Things Could Be Different

With summer’s birth, another year settled onto his shoulders. He took the added year with grace and dignity, steadily stocking the medical alcove with salves and ointments and neatly prepared dried herbs for soaks and teas. He’d long accepted that he might spend the rest of his life as an uncle, brother, and pack-healer, and he was fine with it. There had been only one who could have become the one he’d spend his life with, and he hadn’t seen her in years.

He visited the Nomads often, and in the unseasonable last season, they had been one of the few sources for supplies he’d found when the herbs should have been a riot of new growth and sweet blossoms. Even their best sources had been hit by the weather, though, so he was grateful for what they could provide aside from what little he could glean himself.

He’d just finished checking the honeybee hives, worrying that the harsh wintry spring had damaged the populations, when a voice floated across the plains and he paused to listen. There was something familiar in that voice.

He pivoted and broke into a brisk trot, abruptly leaping into a lope as pieces clicked into place. If Justice had heard and recognized Valor’s voice, how was she going to receive their brother after so many years? Exodus had gone in search of both Valor and Fable, and they hadn’t seen him or the other two since. Now, here was Valor.

The wall came into sight, and in the open space – left intentionally to allow prey to come and go – stood the black-harnessed white figure he hadn’t seen since before the Talisian attack on the pack. He slowed to a trot, then to a stop, eyes roving over the male before him. Older, of course. And who knew what hells he’d been through… but he was alive.

He met the other's eyes, took in the scents on the air. Then stepped across the border and reached to brush Valor’s shoulder with his nose, breathing in again and reassuring himself that he was actually seeing his brother and not a mental break from left field.

“We thought you were dead. I’m glad you aren’t.”

Movement at his side caught his attention, and he added, “These are my friends, Ime and Kayode.” The mandrill and red ruffed lemur nodded in greeting as Paladin stepped back and studied his brother again, drinking in the sight of him. Oh, he doubted his brother was coming to rejoin, not with the scent on his coat that proclaimed membership of a pack, but it was good to see that he wasn't dead.