but i could be so much worse

It had been time. Draco had felt that it was time for him to move on, go through the forests, plains, and desert. It was hard to know what he was looking for, but he knew something was here. Traveling through all these different lands only took a few days, with him not exactly being press paw with his speed. At some point he had hunted another down, taking a good meal from it. It had kept his belly warm for a few days.

In the desert, he had taken to traveling by moonlight. He could take the heat, but didn’t want to. So far he hadn’t seen any bodies of water or greenery in a while. At the time, his belly was still satisfied, but now, as he had spent two days since then, he felt the hunger coming over for him again. But this was not exactly a place of wolves, he suspected. The critters that scurried around were not exactly appetizing, but he would do it soon enough.

As the moon hung heavy in the sky, the land slowly shifted to have tall, looming cacti around him. It took only one to stick into his haunch for him to realize that these were plants not to mess with. So, those plants that were painful really did exist. Walking further, he found a fruit on the group, broken open with some water inside. Draco sniffed at it, letting his tongue quickly dab over it. A pause, and then he continued to lick at the water, quickly leaving the fruit clean.

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Nyra too had avoided the daylight as much as possible, though on occasion she'd still go out and do small patrols of the area to help get a lay of the land.

After her evening patrol, the Wardog was easing back into her chamber when she caught a scent coming closer to the claim.

Intruder.

Nyra rose abruptly, making her way outside at a swift pace to lay hellfire gold eyes upon the man. He didn't smell of pack, and so the titan stood upon the rise above him with bared teeth and hackles up.
"These are claimed lands, stranger." She growled, prowling closer by a few steps, though not engaging just yet. Maybe more of her packmates were on their way out here and could tip the scales between him being friend, or him being food.
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 Coming up for air, Andraste recognized a scent as if from a far off land. No, not a far off land - one much closer than those of her past, but a land over miles of walking, where the sky bled water far more often than in this dry place. She languidly surfaced, wandering towards the scent, and spotted the newly familiar white coat of Nyra ahead of her.

 She quickened her pace only slightly, brushing past the ever so slightly taller and heavier woman with a warm smile. “Ah, my child, this is Draco - we fed together, once upon a time.” Her eyes were upon the dusty coat and scarred face of the man, his scar atop his head a sign of a god who had forgotten him.

 “Long time no see, what brings you to the desert?” Had word of their gathering spread? Or, perhaps, was he sun-sick, walking wherever his legs took him?

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A figure loomed in the dark, but as they got closer he could see they were most likely a white wolf, but the dark gave them a grey color to their fur. Draco was not unfriendly, but when they seemed to come up to him - a woman - the fur along his back started to stiffen, and he kept his head low, ready to have to fight if need be. Instead of attacking, the woman told him in a stern tone for trespassing. He had accidentally done that before and been walked out of the land. Annoying to happen again.

But then a familiar scent wafted towards him, and something in his stomach unclenched. Maybe the gods had sent them back on the same path. Andraste somewhat pushed aside the other white woman, instead introducing him to her companion. The last time they had fed together, both had been alone in the world. Andraste seemed to have found someone, or maybe even a pack, to live amongst. Draco held no one and nothing in his paws.

“I felt it was time to come this way.” His pupils got somewhat smaller, and his voice shifted into an almost mystified voice. “I had to stay there, back in the forests, and the plains. It wasn’t time, but now it was.” He explained as if it really made any sense. Draco cocked his head to the side, drawing his top and bottom canines across each other, peering at the moon as he thought. Then his head snapped back forward to look at his friend.

“It feels finished.”

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Soon enough, the tides cleared. Nyra easily stepped aside a space at Andraste's brush, lowering her head slightly as The Mother explained who this man was, and by extension that he wasn't a threat or someone to eat. "My apologies, Mother." 
The Warmaiden lowered her hackles and her dark gaze became more neutral, a soldier at ease until given orders and/or introduction. Meanwhile, Nyra listened in on the conversation at hand with a slow away of her tail.
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 Andraste smiled at Draco, genuinely pleased to have him around. “No apologies necessary, my child,” she said, looking to Nyra with a nod of approval. “Were he any other stranger, you would have been doing perfectly.” There had been no reason for Nyra to know of Draco, for as far as the witch knew, none of her children knew of him. In fact, it had been many months since she had last seen his face and so to have him here again, she was pleased.

 “It is. I have built a family here, my Children and I,” she, of course, did not mean children by the womb but instead by loyalty and blood. Oh, and those few who she could sense were not yet loyal but just biding their time. They were entertainment enough, pretty enough faces if not so enjoyable to watch. “We are Sanatorium now and I am their Mother.”

 Her eyes focused on the scar atop Draco's forehead. “Has your god returned to you?”

 Or have you come to submit to a new god?

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There was some kind of warmth to Draco as Andraste seemed just as pleased as he was about their meeting. He was patient with Nyra, as Andy explained the situation. If she looked, he’d even give her a weird, scarred grin of approval that even he understood her reaction. With the scars and all, his grins weren’t exactly pretty - in fact, they were downright ugly. But she didn’t seem the type to care, he felt.

Andraste had managed to stake a claim, create a family. They had both been alone, and now Andraste had been the one to rise to something more. Draco was lost behind, cleaning up the sins of this world and going along his path blindly. But now Sanitorium stood, with his friend and with others of like-mindedness. It seemed perfect to him, and he knew this must have been what he had been pulled out to the desert for.

As her eyes went to the scars that had been a claim over him, he almost expected what she asked: if Kyeza had returned. Draco sighed dramatically, throwing his head to the side. “No, my friend, ‘fraid not. She must have truly left me here for something greater than her presence might have been.” Because surely no one would abandon him. But a grin came to his face once again.

“Your children, do they feast as we do?”

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 Andraste listened as he spoke of his goddess's abandonment. She pitied him for it, knew the extent of belief that could force a wolf to believe long after there was any reason to. She recalled her old gods, how they had entrusted her with bearing life and then vanished when he children were so young. A pity.

 “They do,” she affirmed, glancing towards Nyra. “Some are resistant, but in the desert, the wanderer is the sweetest meat.” Her tongue flashed across weathered lips, eager for a taste. Perhaps once they returned to the heart of the Eye, they would take into their caches and have a small feast.

 Her paws brought her closer to the man of greys and blacks. “Shall you join us?”

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The only family he had known was Wrong, a failure of a father and mother. Draco would never admit it, but it was something that should have never been. From the few that he had spoken to in his life, they spoke of a childhood of love and support, of being taught life lessons and having fun. Draco had experienced no such thing and never expected to have it. He didn’t know what he didn’t know.

But as Andraste offered out the invitation, he felt his heart skip a beat. This could be his new family, his new life. No longer would he be hunting alone, surviving just to survive. Maybe there was some kind of meaning when being with others, and maybe he could find it. But if there wasn’t, he would at least be eating True Meals with friends. There was no questioning of what Draco decided.

“Of course.”

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