build me up buttercup

He would pivot, his ghostly frame appearing ethereal with the movement of his coat and slack skin. He was perhaps even more thin than normal, mostly because the gods that had cursed him had seen it fit to make his days of hunting unfruitful. Even now not a bird or hare was seen close enough to capture. Perhaps this would be the beginning of his end, and he would finally lay his body to rest upon the sacred earth. But then the gods would give him something in his favor, his mother's scent drifting toward him. For a moment he believed it to be imagination, something that the gods put in his mind to distract him - or perhaps even plague him. But then as he continued pivoting, making a full right angle, spheres of pink would note her very being. Oh stop taunting me! Mercy! But there would be no mercy. She hovered there, nearing him with a smile. "Mother," he would chide almost robotically, wishing - hoping she was really there. He wasn't certain he could continue on if she turned out to be a figment of his imagination.