Hushed Willows loads;liquids;neon;heater;jaws;jungle;mains;signal;

ever since the run-in with the shadow-thing outside the den, he was getting braver. his eyesight was getting better, too. all these shadow-things looked like mum-shadow, and so therefore they must be good, right? his hearing had improved as well; now, he could listen and put names to things, names that he was hearing. like mum-shadow—her ears perked when someone said lil-ee. shadow-thing answered to call-ee.

and the two plushy things that pushed him away from the prime teat, day after day, were lah-nah and zigg-ee. and mum-shadow called him cam.

it was sort of boring, to tell the truth. everyone else had these wonderful sounding names, and then there was him. . .just cam. what about cam-ee? or cam-mah? he wondered if there was something wrong with him, to have such a short, uninspired name. bleh. he tried not to dwell on it too much, instead exploring all there was to see outside the den.

today, he went farther than he should have, really. far enough that the den, when he turned, was out of sight. he had ceased the baby-crawl and was now walking, albeit unsteadily, still-blue eyes trained ahead. and fluttering down just ahead of him. . .

something very much not like the shadows. something just as small as he was—maybe smaller—with a big red belly, beady eyes, and a pointy nose. cam stared at it for a long time as it nosed about on the ground, filled with wonder. he wondered if it wanted to play, like lah-nah and zigg-ee. he bounded toward it, and it blew away, like a leaf in the wind.

leaving cam standing there, upset and a little outraged. what had he done to get the cold shoulder?!

He was unused to being in a pack that didn't require certain duties, so with nothing much expected of him thus far, Ephraim spent a lot of time wandering. Returning to the sanctuary from his foray on the coast did little to ease his anxiety; if anything, it just made him want to run more. The tough front he'd managed to keep up peeled away the second he made it into the pack's claim, leaving a worried frown in its place. He hadn't been followed. He'd triple checked. But their nearness still worried him.

And there was the matter of needing to bring them some mothering gifts... Ephraim broke into an unsteady sprint, as though he hoped to outrun his thoughts. That would decide what became of him. He shouldered through a thick cluster of undergrowth and nearly ran right over Cam in his haste, and might have done just that if not for the warning burst of a robin from its cover.

The coywolf slammed on the brakes, barely keeping his feet as he skidded into the open and stopped with a gasp just an inch from Cam's upset pout.

turned out that cam had a split second to be outraged over the small thing's departure, for here came a big shadow, tumbling out of the wood without warning and coming to a halt right in front of him. cam backpedaled and tumbled over with a gasp (he'd never really managed the ear-splitting shrieks and hollers of his siblings). blinking, he opened his eyelids—they'd screwed hard shut for an instant—to stare madly at the newcomer.

yes, a shadow. like lil-ee. kind of like the shadow he'd seen the other day. where did they come from? why did they get so close?

c-cam, he stuttered, not knowing what else to say in the moment. really, his mind had been wiped blank by this surprise trauma. all he could remember was his name. he began to babble. cam cam cam c-cam cam c-cam. . . he tilted his head, his jaw agape, and managed a stupefied uh?—

because confused, interrogative sounds ran in every language, even wordless baby ones.

As Ephraim stood there, suspended on the tips of his toes and scarcely daring to breathe, Cam began to stutter the same word over and over and over. His tall ears swept forward to hear, but no comprehension came. It was either another language or a name, and with no means to tell which, Ephraim merely faltered until the cub turned his head and said something else.

Uh, repeated Ephraim, who was very much at a loss for how to treat small children. Had he ever been so little? (Smaller, in fact). What had he been like back then? How had the adults treated him? (Harshly; his family was far from the kind, warm folks of Elysium when he was a babe). Cam, Cam, Cam? God, he felt stupid. He wondered if this was what it was like for wolves who didn't know Trigedasleng to be interrogated by Dragedans in their mother tongue.

Where's your mom? he tried, peering over the youth's head for some sign of... anyone, really. Anyone at all would know what to do with a baby better than Ephraim did.

cam, cam answered proudly, as if it was the most important word in the world. that's me! he scratched at his ear with a hind paw, fervently at first, then slowing to something more idle and contemplative. that felt good, itching. he could have at that all day and be perfectly content. he wondered if the bigger shadow thought the same.

shadow. shadow must have a name, too, right? he straightened himself out and regarded the older boy curiously, head tilting further. cam? he asked. no, that was his name! things couldn't be named the same name; that would be quite silly. and very confusing.

no cam, he said, his tone definite. he shook his head, moving his mouth like a cow chewing its cud. waresyermom? he tried, latching onto the only other thing that the shadow had said.

A more astute adult may have worked out Cam's meaning when he referred to himself confidently, then followed up moments later with confusion. But this was Ephraim, and though he had the potential for intelligence, he was far too consumed by anxiety these days to make much use of it. Irrationality overrode his ability to reason most days. So he stared blankly at the pup, trying to make heads or tails of his sudden change of tone, when Cam asked where his mom was.

Oh, Ephraim said quietly, hesitating. Who was his mom? Caiaphas on the coast, the seething fury as he saw her in his mind's eye? Surely once upon a time he had been with her, loved her, but everything that happened before was like static. It was on the very edge of his recollection, like a word on the tip of the tongue that just wouldn't come, and no amount of thinking on it had ever cleared it. He didn't know how to feel about her now, given everything. Or Mirabelle, Ette's mate in Trigeda? She had been kind to him, as motherly as anyone could be to a six month old cub with only his pack for family, but there was no blood there, and blood was more important to him than he ever realized. Etoille was certainly his adoptive father, but he couldn't help thinking of his real father, whom he also remembered almost nothing about.

I don't really have a mom, he decided, and his voice was edged with sadness as he admitted it. I used to have a commander who taught me a lot of what I know, but she's gone. Realizing he was speaking to a child who couldn't possibly understand all that, Ephraim stooped low and said, I'm Ephraim. Where's your mom?

They talked in this fashion, Ephraim forever misunderstanding Cam, a little while longer before Lily eventually did come to collect her son.