Swiftcurrent Creek A sons grief

The water coursed through the land. It was another beautiful day, and yet it wasn't. Etienne had buried the wolf Viper.

Had found a quiet place, where the overhanging branches made a cradle for his head, where the ground would hold him steadily in her embrace as time took what was left of him.

He had dug the ground and he had done so since nightfall into the dawn. As he had covered the man's face, he had seen his mother's, his aunties, the little babes that had died before their time. His little sister.

Each strike of paw on soil he had felt the heaviness of being one of the last and a son. A blight on the circle of womanhood that raised him.

Eti had been too late, perhaps it was a man's failing, a sons. But he had been too late. And he had lost almost all of them.