The Elder

Regina loses herself.

The wolf loses her pack, the woman loses her wife, the lycan loses her sanity. 

At first, she thinks they can survive it. At first, she can almost imagine a happy ending for her and Hazal. Then, in the blink of an eye, that almost happy ever after is wiped away. Hazal is killed while she is out patrolling, Haven falls while she is mourning her wife. 

Her world dies, and her humanity dies with it. 

The beast within wins, and she spends ten years on all fours, devouring everything on her path with reckless grief and endless hunger. Wounds don’t matter, when there is not enough of your mind to fear death. There is no time for self-reflection in those ten years, no time for anything but violence and despair and all consuming wildness that guides her as if she had been predestined to lose her mind for love. 

She howls at the empty space the moon should be, begging it to bring back her love, to bring back the wife that had loved her too much to kill her and had broken her heart instead. 

The moon never answers her pleas, not for ten long years. 

Then, one day, in the middle of the reckless abandon of combat, it does. 

The beast that had once been Regina dies in Forsaken Rome, not understanding the rebels plans, not caring for the machinations of heroes and villains alike. 

She doesn’t understand how much she owes them until she opens her gaze once more and finds herself years before she loses the love of her life. 

Regina can’t act logically after that realization. 

She tears through the streets in wolf form, leaving behind her pack and her Alpha, only one thought in mind as she runs. 

She needs to see Hazal.

When she finally finds her witch, the lycan throws her arms against her frame and breaks down, not caring to check if the other would understand why she was acting the way she was. After ten long years, Regina is finally home.

What comes after, it’s harder. 

Regaining her humanity is a slow process, one she does not dominate. Her temper has frayed over her time living through the apocalypse. There is little that she remembers of the ten years she spent as a feral creature, but her subconscious won’t let her forget. The nightmares wake her up nightly, to the point they become a constant companion, but she refuses to admit anything is wrong. 

Many had sacrificed it all to save them, and she will not make a mockery of their sacrifice by being weak. 

She keeps her pains to herself, and sets to work. Once Tibet’s elder, her love remains the same despite the broken edges she can no longer hide. Working with the council, she sets up housing for visiting lycans and for those who choose to stay, ensuring they will always find a home there. 

Regina has never been one for politics. After all, all that she had ever wanted was to build herself a home.