimately didn't matter. Byakko was dying where he belonged, in the Old Forest. The place that Lindras sprung up as Nardir's Shadow, as far as his family went. He had lived a good life, in spite of his many regrets and failures. He had his triumphs and his heartaches. He had his memories. 

His eyes shifted back to his spectral companion. "Aylie is the failure of my Clan. One that will forever hang over our heads even when mortals forget. You know this." he sighed. "She is your failure...but not one so great that it will dog your Clan's pawsteps from now to the End. Ayliyra, like all souls who come before me, will face judgment for her successes and missteps. Your failure only extends as far as failing to keep her in line. She alone decided to rebel against authority. Only she can answer for that. Her father, I can assure you, will face justice at my fangs for his role in all this. His failures outweigh yours by a very wide margin and I will make sure he pays a hefty price. He will most certainly try but fail to catch anything faster than a vole in the Hunt when I'm through with him. You'll know him when you see the mangled soul of a wolf enter the Afterworld."the specter said.

Byakko fell quiet. Anything that needed to be said to the Reaper had been said. He felt more at peace knowing what he did now. Then his mind turned onto old regrets. He needed Raka.

Crimson teeth flashed in stark moonlight. A cry rang out and birds fluttered into the sky urgently, escaping a demon. But it was no demon. It was just a child. A child who had just killed one of their brethren. How they managed to do so on their own is a mystery. They were much too young to hunt, but perhaps they were just lucky. The fox kit raised their fangs, blood oozing down their chin as they slurped it down, moaning menacingly at the night sky. Why were they crying? Why were they crying?

They turned to the dead blackbird and ferociously tore into it, ripping feathers and limbs, angrily dismembering it. But they didn't eat. They weren't hungry for flesh. They were hungry for pain. The bird had already given it all up to them in death. There was no more they could take from it. So they moved on, slapping it aside. More. More.

Blood-stained paws dragged the near lifeless demon baby through the woods, a thick mist beginning to linger in the air. The uncertainty of it all brought them comfort. They wanted to stay here forever, shrouded in mist. If only this was their home. If only it had always been their home. They still couldn't stop crying. They were so hungry, so thirsty. The pain felt like it would never end.

With their head lowered to the ground, they stopped in their tracks and began to scrape the earth with their claws. After a minute, they were on their back, cycling their legs in the air as if they were walking upside down. They wanted to see what it was like in a world upside down. They turned their head this way and that, owl-like eyes shining. If anyone were to stumble upon them, they probably wouldn't know what to think. What in god's name was that? What is that baby doing? Why are they still CRYING? It should be put down, no child with this mentality was meant to live. The child would agree.

They heard a rustle nearby, and instantly rose to their feet, baring their teeth and screaming. They turned all around, eyes searching desperately for the source of the noise. They'd scream at them. They'd scream so long and so loud that nothing could stop them. No one would hurt them. No one would ever touch them again. They would take their pain and eat it whole.

@Bellamy

She came from beyond the fringe, far beyond, and long she had wandered alone. By now the gold of her pelt was tarnished by the dust of the road, for the hyena rarely stopped, pressing ever onward. Things such as beauty had long ago ceased to be her first concern. Oksana had seen mountains, and chased after them. She’d seen a break in their armor, the Fringeborn Pass, and like so many before her, passed through. Oksana traveled through the lands ringed by stone and sea, and at last she thought to stop traveling.

Now, there was the scent of wolves hanging low in the air like the fog that rolled off the moat. It was evening, and a red sun hung low in the sky. The air clung to her fur like a ghost’s caress. Beyond the water, she saw the pale flesh of trees where claws had been dug into them, and another flash of ivory— bones. Ribs, picked clean and stark where they poked upwards from dark mud. Oh, what an odd place she had come to.

The water itself stretched on like a river, but sat as still and unmoving as a lake. It seemed purposeful, as though the watery ditch were just yet another border marking, another claim on the land. So the hyena trotted alongside it, her head stretched high in search of crossing. Every border had a gap, a door, a threshold. Soon enough, she found one.

A bridge spanned the curve of the moat, water lapping at its sides in the gentle wind of the evening. Pleased to have found it, the hyena grinned, sharp and quick, and leaned back on her haunches. She would wait, wait for one of the denizens of this odd land. But... she’d hate to wait to long. The hyena whooped, low and meant to carry, to announce her presence. It was the closest she could come to the howl of a wolf saying hello— and it wasn’t very close. Even in this strange land, she herself was strange.

He had descended from the mountain in the first time since ages, forced to move from the growing absence of carrion and the decimating number of bugs in the cave he had called home. The other loners which had lived nearby had moved, and this was causing a particular problem for Kritaxius. He could no longer scavenge from their hunts, and despite his best wishes, he knew he would not survive forever on a diet of bugs alone.

He traveled by the cover of the night. He had little choice in the matter, his eyes did not do well in the presence of bright light. The ghostly wolf could manage a cloudy day, but preferred the darkness of a moonless night much like this one. The mountain was far behind him now, and Kritaxius had no plan as to where he was going or where he would stop. It didn't matter much to him, wherever he landed life would be the same as it was before; lingering, surviving, existing though barely sometimes, without ever seeking the company of another. At least, that's what he imagined it would be. After all, it was all he'd ever known. No, that wasn't completely true. Some nights, the white wolf could close his eyes and remember a time long since past when he had lived with his family. He remembered the smell of his mother most of all, delicate and subtle like the smell of a dry wildflower.

A heavy fog descended with the rain and slowed his progress, but he didn't mind. He had all the time in the world, or he didn't, either way it didn't make much of a difference to him. The wind carried his scent downwards such that he couldn't catch the scent of what lay ahead. But that also did not phase him... whatever creature he stumbled upon was usually sent away by his sickly appearance and did not cause him harm. He sported scars along his back and legs, as well as a few on his jaw, but most had been self inflicted by accident or by excoriation.

When Kritaxius was met with a deep crevasse of still water, he was given no other choice than to try to go around it. This strange river, which wasn't a river at all, seemed to go on forever. Looking at the sky, he figured he still had a hour or two to find his way across, or trek back and find a hiding spot to sleep the day away. He was about to turn back and head towards the mountain again when he spotted something further up the edge of the obstacle... it was... a bridge? Walking closer, the wolf lowered his head to the ground and picked up the scent of other wolves. Not just one or two.... a pack? Kritaxius shook his head, knowing now that he couldn't cross safely if the territory was claimed by others. It was strange how wolves suddenly decided a land belonged to them. Land wasn't something you could own in his mind... had it not been free before whatever creature that 'owned' it had appeared?

Slowly, Kritaxius took a few steps back then turned around to head back the other way... the safer way. But after a few steps, he stopped. Eyes narrowed as he looked back to the land across the bridge. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he wondered what it would be like to live among others of his kind. Why think of it now, when the thought had never crossed his mind before? He had no answer to the question. He knew however, that he was tired... finally tired of always living the same way, for nothing and for no one. What would it feel like, to have a purpose? He stood in the rain, looking back towards the mysterious bridge as though it beckoned him, as though it begged for change.

It begged for his end, or his rebirth; he could not tell which.

Alura was on the move again. The tan and gray bobcat knew no rest, but in truth it never bothered her, as most of her budding adult life had been saturated by wanderlust. It was something her mother had instilled in her, she guessed, with all the moving around she had done during her kittenhood. 
The land she found herself in was unfamiliar now, far outside her usual stomping grounds it seemed. The little bobcat wasn't quite sure how she had ended up here in the first place (she recalled chasing a lizard for a while), but she wasn't about to complain. New places were always interesting, and offered up many new opportunities. 
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and it was growing dark, but her keen golden eyes were still able to see quite clearly. She found herself on something that looked like a scrubby plain, with tall grass and a few shrubs, rocks and trees dotting the landscape. In the distance she could see evidence of hills. 
Alura sniffed at the air and twitched her ears to listen, trying to determine if there were any other creatures around.