Sun Mote Copse On the 858th day...

Wraen's understanding of crap in one's life was broader and - yes - it also included death of children and good friends. She had been spared the first, though she had witnessed the anguish Eljay had gone through, when he had lost first his wife and then his first-born son as well. Death - of course - hit you hard and came as a surprise most of the times. But let's draw parallels with grannies, who are 60 and older. It is a time, when your friends start dying and by 80 you visit more funerals than birthdays. It becomes so common that in the end you may spend 5 minutes shedding tears for the dead and the rest of the funeral comparing, criticizing and discussing the choice of flowers, pastor, flowers brought and - of course - the food. Because people will come and go in this world, but a good feast is a certain way to make them eternal. Again Wraen did not say any of this, because as a dead person she could not longer fully understand the fears of the living. Everyone was dead in her reality and as far as she knew - no one could die twice. 

"Well, I am very happy of you, my bad-tempered hag-friend," she pressed her shoulder against Towhee's as she said this. "I think most do not achieve one third of that in their lifetime," she told her. "Which reminds me - I never asked you - what are the names of your kids? When I left, you had..." she took a contemplative pause, trying to make the math work. "I am 100% sure of a Meerkat and... OH, weren't you..." married to a man three times younger than you?  Wraen decided not to ask that, because Towhee had said that she had given up on men and married life. "Yeah, I have not the slightest idea, how many kids you actually have. I have been gone for - I don't believe for that long - and you are already a grandma. Geez, how time flies," she chuckled. "Toss in some of your grandkids as well, so I know, who to haunt next," she grinned. 

Towhee's declaration of becoming "eternal" made Wraen smile and she let out a deep sigh. If her friend was this, what had she left behind? It was disheartening to realize that no particle of hers had a direct connection to her and that her story had had only one volume. What's more - the moment her sister passed away - she liked to think that Maia was the one to remember her the longest - Wraen's presence in this world would shrink even further. Two years on from her death and her whole 5 years of life, full of adventures, emotions, growing up, colours, friends, ups and downs, a lot of everythings, had already shrunk to "dead aunt Wraen, who liked stories". One more generation down no one would probably even remember her name or that she had ever existed. After all, hadn't this happened to the great Redleaf matriarch March Owl as well? How much she could tell about her? Save for random facts that may or may not have been true?

Then she wondered, should she care about this at all? It was not like she was going to return here, right? Even if she was, then it would not be the same life. And she would not be the same person. How many hundreds and thousands of wolves before her had lived and had died and no one thought about them at all. The universe was full of souls and not once had it occurred to Wraen to ask, what their experience was, what they thought? Because now, realizing that she was not "eternal" in the sense Towhee meant it made her immediately question, what was she then? Temporary? "You know, when you are dead you no longer search for meaning of life," she said, when she noticed that the silence between them had dragged on longer than it was polite to keep the conversation going. "The more vampirize your life force, the more I feel those doubts and questions creep up on me," she shuddered.