The autumn winds sifted the dark tendrils of fur over his shoulders, the weight of the antlers he'd grown accustomed to carrying around absent in the presence of something familiar. Something he did not need to prove to. Evren was at his back, his side, wherever the young boy had decided his place. Tamir had not spoken, not yet, simply goading the pup from the pretense of sleep without word and only the vague insistence that he should follow.

Tamir couldn't remember much of his childhood, if any. He knew his father was not a good man, nor a compassionate one. He did not look upon his children with the essence of love as his mother did, or instill words that Tamir would later find himself living up to. No, he received none of that. And in this, in the presence of his eldest son, Tamir did not know what to say. How to be. In all of his worries, regrets, and sins, how had he managed to be so blessed? To be given a star; oh, such a marvelous star.

They descended down the rocky valleys of the mountainside, taking in the soft lull of their home. And it was as the sky rippled with the sharp edges of pines that Tamir finally regarded his son, expression stern but eyes soft as he beheld his blessing.

Gaomagon ao jaelagon naejot gūrēñagon? (Do you wish to learn?) It was perhaps not the first thing his own father had said to him, but what his mother had. While she had been prepared to teach him of the stars and flowers, Tamir felt it time to begin preparing all of his children for adolescence. For their first Rite.

Starting with his eldest.