500+

The news had hit him like a shot in the chest. He could hardly believe what he was hearing as Heath spoke those few, brief sentences to him. He had stood there staring, numb, unable to believe what was happening. He hadn't wanted to believe it. But then Heath was gone. His best friend was gone, along with his other good friend and their two children. Haven had wanted to protest, had wanted to yell that their ex-King was a liar and it was just some stupid manipulation of his. His tongue had been frozen though. Perhaps from the shock and perhaps from the look on his friend's face. The Knight stood on the porch of his house for a long time before he willed his feet to walk inside and share the devastating news with Princess. She cried, and he held her, but his tears would not come yet. There was a malestrom of emotions boiling inside him and he couldn't choose which one to let out first.

He stayed with Princess for a while, but eventually he needed to get out. Haven didn't want her to see him break apart like he knew he was about to. She didn't need to see the violent outburst he felt creeping up his spine like an out of control train. He kissed her, and said he would be back later and walked out the door without looking back. Haven needed to get away. He felt like he couldn't breathe. There was a sharp constriction in his chest. Despite the pain he started to run. He had no destination in mind aside from away from his quiet little home and his pregnant mate that he didn't want to upset any further than she already was. The Seneschal needed to release the storm that had gathered in the confines of his body.

Somehow, he reached Lunenberg and as if a switch went off, looked for the nearest building that was in the most disrepair. When he found it, the Knight ducked inside and immediately let out a rage-filled cry as he punched his fist through the wall. Pain radiated from his curled fist and he could feel little rivulets of blood leak from his knuckles, but he didn't care. Haven pressed his forehead against the wall and the tears finally came. It wasn't fair. It wasn't goddamn fair. Everything had been great. His life had been great, moving on to becoming almost perfect. He and Heath were going to be fathers together, raise their kids side by side in the same pack, a future neither of them would have ever imagined back when they first met. Now that was gone. Heath and Ruri were gone.

Bi-colored ears flicked as they heard the sounds of rummaging nearby in the town. Faintly Haven moved from the wall and without any seeming will of his own, moved towards the noise. There were tear streaks down his face and blood on his still curled fist as he stumbled into the abandoned house. Abandoned but for the other sad soul he found standing with a bottle in her hand and her eyes hidden from the world. Haven stood in silence, looking at her for some time before his cracked voice finally spoke. "Anann..." He could feel the tears well in his jades again. She knew how he was feeling. She was feeling it too.

SoSuWriMo 526

The golden woman had not turned towards him when he approached, so she had not heard him coming it seemed. How she had missed the ruckus he had caused not far away he didn't know, but sometimes grief could make you both blind and deaf to the world around you. Haven might not be feeling that way right now but he certainly had before. Grief was a feeling that he had been most intimate with throughout his two years of life. Suddenly Anann's fur bristled and a deep growl reached his ears. A yell was thrown in his direction to get out and she turned towards him with savagery written all over her form. Anann certainly was intimidating, and at any other time the Knight might have prepared for a fight, but now he simply stood there. He wasn't afraid, and there was some, small portion of him that almost wanted her to come after him. Cuts to his flesh and muscles might hurt, but they could not compare with the aching in his chest.

But then all the fire went out of her as she saw him and all that ferocity melted away and left what he had seen before. Someone feeling so much pain and yet working so hard to keep it back and bottled tightly inside. That was how he had felt back at his house. Haven refused to let the walls come down in front of her. The news had upset her enough as it was, he wasn't going to make things worse for her by turning into the wreck he felt like in front of her. Despite all the hurt he felt, his number one priority was still to protect her and the small pups growing inside of her. She spoke his name in the same choked voice that he had spoken hers and stared at him for a few long moments before turning her face away again. She asked him to leave again, but his feet felt glued to the floor. Whenever something like this had happened before, whenever he had felt this way before, he had wanted to be alone too. The only companion he had wanted was a bottle of booze. It seemed Anann was going down that same path, and maybe that was not the right way to deal with it.

Blankly Haven looked down and at his scraped and bleeding hand, trying to formulate the words that he wished to express. There really was nothing to say in this sort of situation. Words were not going to make Heath come back and the hurt go away. Still, Haven felt he needed to say something. "Maybe," he said, pausing, "But I feel like I should stay." Misery loved company, or so they said. "I can't go home. I can't put this on Princess..." The words were subtle, but his meaning was that he needed somebody to lean on and talk to right now, and to him, Anann was that person. He didn't care if she got violent or cried or whatever else she had to do to cope, Haven just needed to be around someone who understood.

It's all good! SoSuWriMo 548

As Haven looked at Anann through his grief clouded eyes, there were flashes, moments, where he felt he was seeing himself and not her. How many times had he been in that very position? Sitting on the floor of some abandoned building with a bottle in his hand, doing his best to drown out the world? His memories raced back to those weeks he had spent in Halifax after he had found out the truth about Conri Church. He had thought his fate was sealed, that it was only a matter of time before the poison of his blood made itself known and he would do those awful things that his sire had done. So, the Aatte had pursued what he had thought was the best option: hide away in the city and drink himself into a constant stupor so he couldn't hurt anyone. In all reality, he had hurt everyone he had tried to protect by doing what he did. The Knight wondered how often Anann had done this to herself. It was not judgment he passed, only a sad understanding of that mindset.

While he found his words and spoke initially, some of that angry fire seemed to flare back up in her. Yet again he found himself uncaring as to whether or not she would come after him or yell at him to leave. Even if she didn't want anyone to see her this way, even if she didn't think she needed anyone, she did. Haven knew, because he had been in the same spot so many times and it had only lead to things he later regretted, the one exception being the night he met Princess, and even then there were things about that he would have changed if he could. His reason for not going home though seemed to reach her and the anger extinguished again. Anatoliy. He knew that name, somehow, but he wasn't in the right state to come up with the answer, and he found he didn't much care. "I told Princess, but I didn't want her to see me like this..." he said, looking off to the side in shame. He was no Knight right now, just some sad man who needed some way, any way, to release the raging emotions inside him.

Suddenly Anann spoke and shoved the bottle towards him. Without thinking, Haven took it, and looked it with a blank expression. Behind his eyes though, a battle raged. So much of him wanted to take a drink, drink the rest of it, so bad. His old demons clawed at his control, but all the memories of the stupid things he had done before because this had been his retreat in his times of sorrow popped up as well. What was he to do? For now, he followed Anann like a ghost as he fought his own internal battle, each side making retreats and advances. The Aatte man was still staring at the tinted glass when he heard the woman speak again. He looked up, finding himself outside, and Anann standing in the middle of a clearing. Confusion set over his features. What did she mean? Ready to do what? "Huh?" he said in a dazed sort of way, the bottle still lamely gripped in his hand.