At the beginning

In true and typical Tamsyn fashion, his mother seemed perplexed as to why he was thanking her, insisting that she should be the one thanking him for bringing her back to their old home. Artorias simply gave a soft chuckle under his breath at her humility and shook his head. "Thank you for everything you've done for us, for our family," he clarified, already beginning to feel the start of emotions tightening in his chest. "Thank you for loving us and caring for us, keeping us safe and sharing experiences with us. Thank you for always believing in us and supporting us no matter what. Thank you for giving us the best lives we could ask for and never giving up no matter how hard things were." The more he spoke, the more his words began to get choked up with emotion as he reflected back on all the years between them. Years of joy, of sorrow, of laughter, of pain, of love and loss. Through his triumphs and his failures, at his zenith and his nadir, his mother's love and support had never wavered, even if he lost faith in himself.

And now, here he was, staring at the face of his mother, aged by time and speckled with silver fur. Nothing devastated or terrified Artorias more than loss, and he was forced to face the mortality of one of the most important wolves in his life. Death was an inevitability, but it was the one aspect of life that never failed to break down the usually stalwart wolf. "I guess what I'm really trying to say is..." Artorias swallowed back the lump in his throat, blinking back some faintly glowing misting that had welled up in his fire-toned eyes. "Thank you for being our mother—for being my mother." His litter's circumstances were far from traditional, and there were many hardships they'd all had to face in their early lives. But Tamsyn was by far the best wolf they could have hoped for to be their mother, and if he had to do it all over again, Artorias wouldn't have changed a thing.

"Talk" | "Carpathian"