Many call the blind and the deaf disabled. And while that was true for many reasons, it was also so wrong and so false. Tiresias had never known sight, and thus did not rely on it. He would never know the beauty of a meadow, the stunning view from a mountaintop. He would never be able to take note of the intricacies of another’s face - how the brows scrunched together in anguish, in pain, and confusion. He would never be able to note the twitching of lips into a smile, or be able to tell whether the smile was true or false. But despite all of this, he still would not feel disabled. This was the only life he had ever known, and he had no self-pity. As time passed, he would get even better at traveling the land around him, even the land that he had not traveled yet. For now, pain and memories had secluded him to the lake, and any efforts he had made to escape this prison were half-hearted. Both his mother and his adoptive mother had always pushed him to hide his blindness, and in time others would not be able to tell that he was blind. It was like that here along the shore, where he knew every row, every dip in the land, but he lost that confidence in himself when he moved away from the ocean. That’s why he stayed her - out of comfort and security and a fear of the unknown. And time that would change… But for now he was just a scared young wolf, trying to hide from his past and the future as well. But was he disabled?

He could tell how tense his companion was in the way that the other’s breath caught in their throat. The shifting of weight upon the gravel, the awkward silence where there should have been words. The pain was palpable, not only just because he had been told of some deep and dark events that had caused the other pain, but because of the timber of the other’s voice. Because of the slightest of quivers as the other spoke. And then there was the steel, the coldness that said that the other wanted to keep him at bay, not let him in. And Tiresias would not push. If there was one thing similar between him and his brethren, it was the respect for another‘s personal boundaries. Every kalak had their secrets, he was in not about to go diving in a pool of hurt to find out what Castiel’s were if Castiel had no intention of sharing them. But he did mean to support the other - that’s why he had reached out for Castiel not once, but another two times. And the second time that he did? He felt the shifting of his own hairs, and then this sudden lukewarm contact of something against his flesh that rolled down towards the earth, slowly picking its way through the labyrinth of his hairs. It was a tear. Tiresias did not have much experience with tears himself - When his mother had died, he had shed but one before forcing himself to move on, to move past it. He was a kalak, and just like them, he internalized much of his emotions. But unlike them, it was not to hide from others, to hide his weaknesses, but rather because of the fact that he had no one he could talk to about it all. The one thing that he had cried about had been earlier the same day, by some serendipitous twist of fate, and he knew exactly how much pain it had taken for those to be pulled from his own pools. Tiresias pulled back his nape, not losing contact with the others flush by any means, but used the distance to probe with his snout up the other‘s neck, to the ear, to the jaw line, and finally to the cheek. Once there, his tongue would slip out and clean the remnants of the tear from Castiel‘s hair. He tasted the salty bitter trail and as he pulled his tongue bath in in retreat, he nuzzled the other’s face gently. He could not have foreseen that Castiel was gay, not even if Castiel had told him that Tiresias was his soulmate. Tiresias still would not have seen the danger, the harm in it all. He had been brought up with a strict sense of right and wrong, only it wasn’t like his people‘s warped sense of it all. Instead, his mother had sought to make him into a good wolf, one without prejudice against other breeds, one that was like all others. But one thing she had emphasized, was that a male was meant for a female, and a female was meant for a male. In time, his body would beg differently, would plead for the company and touch of other brutes, all the while his mind would screaming protest. But today was not the day that that complication had to be dealt with.

Instead, he had ignored the warmth that the touch of the other elicited from his own body. When Castiel‘s tongue had swept over his flesh to clean off the tear as Tiresias had done to Castiel‘s face, he ignored the tingling, the shock of electricity. He pushed away the possibility that this was what he wanted. Though this would be his future, he would put right deny any chance that he was gay himself. Instead, he focused on the words falling into his audettes. Castiel was apologizing once more, and Tiresias backed up a step and shook his head with a smile. Before he could say anything, he noted with acute accuracy the way that Castiel‘s breath warmed his flush, shifted his hairs. His body quivered slightly, and he told himself it was from the sudden dynamic in temperature difference. And then came the question-did he have a home? “Once more I must reiterate-there is no need to apologize. You may have, as you so eloquently put it, dumped a lot on me. But that is the way of life. It waits for no one, and has no care or discretion for who it attacks. All you can do is accept what it throws at you and move on. There’s no use dwelling on things of the past for there is nothing you can do about the past. All you can do is plan for the future. As for sharing it all with me, I have already spoken my concerns as to the truth of your words, but will not dwell on it any longer. You have seen tragedy, and your mind is dealing with it as best it can. I can ask nothing more of you. So think nothing of what you have told me - it does not put a weight upon my shoulders, and if you were provided any comfort by sharing it all, then I am glad to have been of service. And to answer your questions, I have no home. The pack I belonged to with my parents burned away, destroying everything I knew. And so this… This all is what I consider my home. It is all that I know. But in truth, most of the reasoning for that is because I do not know how to get to another pack. And what pack would want a blind wolf. I can hide it for only so long. And then of course, there is the issue of my ancestry - few trust our breed, and the ones who do may not wish the danger that I would bring a pack upon their own. That being said, do you have any suggestions?” The last sentence was said with a crooked smile and have a laugh. His same concerns would hold true no matter what Castiel said. After all, what use would he be of to another?