Amongst the towering timbers walked a lowly figure, draped heavily in misery and grief. Each pawstep seemed a labor, his great mass which had once been finely muscled now beginning to sink in upon itself. The light of life was absent from his eyes, as though he was the walking dead as he could have sworn his family had been.



A river rushed past him, but he dared not to look upon its current, even as his throat burned and begged him for water. He could not bear to see his reflection, for he knew what he would see. Looking into his own eyes, he would relive the horrors he had just barely escaped from with his life. And what a pitiful life it was turning out to be. Torn between giving up and fighting to survive, the youth was slowly, unwittingly starving himself. The depression that had dug its talons so deeply into him urged on this self destruction, whispering sweet nothings to his soul in order to conjure kind thoughts of death within him.



His fight thus far had been the best he could muster, but as his body weakened he found that no amount of resolve could make the difference when faced against the basic, cruel mechanics of life on this earth. Each stride became harder to manage, his energy leaving him in rapid bouts, until with a final spasm of his muscles the monstrous boy collapsed to the littered forest floor.



His breathing came heavy, deep drafts of rotting foliage and other things filling his lungs, and he did not feel as though he was suffocating. Instead, he felt as though he were disappearing into his grave, and he felt very welcomed. His pale eyes looked upward, through the sparse canopy and into the night sky, as black as the end would be. As they watched, a singly star fell from the sky, and then another, and finally a third.



"Mother," he croaked, his darkening mind clinging to the faces of the loved ones who had so recently and horrifically passed. "I'm sorry..."

He focused on the place where those stars had fallen from, one for each of his closest family members. The boy very much believed it to be more than a coincidence, acknowledging the astral beings departure from the sky as being directly correlated to the deaths of his nuclear family. His mind began to stutter, and his body begged him to close his eyes, but a slow terror began to descend upon him. His mind yearned for death, for it was rendered helpless by depression, but deep, primal instinct urged him to get back onto his feet, to move, to not let the reaper take him.



A low moan left his loosely-hinged jaws, one slow blink taking the world away from him for a few seconds. When those colorless sights open again, his skyscape view was blotted out, stolen from him by a towering figure. It's features were dark, but a single golden orb stood out from the shadows and bore down upon him. Feeling as though his very soul were being scrutinized, Davin attempted to heave himself back onto his once-strong limbs. With such little energy, he was only able to manage a trembling crouch before his muscles gave out completely once again.



Miserably, his ears barely lifting to catch the sounds, he listened to the man speak. Borders? He certainly hadn't noticed, and cared very little regardless. Any boundaries, physical or intrapersonal, that existed within these foreign lands did not matter in the slightest to him. His mind remind trapped in the horrors of his homeland.



"Yes," he managed to answer hoarsely, the question hitting him harder than Kjors could have known. "Terribly... m'terribly... they're all gone..."



What could this man care for any of it? Once more, Davin attempted to force his body into motion. Through sheer will he managed to lock his forelimbs and hold his weight upon, though his hind end remind limp upon the ground. Fangs gritted together, he fought the urge to pant. A little bit of pride began to work its way through the darkness.



"She can't forgive me," he continued, his mind clearing as he fought the chasm for control of himself, though he wasn't entirely sure why he was wasting his breath upon a stranger who had no use for his troubles. "she can't even be ashamed of me now. She's dead." Upon this final declaration, his voice broke and his body shuddered, the boy nearly losing all the progress he'd made thus far.

Oh no. Oh no.



Kjors made a terrible noise, not unlike a barn swallow dying inside his throat. Ears flicked backwards, flattening as his single eye growing wider as he studied the wretched youth. When he came upon the boy, he assumed hunger, perhaps dehydration if the lad was fool enough to ignore the river. There was even the possibility of injury, but that was well and easy enough to mend – both Karina and Lachesis were more than capable medics and either could tend to the stranger's wounds, should he prove trustworthy enough to offer assistance. In fact, he even thought this wolf to be a descendent of one from the Ered Luin pack, beseeching the Mother—



Except, it wasn't the Mother, it was the boy's actual Mother, and he had little idea what to do when a wolf sought to invoke the dead when a higher power would be the wiser decision.



Clearing his throat, he lifted his chin as his tail twitched behind him. "Then she's dead, an' gone back t' th' All Mother," he grumbled, wondering where on earth his priestess was. There was a reason he needed her by his side, and it wasn't because the male was a bucket overflowing with charisma. The boy continued to shudder and Kjors couldn't help but wonder if he was about to sob – all this emotion certainly seemed indicative of the lachrymose sort. The dragon continued to talk, spurred on by the notion of potential tears. "Ain't no pain 'er sufferin' there. Now git up, lad. Neither yer mum nor th' Mother wants t' see her child layin' 'round an' wastin' away. Fer tha', they would be ashamed."

So tightly wrapped within his own grief was he, the boy had shut his eyes hard against the word and also to hold back the moisture that threatened to overwhelm them. No, he certainly would not cry in front of the this stranger, and Davin was so focused in accomplishing this feat that he did not hear nor realize the mild horror he had inflicted upon his inquirer. When the man spoke again, the wretched nightmare newly turned fact was once more spoken aloud, and the boy ground his fangs together to fight back the continuous waves of emotion that slammed into him. It wasn't until the sentence was finished and Kjors had uttered the unfamiliar term All Mother that his anguished mind was given something else to latch onto.



Opening his eyes, the boy looked cautiously upward, meeting Kjor's golden gaze. Amongst every word that was next delivered upon his ears, not a single one of them had been wasted breath. It all meant something to him, even if he was unfamiliar with the context supporting this man's claims, and it all helped to focus his mind away from the grief.



It was true, as horrid as their end had been at least it had come at all, at least it was over now. Davin hadn't been able to process what that meant, having never been exposed to any sort of religion before, but he could acknowledge now that the concept was presented to him that even utter nonexistence was better than the terrors they had faced on their final day together. Even better, Kjors spurred him towards purpose, something he thought had lost completely along with his family. It hadn't occurred to him that he could still make them proud even as they rot. His mind worked rapidly to build upon what little Kjors had said, desperately seeking for solid ground to survive upon. Davin was all that was left of his family, of their legacy. He couldn't let that fade into oblivion so easily.



Attempting to heed Kjor's instruction, Davin once more put all the strength he could muster into his hind legs, attempting to stand fully. It was a strain, his body trembling once more with the effort of it all and he his mind began to gnaw at away at the thought that perhaps it was too late for him to receive this enlightenment. His body had been so thoroughly weakened by the events that had ravaged it, along with his own persistent neglect, that he wasn't entirely sure he would be able to stand again. These thoughts caused fear, and to keep them at bay, he asked with a tied tongue, "Who is the All Mother?"

It seemed something had struck a cord, for the youth seemed…attentive, if nothing else. Kjors released a breath he didn't realize he was holding, ears pricking forward as he studied the other male. In horrible shape, yes, but clearly not a lost cause. He even managed to ask an intelligent question. A smile threatened to tug at the corner of his mouth, though he did not allow it life as he cleared his throat. "All Mother is jes' wha' She sounds like, lad. She's th' mother of all. Not jes' wolves, bu' rabbits, worms, even fish, an' trees. She gives life, an' if a soul fulfills its purpose, then it returns t' th' Mother at th' end, an' there's peace. Tha's where yer mum's, Ah reckon."



After all, there was no reason for him to believe the boy's mother had been anything but a solid wolf – and even if there were, there was no point in spitting on her name now that she was gone. Carefully, the swarthy male sidled closer, reaching down to nose at the almost corpse. He looked no better than earlier, but perhaps that would offer him some…quiet, knowing that whatever had tormented the woman prior to her death, it was over now, and she knew nothing but the love and wisdom that only the Mother could offer her beloved children.



With a hum, he stepped back. "Wha's yer name, huh lad? Y'can call me Kjors – there's a pack near here. Y'think y'can git up? My…my…" My friend, my medic, my princess, my heart. "@Karina – she knows th' Mother well – she's a healer. She can fix…whatever's wrong with ya. What is wrong with ya?"

His progress was meager, but progress all the same, the boy managing to hold a crouched stance at this point. Shaking all the while he gathered his energy, allowing his focus to drift away from the effort of his muscles and get lost in Kjors' words. If a soul fulfills its purpose... Had they done such a thing? How could he ever know? The hope he had placed in this man's assurances faltered for a moment, but again his mind scrambled to dearly hang on.



His eyes followed the elder man as he approached him, far too exhausted and by now invested to be leery of such proximity. Even when when the dragon's leathery nose pressed against his skin he did not flinch away. He trusted this man wholly, for no other reason than simply because he needed to.



"Davin," he answered hoarsely as he attempted to exert himself once more. "Galyon." His muscles wailed in protesting, using all of his nerve endings as megaphones, but he ignored their messages and the youth was finally back on his paws. Still, he could not bring himself to stand to his full height, his head hanging below the height of his chest and his hindquarters slumped, yet it was a triumph all the same.



This Karina knew the Mother well, eh? In that case, the boy wanted very much to seek her out. Perhaps she could discern whether or not his family had achieved their purposes, perhaps she could tell him what his was. It never occurred to him to doubt what Kjors told him, for he could not afford to lose grasp of this lifeline.



"Starvation," he managed, his eyes sliding toward the waters beside them as he continued, "dehydration. Exhaustion. I was... going to give up," until you came along. As his gaze once more fell upon Kjors' scarred features, the warm appreciation swelling within them was unmistakable.



Step after shaky step, he slowly attempted to navigate the muddy bank toward the water to quench the burning of his throat. To choose life.



"Karina... I'd like to talk to her... I need to know more... about Mother..."

"Davin. Good."



The kid was following instructions, and that was the first step, right? He was listening, understanding, and following through. Maybe there was more hope for the sack of bones than he initially thought, and the dragon allowed himself a self-satisfied smile in the notion that he was actually making this work. Up he went, slowly, but up he went all the same, and Kjors did not reach out to help the boy. This was something he would have to do on his own – if the one-eyed wolf helped him now, would he not always be seeking that paw to pull him forward when he struggled on his own?



His faith was quickly rewarded, and he watched Davin carefully as the yearling made his way back to the beloved rill. (And he did so love the stream he'd uncovered, happily protecting his private little den from the chaos and babble of something more communal.) Once the boy had his fill of water, he bobbed his head, beckoning the vagrant to make himself comfortable.



"Alright, good. Ah'll go getcha somethin' t' eat, yes? Gotta get ya lookin' a wee bit nicer a'fore we go an' see Karina. She's a princess – an' she's th' Mother's chosen priestess, mhm?" So they could not go looking like what Kjors might drag in for supper. Once satisfied that the younger male would sit and stay, the swarthy male disappeared off into the woods. An accomplished hunter, it was not more than an hour before he reappeared with two gray squirrels hanging from his mouth, deposited at the loner's feet. "Eat," he instructed. "Then rest. Then clean. Then we go see Karina, got it?"

His paws sunk into the mud bottom of the crystalline stream's bed, the thick and rich earth instantly playing its part to sooth his aching pads. The boy lowered himself to a crouch and submerged his lower jaw in the water, syphoning in as much water as he could in great gulps and spasms of his tongue. It cooled his body from the inside out, relieving a small portion of the pain that had plagued him as well as jogging his mind and further awakening him from the grips of depression. He felt better, miles better, but of course these things that ailed him were nowhere close to being fixed. It wasn't the solution he had found, not quite yet, but rather the light at the end of this tunnel of horrors and that was the difference that had mattered.



Even after his stomach protested that it could hold no more he continued to drink. It wasn't until he felt that he might vomit if he were to keep ingesting the delicious liquid that he finally lifted himself away from the water, turning to look over his shoulder at the light-bearer. At the simple nodding of Kjors' head, the boy once more moved in compliance with his unspoken command. His ears flicked forward to capture the man's words, and he found that two seemingly very important lexemes were utterly foreign to him. Princess? Preistess? He couldn't know these terms, for they had never been used before in his presence.



Still, he trusted what Kjors told him, and this emphasis even made him a bit nervous. Whatever those words meant, it seemed Karina was very much far from the average wolf, and Davin began to envision her as something supernatural herself. Hopefully he was worthy of receiving the answers he wanted from her. Something in him doubted that he was, given the fact that he had not be able to do anything to help save his family, but still he would not absquatulate from this.



As Kjors separated from him, Davin lay down upon the earth, allowing his tired body to rest. His eyes were closed, but he could not sleep despite the exhaustion that plagued him, for the vivid, fresh memories were still far louder than that need. It seemed like eternity to him, this waiting, for he did not want to be laying around wasting his time, as much as his body needed this. He wanted to see this Karina now, to meet her and ask her his questions and receive his answers and know.



When he opened his pale eyes and Kjors was once more before him, dropping two lifeless bodies before him, Davin couldn't hardly control himself. His jaws snapped up one of the carcasses, slicing through the flesh and stripping it from the minute bones. His ears caught the dragon's instructions, even if he hadn't offered a sign of acknowledgement. He would do whatever this man said he needed to if it took him closer to this All Mother.