Thunder struck before the Tyrant did. The laughter died in his mother's throat, her tail stilled from how it had been waving to-and-fro above his head, keeping him partly dry from the sudden and unexpected storm that had caught them outside of their den. His mother had turned it into a game, they had danced from tree shade to tree shade, all the while he matched his tiny pace to hers, as he kept himself between her legs, under part of her body and tail as she sheltered him from the rain. There was no game in her now, none of the laughter and joy he knew was a part of her. He didn't see the eyes that had brought on her sudden stillness, how they reflected in the lightning that tore through the sky, a stark difference to the dull browns of the forest behind him. He didn't understand what passed between these two wolves, when the owner of the eyes stepped forward and into his view. The pup leaned against his mother's leg, feeling a strange sense of uncertainty crawl cold fingers up his spine.  He understood when the wolf spoke, but not the undertone or meaning of his words when he said "You've run out of world to hide in, dear, sweet sunshine." He called his mother by her name then, this stranger who had no business knowing her. His mother nudged him with her back paw, her voice terse and hard when she said "Run, my little dusk. Run now." Her pet name for him didn't have the warmth it had always had until now, and he froze, confused.  "Move!" His mother barked, and the familiar, commanding tones of her voice jolted him into action. Like the time she barked at him not to play with the yellow, funny looking thing that had fallen from the trees. It smelled sweet, but when his mother had showed him cautiously of the bitty little insects that guarded it, he had understood her warning. He didn't understand it now, but he obeyed. Tearing blindly through the woods, tripping more than occasionally but always finding his balance. The limbs of barren trees tore at his coat, but on he ran. Blind panic crawling up from his belly spurred him on, until his little limbs collapsed beneath him, and he crawled beneath the foliage under a large tree, shaking, cold, scared, as he waited for his mother to come to him, and patiently explain why he couldn't have stayed. This wasn't a story of comfort and love, but the beginning of his tragedy. It was safe to say his mother never came. The young pup stayed there for a long time, until shivers wracked his wet body and he cried out for his mother. It was a while yet before he took it upon himself to do the finding. With the harsh rain washing away the scents for what a young and untrained nose would never have had a chance to follow, there was no other answer but luck, for how the miserable youngster would find his way back to the body of his mother. At first, he would not understand the twisted shape of her. Struggling to see beneath the beating of the heavy rain, he would hesitate before approaching. Even to his young senses he could see that something wasn't right here. This wasn't how it was meant to be. His mother was supposed to have returned to him by now, cheerful and full of life as she had always been, nuzzling him and calling him her little dusk, telling him he was silly for worrying. No, this wasn't right, and there was something bitter in the air. It fouled the taste of rainwater as it fell into his open and panting mouth. Riveting between his fangs and pooling on the base of his tongue, until he coughed and wretched. It was no easy feat to approach her, tail tucked between his leg, head lowered almost to the ground, shoulders hunched and miserable. He crawled towards her like this, whimpering a soft gasping noise between coughs. "Mumma?" He whispered, the word bouncing between his teeth until it came out warped and wobbling. He touched his nose to her damp coat, and now he would understand. He would see the wretched shape of her, the unnatural twists of her limbs, the lovely soft tones of milky white were matted with mud and blood. He whimpered again, a hopeless, horrible noise. It was the sound of someone discovering heartbreak and horror, before they even knew the words that described them. He pawed at her, struggling and pushing until he could make his way under the giant limb of her forepaw. the cooling warmth of her body was faint, and did little to take away the cold of the coming night. Shivering uncontrollably he huddled there. He understood that she was gone, and well he had seen and knew little in his young life, he knew it was wrong to leave her like this. He knew it in the very marrow of his bones. Besides, he had nowhere else to go. She was home. And so he stayed, curled against the body of his dead mother. "Speech"

The gold touched goddess moved through the night. The rain obscured much but she would find it comforting to walk in the dark. Ra slept and the moon was nowhere to be found. The scents of fear and blood had been faint to her earlier but now she moved with certainty to be close.

It was here she found the sight. A child struggling to remain warm under the rapidly cooling body of his slain mother. Their scents were similar and gave the relationship away to her. This place was no duat but Sicari knew well that the woman would be found there tonight. Her soul would be weighed against that of a feather and her fate decided then.

She moved forward. Pity for the child was one of the things she felt but she saw other things in him already. He could be made into a godling and proven worthy in such ways. Or he could be fed to the crocodiles if he proved useless. "She waits in the duat for you now child. You will walk among the reeds together one day. But for now you must come with me, you have been spared for a reason and Amun will reveal to you in time that reason." her voice was heavily accented. An Egyptian woman clearly by sound and sight of her. She was gentle at first but was leaving no room for arguments from the boy. Her fur was soaked and she longed to return to her desert home.

The cold wracked his body and he felt it like pain through his limbs, with each deep, shuddering and violent movement of his body. There was no warm left to him now, no trace that his mother had ever been alive. He knew if he looked into the blues of her eyes, he would see only a faded and milky white, the tones of death. He didn’t know how to cry, not like the mild sensation of stubbing his paw and crying out. That he understood, but this deep and wretched pain inside of him could not be expressed by tears alone, and so he kept his silence. He felt the pressure and pain inside of his skull, as icy as the weather that battered his tired body. He no longer knew the physical pain from the emotional, they all felt the same in the end, they both beat at him and bruised him. He almost didn’t hear the voice that spoke above the rain, the sound of a true, living thing was wrong in this nightmare that his life had become. He lifted his head slowly, groggily, and took in the gold tipped wolf that looked down on him. She was a little taller than his mother had been in life, and the tones of her eyes lacked the vivid blue of his mothers. Yet, this woman was here, and his mother no longer was. He didn’t fully understand what she said. He didn’t know what a duat was, he wasn’t even sure what reeds were, but he knew that the woman was calling him away from his mother. He pushed free of the paw he had taken shelter under, and moved to his mother's face. He was ashamed to admit that he could not look into her dead eyes, could not carry that image in his soul. Instead, he leaned forward, and pushed a goodbye kiss against the freezing, slick texture of her nose. There was no lingering in his movement, it was scarcely a butterfly kiss, and then he was turning from her, walking to the side of this stranger, without uttering a word, without ever looking back. There was no such thing as a past now. He understood that his mother was gone, he understood it in his head and in his soul, even if his heart was slow to catch up. There would be no resistance in him, as he allowed the woman to lead him away. "Speech"