Stumbling into a new chapter
08-20-2017, 10:03 PM
Everything felt so empty. Amalia's scent was gone from everything. For the longest time she tried to keep the place where Amalia usually slept untouched so her scent would linger, but now even that was faded beyond recognition. The same was true in the den of herbs her mate had kept. The scents of her daughters were gone. Two of her sons were luckily still here, but the last thing she wanted was to keep them hung up in her sadness. Athena laid outside her den in a patch of sunlight, trying to convince herself that just laying in the rays would brighten her mood. Talking with Ara had done a lot to help her process and accept that this was her new reality, but the quiet that surrounded her was hard to hear. Suddenly a faint echo of a cry caught her attention and her head popped up to listen. There had been enough children in her life to know that sound. As far as she knew no one in the pack had children recently... She quickly got to her paws, abandoning her previous thoughts and musings. Instead she set off after the sound with her ears perked to listen. She could tell when she was getting closer as the sound got louder. Finally she found her. Near the border was still well within the mangroves to be considered trespassing. It was a pup, but... Athena had never seen so many mutations all on one wolf, not to mention the colors of her fur. For a moment Athena paused as a flash back to finding Amalia half frozen in the snow on her father's lands crossed her mind. Her ears pinned back and her gaze softened at the memory. She had been so afraid that someone would find Amalia, that they would punish her for being a trespasser. There was no fear of that for this pup, but to find someone else in need like this... the similarities were enough to form a lump of tears in her throat. She pushed the emotions away and gave her head a quick shake before she hurried over to the pup with a kind smile. "Shhhhh..." she whispered, settling down beside her. "It's okay, everything is okay." She laid down on her stomach so she could be on the little girl's level. "Hello, little one. What's your name?" |