Lupus et Mortem

That no life lasts forever / That dead men rise up never / That even the weariest river / Winds somewhere safe to sea. ~The Garden of Proserpine, Algernon Charles Swinburne

I was a pup the first time I met Death. I recall the dead weight of my mother, warm and familiar, laying upon me still as ice. I did not know Death then, nor is he truly a concept I understand even now, but my ancestors ignited within me the burning fear of all that could cause my own. My mother stopped running that day, and I do believe she sacrificed …