Everyone said they would help get my pups back. Everyone said everything as if that would solve the problem or that I should feel better as day by day passes and I hear nothing of Aspis or Archana. They were stuck with little Whisper in that god forsaken land and I find that my love for Iromar has begun to sour. The land I had been born unto was cursed. Death, destruction, violence and evil. It abounded in that place and I can't remember the alligators now without a certain malicious light to them. I can't remember the roots of the spindly trees as anything but snakes wishing to drag me under. I can't remember the good.

Was there ever any?

Halcyon had departed from Taviora. He vowed to me he would save our children but that he had to do so outside of the forest. I was left there with Perun and Idrisa, both of whom were furious at their siblings status as captives. When they asked me what was being done I had nothing to tell them. I couldn't even lie to them. I just ignored the questions, growing further and further morose and violent on the inside until finally, in the middle of the warm spring night, I stood up. The yearlings were sleeping soundly enough that they didn't notice me leave.

My intention was to find my mate and demand answers. Being left in the dark... I had let that happen once. With Lazarus. How many times must I fail in life before I finally learned? I race from the pine trees as if they are chasing me. As if they are shredding my tail, my heart, my very being, and I snarl and bite at the air as fury begins to gnaw and rage within me.

But it isn't Halcyon I go to. It is someone else, someone different who I have missed. Elohim, my shadow, my Chancellor I had once called him. Yet I had realized in recent seasons that he did not want just to be my Chancellor. He wanted so much more, things I had already given, and I had been blind to it. What was he to me now? Something forbidden but still, I yearned for his friendship, even if it was no longer as innocent, tainted as it was with emotions and despair.

All I know is that I find his trail near Asteraia and follow it south a bit, ever towards Glorall, but it does not go there. Time has passed but it is still dark and my breath is harsh in my ears. "Elohim!" I shout his name then, surrounded by the open fields and the starry sky, hoping the wind will carry my voice. "Elohim!"