Stone Circle shadows all around you as you surface from the dark

Her familiar voice roused him from his thoughts, and Merrit turned his face toward her. "Mother," a soft smile played over his lips and his tail thumped a gentle stroke against the ground. He returned her kiss, offering her jawline an affectionate lick. There was such an ease in being with her again, nothing like when he had chosen to leave Easthollow. He had stirred his anger against her then, but those days were behind him, and he had no intent to dwell in remorse or to return to them. Only the present mattered now, the present, and the future he strove towards. Things would be different now.

And Merrit teemed with the things he could share with her, of wolves he had met on his travels, and of all he had learned. Of what he had found, and what he had not. His tongue held so many words, and they would surface - eventually. But right now, he stilled his mind and leaned upon a greater want to listen. "How are you doing, with everything?" he asked, sincere in his question, and turned more fully to face her. Between burying her babies, and watching adult children leave, his mother had been through much, and he genuinely wanted to know.