Moonsong Glacier I'll never forget my mother's face; that was real

AW! Forgive my character development novel :P

Someone had informed him that the huge block of ice before him was called Moonsong Glacier. Tonight, watching the celestial light reflect off the shining expanse, he could understand why.

Steady had told him to keep watch at the border for the ever-present threat of incursion by the forest wolves at the base of the mountain. This glacier gave him the perfect vantage point of those woods. Phocion dared not to step onto the ice--the footing looked a bit dicey--but he found a rock near the top of the glacier to sit on and gaze down on the lands below.

It was a lovely night, cool and breezy and only partly-cloudy, so the moon and stars had a chance to peek through and shine on the earth. Phocion closed his eyes for a long moment as his thick white fur rippled in the spring wind. This was far from being the highest point on the mountain, but it still gave him a good view.

Phocion had been born on a mountain. His mother, impregnated by some waste of oxygen who had left before meeting his own son, had given birth on a craggy piece of land down south. Views like these--sans the glacier--were commonplace where he came from. And those first few months of life had been wonderful. Just his mother and he. The food was plentiful enough to survive on their own.

Then she died, one day. For seemingly no reason whatsoever. One second, she was fine; the next, she lay writhing on the ground, her mouth foaming, her eyes wild. It was over in minutes. Phocion now suspected she had gotten into some poisonous substance, but as a young weanling pup, he had had no clue what had taken his mother so suddenly. All he knew was that he was alone.

The image of his mother in her death throes brought tears to Phocion's eyes, and a droplet trickled down his cheek, then another, then another. "Oh, God, Mom," he sobbed, lowering his head and letting his grief spill onto the rock below. It was the first time he had cried for his mother since he was a pup.

When the crying had ceased, Phocion sniffled, shook his head to clear those sad thoughts, and locked his eyes on the edges of Neverwinter Forest. "Chin up," he could hear his mother say, as clearly as if she were right beside him again. "It does no good to cry." God, she was right. She was always so strong--and so right.