Runhar felt an overwhelming comforting warmth envelop him. It was dark, he couldn't even see his snout or tusks in front of his eyes.

'W-what is happening?' He asked, but he didn't speak, he listened, yet he couldn't hear anything, but himself and the silence of this void.

'Everything feels calm... warm. I... was furious. Why? What was I doing?' He could hear a dull thud ripple through the void, like the echo of a singular rain drop in a puddle. Then silence once more.

'I-... I... was fighting? What was I fighting?' The void rippled again as Runhar felt the warmth creep deeper around him, it tried to bring him into a lazing lull, comfort, like someone dear would tuck you into bed.

'It- it was... it... does it matter?' He asked himself as he felt a yawn he couldn't let out, building up, he felt his eyelids drooping as he stared into nothingness, and it rippled dully, once more.

'I should... just rest... mother always said a warrior needs... his s-sleep...' he said as he let himself go for just a moment, until a question gripped onto him, unyielding. 'Where is my mother?'

'I saw her not long ago. B-before... before the fight with... it. The... furless one. She... was watching, with the rest.'

That is when his thoughts snapped into place like puzzle pieces, finally painting the full picture. Another thud shook this nonexistence.

'I am... dying.' He said directly, yet he couldn't believe his own words.

Dull thud.

'It is killing me.'

Dull thud.

'I lost.'

Louder echoing dull thud.

'How is this fair?' He yelled out frustrated, yet nothing responded to his frustration.

'How is this just? I train so hard to be stronger. To protect our home... to be a proud man.' He cried, yet nothing responded to his sorrow.

'Nothing was ever fair, now was it? I was always the runt. I always had to work harder. To catch up... and I did. I was the strongest man. I made mother proud. I protected our own. But... did it mean anything? It just appeared out of nowhere in our home... Defeated someone stronger than me, who put more effort into it than I had, yet. But it was meek. Cowardly. Underhanded.' Runhar growled boiling with rage for just a moment and then the thud rang again, like a gong, but dull and with it the rage was fading as warmth came again to wash over the guard captain.

'I refuse this. I refuse to be bested, by that... monster!'

The thudding got louder.

'I have responsibilities!'

even louder thudding.

'A mother to protect!'

The explosive sound intensified and Runhar could feel it pass through him, pushing him dowards, yet he was still holding onto something, the warmth that was enveloping him before, now slipping and clinging to the fur on his back, trying to aggressively hold him.

'People to look after!'

One last thud rang as it shook through him, deafening like a church's bell. Runhar screamed as it rippled back, he felt the warmth from before now burning him like flames crawling up on his body, that he was trying to fight off.

This struggling pain and tensing lasted an eternity, yet only a moment.

Runhar gasped as an ease came to his chest, the darkness before him broke and he could see light. As the haze of his vision cleared, he coughed and breathed deeply, as he now could see the ceiling of his home.

He lifted himself on his elbows with a difficulty akin to being tied to stone rocks under water, as he peered around, he knew where he was, but what made his chest exhale with ease was the sight of urla, mixing some herbs in a wooden bowl.

"You awaken." She said plainly, which was normal to her, Runhar's mother was always a woman of little words, if the situation afforded it.

"I- i-..." the young swine stuttered lost as his head pulsed with pain from his snout.

"Nearly died? Yes." The older sow replied as she began to shakily walk towards Runhar. As she approached, she took some of the herbal paste onto her fingers and reached to gently touch her son's face, the three fingered hand clearly trembling.

Runhar looked at it as she touched his snout, he knew that tremble. He saw it before when someone was hurt in the past. Her mother has been using her druidic knowledge to heal wounds that could kill, but it was taxing. For each life she saved it seemed to almost cost her a fragment of her own.

"You were always hot headed." Urla commented, which got Runhar's attention.

"I-... made a fool of myself. I-... was angry. Frustrated. Not once have I won a fight against Gharna and I worked... got better and better, I got closer to winning. To show I... am as capable as one of our Den Sisters of The Hunt. But... it appeared. A scholar. And it won against her." He said as he let out a small flinched squeal from Urla touching his maw where his tusk was broken from the root.

"Life is never fair. I learned that before the Brood Mother took your father back to her warm bossom, way too soon. But. It is not our downfalls that which says who we are, but how we deal with them and with our feelings."

Runhar sat quiet, his ears flopping in defeat as he stared at the bed, realizing only now as he awoke more that he could only see from one eye. He slowly touched his face with dread, but he calmed down once he could feel bandages wrapped around his head and over his left eye.

"Have you learned anything?" The den mother asked her blood son, as she then let the silence of the family home stand still a few moments.

"Yes. I... my hubris cost me. I am glad though that it spared me."

"He. It is a he. He nearly didn't, he was consumed with fury, I could see in his eyes the same wrath your father had back when his sister got killed by the conflict with the Hay-yens. But. As any mother would, I begged him to spare you. And he did and once he realized you are my blood kin, he wept. He wept for three days, just recently he stopped and finally left the shed we gave him."

Runhar listened as his hands clenched the fur blanket he was wrapped. The captain then exhaled, his fingers relaxings.

"I-i see... I am sorry mother."

"You do not owe me an apology, my boy. I am your mother, no matter what, happiness, anger or grief, I will always forgive you, even when I won't want to admit it." Urla said keeping as stoic as usual.

Runhar reached his hand and cupped the back of her hand as it was still touching the side of his broken maw.

"I will make things right, I promise... I love you, momma." The swine said with a huff leaving his nostrils, his ears flicked downwards as his uncovered eye closed for a moment. Runhar then leaned towards his mother.

The older Sow leaned into him also, wrapping her other arm around him. "I love you too, my little piglet."