The black pelt stuck out like a sore thumb against the white expanse of snow that had become the surrounding territory of the pack he had always known as home. His body was sleek as he grew into his soon to be teenaged form. His legs were long and gangly with his paws seemingly too big as if he had been stretched and the rest of his body had not caught up. He walked with his head low, mossy green eyes focused on the ground in front of him rather than raised in the air as many princes' gazes might have been. Truthfully it had been a long time since he had felt even remotely since a prince of anything, let alone the Crest. He was an orphan, even worse he had been rejected and outcast and left behind by his own siblings and now he was the only Lagina on the small mountain.

Heading into the territory he passed the markers without ever looking up, his dark tail dragging behind him in the snow that had managed to fall through the dense evergreen trees. It had been a long time since Draven had felt at home in the territory that was his birthright, though he supposed nowhere would ever feel like home again. Still there were only two wolves who made him feel wanted, needed, important and one of them was gone.  Calanthe had once been his shadow, spending nearly every minute together since his mother's death and now she had also disappeared.

At first he had waited, never leaving the borders in case he missed her return and then he had spent each day walking a new spoke of a trail hoping to see trace of her. Still nothing. So now he was going something completely out of character, he was seeking out Gent. The man had tried but failed to save his mother, would he do the same again now?

"Speech."

Everything was methodical, mechanical, empty. He had thought that Minka's death would the worst blow that they could receive, that they would stagger and fall to their haunches but then learn to stand again. That if they could make it through the loss of their founding matriarch, they could make it through anything. Instead, the children turned against him and the adults faded away one by one. The pack was splintering, failing, and his pride burned and ached from the continuous blows. It seemed as though winter would not stop until it had taken everything from him.

Within a matter of months, they had lost a total of eight among them. Eight souls who had placed their faith within him, trusting him to guide them, to unite them, to keep them safe. Time and again, he had failed them. Was he not as capable as he thought himself to be? Was it this land? Had he expected too much from those around him, allowed the wrong wolves into the pack? There were no answers, rather the silence became louder and louder with each heartbeat less amongst them.

It had started with Minka, and yet she had been the one for him to turn to for advice. @Raela was there, she had always been there, but in matters such as these, she was on the same level as him. Minka had been through all of this, had the experience to know what to do. Gent had thought he had helped save the pack by stepping up as leader, but now he was left to wonder if perhaps the success had been all Minka's after all.

As he breathed in the cold air, Draven's scent brought awareness to the boy's presence. Minka's remaining son. His remaining son, if he was feeling audacious enough to still claim such a thing. Often, he wasn't. To this day Gent was unable to understand the reason they had turned from him, from Marianna's unpredictable separation to Kino's sudden hate, to Draven turning not to the man who had raised him for comfort, but to a stranger amongst their ranks. It had exasperated, frustrated, angered him, and yet he had refused to give up. Instead, one by one, they had given up on him, isolating themselves further, choosing to truly be orphans. How could he say that they were still his children? No matter how much he wanted it to be, it was clear that despite all he had done, Tokino's blood within their veins damned him.

Yet Draven was the only one to have stayed behind, loyal to the pack regardless of his own inner turmoil. For as long as he stayed strong, Gent was a silent but ever present entity within his life. He no longer interjected himself into the boy's activities, trying to get a smile or a laugh. Truly, he didn't feel much like laughing or smiling himself these days. Yet he was there all the same, with a nod or a nudge, reminding him without words that if he ever needed him, Gent was right there beside him.

That was his intent now. To brush by and give a simple hello. He needn't ask what the boy was up to, or how he felt. It was the same for all of them. They were all searching, by now, for those who they had lost.

There didn't seem to be anything different between this encounter and any other within recent memory, and if the man's mind wasn't already so thoroughly burdened, that simple fact would have bothered him. As it all was, the distance between himself and this figment of a son was on the back burner. So long as Draven was home and safe, the boy could be allowed his own inner turmoil. When Spring came, if he could ever recover any of the lost souls that haunted them all, he might be able to find the fight within him to try and rekindle the relationship they once had.

His shoulder pressed into Draven's, black dragging through black, and then they disconnected and he was on his way again. Yet before he could take more than a few paces, resigned completely to leaving the boy's company without a word, a surprise occurred. Draven's hollow voice swiftly halted Gent's retreat, and the man turned to face him as the tail of his statement dissipated in the air. For a moment, he could only stare; then a heavy sigh left him, and he retracted the distance he had placed between them one slow step at a time.

"Yes," he agreed in a voice that was uncharacteristically abated, "as are your sister and Danica.

There was Kova and Kino, as well; the eldest Lagina child had taken far too long to return. Branwen was already proving to be scarce, and Gent would never admit that he still hoped to catch sign of Lugh or Alphinaud's return. Worst of all was the one absence that could be explained, Cessair.

Too much.

"I'm trying, Draven."

There was that look. If he had the energy, Gent would have visibly bristled at such an offense. It was the same damn look that @Kova had given him that horrid night, full of childish blame and misdirected anger that cut just as deeply as though it were valid. Perhaps that was because of the possibility that it was. With no words to accompany the glare, however, Gent was left to exhale heavily and his own eyes wandered as his mind turned away from the unpleasantness before him to consider all that he still had to do. Mentally he ticked through the list, until at last Draven's voice rose up again, the sharpness of it snaring the alpha's attention once more.

There sights locked once more, Gent's ears pressed forward in time to receive a sudden rush of unexpected words. His gaze iced over with each syllable uttered, but there was no anger to it. A few lost souls again, there most likely would have been; he might have even lashed out. Now? He could only stand and stare, empty of any and all particularly strong emotions. Maybe it was the distance between them, maybe it was because he had lost the passion that a rageful reaction would have required. Most likely, it was because Draven's attack was nothing novel; the demons within him had been whispering the same accusations for a time now.

"It's a possibility," he conceded at last, leaving Draven to perhaps be the only soul he would ever admit such a thing to. His voice was monotone as he mused on, "I do have the recourse of giving up completely."

Clearly, Draven didn't understand. It didn't matter if it was all for naught. Never would Gent just lay down and die.

"I can't do that, though, Draven. You're welcome to your own choices, but I won't stop trying. Even if it doesn't make a difference."

Gent could not know that the moment he uttered those words, Draven's young mind would twist them so horribly and carry them so far from what had they had truly meant. If it were to be revealed to him, however, it would fail to surprise him; the boy's siblings before him had paved that road far too blatantly already. One more ungrateful whelp among the lot of them was the inevitability that he had tried and failed to convince himself would not happen, stretching his faith farther than it could sustain. The shifting of Draven's demeanor, the curtness to his tone; Gent had hardened his heart to it all already, and the last of his hope flicked out like a smother candle.

Disappoint shone clearly within his arctic gaze as Draven's belittling words reverberated through the air. So quick to judge, just like the age-mate brother he so feared and avoided, and oblivious to his own shortcomings. Who had raised them to be this? It certainly hadn't been neither himself nor Minka. @Raela, Calanthe, Cessair; none of the adults in their lives had modeled such behavior. Perhaps their mother's death truly was the only culprit, and yet as he recalled clawing through the frozen ground alone at six months old to bury his own father, the only parent he had known, he could not believe it to be true. Where he'd had no one to turn to, they had been surrounded by support and love, coddled even. Yet already they were more bitter than he had ever been.

When all was said and done, it was, like most things in life, a choice.

"Perhaps you would know for yourself how hard we're all working if you spent less time avoiding the pack to wallow," he answered, all traces of fatherliness now gone from his tone. If Draven wasn't going to listen, then Gent would not continue to stand for his patronizing. He had enough to worry about without getting walked over by children, and it was time Draven began to take responsibility, dead mother or not.

"You're the only wolf who is alone here, Draven; and only because you've chosen to be. Our arms have been open for a long time now waiting for you to come back to us."