I WRITE SINS NOT TRAGEDIES
Abandoned. Senseless. Fragile.
Two of these three words were a typical fit for new borne pups, the third though, as you could guess was unfitting for most. But I was different, atypical. My life had started similarly to what one would have expected. I was expelled from my mother’s womb. Forced to leave the comfort of suspended liquid warmth, where time was no matter to my siblings and I, and consciousness was not yet something we had thought of. We were hardly living, aside from the subtle kicks and motions we made in her womb. Whoever she was. For I don’t know my mother, because she abandoned us shortly after birth. She remained long enough to clear away the amniotic fluids and sacs that surrounded us, but after that… well there was nothing. I don’t remember anything except the sickening hunger that had consumed me. It wasn’t the subtle beginning of hunger, like a soft rumble or gurgle, but rather it was wrenching pain making me cry out into the cold air. I cried out until my voice gave way and left me hardly whimpering next to my siblings. We had been placed within close proximity, but our mother really had seemed not to care whether or not our existence was to persist on in this life. And had he not found us, we might have returned to the earth, our souls back to the stars…
But Justice found us.
A fitting name wasn’t it? The brute who had saved us, our own father as we would come to know, saved us. A name and word would never come to mean so much to me as ‘justice’ did. He rescued us from the iniquity that our mother had left us in, helpless against any predator or creature who thought us to be a morsel worth feasting upon. He took us somewhere where there was warmth to cocoon us in and he used his body to shield us in it. Bathing us in the heat of his body and love, but there was still one thing missing. And that hunger still permeated my tiny body, but I could no longer cry out. I was now voiceless to this universe, so how was it supposed to hear my cries and woes? Apparently though, it still could and the gods saw us fit to live another day and be given the chance to pursue life instead of death. This time though justice was named Kahlan.
The woman had shown up at our doorstep only hours after our father had brought us to Wudubearo. She was warm, but also wet with the sustenance that my siblings and I were in such desperate need of. She had proffered her teats forth to us, pulling us close without a moment’s hesitation. And to this day, regardless of how few in my life, I had never felt such security and happiness. Maybe now there was truly the chance to face this world that we had been so cruelly thrown into. Maybe one day I would prove to be something more than an abandoned, senseless, fragile pup. I had justice at my side, in the shape of my father, of Kahlan, and in the figment of hope that had blossomed in my little heart. So from then on, we were fed each day to foster our growth until our father was able to bring back morsels of meat that we could begin to munch down on ourselves. Tasting something other than milk for the first time had been a wondrous experience but I could not have known the world that I was about to become so much more aware of. Until now silence had cocooned me each day, I was nosed around by my father or Kahlan for the most part, but one day that changed.
The silence that had blanketed me came to life with vibrations that tingled against the drums within my ears. The sounds moved with vibrancy and urgency, exciting the nerves within my brain to make sense of these new sounds. There was the sound of my own breath, Justice’s, my siblings! There was gentle rustlings of leaves, undergrowth, and fur against fur within our little den. All of it was so new, so exciting as I laid there trying to take it all in, but I was suddenly distracted by a new development. A new stimulation to, not my auditory nerves, my ocular nerves caused me to blink. Blink. I was acutely aware of this motion now, I could freely move the lids that had once covered my eyes revealing a newly dawning world. It was fitting wasn’t it? That the moment I came to visually and auditorily realize the world was upon the dawning of a new day.
∞∞∞
Weeks had slipped by as I began to explore the small world inside and just outside of my den, for father would not let us wander far from him. Today though that would change… I, per usual, had woken at the sun’s first breaking moments. The light registering even behind closed lids. I rose up quietly so as not to disturb my family before escaping from the den. I wanted to explore more than father would let me. I wanted to know the world, beyond my tiny one. I wandered in a straight path, or what I thought to be a straight path from the den. I weaseled through the undergrowth and scrambled over fallen branches and logs in my path, my little nose pressed to the ground when possible to gather up all the scents I could. I knew Kahlan’s scent like she was my own mother. I searched for it in the froth of other scents that washed over me. It was overwhelming and scary, but I wouldn’t let myself be deterred from my goal of finding Kahlan. Sudden motion shook the brush in my periphery and I nearly jumped out of my skin, before launching myself beneath the nearest thing. My tiny muzzle peered out and my icicle blue orbs watched as Kahlan padded by, followed closely by two pups, around my age.
I waited for them to pass me, before I scrambled out and ran after them as fast as my little legs would carry me. But I skidded to halt as she broke through another layer of brush revealing an enclosed gathering circle, where a lone wolfess sat. I heard Kah’s lyrics faintly echoing through the brush, catching the names of her two sons, Kenryk and Kaukab. I feel my limbs shake beneath me, but I suck in a breath trying to bring back that same resolve and courage that had brought me out of my den. I step out into the clearing, blinded momentarily by the sudden increase in light, but my bright arctic oceans focus on the slender figure of the woman aside from Kahlan, but then there is more motion from another direction and I can’t think any longer overwhelmed by the influx of wolves that seem to be coming from all directions. I slink around the outer edges of arena until get as close to Kahlan as I possibly can. I don’t want to intrude, but it was not hard to notice my starkly contrasting fur against the light brown earth. Kahlan, can I please sit with you…? My voice is small and timid against the open air. I watch Kahlan, hoping that she will accept my request since the rest of my family has not yet arrived.
A M I T Y||Justice ft. Artemis||Sister to Three||Alesana||
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