In his dreams, he bound through endless snow-drift alongside his Ma, their laughter mingling with the bitter winds of their home. His clumsy legs, not yet built to carry him so fast, struggling to churn through the thick blanket while his mother gleefully urged him to keep up.

She looked so happy, with the early morning sun of their tundra framing her soft features. Her dark eyes glittering with joy and affection that fought off the chill.

It was boyish, childish nostalgia, of days better and bright. That weird feeling he felt so often but could never name, as he tried to chase after her. But she kept running faster, farther...and the dream hadn't felt so beautiful anymore, not when she was disappearing into the trail of snow dust she left behind.

In that dream, he cried out for her, his gentle voice distant and fuzzy. He begged for her to slow down, to stay! But she couldn't hear him. She kept running, running—his lungs began to burn and his feet began to ache and—

He awoke in a blanket of snow, with a shuddered gasp and eyes glassy with fear. This wasn't their little den near the Ptarmigan roost, and he wasn't curled into the lush belly of his mother. There was none of her warmth. There was no scent of milk and feathers. The tundra looked different, somehow, in the eyes of a child afraid.

Ma? There is nothing but the gentle howl of wind, the suffocating stillness of the tundra.

Ma, where are you? He cried with urgency. All too suddenly, the overwhelming sense of being alone made his throat feel tight, and jewels of tears glistened atop his blonde cheeks.

He didn't know what it meant to be left. Not in the eyes of others, at least—he'd never admit to it. Their pitying words, the fret of a worry they knew nothing about; he was better than all of it. He'd been on his own for a while, relying on the earth's care to keep him alive instead of a warm tongue. His life was his, and his alone—it was freeing almost, even with only his pride to keep him company.

Though even in his most prideful moments, there were glimpses of what his future might've been like. Glimpses again of the cards he was dealt. On occasion, he'd find himself running across another family—be it birds, deer, or even wolves. He'd watch them until his eyes blurred or the night grew too long, until there was nothing left to watch and he was left alone with his wishes and thoughts.

The what-ifs were loud.

Taunting, goading, making him want for something he'd never even been given.

Oh, just quit 'yer whining! It was snarled on an irritating and weathered morning. Transitioning between slumber and consciousness, he'd all but woken up on the wrong side of the marsh. There ain't any Ma's around here, so quit hollering. He huffed from his burrow in the snow, nose crinkled and eyes glaring.

A smear of charcoal upon snowdrift stirred with ire; a boyish voice tinged with irate that made the weeping son startle and flounder. Limbs far too lanky to control, Llew collapses onto his hind, his ears pinned against his dusted skull. His lips quivered, his nose running endlessly alongside his tears.

A lump of snow shifted to reveal a boy as dark as flint, glaring at him with eyes full of malice. His breaths hitched and hiccuped on a dime, his tail curling around his leg to offer a shred of comfort he should be receiving from his mother. But she doesn't round the snowy horizon to rescue him, and this boy is barking that there are no mothers here.

His fragile heart dropped to his stomach. Did that mean this boy was alone, too? Where had their mothers gone?

W-What? Where is your Ma? He wept behind a paw that'd come to wipe away his tears and mucus. Panic still sat heavy within his bird-like chest, swelling and consuming. And alongside it was fear.

Where are we?

Where is your Ma?

For once, the boy was speechless, lips twitching as his mouth parted with thought. He could be honest, spill all his unsaid truths to the blonde boy, but he wouldn't understand. No one ever did, and he didn't need this lump of hay blubbering over more sorrows anyways. His chest bloomed with a heavy breath, irritancy knocking at his doors. Didn't ya' hear what I said? He pulled himself up from the shell of warmth he'd cocooned himself within beneath the snow.

There ain't no Ma's here. Not his, not theirs. Was this guy deaf or something? Or were his cries truly too loud for him to have heard anything else? Judgmental eyes took him in.

The boy tried not to be too disgusted by the other's presentation. Be it the salty-soaked fur beneath his eyes or the snot that he was sure would string from his paw should he move it away. He tried, truly—scout's honor—but nothing could wipe the disgust from his boyish face.


His next question earned a careless shrug from the boy. Somewhere cold, I guess. Doesn't much matter. At this rate, this wad of fur would freeze to death trying to search for his Ma. Tears frozen on blonde cheeks and mouth parted in a cry; oh, he could see the sight now.

Listen, teat-sucker, quit that whimpering before you encourage something bigger than your plump Ma to come find us. He grumbled exasperatedly, head peering over his shoulder with jaded caution.

As if his wanton cries and half-choked sobs could've gotten worse, the breaths that leave his lungs are agonizing. The tears that wouldn't stop falling painted his cheeks, his feet; they jeweled into the cloak of snow before sinking through the blanket to kiss the frozen ground beneath them.

Oh, this lump of charcoal was so mean. He bit and spat with fire, smoldering heat that scorched the weeping Llewellyn's proverbial bleeding wounds. There was no kindness in him; no compassion his Ma had taught himself to bestow upon others. He was mean and screw-faced angry and it made Llewellyn feel something he'd scarcely felt before; weak.

There'd been few times in his past, perhaps when stumbling across wayward families of wolves that crossed he and his Ma's tundra home, that anyone had made him feel such a way. Boys that he'd come across that would pull at his tail and laugh when he'd cry, or invite him to roughhouse when he wished to pick prairie flowers.

His Ma had always been there to soothe him, to wipe his tears away and whisper into his crown that he was just a boy with a sensitive heart and that it was a gift.

Right now, he feels nothing but a burden, to a boy he doesn't even know the name of.

I—I'm sorry, he hiccuped. Feeble body drawing into himself, as if seeking the warm hug of his Ma. I just m-miss my Ma.

Didn't this boy miss his? Why isn't he scared, too?

Maybe if Llewellyn was braver, he wouldn't be so frightened.

But he's never been brave, not a day in his life.

Maybe the boy knew he wasn't being the perfect picture of sympathy. Maybe, in a life now foreign to him, he'd been taught better, reprimanded even. Maybe blondie didn't deserve his wrath or any spit and loutishness—maybes, maybes.

But, even in spite of what he "might've" learned, the boy knew better than to coddle. Just like him, this guy was abandoned—left completely to himself. It was a hard truth, evidently too bitter of a pill to swallow if the other's reaction clarified nothing else. But he wouldn't sit idly and watch another drown in his sorrows, in his hopes. She was gone, what was so hard to grasp about that?

The boy's sigh could've rivaled the exhaustion of an old wolf too arthritic to stand; he just wanted the crying to stop. What do ya' miss 'bout her, then? The warmth? Okay, he could find him something warm. The comfort? The boy wasn't no woman, but he could be...nice? Sympathetic...A visible shuddered wracked his frame. Y'know it's not normal to be blubbering at your age, right? We're too old for that. He didn't need his reputation being ruined, definitely not with this.

Maybe he was hungry, like most babes were when they whined. Or maybe he just needed a nap. Greed and selfishness settled like a rock in his stomach, remembering the rabbit he'd all but slaughtered to strings. They'd have to hunt something themselves if it was food he wanted. That being if blondie even knew how to hunt. He couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Like the slow draw of the tide pulling back into the sea, eventually his blubbering calms to hiccups here and there, a still quivering voice. He's tired himself out, dried up his ducts until there just simply weren't any more tears to give.

With a sniffle and wipe at his damp nose, his still glassy, impossibly weepy eyes meet those of crimson. His lips pull into a pout, his brow creased thoughtfully. Even he isn't naive enough to be unable to thinking what a silly question. Because the list was endless; he missed everything about his Ma.

He gentle voice, her quiet lullabies when he was too fitful to rest, being tucked against her soft belly when he would finally drift...he misses her laugh, her smile. Just the thoughts alone make him want to bawl again.

I dunno, I—I just miss her. His answer is quiet and it is lame, tired. He's never been apart from her for more than a few hours at the most, and he remembers even missing her then.

What he misses the most, if he could pick such a thing, was just the comfort of her presence. Her everlasting love for a coward of a son.

Perhaps he's spoiled. Perhaps if he had siblings, he wouldn't be attached to her hip. Maybe if he had friends that weren't mean, he wouldn't be so heartbroken over her disappearance.

The charcoal boy accused that Llew is far too old to cry. His lips purse, the tiniest, weakest flicker of irate blooming in his chest. He stammered over his words, I can't help it! Ma's never left me before. His chin tucked against his chest, his sniffling ceasing.

...how long have you been alone?

It was different for Tarquin. More complicated, he guessed. There'd never been much he missed, never been much he even remembered; so how could he ever understand? Not that, in truth, he cared enough to understand at all, but maybe a part of him wondered. Trapped in the nightmares of absence, he couldn't even remember the name of his mother—if he ever even had one.

He was never kissed when the nights grew dark. Never sang to when the storms blew the trees and the rain made the grass sparkle. He'd never been taught to be kind, or to know when too much is enough. And despite all his anger and exhaustion, despite not knowing who he'd found, there was a certain jealousy in his actions. Envy in his words.

Spoiled with attention and greedy for more, that's what this boy was. Hung beneath a tarp of love and warmth, it was no surprise he didn't know how to live in reality. The reality where a mother never stuck with her son, where a mother often died, was taken, or never cared for her son in the first place. How much of a shellshock that seemed to be for him.

The boy's lip twitched with unresolved anger. Well she was bound to leave ya' at some point! Did ya' think she was gonna be by your side for the rest of your life? Get real. Gods, he was so stupid, so completely raveled in the vines of his ways. Of his mother's love that the thorns had begun poking his obviously delicate skin.

As long as I've known. It was spoken in a hurry, like the boy truly didn't want to admit that he'd been too worthless to stand beside. Too much for anyone to handle. But it don't bother me none. I'm better alone, I don't need to be sniffling like you.

There's scarcely been a time in Llewellyn's life where he's felt angry. He could recall times where wayward children he'd meet during the migration of caribou would pick fun at him. Tease him, pull on his tail, play too rough; but he doesn't remember really being angry at them, either.

Just afraid, sensitive, as he always was.

It's an uncomfortable feeling. It's a warmth that blossomed beneath his skin. Fed into his veins, surging through his system until his face is hot and he's sputtering. His voice, still squeaky with his fraying boyhood, held just a fraction of a bark, but no bite.

It shook, too, as if he was unsure of how to be angry.

I-I know that! He huffed, the fur upon his shoulders rising in his flare. But she wasn't—she wasn't supposed to leave me yet. Not without saying goodbye because that... isn't like her. His frown grew, his ears sleek against his skull.

He's lying. While he'd known she wouldn't always be there to lick his wounds and weave feathers into his fur, he refused to accept it. She is all he knows, is all he...had. His weeping heart clenched painfully tight.

He's just a boy far too afraid to become a man.

He meets those eyes of carmine once more, this time with a glimmer of sympathy. The lump of coal has been alone for a while, then. And foolishly, he cannot help but assume he knows nothing of the love between a mother and her child. Not anymore, at least, and perhaps that's why he's so bitter.

And you're not scared? You don't miss your Ma? Llewellyn couldn't help but ask, because he couldn't possibly understand how a boy wasn't afraid of the endless tundra. How he was okay wandering alone in a world that takes and scarcely gives.