Ankyra Sound VIII. Standing in the back door crying, now you're going to need a friend.

valravn had seen many iterations in this world, just as the ghostly face of the moon saw countless faces stretched over eons. 

one thing was always the same. he always came into this world quietly, while chaos spread in spidery veins about him. he was always born dark, and he always found his archsoul. the white to his black that formed the dueling elements of yin and yang.  

his other half. the soul that bound to his time and time again. that little red ribbon -- 

one minute he was in the light, and the next minute, dark totality.

it was all slipping away, his most recent life. 

what was first a stark memory became rounded near the edges, then blurred as the fabric that bore gradually unraveled in misty silver ripples. he was resting in a stone den, somewhere, his fur warm and cast by luxurious sun dapples. he was old now. he had lived a long life, with many children who had lightened the years. a mate who had loved him always. she swam in his vision as a luminous silvery shape, bending over him. her words were soft as they carried away from that stony sepulcher. he tried to make out those soothing words, yet they were too muffled and he was drifting away. all the same, he tried to hold onto that past life for just a moment longer . . . 

and then he was here, losing memory like water through the palmed hands of a supplicant. pieces of who he was were gradually falling away, fading like the russet burn of sunset against a deepening green horizon. twinklings of his past selves coming and going until at last valravn's multi-colored tapestry was dark with formless movement.

valravn slept by his mother's side, blissful -- while the ebb and flow of old memories fled dreamlike from him in vibrant swansong. his coming into this world had bore no witness save for one -- a pair of yellow eyes which had watched simmering from some undisclosed shadow in the grotto. then, in a strong grip alien to him, had tugged and pulled him from the membrane that bundled around him, lifted the caul from his gasping face, and placed him gingerly alongside his mother's flank where his head did little shaky bobbles until at last he found a teat. 

here he feasted, unaware of the destruction that had been inflicted in his wake. heedless of the man who had come across his bloodbath, and unerringly unaware of any kinlife that stirred besides him.