The Howling Wolf

Part 9

Warm sun rays melted the snow, fostering the blossoming of the first spring flowers.

The pack was returning to the camp and this time you were sharing your cart with all of your children, spending and enjoying precious time you had wasted, allowing them moments with you, their mother, you had deprived them of because this aspect of life was too unfamiliar and unknown.

You could see it, in their eyes, always sparkling with sheer happiness, their smiles that threatened to split their small faces, their gestures, how they would cuddle you and rub their faces against your body just like the way Taehyung was in the habit of doing; you could see they were glad to have found you again and how much they craved your presence, your voice, your touch.

Simply you.

Although you had sworn yourself to show equal amount of love to your three children, you could not refrain from feeling a particular connection with your youngest who had spent the whole journey stuck to you because you felt better this way and something within you was seemingly telling you he felt the same. Just like you were sure your two eldest must had a singular relationship with Taehyung because of their similar genes.

Your daughter had laid her head on your lap and you were gently stroking her hair when you felt the cart slowing down. You pulled on the curtain to glance outside.

A frown creased your forehead when you saw the camp or what seemed to remain of it.

Taehyung opened the door when the cart stopped. He helped your two children down and you followed suit, still carrying your baby in your arms.

The beautiful, light and flowery scenery of the citadel had nothing to do with the state of the camp.

A dark smokey cloud seemed to come out of the coal-looking ground that seemed to have been burnt. The tents were sacked, their fabrics either burned or torn apart, the pieces of wood that held them up were in shreds. The plantations were ruined and nothing close to comestible could come out of them. The godown that sheltered all the wood, food and other goods the pack had worked diligently to gather and save had become a wreckage, a pile of ashes that spun in the air with every gust of wind.

Whoever had done that had left a long time ago but the unsettling feeling of death was still reigning.

While slowly walking among the debris, you adjusted the scarf covering your babyson to protect him from harmful fumes and made sure to follow the safe path Taehyung was creating ahead of you, holding your children's hands behind him.

He came to a standstill.

"What happened ?" You quietly asked, your eyes still looking around you in horror.

Your husband remained silent and resumed walking to where you recognized as the path to your tent.

At first glance, there were no clues that pretended that someone had damaged your home but the more you kept looking and drawing yourself close, the foreigner the place became to you.

The flowers you had once planted had been threaded on, the colored glass Taehyung used to cut as a pastime and hang in front of the entrance so colourful sun rays would illuminate the inside was now shattered in spiky fragments.

Carefully climbing the couple of stairs leading to the inside, angered bubbled within you when you saw the complete shambles. Disgust overcame you.

The place you had taken time to consider as somewhere safe, somewhere you could eventually call home, the place where you children would grow in had been spoiled to the ground.

Taehyung must have felt your uneasiness and came closer. His hand gently grasped onto your neck and he pressed his lips to your temple.

"It doesn't matter," he whispered, comforting. "Nothing happened to us."