Larksong Grotto bag of bones

The woman was the first to move -- lifting her foreleg to reveal wriggling and writhing pup beneath before breaking down with tears of desperation. Her disconsolate sobs pulled heavy on Reek's broken heart. She was a damaged soul, just like him. He could clearly see the loss lingering behind her tearful eyes. In that moment, Reek shared in her sadness and felt a connection to strange woman without uttering a single word. It was a rare display of empathy, especially in Reek's case, but strangely, his eyes became wet with tears of his own. Though he did not let them fall, Reek could feel the painful sting of emotion in his breast.

Reek's gaze moved down toward the pup -- a languid and sad smile playing across his features. Its eyes were still sealed shut with youthful blindness. He was hardly a newborn. Reek immediately thought of the children -- his own children -- that he was doomed to never meet. He had wanted nothing more than to be a father, but the title had been stripped away on the breadth of numerous mistakes and missteps. Seeing the little bundle sheltered beneath Vuk's legs brought all of that emotion back.

As the woman's guardian and mate began to speak, Reek turned his attention upward. Their intention on the border was easily predictable. Most wolves who turned up so close were looking for a home... but now, during the famine that had recently descended, Reek was hard-pressed to let anyone into his ranks. It wasn't necessarily that he was being picky, his rationale was more along the lines of not being able to support a large pack. Had the child not been there and Vuk and Terich had expected to join the grotto on their merits alone, they would have probably been turned away.

The child, however, made matters different. "He's beautiful," Reek muttered, wistfully wishing that it was own son before him. "A life like that should be cherished. I promise, I'll do what I can to give him the shelter and food he needs." He directed his speech directly to Terich in the hopes it would somehow be some sort of reassurance. "Food is tight... here and everywhere else," he continued. His gaze shot downward. "I don't know if I can support you both, but I can try— for the child." Two new wolves to be accounted for would be a definite drain on resources, but Reek couldn't in good conscious separate a father from his son just as he had been separated from his unborn litter.