Stone Circle Heartland

It’s softly that she pulls back. His eyes hold rheumy and in wait for every word she might impart, as if at any given moment expecting his world to come crashing down. He gives a subtle wave of tail, but there’s a sullenness following this boy like a shadow.

Where is mom? Where is dad? Who is this Kvarsheim child?

Her mother said once that grief was love with nowhere to go. It was clear to her now in the eyes of a boy with so much love to give, and so alienated from the blissful, ungoverned years of childhood. Her heart aches.

So she wound her ears forward, carefully mouthing the stone to place it proudly on a granite outcropping for display. Then she takes her paw and gives a little scratch at the field.

“Skáld, do you like to dig?” She asks, alternating between strokes of claw and peering at the boy. “Like this- ‘dig’?” Scratch. Scratch.

“Such a precious stone calls for a special place to house it- don’t you think?” She quirks her head, giving her tail a little beat. Earnest eyes searching that thoughtful face for any shade of the child beneath all those layers of grief.

“Sure could use help.”