Thallium

The last of Gallium's young, he had a rough younger life. Born with two littermates, Thallium was the smallest and weakest. He knew his mother was old by the graying hairs on her muzzle, but he never knew her any differently. To him, she had never looked any different, and that was just how she always was in his head. Life was nice back then. Alas, good things never last forever. At the age of two and a half months, when he was finally weaned, he was taken away from his mother by another wolf. The golden canine who led the pack, Isaac, comforted him along the way, telling him that it would all be okay and that this new place would be better. While Thallium could not imagine a better place, he believed him.

Instead of a paradise, though, he found himself sitting with dozens of other pups in a camp with few adults. They weren't fed, they weren't given anything to play with, they just had to sit there in silence. Should they get out of line, they were treated harshly. This treatment ranged from gentle nips on the flank to having one's face mangled by the adults of that pack, and the treatment given relied entirely on the adult doing it. Thallium wasn't alone. There was another pup, one named Laiko, who had arrived with him from his old pack. The two stuck together, hunger gnawing at their bellies, and just did what they could to scrape by. A miserable month and a half passed, but just as hope was running thin, that familiar golden pelt appeared in the pack's central clearing. His eyes seemed distraught, worried, but this time he was not there to send them off. This time, he was there to retrieve them. Offering a considerable sum of silver cones to the pack's leader, he took both Thallium and Laiko back to their true home.

Once back, he found that neither his mother Gallium nor his aunt Beryllium were to be seen. What was that about? Where had they gone? He asked Isaac where they were, but the golden wolf only gave him a saddened look.

Young Thallium refused to believe it. How could his mother and his aunt be dead? Was he simply cursed to live a life of suffering? How could such things have happened so soon? He was only four months old. He didn't deserve this. At a loss for words, the pup did all he knew. He turned and ran as far as his legs could carry him, tears streaming down his cheeks and onto the dead leaves below him on the forest floor. Dead, just like his mother. Those kind gray eyes and their light of joy and kindness never deserved to have that light vanquished. It felt like he ran for hours through the forest, paws aching and lungs burning, before he finally was forced to give in to exhaustion. He lay down on the soft grass near the edge of the forest, just curling up and burying his face in his tail as he sobbed. It wasn't fair. Nobody else had to go through this, why must he?

Not long after, Thallium fell into an uneasy sleep, desperately needing some time to just rest. It was all so stressful. The poor pup deserved time to process things. Only when a light rain began to fall did he awaken. Beside him, however, there was warmth. Turning to look in order to see who it was, he found none other than Laiko. He seemed to have fallen asleep, too, but he didn't dare move in spite of the rain just to lay beside Thallium. All Thallium himself could do was just rest his head over Laiko's neck and close his eyes again. The rain could pour all it wanted, but it would never drench the growing warmth in the young pup's chest. Life was rough, sure, but he wasn't alone in it. He still had Laiko, and he got the feeling he always would.