Woke up on the wrong side of reality

Dark paws carried him forward till he came to a stop at the edge of the river, his toes sinking into the soft sand that bordered it. This flat, seemingly peaceful plain was a stark contrast from the mountains that he had spent the last couple of weeks in. Even though he had been drawn back to those mountains as soon as he stepped foot back into Boreas, he was now convinced that they were influencing him in ways that he wasn’t sure he liked. His mind had been incredibly loud since his mother’s passing and being back in his old home had only amplified that fact. Perhaps he could revisit it again once he found a better way of controlling them on his own, but for now... For now he would venture out and find somewhere else to settle for the time being.

As if you could ever control this.

His ear flicked as his own doubts vocalized themselves within his own thoughts, but that was the only reaction he allowed himself to have to the taunting, deprecating voice. His head dipped to take a drink of the water that was passing calmly in front of him, lapping up the cool water for several moments before he lifted his dual-colored eyes to scan the world around him.

Don’t listen to them, Casso. You’re stronger than that, I know you are.

A distinctly feminine, familiar voice made him freeze in place and his brow pulled together with confusion. It was most certainly his mother’s voice, but from a memory or from the same place the rest of his voices emerged from he couldn’t distinguish. It certainly sounded like something she would have said to him once upon a time, but it had sounded so clear in his ears that he could have sworn she had been standing just behind him.