Drake just listened. Eyes watching her plush lips move, gazing as those emotive words danced around his ears and revealed a dark, and depressing world to the poor wolf. Visions of her world, what she said and he imagined, they flashed in his mind, blazing red and terrifying black.
It reminds him. Reminds him of home.
The silver wolf shifted Critter carefully onto one knee, hoping the hatchling would not be stirred, and leaned his head onto the soft, cold shoulder of Nikia, eyes gazing down the empty road "I'm so sorry, to hear that all happened to you when you were still young and a kid, seeing...Feeling that all happen in some horrific blur...Like some nightmare." Teeth gnawed on his lower lip, chewing anxiously on his tender flesh before he muttered nervously, ever fearful of every word spoken,
"I...I came from South, Far South, a long journey too...I lived, or well did before...We have legends, bad ones too, one being of Night Terrors in your language...Wolves of the Night, rarely come out but when they do...." Two glimmering blue eyes gazed up at her, tears beginning to well up and his heart aching so painfully, his ribs crushing his organ,
"They kill. Destroy a whole village for who knows what...We thought they weren't real, ways to scare pups...But they were, and they came to us that night, almost a year ago and...And..." He tore away from gazing, hiding his eyes in the comforting darkness of her shoulder, a muffled whine rising up. His muzzle turned once more so she could hear, calm and ashamed of itself
"I was in the Forest one night, reading and being the rebel I was to a clan of warriors, with a torch and book, that's when I heard the screams...Everyone, just slaughtered as they appeared from nowhere, coming into homes, burning most with others inside, we were never prepared..."
Suddenly his maw latched round her shoulder, not in a threatening manner but a pitiful fashion, "I just ran, one must have seen my torch and chased after me, as silent as death itself, and caught my back with a blade, tearing through my shirt, whilst something seemed to scold my back...Another torch I thought. I never stopped."
He gave a long sigh. He has never told anyone the full story, except Crowe, but he deserves the whole truth, being his last line of family left in the odd world, "I travelled from town to village, till here I am, with you."