Astra

It hadn't taken Astra long to slip away from her family. There were all occupied with the two-legger, and it had been easy to slip out unnoticed.

Now she was resting silently atop an esker, looking up occasionally at the evening as it dimmed into twilight, watching the stars come out. The stars were old friends of hers. Her soul had spent much time traveling among them when she was a pup, and she'd never understood why the adults in her family always described stars as cold beings. They were warm... and how would her family know, anyway? They'd never flown among them...

She was lost in thought, sailing among the stars again as she had in her puphood.

Tyrant

Tyrant came in, his head held level with his shoulders with the lifeless body of a rabbit hanging from his jowels. It was an afternoon meal for himself. To strengthen himself to feed the others of the pack. His eyes looked forward, blood colored and sharp, but they held a haze in them. He was lost, lost in thought of how he was growing so old. How both of his siblings now had children. Risen didn't have any emotional attachment to Cavan, and Crucified had lost all of his senses. Tyrant had no one.. He chuckled at the thought "Of course you're alone you stupid lug, you're one of the largest child of Vicious and the second oldest to boot. I'm scarry" He growled painfully to himself as he entered the clearing of the eskers.

His large legs took him atop a mound, just a few yards from Astra. His feet crumpled below him and he took to licking the carcass of the rabbit. He was almost just as lost as she until he looked up at her and noticed her looking at the stars. He couldn't help but follow her gaze and watch them as well. "By standers of the night." He said to himself, before lowering his head and resting it gently on the ground. He eyed the rabbit, but couldn't eat it.

Astra

The white-streaked silver wolfess had been so lost among the stars that when he spoke, she jumped a little, her dusty tan eyes glancing about before they landed on him. But she did not speak right away, only weighing him in that sharp gaze that spoke of so much more than the intelligence she displayed.

Then, they closed, as she listened to his beat. For reasons she never understood, she had always heard others as musical instruments in her mind, and it generally gave her an idea about what sort of creature they were. Tyrant... was a mixture of things. There was a trumpet playing an air, the melody loud and triumphant, and below it, the rumble of trombones... and there, so low that she could barely hear it... the steady thump of a bass. This was a strong heart, one who would keep her secrets... perhaps she might trust him with it... but first, a test...

Finally, after so long a silence that he probably thought she was crazy, she opened her eyes and smiled at him, voice soft as she turned back to her view of the stars. "And friends of the soul, if one only knew how to speak to them."

Tyrant

There was no such thought of crazy as she took her time to speak. In fact, he was somewhat delighted that she was corresponding to him at all. With one ear erect and the other placed to the side; his lips curled into a half smiled and he chuckled under his breath. "Aye, I do not know how to speak to the stars... it is their mother, Luna, that I speak with on occasions."

There was a pause for a moment, his blank eyes looking at the ground before returning to the darkening sky above them. "I wonder if my mother is up there with them..." He suddenly felt his insides jump in pain, but he would not flinch. Instead his ears flattened and he grew terribly quiet. "Although I wish it were my father in her place..." It had been the first time Tyrant cursed his father in such a way. The thoughts of cruelty his father was forcing on others, now became his endless nightmare.

Astra

His pain hit her like a wave, forcing she too to repress a gasp and a flinch as she concentrated more feircely on the stars for a moment, riding the agony as she waited for it to dissipate. Only when it had faded and she was certain her voice would ring calm and true did she reply, and that so soft as to have been a whispered prayer. "You miss her terribly." And, softer still, if that were possible... "I miss mine, too..."

Tyrant

The blackened beast looked to the female with kind eyes before his crimson pools hid behind coal blankets. "It was not her time to die. And no wolf should ever die the way she did. Preditor does not eat preditors... His fur had unconsciously lifted upon the ridge of his back as his eyes were now open again and staring into the distance. The memories of that moment playing in the fiery blaze of his mind.

"Mine was Fallen, what was your mothers name?" He asked suddenly, quietly, kindlier still. Awaiting patiently to hear if the other would respond or not.

Astra

She listened silently to him, and his question made her speak softly. "Nita... my mother's name is... was... Nita. And, after a long moment, "I don't really know that she's dead... but she's been gone so long that... that it is hard to believe that she might still live. It is... easier to believe that she is dead, and free from pain. It releases the heart."

Again she saw the hurt on her mother's face as Astra herself reported her sister Miakoda's death in a detached, almost singsong voice. That was the Astra of yesteryear, back before she was able to control her journeys among the stars. So long ago, Astra had been so lost among her stellar companions that even though she had watched her mother wilt with her own eyes, she couldn't share her pain. Now, that came back to haunt the adult Astra. Why couldn't she feel anything about Miakoda's death? What hadn't she comforted Ma? A silent, unnoticed tear ran down Astra's face as she spoke still more softly. "I have searched for her among the stars... but I cannot find her."

Tyrant

He watched her fo a moment and then looked back into the darkness of the sleeping sky. "Fallen, and Nita, I will have them both in my prayers when I speak to the greater ones." His nose pointed to a wanning moon. "And I plead that Luna has mercy on their souls." With that he lowered his head again, smiling somewhat. "There are many stars, you may not have come across her yet, either that or she is not dead a you predict her to be." His voice grew soft at the end before silencing all together.

Astra

His hesitant smile called up a shy one of her own, but it carried its own degree of warmth, like a fire banked up for evening and just waiting to be released to warm the family again. "It is rare, in these days, to find a soul who would comfort a stranger when there is naught for him to gain. And yet I know I have nothing to give, so an ulterior motive is out of the question. I must remember to ask my sisters the stars to watch over you... you are a rare breed indeed." Her sweet voice was soft and meditative, but ringing with a quality that was almost mother-like in its certainty and caring. "And I too will pray for your Mother Fallen, and for you, that you may find peace in her passing, and a way to remember with less pain."