The end of the world came for all, whether you paid attention to it or not.

It even came for you in your dreams. It came at you with nightmares.

A ruined world mauled by twisted beings. Monstrous creatures with the barest resemblance to a wolf shrieked with broken voices as they surged after two fleeing figures in the dark. Wolves that looked like them. Normal, four-legged bodies with lean flanks and triangular ears. The pair kept their gaze at the ground ahead of them. Unyielding in their focus, they raced through the dark with land-eating strides. Any slower, any lagging or break in resolve held a gruesome fate. One that the twisted beasts promised with every stilted stride and snap of ravenous jaws.

Arlen did not know the end fate of the two shrinking silhouettes. Unaware that within the waking world they had stumbled across the one respite the pair would find in this cruel land, they were tempted to join them. To run from the monsters that hunted, but this dream did not move with their whims. It kept them still, with no hope to see what lay past the horizon, Arlen was kept to witness what came next.

When the pair escaped over the ridge, the beasts gave up their fleeing prey. Their eyes turned and faces scraped against the earth. The air was tasted, the ground scented. Blood scent seeped into the air, curling with the promise of easy pickings.

Someone had been left behind.

Arlen realized it just as, if not before, the beasts did. Breath catching, Arlen tracked the creatures with their eyes.

The beasts scented the trail in the air, tracked it across the ground, and gathered around a crack in the earth. A narrow crevice that they pawed at and pressed their faces within. Arlen's lungs screamed for release. Breath releasing the moment the cornered wolf stole one of his own.

Arlen shut their eyes as hideous howls and shrill shrieks split the air and was soon accompanied by the panicked, pained screams of the wounded wolf.

---

A sky shattering roar woke the young bearwolf from their nightmare. Unfortunately for Arlen, their dream had leaked into the waking world.

A powerful blizzard swept through the air, and the pale shade of a wolf appeared before them. A hollow feeling pooled in the young wolfs chest at the sight of the dream visitor. Stranger that the visitor was, Arlen could not help but feel like they knew who he was. Something the ghost affirmed and he spoke of what waited before them.

Brother to the injured wolf, the Visitor was one of the pair who fled across the horizon line, leaving the third wolf to his fate. Arlen's nose wrinkled in disgust at the traitorous ghost before them.

Some brother you are. You didn't deserve peace. The words fell cruelly from their lips. Each one wholly believed, Arlen made to turn from the Visitor, but found themself still as glowing stones made three openings in the space before them.

The Visitor, spoke briefly. Asking them to chose a path to fix the wretched misdeed that he had done. He would be met with a growl and bared teeth.

Why was it up to them to repair what he did? Why was did they have to suffer with a broken, dying world because of the actions of others?

Even in Mythris, Arlen lived a secluded life with their father, Ancelin . Bearclaws relied on nobody but themselves, and such thinking almost made the young wolf turn away from the portals all together.

But one window caught their eye.

The second, the middle. The one with the bone-eater tree that witnessed Arlen's awakening within this world. The great tree, the one with wolfs bones at its roots, was nearly unrecognizable.

Blue wraiths reminiscent of the twisted beasts tore at the sky-holding branches. Blackening the boughs as it bled. The splitting of bark voicing tree's agony. The image held within Arlen's mind.

The young Bearclaw had been unnerved by the tree the moment they arrived. It was something greater than themself in ways they couldn't possible imagine. Skeletal remains lie protected at its roots. Its very island a space that was hallowed. Arlen felt it in their bones that it was not a place for wolves to stay.

Now something precious sprouted between skeletal paws and monsters ravaged the sacred space. The beasts' labored in trying to uproot the great limbs that held the very clouds. This is image, it brought a question to the forefront of Arlen's mind.

How fucking dare they?

Arlen cared not for the Visitor and his mate, their remains being entwined within the tree was their own problem. Arlen didn't know a damned thing about a parasite. Confident that they didn't have it, the cured mattered little. What Arlen, surprisingly, cared for was the tree itself. Its histories, magics, and gifts were unknown, but Arlen did know how it felt to stand before the great tree.

Did those monsters think themselves so great, destroying something bigger than themselves? Something that couldn't fight back against them?

Mismatched paws carried the young wolf to the door, not a second spared in pondering any further. Running into the battleground, Arlen passed strangers. Adults and children, their clashing scents spoke of the varied origins of each wolf. Their voice rising in a fearsome cry, they threw themself into the fray. Lunging for the nearest wraith, Arlen bared their teeth, and braced for retaliation.