Barrier Gulch [m] Asp

Lilitu gone—he wandered. Arlette revealed news of newcomers—a pregnant she-wolf, a man with her. Arric tried to lure him to conversation—words tasted like ash on his tongue.

So yes, he wandered. The deserts—the memories here a cloying sickness in his chest. Silvertongue’s pain lived here—was this the place he had truly lost her, or had it been the day he sought her to end their time together as more than friends—an attempt to be a better man.

But he hadn’t been.

He lost track of time—and a thirst clung to him. He couldn’t bring himself to care—but when the scream rent the air unlike one he had heard before—his heart skipped. Lilitu, perhaps?

He quickened his steps. Desperate to see her—despite knowing that whatever scene he would come upon, that would have elicited such a noise into the heavens, was not something a father would truly wish to see. That didn’t matter though… Daddies were supposed to save their children… Not bury them. But even worse was her doing this alone.

But not Lilitu—a fallen waif—and another who hovered. He did not pause to consider the trail of blood, not when something familiar clenched at him. Even before he could fully see her collapsed form, he knew who she was—he had become all but drunk upon her during their short time together.

And so when pale moonshine eyes fell upon the other bearing over her—blood—despair—it was his own teeth that sought the unknown, Qiao, to usher the rogue away from his lover as he made to push himself between the two.