Seri had no complaints about the way his life had turned out. Winter was hard, and he often found hunger pangs, but he also knew that the alternative was living in one place. Seri didn’t think he would like to do that. He very much liked to wander and explore. It was fun and staying in one place for such a long time like an entire lifetime just felt stifling. He would take hunger over that… besides, momma always found food for both of them. He had started to wander west after coming down the mountain and seeing the waterfall with his mom… he was older now, and so he found himself drifting a little farther from her on his adventures, though he always found his way back to her.

She was his world, his entire life… he didn’t have a dad, only her.

He had found his way to a creek, the freezing weather resulting in ice forming along the shoreline as his eyes widened, a wide grin on his features. That looked interesting! He wanted to be like water. Free and powerful, doing whatever he wanted… just like momma had taught him… except, it seemed like part of this water was stifled, and so that puzzled him. Was it possible that not even water was truly free? It left much for the young boy to ponder as he stared at the shore.

His tail wagged lightly from side to side as his limbs splayed slightly in front of him, crouched as his head tilted to the side and he continued to look at the shoreline. He went to place a paw on the ice to see if it would crack under his weight… except his paw never made contact, instead a noise distracted him, the sound of paws hitting the ground. Whoever it was, they were not floating on air as he had been trained to do. Another pup, roughly his age if he had to guess, came sliding out across the ice in front of him and his eyes widened. He smelled similar to Aleister, but different… he must live in the same place… just a different place, not at Lost Lake, but here… but with other wolves.

It still puzzled Seri greatly.

He took a few steps back, caution in his eyes as he looked on silently, not entirely sure what to do or say. He didn’t know if this other boy was a threat to him or not… so he just stared at him. Very polite. He wished his mom was nearby enough to call in that moment. What if the boy’s mom was nearby and he called for her? What if there was some kind of conflict? Seri internalized quite a bit. “Hi.” He finally managed, the caution clear in the tone he carried.

Seri was puzzled. He’d never actually met anyone his age before, so this was an entirely new experience. The wolf in front of him seemed kind of goofy, but then Seri only really knew adults so maybe Seri was the one who was goofy for trying to act like an adult all the time.

He moved back onto solid ground, and Seri found himself backing up because he didn’t know what to make of this stranger. Surely someone his own age would not wish him harm, right? The interaction seemed to help him sit up a little straighter, though Seri maintained his tilted head in confusion and curiosity, a certain fire burning in his eyes as he thought of all the questions he could ask.

Where did he come from? What was that supposed to mean. “Uh, my mom, I guess?” That was a deep question he had never considered, and he slotted it away along with the forbidden question: what was a dad? “Don’t we all come from our moms?” He asked confused, wondering if perhaps he’d gotten some misinformation along the way… now would be the time to resolve it, he supposed.

The other boy seemed confused, and it left Seri as equally confused. There was a silent question so Seri thought that clarifying that they all came from their moms would help… except it didn’t seem to… and instead that question fell. Seri shrugged. “When I was borned, I was with my mom… so that means I come from my mom, right? I like… come out of her butt or something… I’ve never really asked… I’m kind of afraid she’ll tell me she puked me up.” He had always figured that was the case, intuitively since she had been the only creature around him for all of his early childhood.

The other boy did know they came from mom’s right? Oh god, what if he was wrong? What if they came from this mysterious Dad that Wrynn had told him about? Oh god. Oh god. Who gave birth to him?

Seri had very few thoughts about the disgusting aspects of what he just said. He had approached it from a more curious, academically intuitive setting than Eros had. He saw the way his newfound friend’s jaw dropped and he simply frowned. He didn’t understand why the boy seemed so horrified. Wasn’t that the circle of life or something? He had once seen a baby bird hatch, so he knew that was where baby birds came from but there hadn’t been any eggshells around him in his first memory, just his mom wrapped around him and so that meant he had to come out of his mom somehow right? Her butt or her mouth just made logical sense.

The boy whispered and he frowned. “I dunno, seems like it’d be grosser and more smelly.” He stated softly in return. Sometimes poops didn’t smell, right? That was a whole other train of thought that he was not entirely ready to dive into for the moment. Vomit always smelled and tasted the worst. Perhaps he should actually ask his mother where he had come from. Kisina always had those answers… but he had truthfully been hesitant to ask her much of anything since she snapped at him on the mountain when they had met her friend. He still didn’t understand what he had done wrong.

Either way, maybe the boy could delve into it more. He clearly hadn’t come from a dad because his dad was nowhere to be found and he felt like he would remember the man if he had been borned out of him.