I'd come to realize that death changes you. It had certainly changed me. With Maddox died to save me from the cougar I had been upset but then I had felt calm in the knowledge that the cougar was only doing what a cougar does and Maddox was only going what he knew how to do. Protect. Not once had I ever truly felt a shred of actual guilt over it. I had been too young to understand, perhaps, what the loss of life meant, but I had felt a certainty that Maddox would have wanted to go out in such a way. He had tried to teach me things because I was rambunctious as a pup. Even now, tempered as I was with the most recent loss, I could not find it in me to remain still. My very bones called out for movement. Purpose.
It was the death of my papa that left me shaken so. My family was an odd one yet it never bothered me. I had one mom and two papas. Nord and Enderly. Enderly had taken me on a long trip northward and we had traveled from the confines of Molodian for a time. We even took up with a pack of free ranging wolves who spoke a different language at times but they were like me in that they were exuberant and fun and despite as grouchy as he had become in his age, he stayed with me because he loved me. I knew that. Not once did I doubt my father's love.
It was my fault, really, that he was dead. Because I did not believe his stories and I had pushed and pushed him to hurry back home once we re-entered Molodian. I should have let him rest as he groused about his arthritis. Instead, we had been found smack dab in the cold winter in the open by none other than the mythic half brother I had heard about. Underidge. And apparently my.. niece? It still boggled my mind because she was clearly older than me. And mean. Wicked. Evil.
I find myself wandering the border of Diveen with a certain cautiousness I used to lack. At only two, I was still considerably smaller than other wolves, the runt of my litter. My obsidian and gray figure moved with little grace but there is energy in each movement. Blue-silver eyes turn in the direction of a howl that almost sounded as if it was summoning my papa. Not Nord, but my other papa. With my ears flopped back I race in the direction of the grotto, slowing as I near and trying to make my steps silent. I might have kicked a rock or two by accident, my training not even remotely in the novice area, but I spy the figure ahead. My pounding heart slows, noting it isn't HIM. The Evil Brother.
Slowly I walk towards him, cautiousness in every step as I look up at him, the large gash across my right eye now scabbed and wicked looking.