#pubbies !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He awoke to the sound of soft whimpering. Little paws pressed softly at his arms, little whiskered noses tickled across his face. He groaned and pushed himself to sit up, rubbing his eyes.

He was in the kennels of Sommerfahren Palace once more, on a stone floor strewn with dried lake reeds. Barlovian sleigh-dog pups surrounded him, but their pelts were colors he'd never seen before. Fiery reds, icy pallor, oceanic blues, pure golden-white, the soft green of leaves on the wind … and at a polite distance, a mother sleigh-dog towered kindly over him, her pelt as deep and dark as the night sky and flecked with faint stars. She tilted her head a moment, but then her tail started to wag, and she spoke in a familiar voice.

"So this is how you see us, then, Godslayer?" Once more her voice was like his mother's, but she no longer sounded exhausted. If anything, the massive dog sounded almost playful as she walked closer to him.

"I … you … but you … where ..?" Justin could barely remember what words were, much less put them in a line with his mouth. He looked about him in a panic. The stone walls were the same ones his older brothers used to trap him in as a child, but the ceiling was a swirling nothingness that hurt his eyes with its lack of substance.

"Fret not, young Prince," the mother dog murmured, "we bear you no ill will." Her voice had a tenderness that the Queen never showed as she sat beside him and gently licked his cheek. "This is a place of refuge, a place of rest within the Mark you bear."

Justin gasped and turned to look at his left hand. The sleeve had been ripped from his shirt and surcote, and the bandages had come unraveled, but the Mark was gone from his body, leaving only clean bare skin on his arm. A pup with shimmering fur nuzzled up under his hand for head pats. "… the wisps that went into the Mark after we killed the Scourges … then, you're ..?"

"The Harvester of Eventide … Eve, for short," she confirmed. "Erstwhile goddess of darkness and death … ironic that I take the shape of a mother once again." Inasmuch as it was possible for a dog the size of a draft horse to look sheepish, she did. After a moment, her tone turned more curious. "… this is how you view safety, then?"

It was Justin's turn to look away. "… when I was a child, my brothers would torment me whenever they had the time. Throw me in the moat, steal my primers, hide manure under my bed, get me lost in the forests … sometimes they would lock me in the kennels, because the sleigh-dogs would snarl at them. I suppose Delbert thought they'd rip me to pieces and eat me. But … the sleigh-dogs were kind to me, once my brothers ran off. The pups would play with me, and Old Schneffeh would let me cuddle her until I fell asleep." He sighed wistfully and closed his eyes. "It didn't matter if I'd catch a scolding after, for dirtying my clothes or missing suppertime. For a moment, I was … warm. Comfortable."

"Loved."

"… loved." The word stung his eyes and burned his cheeks. "Shameful, I know." He looked down at the floor and fidgeted with one of the reeds. He caught sight of his bare left hand again. For all the trouble it had caused, his skin looked almost discolored without the brand that had been there for so long. "So this … Mark. It was meant as a shelter?"

"The Mark was … a last resort, if you will. We had, all of us, been wounded badly during the War of Incursion. We knew there was a chance we might die. The Wonderer and the Archiver devised the Mark as a place where our essences might go and rest if we died, and perhaps be reborn if our strength returned. Your forebear, Æthelberaht, offered to carry this burden for us … and it followed his bloodline, finding a new carrier whenever its current holder passed away."

"… so it was never about royalty, or the divinely rightful heir. Tyrus would lose his wits if he ever found out." Justin tried to laugh bitterly, but it sounded more like a sob. "Tyrus … and the others. They … hadn't got a Mark to shelter them. Does that mean they …?" He didn't dare say the word aloud.

"There is no way to know, from here. I am sorry."

"I … I see …" He fumbled for words, fumbled for thoughts, fumbled for anything he could do, but all he could find was a helpless vertigo.

Wordlessly, Eve scooted closer until her considerable weight pressed softly against Justin's side. With her unspoken permission, he finally collapsed into her, clutching her thick coat and burying his face in her chest. All the guilt, all the frustration, all the despair finally burst the dams of his heart as he howled his grief into her fur. Eve solemnly rested a paw on his shoulder and held him close. The pups crept up near him and added their voices to the mournful song. Here, outside of time, gods and mortal gave voice to their sorrows together.

At last, exhausted, Justin slumped against Eve's side. "I'm sorry," he croaked with the last of his voice. "I shouldn't have--"

"Everyone must grieve, young Prince." She tenderly lapped the tears from his eyes and lay down beside him. "Now rest. There will yet be time to act."

With a feeble whimper of his own, Justin sank to rest his head on Eve's flank like a pillow. The god-pups nestled around him and shared their warmth as oblivion swept over him.