I Was Lost and Lost My Shape

Eligos' patrol had taken him into the wee hours of the morning, and he had sent the malinois to bed when the pair had started drooping when they were returning from the border, but he didn't feel tired yet. No, he felt far too restless for sleep, and his body wasn't tired enough by the patrol to force him to sleep. He had a lot running through his mind, like a constantly noise that wouldn't let him rest. It was near enough to drive him to drink or drugs to shut it off, except that the idea of losing control to either was horrifically distasteful to him.

His ears pricked up as he spotted Aureus. Though the two were twins, he'd never understood how someone could not be able to tell them apart at a glance. They were just... different. Some indefinable thing, though one would never be able to look into a still pool of water without seeing his brother. It was an interesting thing. Stepping up next to Aureus, he glanced down at his reflection and tried to imagine it, but he couldn't. He was the third brother, the not-twin, just as he'd always been, and he was fine with that. He was glad his brothers had each other. In a lot of ways, he'd always been too reserved and withdrawn to give them, and their sisters, the sort of sibling affection he saw come so easily to other wolves. After their father's death, he'd withdrawn from his brothers to grieve alone and left them to their own grief instead of giving them the support they needed. And now, preoccupied with the world outside the pack, he had difficulty connecting with the wolves within its boundaries. He loved his family, but he struggled to give them what they gave so freely.

Looking away from his reflection, he turned his attention to Aureus with a weary half-smile, his thoughts still chasing their tail over and over unceasingly, unable to let it go. "Couldn't sleep?"