Bitter Truths || Mazin and a Wolf
A week ago he had heard the news of Chippenford’s destruction, and he had taken the unnecessary step to journey to the town to see for himself its demise. He wandered the charred and empty streets, holding close to his thoughts the message that all of the inhabitants had escaped without casualties and were now camped out in the countryside as refugees. But as he moved aside the rubble, the Calormene discovered...all but two inhabitants had successfully evaded death.
This knowledge of the deaths of his foster parents he chained to his heart like weights, regardless of how they burned that feeble organ and his eyes. It had been nearly a year since he had last visited them, but it was out of busyness and losing his grasp on time, rather than not wanting to see the old couple. There were no marks of weapons or wolves on their bodies, so surely they had perished in the fire that had overtaken the town. Thus, (and Mazin emphasized in his mind) they would have been safe if he had been there.
Just as one could not remove all the sand in the desert to another location, one could not change the past. He knew this but he pushed the verses aside, as well as the happy memories that lingered of the two who had taken him in and nurtured him to health. He cleared away the echoes of their voices and placed in the center of his mind the image of their bodies, destroyed by flames and reduced to ash and blackened bone. His thoughts throbbed, tender to the touch, wanting and needing some reason or scapegoat for why they had to perish. And in the end, all the threads and pointing fingers lead to him, the failure of a son (the twofold failure of a son).
Compulsively, Mazin found himself back amid the empty streets of the ruined city. Soon, when the fear had subsided, perhaps the residents would return to Chippenford and rebuild their lives. For now he haunted the streets as a dark ghost, hurting and needing something or someone to hate. (Like himself.) And it was then that his eye caught on the wolf, and the pit of his stomach grew cold.