He stared down at the fresh dirt beneath his paws. His forepaws ached, cracked and bled around the pads and claws. Two graves he'd dug tonight. He was glad Loki was gone, that he'd never need to know about this. That he'd live his life in ignorance. Though it didn't always seem like it, Loki had always been the most sensitive of the three eldest children of Hroovitnir; it would kill him to know that his son had died. Hati didn't care for Loki's way of doing things, but he didn't wish this pain on him. No, not this pain. Not this.

The ever present rage within him had drawn in on itself. Coalesced and collapsed like a star collapsing into a black hole. So all encompassing - so final. Eyes that burned with pain like a gold fire shifted from the fresh grave to the hulking body of of the beast that had caused this. The bear, blackened blood coagulated on the thick pelt. The heavy head lolling and sightless.

On an impulse he found himself at the body, teeth buried in the heavy neck of the beast. Methodically chewing, and chewing, so full of fury and pain that he felt nothing at all as he slowly gnashed at flesh and sinew until the head rolled free of the massive body. A snarl contorted the dead creature's muzzle, and a snarl creased Hati's as he stared into the corpse's blank eyes. His teeth fastened into the muzzle, and he awkwardly dragged and carried the heavy thing aside - secreted it away in the hollow beneath a tree where it would hopefully be safe from larger predators. He'd be back for it.

Heavy steps carried him away from the boy's grave, and the small cairn of stones he'd stacked to mark it. He'd be back to keep an eye on it, and gods help anyone who sought to defile it; their fate would be far worse than his nephew's. But for now he simply stumbled away, the bear's blood cold on his muzzle and his mask smeared with it but he made no effort to wipe it away, and his mind turned to Daegmar's children. He had no doubt he would be an unwelcome intruder upon their grief, just Hati and nothing more to them, and so he didn't return to Imperium. Not yet. He couldn't imagine they would stay there without Daegmar to hold them, and he didn't want his very presence to be a hindrance to them making their own decisions. Let them do what they needed.

He'd been wandering as he was prone to do since having left his birth pack not all that long ago. Perhaps two, even three seasons had passed. He'd as yet met few others. But he'd not meant to come upon a private moment. At least, he thought it was a private moment. His eyes cast toward the disturbed Earth. Something, no, someone had been buried. It wasn't the first grave he'd seen. He gulped and prayed his sire had gotten far from the clutches of his dam. Without an heir at her side, his dam would surely try to beget another with the mate she'd never wanted and had planned to assassinate once their son was old enough. He instead had left.

To speak however, well, he was a stranger and thought perhaps he'd best be passing through. Yet even the dead of whom he had never seen nor never known he thought respect should be shown. Thus he lowered his head in respectful pose that his sire had taught him even as his dam had scoffed that it was a ridiculous tradition to honor dead whether one knew them or not. In his head he was going over flowers. It was autumn so what could be found could be somewhere Amaranthus, Chrysanthemum, Cosmos, Salvia, Star of Bethlehem or Zinnia. Yet not all would wish to have flowers at their grave, but he'd never seen any without.

Turning from the scene he went to look about and see if any stray strands of the aforementioned flowers could be found growing upon the forest ground. He supposed it seemed fitting that only Amaranthus was all that could be found in a forest so filled with redwood trees. Careful to not uproot them, but only take them by a few stems he carried what he'd found back to the gravesite and set them there. It mattered not that he didn't know them. A life lost was always a terrible tragedy and he having an interest in healing always felt the loss of life, even those he'd never known a heavy blow. But he knew not even a healer could heal everyone or everything and he was still yet a year old until the passing of the season.

"Farewell stranger. If there be a life after death, may it be a good one." He turned. He knew he wasn't alone there, someone wasn't too far away. No doubt the one who'd buried the body. Had it been one who had not cared for the individual beneath the Earth there would have only been a body and he'd never seen a dead body save for that of the prey his family hunted and ate.