The Heartwood I'm at One With The Silence

Dreven woke with a start and peered around him with glowing embers. Gazing. Searching. Watching. The fog had yet to lift from his mind. He sat there in silence, wondering where the Queen was, and why he didn't hurt from paws and claws and so many other things. He stretched out his long limbs as slowly the cobwebs of early morning stupor wore off.

Sun kissed down along his broad shoulders, dipping into the valleys, and dales of his body, the shadows peppering him with light strokes. He swiveled one tattered ear and then another, his notched tail beating a slow drum against the ground as he fanned himself from the warmth that dug deep, and stuck to him. Like honey in the fields of wildflowers.

Large blunt head, lifted higher and higher. And he lay there, waiting, watching. Wondering.