Never thought I'd find you here

All the while Kichi struggled to try and get free, Alastor just continued to exert a fraction of his strength to hold the whelp down. Kichi had grown so much since he'd seen him last and the gray wolf put up a hell of a fight, but he was just no match for the stronger dire wolf. Kichi thrashed and fought, burning through his strength and anger until nothing was left and the boy had collapsed across the ground. He didn't intend to hurt Kichi, just to restrain him, but if he caused a little bit of hurt then Alastor didn't pay it no mind. Kichi looked around for a moment, the fire simmering down in his bright blue eyes, until the dire brute saw nothing but pain in them—pain he knew all too well. It hurt more than the bleeding bites on his leg and shoulder did, and those had been therapeutic for his surrogate son.

As Kichi spoke, Alastor gradually relaxed his hold on the wolf he'd cared for until he had freed him. A heavy sigh deflated the man's lungs. He simply shook his head. "I wish she wasn't dead too." He wished Lurid wasn't dead so he could put the bitch in the ground himself for all she'd put him through. "Life isn't fair, Kichi. It likes to hurt us, break us, steal from us, kick us when we're down." Reaching down, Alastor moved to try and pull Kichi back up off the ground, and if he allowed him to, embrace the now grown wolf. "When life pushes you around, you have a choice: you can give up or you can get back up and push back. We can't change the past, and we can't kill the dead. But we can live to spite them."

That was what had spurred Alastor in the first place. Spiting the ghost of Lurid in his mind and taking revenge on her by living in the present. Every time he woke up next to his family, every time he played with his children or fucked his wife, every time he went hunting with his new family, he reminded himself that this was the best way to get back at Lurid for how she'd treated him all his life. Alastor looked Kichi in the eye, not bothering to mask the concern on his face. "What are you doing with yourself these days?" he asked. If Kichi was aimless, simply surviving, he would want the boy to come meet his family, maybe join the Elysium band and forge his own way with them. If he already had plans, Alastor would always be a place the lad could turn to for support and guidance.


"Alastor"