It hits me as I lay on the cold floor of the grotto how time flies. While I had suffered at first with the loss of Carnifex while raising the only young between us, it had been my luck to find a male like Exodus to take care of us. I hadn't seen him in a while, though, and worried. The worry was caused mainly by the way my bones ached as I rolled over, away from the warmth of my growing child. My figure is still almost sickly thin, barely scraping by enough to feed us both. I had never done this before, always relying on the wits of others and my own sly seduction, but I found a lack of desire for that anymore. A healing heart would do that to you. Grief was a cloud that couldn't be overcome with such ease. It shredded me from the inside out until I was bare both soul and body. It made me realize things I hadn't had the courage to realize before. The price was too steep.

The only thing that kept me moving on was keeping Myrria alive. I had been eating gangly rabbits and regurgitating the meat for her lately, her teeth having come in sharp and her appetite growing by the day. I wondered, vaguely, if I should seek the protection of a pack. I needed to, I decided, before winter came. Otherwise neither one of us would survive for my body couldn't handle the cold. Everyone I had was gone, ghosts that haunted me. Maybe I was a ghost for my pink eyes seemed too large in my thin face, my legs nothing but bone and brittle fur to carry me.

I nudge the neck of my child, breathing in her scent gently. "Wake up Myrria," I say, mouth opening in a yawn. Sleep wasn't restful anymore, the cold making me wake in fits and starts. "I need to go get us something to eat." I had barely eaten anything yesterday, having given it all up for her, but I would do anything for this reincarnation of my beloved. Anything. "You need to keep an eye out in case anyone comes by. Be ready to hide," I say, like I always say to her. I would repeat it until it is hammered into her head if I had to, my fear of her loss so great that I sounded half mad to my own ears.