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[Skoll]

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Skoll pushed the furnace the rest of the way up the dolly. It was heavy, but after they had gotten it positioned together it was much easier to handle. Once he had finished pushing it up, he would let her secure it with the ropes on hand. Skoll himself knew a few knots, but he didn't hold a candle to Matrix's father, the artisan Apache, who had passed some of his know how onto his daughter. Skoll distantly wondered how his life might have been different if his parents had been as skilled as those of the girl before him. So far from the civilized parts of the world, so far even from the population densities necessary to wage the war that he had grown up on, every wolf was a survival generalist, and that was all. When everyone had to do everything, no one specialized, and so wolves were limited in what they could achieve during a lifetime. Had he stayed in StoneTree, he would have been the same; he would have known how to survive a winter, he would have known how to be a good leader after another few years of studying his father, he would have known how to tap into HawkWind's gift in the event of a challenge to his leadership. He would have survived in the frigid and unforgiving land of his forefathers, would have had a family most likely, and would have been happy with that. What paths would he have taken if he'd had such different roads available to him,, like she had? He didn't regret what good he'd brought into the world, he didn't regret having the skills he did when it came to rescuing Luka and Naniko, when it came to winning the day against the cultists, but sometimes he wondered how life would be without enemies and without some of these experiences weighing him down. "So," he said as he finished, "How're your parents? I haven't seen them in a long while." He knew that Matrix hadn't seen them recently, either, but her knowledge of them would still be more up-to-date than his. Twilight and Apache had split off from him to handle the situation when the remaining cultists had broken off into small groups of resistance. He was lucky to have done so well for the first leg of the war, he had picked up a few things about war from Sirius, though he wasn't proud of that. Still, guerilla warfare required more dispersed leadership, and he had been fortunate to have those two around providing that in places where he couldn't be. He had heard that the family had survived the conflict, and he was glad of that. The last group to report back had been Graelthrim and Tamara's, but they had never reported back at all, just followed their foes all the way back to Bleeding Souls, following a faint to draw Skoll away from the conflict which failed. They'd died in the effort, a battle he had not seen, but had followed by scent some time later. They had killed most of the cultist unit, before one massive were--the last survivor--slaughtered most of their own, leaving only the field-medic, Grael, alive. To hear Phoenix tell it, Grael--a wolf who saw spirits, the same as Skoll, but with much more sensitiviy--had gone insane after encountering the clearing where VoidFane had battled BloodBane and Fly, the echoes of that battle enough to drive him over the edge. Skoll could not fathom whatever sense Graelthrim possessed that could detect that evil so acutely. The wolf had run gibbering into the Haunted Forest, to be waylaid by practically every dispossessed spirit in the wood, before returning to Storm to kill the 'demon', who he mistook one of Phoenix's children for. The massive were--then Gamma of Storm--had been forced to take his life. This life had far too many cruelties. Phoenix and Skoll had buried him in Storm, the last life to be consumed by the War of Shadows. He couldn't even say that with confidence...Grael had done his duty by that time...he wasn't fighting any more when he was swallowed by a history too dark for him to fathom. ~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.

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