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Samuel’s hair is slicked to his head and plastered to his face in wet tendrils, his clothes long ago soaked through by the rain that streams steadily down his face yet still fails to mask his tears as he stands over the tiny mound of freshly turned earth. The larger grave beside it is grown over with grass, its marker weathered by years, and his mind struggles to accept the realization that he is alone again. His wolf knows already, of course, he’s been fighting the urge, the need, to change, to let the wolf out to howl and rage, since little Mathilde took her last laboring breath in the darkest hour of the night and then went still in his arms.
There’s a quiet noise next to him, a gentle touch at his elbow, and he looks over and down, into eyes dark with sorrow that almost mirrors his own. Bran offers no words of comfort, he knows there’s no comfort to offer, just holds his gaze for a moment before turning back to the house - small but sturdy, its carefully thatched roof easily proof against the rain. Samuel hesitates, looks back at the pair of graves and the carefully carved crosses marking them, then turns and follows his Da. As always. And knows that no matter how desolate and alone he feels in this moment he isn’t really, and never will be. No matter how much he loses, or how often, there is one eternal constant in his life
They’ll be packed and gone before the noon bell, though he knows the news that the plague has claimed its first victims will not be long behind them. Mathilde may be the first casualty, but he is sure she will not be the last.