tangled in the years

Seeing him visibly struck her, and he wondered just how long she’d thought she’d been gone. Mere moments? Centuries? No, there’s have been relief there had it been centuries on her mind… Where would Valhalla be in a century? Such a long time, so many generations to a wolf.

Quietly he padded forward, lifting his muzzle to the sky and uttering a brief at ease howl before he settled to sit before his mother. No need to have Valhalla on edge over a ghost who would never have harmed the pack even in her living days.

At her words, he smiled faintly, a bit sadly, “Only about four years.”

His eyes scanned around them, gazing at the changes that were an awful reminder of just how much had gone wrong this winter. Domari and Justice had been taken by the plague, and still so many were sick. The pack was at the smallest he’d seen it for a while.

“A very dreadful plague. We started seeing traces of it in the winter but then it really got worse in the spring. We just lost Justice and Domari. And Aurielle, her son, Ardyn, a yearling Aurielle took in as a young pup, Drachen, one of our best… They're all sick. Caelia’s okay, Viv was okay last I saw her; she left to find a cure. Artur… no idea. He ran off years ago. Meriadoc, no idea—oh! Meri’s Geoffrey. You have grandkids through him, by the way. He went missing, taken by pirates, and his children’s’ mother’s band saved him and, well, one thing led to another kind of thing. Huge litter, mom. All very free spirited.”

He rose back on his haunches, front paws stretching wide expansively, a genuine grin touching his features for once. No matter how grim an outlook the world had, he’d always be a proud uncle. Six kids at once was nothing to sneeze at.

Had things been different, would he have had children of his own, by now?

“It’s been a shit show of a Spring.” He was frank, though he glanced almost apologetically at his mother, adding, “Pardon my language.”

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Hear" ---- Think