A Hellish Harmony of Loss
This time of gift giving, family, and friends has The Great Wolf thinking about the family she left behind in her old world. What was left of her world, anyway. What was left of her family.
According to Knight Artorias, she had been abandoned in the snow as a pup, determined too weak and runty by her pack to be worth raising. How ironic then, that Sif would grow to an infamously large size. She had always wondered what made the Wolf Knight rescue her. Was it pity or a kind heart? A kindred soul or the sense of her future potential? Asking such questions of Artorias was like asking the sun why it rose in the morning. The knight would just laugh and pet her head, saying it was only natural for him to save her.
While she was thankful that this place is not the hell she originally mistook it for, she still misses her family. She is grateful for the friends she has here, new and old, but she also wishes to spend time with those who aren’t here with her. Of course, she misses Alvina, but finds comfort in the fact that the great cat is still alive. No, she wants to see the person who leaves a gaping hole in her soul, the one with whom she shares an eternal bond, the one who had raised her... She fears that in not finding Artorias here, in what she presumes to be her afterlife, her last chance of ever finding him has been ripped away from her.
Softly as the snow falling around her, she makes her way down a path in the Forest of Airaisal. She sniffs the footprints mixed with the tears of those who have been here before, for she has heard rumors of this particular place. Her own footprints dwarf all those who came before her. The wolf’s own eyes unable to shed tears of sadness.
Entering the glen, Sif sees what she has summoned with her misery. Though she knows it is a mere illusion, she cannot help but feel pity for her young, small self. The pup she once was whines with the anguish of fresh grief, a heartbroken sound, as she clutches Artorias’ greatsword between her teeth.
The pup looks up at her future self, twice as tall as her past self and not even at her full size, with recognition. Sif wags her tail in acknowledgement at the apparition before curling around the younger with her much larger body, laying her head on the other’s neck in a comforting way.
Sif knows that consoling this ‘past self’ of hers will do no good-- will change nothing-- but for the moment, she only wants to pretend that there is someone who understands exactly what she feels and will commiserate with her. Maybe it is unhealthy to dwell on things for as long as she has, but her younger self is wriggling closer for comfort, all while still uttering that heart-stopping sound for their Knight whom they had tried to follow to the ends of the world.
Both wolfs raise their heads and let loose twin howls of suffering and loss; a hellish harmony loud enough for the entire city to hear.
