Layre was not alone. And the fur along his spine rose. A tilt of tattered ear, the blowing if air from snout. He listened and observed. A small thing, weighted with the world. Ribs sticking from her insides. She approached. And slunk low.

A small flame of pity rise in his chest and it burned there. He was not a man who rode his emotions. More they came and he moved from them. But he was in a new place. The bite of tragedy still tearing at his hide.

Perhaps he was tired of keeping lodgings with the dead. Or maybe just maybe he didn't want to watch another die in front of him.

You hungry?

He found himself asking the tiny lithe creature.