Tiresias shook his head, not being able to understand why she was stuttering, why she was so unsure in her words. All that he knew was the fear he felt in his heart for his siblings, for his aunt. After all, Apollonia had first awoken them and warned them about the fire, risking her own hair and flesh to give them a better chance at escape. But even before that she had helped his birth mother raise him – had fed him and cleaned him when Shae had been too weak. She had spent many nights with him and his siblings, telling them tales of the gods. She was in some odd relation his aunt, but often he thought of her like a big sister or a second mother. And then of course there was Shilo. It no longer mattered that he had been separated from her and the rest of their siblings for months now… that he had not mourned with them after the death of their mother. For Shilo had forgotten all of that and had risked her own life to save him from his own unconsciousness. And somehow, Tiresias had managed to leave Shilo behind. She was probably still standing outside of the packlands, watching the fire burn it down, burn their home down. A deep weight fell in his heart at the thought… for the sight of it was the one thing that would not injure Tiresias, but would definitely hurt Shilo. For once, Tiresias was thankful for his blindness.

And that made his anger at Eerie even stronger – Eerie had pulled him away… and left everyone else behind.

But then he heard the sound of her stumbling. The discordance may not have rang out loudly, but it spoke volumes considering that Eerie was always elegant, each step specifically placed in a spot that would leave her travelling quietly. He felt sand spray up at him, dashing gently against his limbs but it was like he was whipped with a flail. “Eerie!” He rushed to her side and nearly screamed as the water lapped up against his paws, for though he had been to the lake before, she had not brought him into the water. Tiresias braced himself against the cold water, gulping down the fear that he felt due to the stories that he had been told by Apollonia. By what she had told him, he expected the large body of water to attack him, to try to suck him in deeper and kill him. He expected it to have a mind of its own. But it didn’t… instead it gently lapped against him. When his mother did not respond to his calling, he reached down to grasp her scruff as he had in Cold Summers when she had collapsed due to the smoke… and it was only then that he realized that blood was swept into his mouth. Shocked, Tiresias leapt back and shook his head – where had the blood come from? And why had he not been able to smell it? And then he realized it – his nares were still painful and scorched, and though he had been able to pick up on the stronger smells of the beach, it had blocked out the smell of Eerie’s blood. Of her aching… Tiresias leapt back into the waves of the water and nosed at her bloodied body until he found her scruff again and tried to drag her out of the water. But between her larger, more muscled body and the fact that she was now much heavier since her coat was fully soaked with the weight of the water, he could do nothing more than keep her nares out of the water and keep her from slipping out into the bowels of the lake. Through gritted teeth and tensed jaw he screamed. He screamed out of anxiety, out of frustration. He screamed, hoping that Eerie would awake. And he screamed, hoping someone would hear him and come to his aid. Bitter tears fell from his eyes, not wanting to find himself hovering over the body of yet another dead mother.