The oceanside had been nice and good, but Dwin found the plains more to her liking. Foodwise. She had attempted to hunt the crabs the way Val had taught her, but somehow without him being present and guiding her the young wolf had had little success. However, this place, which had appeared rather unwelcoming at first - barren, snow-covered fields - had turned out to be a little gold-mine. On better days few voles would not be considered much of a treat, but with food being scarce as it was, Dwin had learned to treasure every morsel.

It also meant that despite all the hardship she experienced by her rather foolish decision to make her grand tour through the wilds in the least hospitable season, she had made through another day. Not exactly well fed and way leaner than a wolf her age should be, but in good spirits. Today too she had set out to listen carefully for the little rodents and dig them up, if lucky. And she soon realized that she had not been the only one to discover this Smörgåsbord - because she caught sight of another visitor of the figurative restaurant. 

"Good day, Sir!" she greeted from afar, nearing the older wolf to see, who he was and perhaps engage in a conversation. It had been a while.

"I am. Three voles today and an ashdemon, but you do not look like a person, who believes in them," Dwin replied with a bright smile. "But they are not that tasty anyway - more ash than substance," she added. She forgot to mention that these guys were something she had come up with just now. 

"My name is Dwin - what is yours?" she introduced herself. "Are you from around here? A pack you call home?"

"Adlartok - that is a very original name," Dwin praised, meaning every word. It was not as musical as the ones common in Brecheliant, it had some solid and rough edge quality about it, but at the same time - now that the man had given is name, she could not imagine him having any other. 

"I am from Brecheliant - all the way there," she beckoned in the direction of, where she thought her home was, but quite honestly by this point she no longer knew the right direction. Her path led forward only and if fate would have it that forward would one day make a full circle and she would be back at the caldera.

"What does Hildibrandr boast with? So far I have met a pack, who has two gods and a leader, who can talk to the dead. Three aliens. A pack, where they have seen huge ocean monster and eat crabs. A-a-a-and a wolf made of sunlight," she listed all the interesting encounters along the way.

"What do you have? Bear-warlords? Sacred trees? Stream of eternal youth?"

"A real warchief?" Dwin excalimed jovially, because she had spent the better part of her childhood pretending to be a tank (in a figurative sense - she barged on and nothing could stop her, if they were, they got trampled) and playing out various scenarios of either being ambushed and breaking out or sneaking up on unsuspecting enemies (usually the adult figures in her life, who did not know that they were part of the game, until a small set of needle sharp teeth grabbed them by the ankle). Learning that warchiefs were not just figures in stories long past, but living and breathing right now, was an amazing discovery. "Wow - how did he become one? Did he go to many wars to prove his worth? Have you been in war?" she shot questions one after another like a machine gun does bullets. And she was far from finished. 

"A poisoner and a zombie too? I knew this day would be lucky!" she went on. World had a lot of miracles in store. "What happened to you? Why should you be dead many times over?"

"No way - really?" Adlartok may as well had added a lot more gruesome details to his story, because he had just earned a very dedicated listener. "How did that happen - did that wolf want to eat you or did you got in his way?" she was about to ask, if he could show that scar, but at least one filter called "common courtesy towards adults, who are wa-a-a-a-a-y older than you" kicked in and she refrained from it. 

"Who did she kill?" another fascinating detail, because Dwin had not met a wolf, who admitted to killing another of his kin. That was another new and another proof that those legends she had heard as a kid were rooted in truth. "Is she a legend? Are you one?" just think, there might be a legend happening that would be retold decades later.

"Did you lie to her about being your son?" Dwin did not understand, why would anyone want to rip a kid apart just because they were not theirs. And where had Adlartok's mom been at that moment? Maia had been ready to rip apart a stranger for just looking at her young daughter near the borders. And that was Maia - a peaceful and fun-loving wolf. That stranger would not be able to pick up all of its pieces scattered around Brecheliant had Dwin met Adlartok's fate.

"Why do you think you are not a legend? Maybe you are one in making?" she suggested, looking at the jagged scar on the man's back. "Mom says that it is the living, who eventually choose, who people become legends and who get to forgotten. Don't you think it is unfair?"

Dwin had to admit that other than feeling sorry for his fate, she could not imagine at all, what it was like not to be wanted or taken care for. Over time she would realize that she had been incredibly lucky to be born to Maia and Eljay, who loved each other so much that there was enough love for every kid they brought in this world. It also extended to those, who were not their kind. Aunt Ibis's children, when she had passed away. And Shenanigans, who had turned up on their doorstep one day, and soon blended with the Blackthorn four so that it felt as if she had always been there. She would learn over the course of her life that there were far more broken or dysfunctional families and that the real heroes were not only those, who did grand deeds but also those, who overcame all the difficulties life threw their way and came out wiser, stronger and better than those, who had given birth to them. 

"I don't think so. It works both ways. A legend is also made to keep a memory alive," she said. "Mom said that as long as we remember people, who we love, they are never truly gone, even if they have died," she shared. "I think that all legends are valuable - both those who are meant to appeal masses and those, who matter to a significant few," she explained. "You might be someone's legend and not even realize it. Not even strive for it, while living," she added.

"What do you think love is?" Dwin asked and at the same time mused, what she considered it to be, because Adlartok's choice of "fondness" instead of anything alse made her wonder. Whether, what she felt towards her parents, siblings and friends, was really love? Or was love something entirely different? Love stories had never held a particular interest to her - preferring tales of action and mind-games instead. 

"Do you think that the wars your warlord waged were for a good reason?" she thought now about legends and how the people in them tended to be glorified and that perhaps the truth was neither that simple nor that beautiful. "Are there any right reasons to kill another wolf?" now this was a pickle. 

"Isn't love something you do not think about, but you feel it?" Dwin remarked. "It is an emotion after all. I don't know, if I have felt it, but I think I have seen it," she thought about her parents and how fond of one another they were. "I think that it is like happiness of being in someone's company. And it starts here," she awkwardly tried to point at her chest, where she thought her heart was. "And then it goes all through your body. That's, how I feel joy," she explained. 

"So there is no universal good reason for killing another wolf," she concluded from Adlartok's statements. "I think that your good reason to kill someone might not be that someone's good reason to die," she looked him in the eyes. "Maybe it is better not have any reason to kill anyone," she looked down, thoughtful and then something else occurred to her. 

"Did those you have killed - did they follow you around like ghosts?" she asked. "Or come back to haunt you in our dreams?"

It was a fascinating idea - a man, who had never felt joy. Dwin was sure that, if she were to present this idea to either her mom or Dee, one of them could come up with a story. One sentence and so many things to find out. Why was it so? Was it because he had done something during childhood? Or a spiteful fairy godmother had cursed him at birth? Or had it happened during lifetime - an event that delineated a strict "before" and "after". Maybe he had felt joy, but had decided not to. For whatever reason. Then - think - what could be the cure? How to make a heart three times too small to become happy and whole again? Dwin did not yet have the creativity to come up with these answers herself, because there was so much she did not know. The further she travelled, the more people she met, to a greater extent did she admit her gaps in knowledge. 

"Then it is like this - you are good and moral until you are challenged? I would never attack anyone out of nothing, but if I was threatened, I would defend myself - is that what you point to?" she concluded. "So - self-defense is okay. But, what about waging wars? There is always someone, who starts them - that's according to existing legends. Who has the right then? The one, who starts or the one who gets attacked?" it seemed that there was more ambiguity, when it no longer was an individual situation, face-to-face confrontation. "What if... a war starts because of a lie? And you believe that lie to be true and a good reason and later find out that it was not so? What then? How to live with your conscience then?" Dwin knew that it would be horrible for her. 

"It is, what it is," this sounded so final and fixed in place and every fibre of Dwin's being cried in protest. She refused to agree that there were things that could not be changed in life. At the same time she was frustrated, because she could not come up with any convincing argument to refute this. Adlartok's age and experience made it difficult for her to prove him wrong. 

"What is your moral code?" she asked instead. It was a new concept to her, because she had thought the her set of morals were universal. That everyone observed them. Now she learned differently. 

"Why will it crush me?" Dwinn asked, genuinely curious. She had had no intention of saving anyone - unless they asked themselves, but the proposed idea was interesting. "Do you know many devils?" she asked, having got an impression that Adlartok had personal connections in Hell. "Do they need saving at all - I mean they have their Dark Overlord there, don't they? And doing mischief is, what they do! Oh... I wonder, what their moral code is?" she got carried away on another train of thought. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good?" she looked at the old man with a twinkle in her eyes. "That sounds about right, what do you think?"

"What about men and children? Maybe it is better not to brutalize anyone?" Dwinn wanted to clarify. "My brothers sometimes annoy me, but I would not want anything bad happen to them. Or my dad. He is a good person."