Porcupine Ridge granite eye

Dead.

Gravity held such a pull when grief struck like lightning. The shock of it scored him, and he could feel the sway of it wanting to pull him down.

He remained—swallowing thickly. Dead? How could she be dead… He had been off to find her a present. A gift to place a smile on her beautiful features—that he and his sisters could revel upon.

This world turned upside down. If she were dead, and he here—surely his sisters were also gone.

The idea of it was pressed upon him—the knowing that to be dead meant forever missing.

The true meaning of it had yet to be grasped.

His eyes may have wandered between them both—green flashing with sorrow—but the grief that wished to shut him down was swept aside by childhood survival, and numbly, he followed after the dark wolf, already knowing the smell and taste of sap and pine would forever stir nausea in him.