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[/html]Their scent lingered on his pelt, though vague and unconfirmed quite yet. Anathema was still a new entity, hardly able to lay claim to an overall "scent" shared amongst themselves, but Attila caught a difference in his own scent, the thing that carried with him in and out of their silly underground caverns. Markku had made notice of it as well, scolding him for it accordingly—"They'll never take you back in AniWaya reeking like that!"—but Attila was proud of it. He was a piece of something growing, something alive and breathing. AniWaya had been much the same, but did a pride lie within him for that place? No. He had not been a piece of AniWaya, he had simply been the outsider allowed in by blood and because some bear had decided to make nice with him spiritually.
He didn't even know his leader's name, really. He'd only met that Theodore fellow, and that hadn't gone well either. But still, Attila considered himself a piece of them, alone. Independent. He would not spend another winter alone.
The underground life was a unique experience, yet one he took in gratefully. It was tiring, somewhat, and he found himself commonly taking treks outside their territory to stretch his legs and breathe fresh air once again. It was not far from his own territory that Markku came sweeping back to him, voice and wings flurrying, screaming something about his mother being nearby. At first the Aston boy refused to believe him, thinking the owl was just trying to get him to go back to AniWaya again, but Attila couldn't risk it. He followed the owl willingly, and ran headlong into his mother just moments later.
"Mom!" he panted, a wide smile first portrayed, but was quickly swept away as his iced eyes dotted from wound to wound across her body. Fresh wounds, at that. "Wh... What happened to you? What are you doing here?" And his ears tucked back and his tail tucked in, and suddenly Attila was a child again. He forgot that pride, that feeling of independent capability as an adult. Suddenly, he cared only for her, like he did so many months ago.