Teach Me How to Say Goodbye

Resin's detached words cut through his heart like a knife. His stomach dropped, ears folding back and shoulders slumping. He was too late. Resin didn't even recognize him anymore. The wood snapped in the fireplace, a fitting sound to the boy's heart breaking. His mother looked so thin, so emaciated, like a hollow shell of the wolf she had once been. She flashed him those serrated daggers she called teeth in a smile that he couldn't quite tell if it was inviting or threatening, but she didn't seem to be overtly hostile, so he took his chance. He had to take as many as he could if this was the last time he'd ever speak with her—whether she recognized him or not. She didn't need to know she was his mother; Art knew it and that was what mattered.

Artorias swallowed back the lump in his throat and got back to his paws, slowly approaching the fireplace and furs Resin was lying on. He came closer to his fading mother, coming to sit on the opposite edge of the furs so the firelight could better illuminate them both to one another. Maybe if she saw him clearer, something would spark in her memory. He had to hope; he had to try. "My name is Artorias Carpathius. I'm a knight of a pack called the Hallows," he explained to her as if she hadn't been the wolf to create it, and right now perhaps she wasn't. "I came here to see you. You trained me, taught me everything I know. Even if you don't remember, I..." A pause for the boy to work up the courage to say what he had to. "I wanted you to see that all your efforts had gone towards something. I'm just... I'm sorry it took me so long."

Artorias looked around the room for something for Resin to drink. Her voice had been irreparably damaged by now, but he didn't want her to be uncomfortable with their conversation. Spotting a water skin hanging by the cell door, Artorias got back to his paws and moved to pick up the half full skin and a nearby bowl, bringing both back to the fire and filling the bowl before sliding it carefully towards her. "You really don't remember me, do you...?" he asked, a husky whisper of dread barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

"Artorias" | Corbin