Coconut Grove Paradisal Loss

A day to drag himself down the mountain, the slash across his flank screaming at him all the way, his bruises turning mottled underneath his coat. He had put nuutuittuq in his sights, determined and stubborn and homesick, desperate to quell the aching in his chest more so than to give himself the rest that his body demanded. He tore open the wound on his side on his way down the mountain slowing his body to a sluggish pace, another day until he found the coast and when he saw the plateau of Moontide in the distance he knew how far away from Moonglow he was. Anger papered over his wounds and aches - he had done as he had been told. Why? Why had he seen nothing - worse than nothing.

But fear was quick to follow. And for the first time in his life, short as it was, all the whole of it, a fear that he could not voice even to his anaa and his steps faltered along the sand. If others dreamed of what was inside of him was he empty and hollow and broken and absent and nothing inside? A lifetime of promises flashed before him. To Ajei, that he would return to Moonglow, that he would stay. To Anaa that he would fulfill his journey and come back to her. To Kassuq and Arrluk, his brothers. But what had he to offer them if only darkness was in his chest? What pack would accept such a brother? What wolf would accept such a lover? If he came to them with nothing in his heart, with emptiness? Would his anaa cast him out? From Moonglow first and then his family? Questions pounded in his head one after another, bubbing to the surface in a boil yet refusing to dissipate and return to the air. The water roared along the coast.

He stumbled, wounds screaming, paws refusing to move along to his commands. Pain. A simple word so hard to grasp he felt it slip sliding around him piercing him a thousand times yet he could not grasp it, could not fight it. He writhed, he might have screamed but he could not hear. Because if it was only that he did not go back that was one thing, if he could not go back...A snarl a growl, eh wanted to tear his skin off, wanted a new pelt to wear, wanted to flay open his wounds. But he was afraid.

just a heads up Massaraq's weak but likely to try to attack anyone who comes close - all welcome!