His start to life had been anything other than traditional. He and his siblings had been made of the pairing between two wolves who had loved each other once upon a time, yet betrayed one another at one point or another. And yet in one moment, everything had changed and they had come upon one another in the land of Blossom Forest. One night – that had been all that was required for new strings of fate to be laced upon the tapestry. The days had passed into weeks, until at last Hondo Obataiye and his siblings had been expelled out into the world. But… after Artemis had cleaned off her pups, she had left them. They had been alone, deaf and blind to the world. Despite their cries for milk and attention, they could not hear each other, nor could they see their mother’s absence. But they took note of the lack of warmth. Luckily, their strings were long enough to not end so soon, and fate led their father straight to them. He had brought them to the boundary of Wudubearo (though at the time they had no knowledge of this), and had been lucky enough to have a random fae come alone to feed them. Kahlan had been her name, and she had been their saving grace – she had fed them for the next few times until Justice could support them himself. Still, because of that, Hondo had found himself comforted by her smell whenever she neared him.

And because of that, the pup had followed her this day, straight out of the pack, away from his siblings, and out into the world.

He ran after her, hoping to catch up to her and ask if she would be his mother. He did not much care if she would or would not be his siblings’ mother, but he wanted her to be his mother. But she had been too fast for him, but stubborn as he was, Hondo refused to admit that he had lost her… but as the hours dragged on it turned into him not wanting to admit that he was lost, period. But he was, horribly so, and had been for at least a day now. He had survived thus far by eating worms that he had found underneath rocks that he had overturned, and on small fishies that had been caught in tidal pool like puddles on the side of the river that he had been following, hoping to get back home. Little did he know that he had been heading in the opposite direction this whole time and had been making negative progress. By now, his paws were sore, his body was tired, and he just wanted to get home. By the grace of Fenris, at some point, he caught onto the scent of another varg. The last of his reserves kicked in and he began to run toward the scent. He knew it wasn’t Kahlan – there was no familiarity in the perfume, but at least he wouldn’t be alone any more and maybe they would be able to help him get back home. He tried to run, but somewhere along the way, the ground had softened and now was swamp like, and so he instead carefully picked his was over the terrain, the shadows making it even more treacherous. But when he finally reached the point of the origin of the perfume, he saw instead of an adult, another pup. And she was stuck in the mirk and mire, and slowly sticking. She was trying with all of her might to pull herself free, but to no avail.

In that moment, a few things happened. The first was that he felt an immediate connection to her such that he had never felt. Not that that meant much since the amount of time in his life was very little up until this point. But he also immediately felt fear for this femme – he loved this stranger with all of his being, an emotion that he had no word for as of yet, and the thought of losing her, the thought of her dying, was overwhelming enough to kill Hondo himself. Now, he was not the most brave of wolves, he was rather selfish, conceited. For example, he wanted Kahlan to at least be his mother, without much care for whether or not she would take care of his siblings as well. He wanted to survive and thrive, no matter who got hurt in the process. And that made what he was about to do all the more amazing. For he leapt forward into the mirk and mire himself behind the lassie without really thinking about the danger that he too may get stuck in the glue-like substance. “Stop struggling! I’ll pull you out!” Hondo had left his hind limbs on the dry land and used his hind claws to gain traction even as he reached out to grasp her scruff. He back pedaled as hard as he could, and for a second, he thought his weight on her was going to make it worse, push her deeper in, and it did… but just for a second. After that, he slowly made progress going backward. They fell together in a heap and he whined. “Are you okay??”