Silvertip Mountain A change of pace

Apologies for the delay. Alastor hasn't been top priority, aha. ^^;;
And over here we see a perfect example of my cruelty towards my characters.

Again, he saw the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. It was hard for him to watch, for he knew there was little he could do to help. If it was physical pain she was feeling, he could have sought out a healer of some sort, but she wasn't. Whatever she was feeling was purely emotional—possibly mental, too—and there were no herbs out there capable of dulling such a pain. It had no form, no way of truly showing itself. It was like a serpent hidden within one's mind, coiled and ready to strike at the slightest of stirrings. He, too, had felt such pain before. He knew how it felt, how much it drained someone. He knew the basics of it from experience, but never could he delve deeper. His own mind had always prevented him from doing so, leading him around in circles until he was right back to his previous place, staring the merciless serpent in the eye. There were differences to each mind, however, and so far he could not place if the variation of the feeling he'd felt was the same she was going through or not. Time would tell, perhaps, but for the time being he remained motionless, serving her as a pillar of support.

When she sat up, he followed suit, though his movements were slower. When he met her gaze again, he saw something in them—trust. She trusted him, he learned, and something told him he was about to be introduced to a whole new side of the woman. That did not strike fear into his heart, though, so he remained seated and listened, taking in her words with an open mind. The first sentence alone had him questioning her state of mind, as well as her view of the world. "It is not 'silly'," he assured her, voice soft but tone serious. "We all have our demons, and they are creatures that thrive during the night. They haunt our dreams and steal our sleep, and we can do nothing about it..." His voice trailed off towards the end, recalling the section of his life in which his own nights had been stolen away from him. Alastor had been left unable to sleep, lest he'd wished to face the monsters of the night alone. "If you are ever awoken by a nightmare again, you may come find me. It does not matter what time of day it is, or whether I'm sleeping. Just wake me up, and I will sit with you until you are able to sleep again." When he was a mere whelp, his mother had done the same thing for him. Each and every time he was scared awake, his mother would be right there to comfort and talk to him until he was able to drift back to bed. It had worked, too, on some nights, and so he would assist his pack mate if she needed it.

Night terrors were not the only thing weighing heavily on her mind, it'd seemed, for he caught the glint of tears trailing down from her face and towards the ground. There was more to the story, he could tell before she'd even opened her mouth to tell him of it. There was something else that haunted her, something that could not be so easily evaded. Her words came in short intervals, and judging by the sounds leaving her throat, he could tell she was fighting back tears. When she finally reached the end, he gave a soft shake of his head. "I was born alongside a brother and a sister," he began, his gaze never leaving her direction. "We were able to spend only a short time together before something happened. We were only small children at the time, still so new and unfamiliar with the world we lived in. We were curious, too, always looking to learn new things and begging our mother to teach us.

"One night, after we'd all gone to sleep, a fox had managed to slip past those on guard, as well as into my family's den. We were so small still, so vulnerable. The fox... it must have known this, for why else would it have invaded a pack's land? A wolf's home?" The male paused, his eyes fluttering shut for a second as he collected his bearings. Even after so long, it still pained him to talk about it. "The fox was a silent predator, and it'd managed to get it's mouth around my sister. She couldn't have known what was going on at first, but eventually, the creature's reason for being there was revealed. I can still hear her screams. I can hear her calling out for us, for me..." Alastor swallowed and gave a rough shake of his head, attempting to rid his mind of the memory. Of all that he remembered of his sister, that particular memory was always most prominent. No matter how much time passed, how much he tried to force it away, it remained fresh in his mind. "For a long time, I blamed those around me, but mostly myself. I kept thinking that I could have saved her, that I could have stopped that fox from stealing her life—but really, I couldn't have." The Greek lowered his head so he could look directly into her eyes, his expression serious. Still, the pain he'd felt, and continued to feel each day, was visible in his eyes. "For your brother and my sister, their times had come. Fate had written for them short lives, and even if we could travel back to try and save them, we would fail. You cannot blame yourself for his death, it wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done, and I swear on that." Even if they could have stopped it that time, death would have found the two soon after. No matter how much one desired a change, going against fate would always be a futile endeavor.