She has been forgotten

warmth and memories. 5

It had been three days since I had run into Mitchell, everything was quiet and we acted as if nothing had happened. We had almost finished the deer already, neither of us had been eating well so when we did have good food it went pretty quickly.

Sitting outside of our little ledge that Clayton and I slept under, I looked into the sky, the clouds were dark and ominous -a sign of rain.

"Great." I breathed.

"Smells like a big storm." Clayton appeared behind me, his voice showing no emotion, but his body was stiff.

"Goody..." I said a bit more loudly that I had intended, sarcasm dripping in my voice.

Clayton let out a small laugh and sat down next to me. He was being quieter than usual today, I wonder what's wrong? Looking over to the little cub, I saw a sadness on his face, something was definitely wrong.

"You alright?" I asked cautiously.

He sighed, his face dropping and letting his sadness be known, "It's just," He paused a moment to think, "it's that I am homesick."

I wrapped my arms around the small cub and gave a little squeeze, "Where is your home?" I said quietly, looking into his eyes waiting for a reply.

"Somewhere I can't go back to right now." His whole body loosened with the realization of what he had said.

"And why not?" I pulled back to look at him more clearly, obvious concern speed across my face.

"It's a long story..." He looked ashamed as he turned to head into our sleeping quarters.

I followed close behind him. He curled up near to the cliffs rocky side, keeping his face from me. I heard a sniffle come from his slightly shaking form, he was still just a little kid.

"Well I have all day." Clay looked over his shoulder and I gave him a small smile to comfort him.

"I wish I could tell you Aonani, but I can't."

"You can tell me anything." I laid next to him, stroking his fur soothingly.

"Not this..." Another sniffle escaped his lips as a tear rolled down his cheek, wetting his fur as it went down.

"How come?"

"Because I can't... I just can't, I'm sorry." He pulled his body into a tighter ball, shaking even more violently.

I scooted closer to him, his body warm as I heard the calm rain pitter-patter on the ledge above us. "It's okay, don't be sorry for that. I will be here if you want to talk." I whispered into his ear softly. "But for now just sleep." And with that he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, falling into the lure of sleep.

*** Clayton's dream ***

My mother looked down to me and smiled, "Good morning sleepy head, Happy birthday!" She was always so bright in the morning.

As she walked out of my room I peeled myself from the covers of my warm bed. I was seven years old today, and very excited to get the morning started!

I walked out of my room and into the kitchen where my mother was standing by the stove.

She turned and walked over to me, "I made your favorite, honey and cinnamon pancakes!" A huge smile crossed my face as a large stack of my favorite food in the world was place in front of me.

I dug into the sweet, round, fluffy, golden pieces of heaven before me, moaning at the pure happiness of my taste buds. Momma always did make the best pancakes.