Firefly Glen Ut in ditt indre ventar bratt ein sti.

One saw him.

A boy, dressed in black and white and looking nothing like anaa or tataa - yet who could he be, but a child of Moonglow? A what did that make the boy but a cousin? A brother?

Stratos held him in a quiet stare. They held each other, watching one another, until the pack must have said his name and the patched pup turned away to hurry to anaa and another woman he neither knew nor recognized.

He could hurry, too. Step out and let anaa see the man her boy had become. A sullen, broken thing. He had lost his friends and even if they had found their way home, he had failed to find them. Failed to protect them, failed to care for the girls who were meant to be his to care for, provide for, protect.

If only he had been there when Ani had fallen through the waters.

Kukutux’ face smiled down and around at her family, and though he wished he could be that small again, a little firebrand plopped down at anaa’s feet, he was a man now. One whose boyhood still draped along his shoulders like shame.

He would not sit before anaa today. One day — but here, Stratos turned away.