Wanna Hear A Funny Joke? Yeah, Me Too.

The forest was alive. The ravens called, flying overhead as they surveyed the area. Absinth stood on the edge of the clearing, her emeralds sharp as flint, fixated on the scene before her. Today marked the outcome of countless lessons, countless hunts, countless moments etched in bone-deep resolve. Indica, her son, stood poised in the center, his sleek charcoal fur catching glints of pale morning light, he was ready. He had to be.

The opponent—a skinny adolescent cougar—moved with the grace of a creature born to kill. It slunk into view, muscles rippling beneath its tawny coat, golden eyes locked on the young wolf with a gaze that promised blood. Absinth's heart beat a steady war drum within her chest, but her expression remained stoic. This was his trial, his proving ground, and they had prepared him well.

Indica shifted, his body mirroring the cougar’s movements as it drew closer. His gaze was hard, the determination there as clear as the chill biting at the air. The two predators circled, tense, each assessing the other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Then, the moment shattered. The cougar lunged, a blur of claws. Indica met it head-on. The clearing erupted into a frenzy of fur and fangs. Absinth's breath stilled as she watched, every muscle in her body taut with anticipation. Indica's initial defense was strong, his teeth finding purchase on the cat’s shoulder, drawing forth a snarling yowl. But the cougar twisted, leveraging its superior reach, and batted the younger wolf away with a savage swipe. She hissed, urging the boy mentally to make use of the knife she had given him.

Indica staggered, a crimson streak painting his side. He recovered quickly, darting back in with a snarl, but the cougar was quicker. It pivoted with deadly precision, its jaws clamping onto Indica's neck in a heart-stopping moment. Time seemed to freeze, the world narrowing to that singular, terrible sight. A sickening crack resonated through the clearing—a sound that would haunt Absinth forever.

“No…” the word left her lips as an unbidden whisper, raw and jagged. The instinct of a mother within her surged forward, tearing through the mask she'd always worn. She moved, not with the careful calculation of a huntress, but with the blind ferocity of a storm unleashed.

Absinth hit the cougar like a force of nature, her fangs sinking deep into its throat. She was brutal, shaking her maw this way and that, ignoring the claws and gouges the cat opened on her chest. The taste of iron flooded her senses, but it was the beast's death rattle that grounded her, bringing the world back into painful clarity. The cougar slumped, lifeless, beneath her weight, but there was no triumph, no relief—only the hollow silence that followed death.

She turned to Indica’s still form, the light in his eyes snuffed out before their time. His body, once full of potential, lay unmoving, the snow beneath him stained with the red truth of mortality. A crimson slap in the face. Absinth’s chest tightened, a silent, crushing grief pressing in. She told herself, as she always had, that mourning was for the weak. She had spoken those words to others, to herself, and now they came back to her, bitter and hollow.

Oh, Indica.

With deliberate, trembling movements, she lowered her head to touch his, a final gesture of the bond they shared—mother and son, ravens both. And the ravens watched on, low clacks of mourning coming from their beaks, as Absinth stood over her child’s body, the taste of blood and loss sharp on her tongue. She refused to weep, refused to break. Her resolve hardened like frost, a shell against the pain.

This was the way of the world she had shaped him for. This is what it had always been. Cold, unforgiving. It was the way of the world—her world—where strength was forged in the fires of agony. As it always had been.

—

She had brought him back home, cradled one last time in the jaws of his mother. When she arrived, there were no words exchanged as she laid him gently before his father. She met Aresenn's gaze but did not speak, not yet. Turning away, Absinth began to dig, her movements methodical and relentless, the soil yielding under her claws until some deep instinct told her to stop. She lined the resting place with soft bedding, feathers, and the small trinkets Indica had cherished. With reverence, she laid him to rest and covered the grave with a simple mound of rocks.

She sat beside it, unmoving, her body carved from stone. Absinth's gaze remained fixed on the grave, her heart a fortress, refusing to yield to the grief that wanted nothing more than to consume her.




"Absinth Artemisia Inferos"