Red eyes blinked curiously at her answer. He had known who had fathered him, the first months of his life had made that explicitly clear. Seasons of quivering in fear beside his sister, knowing no matter which parent that entered would have meant pain. The moment they could walk and wander, he had encouraged his sister to leave with him. Little did he know it would have led to such extremes. Never had he dreamed his father would have used his life as a bargaining chip. Here, with Grimoire’s body nearly crushing him, had he not moved out of the way of her mass, a new option had been given to him. She had opened a door he did not know existed. Aranck had sold his son, the son did not contemplate he could deny his blood just as easily.

He regarded the wolfess towering over him. She had accepted him as her’s in an instant and vanished into the mysteries of the world. For all he knew, she had kept an eye on him, watching him grow, present or distant. But she was here now, and had stated she owned some sense of him. It was a debt paid, he supposed and true about a trade he had no say in. Haunches pressing into the ground, he chuffed, adopting his ‘mother’ as easily it seemed as she adopted him. Bloodborne or not, she had just as much to do with his upbringing as anyone else.

Her own question settled on him with her breath on his brow. With a lack of teeth, he barely reacted to the smell and pressure of it. The soft wind ruffled his fur, but otherwise did not move him. With their shifts of being, he trusted her not to harm him. A force. He answered. A guidance and shaping being. With a tilt of his head, he smirked. A ghost and a presence I can’t always see, but somehow always has a say. Even before his birth, she had found a way to sway his life. With simple touches and breaths of power, she had continued to shape him from a distance.