Dark Horse

The quiet boy seemed unfocused as he walked the length of their new, temporary territory. The name he had spoken to his father swirled through his thoughts, and he considered what it meant to be a victor. He, who had no fight training, who could not stand up and defend the one thing he had loved in his world. He had chosen to follow Ty, sensing in him someone who could teach him, mold him into being what he wished, what he believed he needed to be. The memories of his mother where growing fainter, until he could scarcely remember the scent of her. Had it been like jasmine? Or something else. If he had known the word for her scent, he had forgotten it. That thought troubled him, but not nearly so much as the one where he was not certain on the features of her face. He couldn’t remember her smile, an expression she had worn so well and so often over their short time together.

There would come a time when he would have been alive for longer then he had known her, and he feared that days coming. Would he have killed her murder by then? Gotten revenge for the both of them?

The troubled young wolf hardly knew where he walked, and would not come back to himself until the call of his father rang through the earth. He tilted his head, listening to the strength of his melody, the allure of its call. He questioned less when he was in his father’s presence. Ty stood to remind him of who he was becoming. His path always seemed more sure when they where together.

He was moving in the direction his father had called from, when the sound came again, louder, closer and even more compelling. He dwindled too long in answering it? He picked up his pace and jogged towards the new den. He sniffed it approvingly as he saw what his father had created with his own paws, well the boy struggled to remember the face of his mother. His ears tilted downwards, ashamed at himself. He was trying to live in the presence, but the past would always have a firm hand over him. He approached his father, and sniffed the kill, bringing his lips into a smile. “I’ll catch the next one” he promised his father. He needed to work on his hunting skills, regardless. He had been taught so little, but that mattered not. There where some things he could figure out for himself, or die trying.