Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 14

Life of a Librarian: Ch 4

Well, I guess I wasn’t going to go take a quiz immediately.  Mindy proved to be just another trial, another test.  The guards led me to a small dorm room. Grey jail cell was more like it.  There was a top level bunk bed with a desk and chair underneath it.  Behind a curtain sat a toilet and sink combination. There wasn’t even a window.  Not that there would be anything for it to look out on.  After all, I had to remind myself, I was something around ten or twenty stories underground, probably.  I was unconscious for a part of that rather annoying neuro-toxin induced intermission that might have me in the Tower of London for all I knew.  

Hunting about the sparse place, my stomach dropped.  There wasn’t even a light switch for me to use.

I spent three shifts of lights going on and off without my consent.

 It was in that cramped, isolative cell that it dawned on me, late one dark shift that they had gotten it wrong.  I foreread my words.  In the jury gallery, I had foreread about a paragraph worth of material before reading out loud.  In the educator’s room, I had read the paragraph with the snakes silently, not out loud.  They had gotten it wrong; it wasn’t the reading out loud that triggered it.

This terrified me worse, knowing that anything I read could come alive whether I read it out loud or silently.  I would never be able to read again at that cost.  What about the books I wrote?  Would I not be able to write and read what I wrote?  At the very least, they thought that I couldn’t bring forth something through a language that I did not know the meaning of.  

Three days of these questions in a silent room.  Three days of my brain unravelling in a knotted heap on the floor.

A man showed up at my door by the third day.  Frazzled and emotionally drained,  I seethed.  These people had kept me here, and they were in for it when I was able to get ahold of something to read.  “Ms. Grace-Alice?  I’m here to take you for your first day of quizzes,” the burly man told me.  

“Who?”  I sat down on my bunk

“Ma’am, there’s no doing that.  If you’re not to your station, you’ll be sent to see the Chair and Simil directly.  I don’t think you want to do that, Ma’am.” He walked into the tiny room.  He took up most of the space.  There was going to be nowhere for me to dodge off to when he got to me.  He hoisted me up by my arm.  

“You’ve got the wrong cell. Who is Grace-Alice?” I bit out, trying to tug myself free.  

“Ma’am.” The man’s face fell in exasperation.

“Thaddeus Jaegar or Sir. Get it right, or leave me alone.” I twisted out of his grasp. 

“That wasn’t the name I was given.” The guard protested.

“It is my legal name. I would have you use it. The Chair can jump off a cliff if they refuse to get it right.” I sat back down on the edge of my cot.

“The Chair has no problem sicking their dog on anyone who doesn’t do what they say.” He pulled me out the door and down the hall.

“Dog?  The cotton candy clown of death?” I stumbled on the waxed floors.`

“You don’t want to come up against that man.  He’s the guard of the guild if you may,” he shared.  

“Where did they come up with that nut job anyway?” I snapped, still trying to pull free.  

“Hah, you’d never guess.  I heard that when he came in to become Simil he was made to consume the Mad Hatter.  The last one we had – about four months ago, consumed Mr. Hyde.  This new Simil beat him at the quizzes, and Hyde Simil was retired,” he told me.

“Hyde Simil?  So this new guy is called Simil not because it’s his name but because he’s what, titled with it?” I slouched into the man’s firm grasp if only to save on the bruising.

“When they’re made into Simil, they lose their name.  When they are retired by the chair, it is revealed what they consumed to become Simil – though most of us can make a pretty good guess.  We’ve had Hyde Simil, Moriarty Simil, Shere Khan Simil, oh, I could go on.  There’s been a Simil since the first great Library of Alexandria,” he told me.  

My heart sank.  The Guild had been around for millenia.  I stopped resisting.  If they had been doing it for this long, there was going to be no escaping this problem.

The guard loosened his grip on my arm when I started walking calmly by his side.  “You alright, ma’am?” he asked.

I looked up at him, trying not to cry.  “No, I’m not alright. You can’t even get me right.  I’m a graduate student just trying to become a librarian.  Then supernatural mumbo jumbo happens to me.  Now I’m stuck at the center of the earth with madmen who can bring things out of books, and I can too.  I don’t know how my cat is doing.  I don’t have any family I can hope to come rescue me.  Now I have this odd ball ability.  I don’t know if this means I’ll never be able…able to read again,” I was beginning to sob at this point.  “I used to write books, you know.  What happens if I read one of my own books?  What about advertisement boards or contract fine prints?  I can’t go to a library for fear of…well…you don’t really care about this do you?” Tears were streaming down my face.  My legs sunk underneath me.

“Oh, please don’t be like that, ma’am.  It’s a great ability to Read out a book.  If you know how to do it properly, you can make stories come alive for little kids, or help sway the opinions of people.  You can get a better understanding of what an author truly meant by their works,” he tried to reassure me.  He crouched down next to me and wiped a tear from my eye.

“Ability?  With the threat of death if I don’t do what these chair people tell me to do?” I bit back, burying my face in my hands.

“It’s so that we don’t end up with people doing things that will endanger others.  We don’t need a whole bunch of villains running around, or gods for that matter if you read out a metaphysical text,” he told me.

“Villains?  Right,” I said skeptically.

“You remember War of the Worlds?” He gently pulled me to my feet.

“Read it in eighth grade,” I replied as I started walking.  I wiped at my eyes, trying to quit crying.

“Yeah, we had an idiot read that out in Roswell in the 1940s.  Legends abounded forever after that of alien spacecraft.  They were lucky one of the commanders at the base was able to unread sci-fi so well,” he told me.  “You’re just lucky you aren’t one of those super smart three year olds that can Read at this age.  That is a true nightmare when we get those youngsters in because they don’t understand logic and reason.  Well, they do, but it’s their personal logic.  If they want the Velveteen Rabbit or Winnie the Pooh to come alive, we end up with a honey pot tree in the lobby for a month,” he told me, laughing.

“I take it that has happened before?” I asked.

“My daughter did that last year.  God, the guild was filled with so many freaking horses and living plush toys.  We had a life-size Barbie walking around…I cannot tell you how many guards ended up in disciplinary hearings for that one.  I kept finding Olivia and Corduroy cooking bullion in the lounge microwave.” He facepalmed.  I snickered.

“It’s good to hear you laugh, ma’am,” he smiled at me.  My amusement fell.  

“Is there any way for you to see me as a guy? At all? I haven’t been able to afford the surgeries. I don’t have anyone to help me for the recovery weeks if I could. But it’s who I am. My name is Thaddeus. Please. Can you stop calling me ma’am?” I was still upset at my situation, but the fact was that these were still people working here, and each of them had a family that was dear to them, and troubles that they had to deal with.

He paused, dragging us both to a halt to look me up and down. Dropping a hand, he backed up a step and stuck a hand out. I tentatively grabbed it and shook it. “Thaddeus. My name is Claude. I wish we had met under better circumstances. I do hope things get better for you down here.”

“Thank you, Claude. Why do they insist on jailing me?” I asked him.  We turned down a corner in the hall, and he opened up a set of double doors.  I found myself in some massive acoustics room the size of a large ballet theatre.  There were a pair of floating decks that hung a story above the floor.  He pointed me to a flight of stairs, and I started to climb.  

“Children are simple, naive creatures whose only frequent evil is the drive to be self-fulling in their naive way.  Teenagers and adults, though, are manipulative and can be terrifying.  To have someone who Phased in their Scholarship at such an advanced age, not saying that you’re old or anything, no offense, but we have to be careful of who we allow to roam around in the guild and who is safe to let out into the mortal world,” he said.  I stopped midstride on the step and turned to the guard.  “Mortal world?” I asked, suddenly very worried.

“Readers are still mortal, don’t worry about that.  We mean it only in the way that there are those that can do things that most of the population cannot.  Sorry, you’ll still die.  I would joke about vampires here, but two years ago, someone read out that sparkly vampire and the emo girl, and we suffered their plight for about ten minutes before getting Van Helsing out to whoop them into useful shape.  They’re rather productive janitors now.” He smiled at me and motioned for me to continue up the steps.

“I could see where this would be greatly useful if a director was a reader and he just had to Read the screenplay to film the movie,” I mused to myself.

“There are a few famous ones out there.” The guard winked at me.

We reached the top of the landing.  There I found a large computer bank with three people behind desks and an empty spot in front of a podium that looked out over the cavernous room.  Simil was sitting, sharpening his sword, in a day-glow green lawn chair behind the people at the terminals.  His eyes wavered from the screen and swivelled toward me.  I heard, just for a beat, the hesitation of his honing stone from the blade as his eyes settled on me.

“Simil!” The guard squeaked before regaining his composure.

“Claude!” Simil squeaked back at the same frequency that the guard squeaked.

“Sir, if you don’t mind my impertinence, what are you doing here?” the guard asked.

“To watch, Claude.  To see.  I want to know about blueberry boy.” He pointed his two-toned gaze at me.

“Are you here to direct herrrrr-him at the podium?” Claude asked the cotton candy clown of death.

“Chairman nodded, chairman yes.  I’m here to teach him how to use the podium.” He nodded, pulled himself out of his chair, and walked over to me.  He had changed from what he had worn at the jury gallery, now that I was truly looking at him.  He had taken his wig off.  He had long blonde hair that hung down to the middle of his waist.  It was pulled back with a giant blue bow.  He had a set of maybe eight piercing creeping up each ear.  His strange pink eye and black eye bore holes through me.  It was odd looking at him.  He was crazy, yet his eyes were the sanest of anyone I had met there yet.  He saw what the world was really like.  It was topsy tervy and on its head.  And I got that just as we looked at each other through that moment in time.  It was an odd moment of realization that this was my world now and that it was just as insane as the other world that I had come from.  This dog, this blade at my throat, was there to keep their world safe.  I might be a good, tax-paying, rule-abiding citizen on the top world, but down here, they didn’t know that.  I could be the most manipulative beast they had ever seen, and at that exact moment in time – if it meant me getting out, damn them, I’d do it.  Games were a speciality of mine, the adept art of manipulation and subterfuge.  If I wanted something, I could bluff and con my way till I got it.  Let them burn; they had screwed with the wrong person.

Simil reached for me, pulling me close till his lips touched my ear.  “You’ve changed,” he whispered in my ear.  I glanced at his pink eye and willed myself to promise death in that look.  “You’ve no idea,” I answered back.  He let go and spun me toward the podium.  I looked down at the floor one story below me.  It had lines painted across the rock surface.  At the other end of the stadium stood another podium and a bank of computer terminals.  It dawned on me that there was another guy at that end.  He was dressed like a guard.  He, too, had people sitting at the terminal behind him.

“You, silver-tongued boy,” Simil addressed me.  I turned to him; he had gone back to sit at his chair.  He pointed his sword at the people at the terminals.  “Give them a book you need,” he said.  I puzzled, looking from him to the bank.  “Be quick if you want to live,” he chirped as he began honing the blade again.

“Valley of the Horses – Jean M. Auel,” I said quickly.  It was one of my top books that I read at least once a month.  One of the girls at the terminal quickly typed on her keyboard and pointed at the podium.  I looked down to find the green letters on the black computer screen.  I flipped through page after page, willing myself to not read more than one word in a sentence until my eyes settled on Baby and his mate’s exploits in the cliff.  I willed myself to not see the sentences in whole.  I had to cover what I could do, even if I didn’t fully understand how it worked.

“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea!” the man across the way shouted.  Then he began reading off a line I wasn’t familiar with.  The creaking crash of the floor turning into water startled me.  Nemo’s submarine broke through what had turned to an ice-covered pool. 

 “Read off your book or unRead him!” Simil yelled at me.  

I glared back at him.  How was I supposed to know that was what they were expecting of me.  “War of the Worlds and Treasure Island,” I yelled as I began reciting the lines that brought forth a pair of ravenous sabertooth cats and a Cromagnon woman on a steppe horse.  In minutes the creatures were rushing across the icebergs, charging the crew of Nemo’s submarine who were emerging from the hatch.  The cats sank their teeth into the throats of crew, and the woman, packing a deadly slingshot, was bringing them down faster than I expected a slingshot to do.

“The Tempest and Screenplay to Twister!” the man shouted for his terminal people to pull up for him.  I was already rushing through the pages for the aliens and the canon ball firing ship.  I spoke out the laser-bearing aliens, and Nemo’s ship disintigrated just as a horrid hurricane came barreling to wipe the floor clean.  My ship led by Long John Silver disappeared in the vortex.

“Dune, Dragondrums, and Hidalgo,” I yelled back, pulling out the desert planet and the thread-burning dragons as a herd of Arab horsemen came pouring across the surface toward the man’s twister.  The twister sucked up sand, and the dragons set it on fire, engulfing that side of the room.  The horsemen drew out 19th century rifles and started firing in the chaos at the man’s platform.

“Concession!” I heard the shout.

“UnRead your characters, silver-tongue!” yelled Simil.  I had just about had it with the shouting.

“Desert of the wind and the storm, erase this memory, scour the grain, escape the brain, begone vile heathen of the others,” and like that, the floor was back to normal.  There was no sign of the burning twister.  The only difference was the man standing buckled over his podium, one of his terminal personnel hunched over him, looking at a wound.  A green flag was raised, and the man was led from the podium

“You got him.” Claude came over and tapped a direction into the terminal.  Up pulled my name and a set of numbers next to it.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I tried to decipher the numbers.

“You physically injured him with your Reading.  That means that you won the match,” he answered, nonchalantly.  “Ah, see, here,” he pointed as a set of digits rolled over.  “You’re a rank 1 novice with a silver-tongue ranking and your first marked passing quiz,” he told me.  The numbers, to me, didn’t mean anything like what he had just said.

He pressed a button, and a buzzar went off.  Another man came up at the far podium.  “You’d better get ready to reset.  You won, so you read first,” he told me as he stepped back to the terminals to watch.

“Name of the Rose, Sherlock Holmes, The Mask of the Red Death,” I asked the terminal girls for.  One of them looked at me skeptically.  I wanted to see if this was just brute force, or a game of wits.

From these three, I brought out the maze-like house of Poe’s novellet, the gruesome deaths and graveyards of the Name of the Rose and Sherlock Holmes, and waited as the blood began to pool out across the floor.  For good measure, I added in the memorized line I knew of The Raven and had the blackbird settle macabre on the miniature building to cry Nevermore across the scene.  The smell of rot and decay left the man running to hurl, conceding.

“Gross,” Claude told me as he, too, ended up losing his lunch in the waste basket next to the terminals.  The girls didn’t look too pleased either with the wretched stench.

“Gruesome, little silver tongue.  Who thought you’d bring out red?” Simil looked at me with a slight shine of horror in his odd eyes.

A green flag was raised without the man even trying to counter.  “UnRead it, Thaddeus,” Claude tried not to hurl again, and failed.

“The black feathers, forked tongue, mazes of Icarus, Aristotles’ laughter, slither and pour, clean the shores, begon to the grave with you.” I dropped, my head pounding.  Claude checked the numbers on the podium.  “Dear God, I’ve never seen someone do that,” Claude told me.  He knelt next to me and laid his hand across my forehead.  “Platinum level.  You jumped two levels just by that little trick,” he told me, helping hoist me to my feet.

“Simil?” I asked, turning to him.  The sword no longer frightened me, now that I knew, without even having The Raven in front of me, that I was able to bring it out, that as long as I knew the quotes, I could bring forth whatever I needed.

“Here to watch, here to hear.  Here to be the barrier, dear.  One must watch, and one must learn, or else the whole world on its knees will burn,” he chirped.

“That’s reassuring,” I replied, and then I did something that surprised even me.  I walked over to Simil.  I could see out of the corner of my eye Claude just begin to run after me.  In the same fluid motion, I eased the honing stone from Simil’s right hand and the sword from his left hand and sat down on his lap to begin honing the blade.  He blinked at me, his hands settling around me, startled.  I rested my head against his padded shoulder and felt the beat of his heart under the cloth.  I honed the blade for maybe half a minute before I found myself talking, like when the cute woman helped me in the education room.  “Cotton candy clown, what spell have you cast?” I kissed him on the cheek.  “Blades are sharp, blades are death, blades are not always the best.  Sometimes the word, sweet as wine, can undo everything that binds,” I whispered in his ear as I handed the blade and honing stone back to him.  I stood up and straightened my clothes.  “You might tell your master, little dog, that he better send someone more terrifying,” I smiled maniacally.  I had cracked.  I had jumped off of the deep end head first.  I had decided I’d had enough of this bullshit.

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Fyskar: Ch 24

Clothes lay scattered about Mirza’s room. Eoin, exhausted as he was, woke to a low sun. He lay spread out on the prince’s bench, rugs having been moved to leave him bare to the cold tile. Mirza’s mantle blanketed across him protectively. Fearchar lay asleep on his wife’s lap on the floor. His hair had come loose from its ties, braids cascading across her lap in a fiery river. She rested her head on her arm on the bench, breathing softly.

Eoin tried to pull his brain back into his skull. His stomach churned. He took in the room to find the prince scratching on manuscripts at his desk. Eoin extracted himself from the bench. His hips twinged in protest. Sitting up, his head spun, and his stomach tried to lurch into his throat. He calmed for a moment, waiting.

“Are you not well, Eoin?” the prince asked quietly, shifting to leave his seat at the unease in the white-haired man’s eyes.

Thank you for the cold of the tile. It helps if I go too far. I’m a bit out of practice. Sore at best, Mirza, he reassured. Must you be so large?

Mirza settled back into his chair and took back up his quill. “So, that is what a White Horse can do? The way you explained it before, it didn’t sound as intense. To be able to feel so distinctly another person’s entity that is not you. It was fascinating. I can see, though, why it would not end well with my wives,” the man mused, a satisfied grin spreading across his lips.

You have several. I do not wish to contemplate what balancing you and one or more of them would be like if that was ever an option. I’ve never had it spiral so far out of control before, Eoin admitted, finding his unsteady feet, his head throbbing. Never managed that many emotional inputs either. Memories of their time refused to unfurl, though fragments weaselled their way back in some semblance of order. All that came to mind clearly was too many emotions snapping across his conscious, too much heat, too much lust. The concept of coming together like that again was enough to make his hands sweat. He was not sure if it was terror or anticipation that caused the reaction.

He glanced about, trying to place where his plaid had made itself off to. His hired hand lay on most of the clothes and Seonaid’s skirts. Eoin laid the prince’s mantle over the sleeping couple.

“Why did you come back to me? You could have had the bracers, the bangles removed, you know? The gold alone, not to mention the gems, would have seen you to the end of your days.” The prince looked back down at his ink, not entirely wanting to meet Eoin’s searching gaze.

Eoin walked over to the prince, his legs shaky as a new lamb. The prince glanced up, fixated for a second before turning away. Eoin sat down on the cold floor near the desk and leaned his back against the tile wall. Mirza’s pen scratched across the parchment rhythmically. The physician stared up at the prince curiously. When Mirza did not look to him, he tapped on the tile to direct the man’s gaze. Mirza swung his focus down to Eoin. 

Why did you insist on gold rather than iron manacles? Eoin held his arm up, watching the setting sun glint through the stone embedded in the metal.

“That necklace of yours – “

My torc? Eoin blinked at the man, confused. He fingered the terminal at the base of his throat.

“I thought it had come from a prior master. That first day you came to my rooms and gave me everything to keep your family safe and to keep me from taking it? It was too lovely to break, but I wanted to-I don’t know. I wanted to show that I valued you more, that I had more power than whoever put it on you and let you go. I was jealous someone had you first.” He rubbed at the back of his head, trying to find the words. Eoin fingered the torc again as Mirza stumbled over words. “It’s a position in your people, though. I didn’t know it held that kind of weight. 

“You haven’t told me much of yourself, have you? For the years we’ve been together, you’ve always kept up a wall, kept your distance, kept your emotions from getting involved. The difference between slave and master. A person who lost everything and a person who had everything to lose. The difference you allowed to exist when you could have done more with or without me.” He chuckled softly, “I only just learned your birth name.” The prince left his chair and sank down next to Eoin.

Turn of face, Shahazadeh Marduk Mirza. My torc is like your crown. The crown I brought back is usually regarded as ceremonial, for rituals and events, not everyday wear like yours. My father made my torc for me, as I will make them for my sons.

 Your crown you take off your own head every evening to become ordinary for a night. Mine, I am bound to it, a being for the Fyskar. You’ll take my head to get it. I can’t take it off and step away from being anything other than who I was born and raised to be. I belong to my people and will remain so into death. I live as yours. I die as mine, Eoin mused.

Mirza, with the back of a crooked finger, gently traced the edge of Eoin’s palm to encourage the man to take his hand.  Digits wove with his. 

Mirza leaned into the void, relief sagging his shoulders. “You have taught me many lessons from the time you were brought here to the time you returned. As you say, you belong to your people, to yourself. My father and brothers may think me mad. Your bodyguard’s wife has made me think more than I like about these topics. To buy and sell in human life. Your family that you did everything for? They are free. In time, and with effort, we may yet change the ways of the palace in the acquisition of servants. 

“I missed you. I missed your presence at my side, the shared conversations and walks in the courtyards. Lying awake night after night, replaying the little things you would do, you don’t even know you do it, the thoughts would cut at me over and over, leaving me raw and cold. It’s been the first time in my life to realize what it is to have something precious ripped from me, and it made me question. 

“Your return. The woman…

“I’ve ended up with answers I’ve never had to come to. I am sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I can’t apologize in any way that would explain in a meaningful way. But, I’m sorry for what I’ve done. For what we have done not just to you but to the others in the palace. There are families hurting, families hurt, and I’m contributing to it.” Mirza took in a trembling sigh, his nerves and scrambled thoughts jittery across the connection.

“Your father did beautiful work. Vasili even complements its intricacy. Do you still intend to continue your service after what we did?” Mirza touched the torc once more. His lips trembled as he brushed his thumb up Eoin’s neck to cup the back of his head.

Eoin relaxed as the man’s warmth eased through his skin. “I needed to have somewhere safe. Being your servant keeps my talents private, which suits me well at my age. Your position is my aviary to protect from the fox and the wind. I know where my meals come from and who cares for me and mine. Every time you release me, I can leave and never return. A pair of jesses is a sacrifice I’m willing to tolerate to have a perch where I can sunbathe in peace. I’m tired of running and fear. Your predilections fall in line with mine, which works for me.

“You are the safest place I have found to raise my children away from witch hunters, persecution, fire. Their talents were beginning when I left. Soon, they will need me to train them in handling their connections. These high walls and your name to protect them in this intolerant world is more than I have been capable of obtaining with my own hands, no matter how hard I have tried, and I have tried. No one will harm my children or me without knowing they in turn harm you.” Images flashed through the void. The use of the manacles had worked well to curtail ill-treatment in the halls of the palace. It lent weight to his actions.

“I can give up my freedoms to keep my children, Amina, Tau, Fearchar, Seonaid alive. The last I have to lose are the souls of my family. I have nothing left after that. Those who have lost everything. Those with nothing left to lose. Those who can afford to lose it all. They are the ones whose decisions tip the scales. 

“Leaving on the journey?” Eoin tucked hair behind his ear in the void. “I was well aware I could have died many times over getting there and back. I realise I could have left them in your care, and they would have grown into fine young men, and you would have been able to marry them to any one of your many sisters. 

“I can’t leave them, and they are the last of me. In this day and age, I am bound to a society I am not allowed to function in. It isn’t built to work with people like me. Even in the isle, I required helpers to function, to translate for me. To have my voice stripped from me is to take away my one last access to true independence. 

“I could not say what you and I share is the relationship between Seonaid and Fearchar or Amina and Tau. If you have truly given my sons, Amina and Tau, my bodyguard and his wife, our freedom, then I am your friend, Marduk. If not, then I am nothing more than your physician.” 

Eoin rolled his head to look at Fearchar and Seonaid in the real world.

“You appear to have found an admirable pair in these two.” Mirza studied Eoin’s interest.

“I’m not sure I would call them servants. Fearchar prefers to consider himself a bodyguard, and I don’t think Seonaid would appreciate being called anything other than his wife now. They asked to be incorporated into the Fyskar clan when we left the Isle. I am not my husband. I am not a clan chief, but they pressed.” A soft touch of a smile flitted across Eoin’s lips. Mirza bent to taste the corner of that crease.

“Are you positive you will not marry my sister? Father will be insistent once he finds out you are a king in your own right. You and Golnar share the same issue with language. Maybe that type of companionship would be good?” The prince released his hold on Eoin. He pulled up a bit of the chain on Eoin’s bracer, letting the links cross his fingertips.

Eoin leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes to think. The slide of the chain along his palm as the prince counted links tickled. If he married the prince’s sister, it would solve the prince’s problem. He was also aware that he would have to relive his memories once more, have to become raw and at the mercy of one more person who didn’t know his family’s ways.

No, I will not marry Golnar. Bercilack and Osla were my one and only. I may take lovers, but I don’t think I’ll ever marry again, he informed the prince emphatically. If you insist she needs a physician, and your people’s social circumstances dictate that I am unfit to approach an unmarried woman, find me an acceptable apprentice to train for her.

“You are royal. Will you not reclaim your homeland?” the prince asked, changing the topic with Eoin’s sharp finality.

Eoin snorted. With what army? He jabbed. He had no line to the throne of Scotland or England by any means. His clan, in years past, had refused to recognize the legitimacy of those who ruled the land. They had been of the old people, the last of the Picts. They had been a different entity, separating themselves from the Celts and Gauls, Romans and the Britons for so many years. He was royal and not. He would keep the title, though, if it guaranteed his safety.

Mirza conceded the point. Were they not understanding of you? The black-haired man pressed gently, his signs slower.

Even in the end, they gloated over the house, the lives they took. Served me my poisoned wine in my husband’s cups he had made for my wife. They would not have understood. They killed my clan, my own children, my husband and my wife. They burned my daughter and my wife at the stake, intent that they would never Walk the Forest that way. They tried to take them from me.  I thought I would never see them again in this life or the next. I consecrated the soil my clan, my husband, my sons are buried under in hopes of helping their spirits journey back across the River to the Woods where I may reunite with them if the world turns in my favour.

They forced me to run for my life and my sons’ lives. I ended up in Ethiopia with no understanding of the language, no understanding of the way of life. I am lucky my sons and I did not die of disease or creatures. I was lucky Amina took me in, and Egret Nest accepted me. I was caught and turned into a slave with the rest of my village. I used my…he baulked, glowering at his hands, recalling the sensation of pushing terror into another person with such ferocity to burst the victim’s heart. He shook his head and drew in a steadying breath, tears working themselves at the back of his eyes. I killed in a way no Fyskar should ever do. I was sold. I might have become your physician, but I was first your plaything. I’ve had to watch my children grow up, unable to talk to them in my native tongue. You think there is a home for me anywhere else? He looked up at the prince bitterly.

Mirza pulled the chain to the lock at the bracer. Eoin let him have it. His prince fiddled with the lock, brushing it almost thoughtlessly. “Where’s your key? You didn’t lose it, did you?” He slipped his fingers into Eoin’s hand.

“And have Vasili angry at me? I’d muck stables in sackcloth for a year before going to him saying I’d lost his key,” Eoin protested. The prince snorted. “I have it in my bag.” He showed the prince where he had tied it in the duffel. His mind slipped to the chest and its contents.

“You found what you were looking for?” Mirza asked quietly, allowing Eoin’s memories to flow through him. Sawdust and swirling carvings, wooden toys and glass vials swamped his mind momentarily.

“I must take time soon to Walk the last remains of my family to The Forest. I had thought their soitheach beatha destroyed when the Daleroch desecrated and burned my house. Fearchar found them for me.” Eoin pulled his hand from the prince.

“Let me know when and where, and I will have a space set aside for you in the family grave,” Mirza offered.

Dawn, tomorrow would be the best time. I have what I need in my box to Walk them. Eoin pushed himself from the tile and walked over to Fearchar and Seonaid. With a gentle touch, he roused Fearchar. Can I get my kilt? Eoin signed, pointing to the fabric.

“I’ll send command with one of my guards.” Mirza rose to his desk and scribbled a hasty note.

Fearchar, bleary-eyed, looked up at Eoin. What? His brain took a minute to catch up with his sight. He nodded, then looked down. He blinked. “Feck’s this? Eoin, ye bastart, why’s me claus aff? The ‘ell. Seonaid’s too,” he muttered.

Sex. Why else would all three of us be butt naked and not bathing in a river? You were lying on them, else I’d at least be dressed. Eoin tugged at his kilt.

“Where was Ah fur aw this?” Fearchar snipped.

Where you normally end up, when the three of us come together. Just had an addition to the fun this time. Am I to get my clothes before or after Seo wakes up and wants to have this discussion with a man who hasn’t even introduced himself properly to her yet?

” ‘fore, ‘n yer colossus better make nice with at least providin’ a name sometime ‘fore she leaves this room. Only polite.” Fearchar extracted his and Eoin’s clothes from the heap. He laid the prince’s mantle around his wife’s shoulders.

“What does he say?” Mirza lifted his quill from his parchment. Fearchar’s eyes snapped to his.

He’s not quite awake, Mirza, and you’re introducing yourself to Seonaid properly when she wakes up, regardless of your particular notions of propriety. Her husband’s sense of honour is burning. Eoin laid out his belt and the length of cloth on top of it.

“It is not on fire! ‘A’right. Maybe a little.” Fearchar pulled his locks out of his face.

“We do that, and he’s asking out of honour? I’m not sure what we did is considered in any way honourable.” Mirza glanced at the still sleeping woman momentarily before turning to take the brunt of the glare Fearchar cast him. “He is angry at me?” The prince tested gingerly.

Surprised is more like. I usually don’t pull them into that part of me in such an immediate way. There’s usually some bit of warming up to the occasion. Seems he does not entirely recall everything that transpired.

Fearchar stopped straightening his necklaces to wag an accusing finger at Eoin. “Surprised, my freckled ass! Yer giant goes ‘n ‘as ye up ‘gainst him like a love-drunk ewe ‘n ye pull us in ta find ye completely gone ta the feelin’s. That was fast, ‘n hard. I prefer my warm-ups!”

“I must admit, it is all a little fuzzy around the edges.” Mirza rubbed at the back of his neck after Eoin’s translation.

My memory is coming back to me much more clearly than the rest of you then. Attacked from both sides by you three, and you took your glorious time, Marduk. Twice! You pushed me to it twice before saiting yourself. I’m going to be hung dry for a week.

“I am not apologizing. I missed that face you make when you’re thoroughly enjoying yourself. Is that so wrong to wish to witness it more than once after finally reuniting after a year?”

I did miss your attention to detail. Eoin returned to pleating.

“So, this is that garment you wanted so badly.” Mirza got up and walked over to look at the massive bolt of fabric. Eoin sat back on his heels, waiting for the man to finish his inspection. He knelt to finger the cloth. Eoin moved his fingers away from it and straightened the wrinkle out. “It is wool?” the man asked, curious.

We do have sheep where I’m from and take pride in our weaving. Eoin rolled his eyes.

“Oye, Eoin,” Fearchar hissed, not taking his eyes off the prince. “Wha’s goin’ on?” He pulled his ball of clothing in front of his nakedness and came to kneel next to Eoin.

I had wanted this made for the boys but was having diff – oh for the love. Eoin reached over and touched the man on the arm. “Easier to listen to me when you watch my hands rather than glare at Mirza,” he quipped. “Back when I realised the boys were coming of age, I had asked the prince if I could have a set of these made for the boys.

“Clearly, he’s never been anywhere near a loom. The idea wasn’t quite getting through. I thought for sure I’d never have it back, let alone have them for Callum and Albin. Now I can take it to Azar and have her put them together.” He broke the connection to pull together pleats. His chain kept interrupting him, though, knocking the crisp lines askew. He muttered curses in his mind.

“Must it be so large?” the prince asked, still perplexed with the length. It practically took up the entire floor space of his sitting area.

Must you? Eoin snipped.

The prince bit down on his bottom lip and rubbed his face with his hand. “You like it, and you know it.” The prince flashed a sly smile.

And that is why it must be so large. Eoin returned the comment. The prince furrowed his brow for a moment. Eoin hid his smile as he continued box pleating on the line. It’s only four and a half yards. Everyday wear. My ceremonial ones are eight yards, he informed the prince.

“It gets bigger!” The prince protested. “I’m surprised at the sheer mass of fabric that has to be pleated every time it’s worn.”

Seems to work that way. If you can avoid undressing me every time I wear it, I won’t take up your sitting room, Eoin snorted. He laid himself into the pleats and pulled the fabric around his waist, cinching it down with the belt.

“But it’s more fun that way,” Mirza goaded.

Then make sure I have time to get dressed if you insist, or else you’ll have an awkward conversation with whoever comes in here next. Eoin tapped Mirza’s chest to back up.

“Eoin, everything a’right?” Fearchar nudged him.

“Perfectly,” Eoin replied as he stood up, running a quick finger up Fearchar’s shoulder. “Want to wake Seonaid?” The physician asked. He was eager to return to his chamber and unpack. He wanted to begin preparing for his family’s Walk and his boys’ coming-of-age ceremony. When will my sons be back from Isfahan?

They have been sent for. They will be arriving within the week. Mirza replied while Fearchar woke Seonaid.

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Subgalaxi: Ch 10

“You sure you want to do this?” Ishan sat next to Fane on the firing range.  Fane had made sure the prince had been outfitted with a pair of mufflers. The bodyguard flicked a glance at Bern.  The highlander pulled in a breath and shrugged a little. “It’s up ta him,” Bern nodded at the redhead. Ishan stared at the man hard, pursing his lips.  Fane returned the shrug. He pulled on his mufflers.

“Dive in if you want. I’m shooting,” Fane muttered. He had taken an early morning run around the compound to wear out the pent-up energy that refused to let him sleep. He found a spare corner outside of the shorter side of the warehouse where he was able to stretch out after the three-miler. It was level enough to handle a few good tucks and backhand springs.  His splits were difficult in the trousers he had gotten out of the commissary, but he pressed through. The sunrise over the palms during pt was refreshing from the last couple of days.

  He had gone and met with some of the early bird machinists on the floor and found someone who’d be willing to split with some equipment for half an hour of rope climbing and rappelling practice in trade for helping them with some riggings.   That had been invigorating, even if it was a little out of his regular routine. He had returned to his room to find Ishan contentedly wrapped up in all the blankets asleep. He had quietly gathered up his soap and shampoo and made off for the bathroom, where he had subsequently run into Corbin and had to restrain himself from throttling the man.  Corbin had proposed an idea that Fane wasn’t sure was good but was willing to give a shot.

This situation was uncomfortable.  Having an audience in his brain after yesterday sounded repulsive.  He sat at the table, dressed in little more than his combat boots and cargoes.  Shivering as a humid breeze raised the hairs on his arms, Fane rubbed at his face. He was strung up with electrodes connected to a series of machines Sophia was pecking at.  With his scars on display, he felt raw and open.

Bern had decided it was better not to say anything about the marks on the Red Hare’s skin. The void made more sense as he looked at the map of scars. “Let’s start.” Bern was going to sustain the connection while Fane disregarded his subconscious.  Ishan placed a delicate, stilling hand on Fane’s left shoulder, the connection as subtle as he could fathom.  Bern placed his hand over Ishan’s, the heat of his pressing Ishan’s into Fane’s skin deeply. Bands of muscles contracted and rolled under his palm.

“We’re going.” Bern waved to Corbin, who was manning the target sheets.  Sophia put her thumbs up. Fane drew in a steadying breath and sited the target.  He breathed out slowly. He waited for that space between heartbeats to pull the trigger. The bullet flew down the course and hit the dead centre of the target.  A series of taps set off the other major markers on the paper. He flipped the safety and set the gun down before signalling Corbin to replace the sheet. He wasn’t sure how long Ishan and Bern would be in for, but he got comfortable, his racing heart slowing as he fell into his own pace.

Bern dropped Ishan onto the beach.  “Ye’ll have ta hold tight, Prince. This time he’s distracted.”  A deep mist was forming along the edge of the beach. “It’s even harder when I have ta go in without bringing them here,” the man muttered unhappily.  They approached the mist.  

Ishan drew in a steadying breath.  “He’s trusting you.” Ishan held out his hand to the man.  

“‘n he honours me by doin’ so.” Bern lifted his hand to the mist, willing a path that would lead them into Fane’s void.

The chamber was as nightmarish as Ishan remembered.  It took him a minute to put his heart back in his chest and settle his stomach out of his throat.  Collapsed against the wires, Fane’s eyes were closed in a restless sleep. The bleeding had slowed, and the pool was quiet.  Ishan flicked a questioning glance at Bern.

“I can feel him. He’s waitin’ f’r Corbin to change the target paper.” Bern sauntered forward to study the wires ensaring Fane.

“They sliced into his brain and put an amplifier in it to call that monster.  This is where it left him.” Ishan thought he understood what he was looking at now. He followed behind Bern, running light fingers along the metal strands.

“Some a’ these wires cannae be removed probably, or shouldnae be removed.” Bern nodded his head to a set of bolts protruding from Fane’s thighs and large rings under his collarbone.

“They’re permanent.” Ishan fought the heat that threatened behind his eyes.  Fane flinched, and his eyelids waivered.

“Get ahold a’ yerself, Prince.  Ye’re distractin’ him,” Bern crossed his arms as he followed a set of wires attached to a meat hook carrying the weight of Fane’s ribs.

Ishan sucked in a rebuke and stilled his feelings.  He watched the wires carefully, trying to see where they led.  One of Fane’s hands rested against a ball of wires, his other wrist wrapped around the golden rope, his fingers slack around the loop.  The knot of wires and chains dug into his skin and threw themselves out to the darkness. The other wires that didn’t appear to connect into the ball distributed across the void, pulling his skin taught yet cradling his weight.

“Now, watch,” Bern instructed.  A cold burn inched across his skin.  They both listened to the beating rumble from within the cavern.  It was Fane’s heartbeat. The man’s hand, the one free of the golden loop, flinched as the beat stilled.  His finger pressed gently against the wire. A single drop of blood fluttered from the cut, shifting into a blood-red snowflake that descended to the pool, where it floated for a moment before melting into the liquid.  Another moment passed, and the same action transpired.

“Corbin should be switchin’ ta the multi-target system in a second,” Bern cautioned as they watched.  Fane’s heart slowed even further. A creeping chill surrounded them. Ice formed a thin layer along the pool’s surface in refracting pink swirls.  Fane’s eyes opened just a crack. Frost ran up the lengths of the razor-sharp wire and swirled about the links of the chains. They listened for the pause in the heartbeat.  Fane yanked the rat’s nest of wires, slicing open his palm on the metal.

“He must have an ordered system ta these wires, ‘n the docs caught him up in ‘em to draw on that monster.  E’ery time he moves ‘round ta use his skills, he…it seems like this is how he calls that creature.” Bern caught a drop of blood in his hand.  It seared his skin. He flicked the drop into the pool.

“Can we do anything for him?” Ishan asked.

“There has ta be a way…” Bern searched the wires.  “I can only imagine what he’d be like if he were nae tangled in that,” Bern backed up from the pool to get a fuller view.

“Do you want to try seeing what we can do while we’re here?” Ishan pushed forward, looking for the closest hook he could get his hands on.

“We could put e’eryone in danger doin’ that.  You see how he’s directing the web under his hand, how there’s frost all over?  We’re nae sure what’ll happen if we move one a’ those wrong. As it is, the first time I came in here, I pulled that low wire over there and almost sent us all to the Woods,” Bern admitted.

“Let me try.” Ishan moved toward the wire.

“Ah’m nae keen on dyin’ today, Prince,” Bern growled.

“And I’m not leaving him here in pain,” Ishan bit back.

“Damn it, ye get killed; it’s nae me fault.” Bern came over to the wire, ready to help lift Ishan up to reach the offending hook.

Ishan drew in a steadying breath and laid a gentle finger on the wire, barely touching it. He crept his finger along the edge, tracing its curving path.  The further he followed the wire, the closer he moved to Fane without his notice. Bern was not about to interrupt the prince to point out he was floating.

Ishan traced the wire until it came to a particular hook embedded in Fane’s calf above the Achilles tendon.  He laid a hand on Fane’s skin above the hook. Fane flinched at the contact, his hand pulling hard at the golden rope unconsciously, taking his weight off the wires.  It was now or never. The void was growing too cold. Ishan steadied Fane’s leg and dug his fingers into the wound, pulling the hook out quickly, though rougher than he could wish.  Fane let out a ragged cry as his body strained against the wires. The hook fled away from Ishan’s fingers. A zing and pop echoed in the chamber. He looked up to see Fane’s body resettle into a different position.  A hook dangled at the edge of the rat’s nest he was directing. Blood started to drip freely from wounds in the new position.

“All right, Prince, time’s up.” Bern pointed to the swirling of the pool.  He pulled him from the void and out past the fog to the beach. From there, they came up into the shooting range.  Fane had laid his head on the table, a sheet of ice locking up the trigger on his gun. He turned to raise an eyebrow at Ishan when he felt his hand move from his shoulder.

“That was phenomenal!” Sophia yelled excitedly.  

Bern sighed with disgust.  Corbin waived his mark. Fane dismissed him from manning the targets. “Wanna tell me what exactly happened?” Fane gritted his teeth as he shifted positions, all his scars seering.

“Uh…you…well…” Ishan wasn’t sure where to start with that question.

“Felt like you tossed a wrench in my brain and pressed the spin cycle.” Fane pushed the gun back to the lineup.

“Sort of did..ish?  Wanna explain why your gun is frozen solid?” Ishan touched the ice on the grip.

“Good question.  ‘bout the time my head went slantwise, my skin started feeling pretty damn clammy and then this just kind of…oozed…out of my hands.” He grimaced at the ice block.

“That’s a nifty trick,” Ishan admired.

“Came with a nifty headache,” Fane sighed.  He left his head on the table. It was too heavy in the moment to think of moving it.  “So, find out what you needed to know?” He closed his eyes against the brightness of the Florgia morning.

“Hooks, we can get out. I think the bolts are permanent.  Those are probably from where that chip is in your brain. Might take a while ta undo all the wires that we can get access ta, but we might be able ta straighten most a’ it out,” Bern mused as Corbin walked up to them.

“That mean he’ll be all right, even if we use him for the jumps?” Corbin directed his question between Sophia and Bern.

“Hey, I donnae know jack ‘bout yer science experiment.  I’m a healer, albeit a couple centuries old at this point.  My goal here is ta nae leave a man like this,” Bern waived at Fane.  Fane raised a thumb in agreement. “Or do you want back in on that, Corbin?”

Corbin waived an absolute no.

“Appreciate it.” Fane’s stomach was headed for his throat.  He ignored the rolling conversation that dripped off his back. Corbin and Sophia had started talking shop again. More like yelling across the range. They were pretty sure at this point that the touch-based telepathy that both Bern and Fane could execute was based on nerve-ending communication.  From spikes in some of the graphs, Sophia was hypothesizing that the outward issuance of ice by Fane was both a metabolizing output in the same regard as sweat but also a perception enhancement of pheromones on surrounding individuals.  In layman’s terms, he could actually do what he just did physically but make other people around him experience it with heightened senses. His death cloak, as they liked to call his glare, was equivalent to putting off a small amount of chill and a bucket load of pheromones that would make people feel dread and anxiety.  Sounded like an interesting hypothesis, but that didn’t make his head stop hurting.

 Ishan had laid his head down next to him.  From the crows’ feet around his eyes, he looked to have as bad of a headache as Fane did.  Bern was in the midst of arguing with Corbin and Sophia when Fane held up a quieting hand.  Bern shot him a questioning look.

He had heard something on the other end of the firing range.  A rustling, consistent with many footsteps. “Shut it!” Fane hissed when Corbin and Sophia kept yammering.  A chill burst through the firing range. They both dropped their topic and stared at him, startled. Pheromones or not, it got the job done.

The rustling stopped for a second.  It began again. Something was climbing the back hill.  Fane pulled a Glock from his side holster and steadied it on the bench, sighting on the coming noise.  Black hair came into view. “Stop right there!” Fane ordered, his voice echoing against the buffer hill.  Ishan flinched. He hadn’t heard Fane use his drill-sergeant-level voice. The hair ducked behind the hill before rising again. This time a pair of black eyes met his over the hill.  “A girl?” Fane asked himself before he noticed the distinct sound of footsteps on either side of the hill. He pressed himself near Ishan.  “We’re surrounded,” he whispered.

A mournful howl permeated the clearing, sending shivers down their spines.  The footsteps dimmed to the soft click of paw pads on dirt. Corbin and Bern exchanged looks as a series of four massive wolves emerged around the sides of the firing range.  The girl raised a hand over the hill. “We’re unarmed! Looking for my godfather, Corbin Ziphle?” she called out.

“Who are you?” Fane demanded, never wavering from his sight.  

“Haniel Menzer, daughter of Robert and Laura Menzer.  Scientists for RanMon Inc.,” she yelled back clearly.

“My god, Haniel Menzer. Menzer from the Flock?” called Corbin excitedly.

“I fled the Flock.  My friends say that one of your men is extremely dangerous and don’t want me coming forward,” Hana’s voice range around the hill.

“Can you trust her, Corbin?” Fane hissed under his breath.

“I trusted her parents until they genetically mutated their adopted children, but that doesn’t matter, does it?” Corbin glanced at the man.  “Your prince will be safe, probably,” Corbin reassured as he dashed out to the middle of the firing range. Fane clicked the safety on but remained behind the gun, ever ready.  He muttered a myriad of curses as the scientist crested the top of the range.

“Bern! Bern get over here!” Corbin yelled from behind the hill.  Bern rushed forward to the call. Fane sat quietly, watching the wolves that all stood watching him.  He was being warned off. He counted two robust males and two females. Their size was at least twice that of a normal wolf.  He couldn’t shake the feeling of intelligence in their eyes. Three of the four of them had patches of fur missing, and all had bloody muzzles.  One had a freshly torn ear.

Bern and Corbin had disappeared behind the ridge for the better part of a minute before Fane’s anxiety bit into his neck.  The wolves refused to move. “Corbin!” Fane shouted for the man. Corbin popped his head over the ridge. 

“Get up here! Bring Sophia!” Corbin yelled back before disappearing over the ridge. Fane glanced to the woman. The woman shrugged, not really sure what was going on.  She got up from her terminals, locking the screens. Fane, wary of the wolves, stood up, flicking the safety off. Fane put Ishan to his back and a step to the side so that he could pull him in front of him in case the wolves tried to pounce them.  Ishan rested a hand at his lower back, reassuring.

They proceeded up the range hill to crest it and look out on the back end of the stagnant reservoir.  On the other side of it sat the girl with Corbin and Bern. Bern held what looked to be a massive white wolf in his lap.  A golden-colored wolf paced around Bern, rubbing against his back now and again. Fane glanced behind him. The four wolves had followed them up, netting them.

“He killed him, Corbin!” The girl was crying.  She was wrapped up in Corbin’s suit jacket, her legs and face bare and muddy.

“He’s not dead yet, lass.” Bern prodded along the wolf’s body.  He motioned Sophia over when she made it to the top of the hill.

“What’s wrong?” Sophia bent over the beast.

“Poor thing got the stuffing beat out of him,” Corbin supplied.

“Michael’s coming after him?” Corbin asked the black-haired woman.

“No, Cashia, Yeller took care of him,” Hana hiccuped.

“Yeller?” Sophia asked.  Hana pointed to the golden wolf.  The wolf continued its harried pacing, its tongue lolling out as it panted with stress.  Fane approached the group, aware of the press of the wolves at his back. He moved Ishan in next to him.

“The wolf going to be okay?” Ishan asked, leaning over to run a hand over its fur.

“I smelled Bai.  We hoped we could seek help,” the gold wolf spoke with an overwhelmingly thick accent of the Eastern European Block.  

Fane had to keep from jumping out of his skin.  By the other’s reactions, he was not the only one. “So that wasn’t you throwing a wrench in my brain, right?” Fane whispered to Ishan.  

Ishan had a puzzled look on his face.  “A wolf talked, right?” returned Ishan.

“I want to be over today.  I can’t do it anymore,” another one perked up; this one had a more feminine voice.  Fane looked around the group of wolves. Their tension was dissolving as they sank to the ground in exhaustion. Fane swallowed, pressing up against Ishan.  He wasn’t sure at that moment if he was being protective or protected.

“Can you lift him, Bern?” Corbin asked.  Bern bit his lip. “We need to move him in and get him washed, but I…I don’t want to hurt -” He looked up as large hands wrapped around the white wolf and gingerly lifted it out of his lap.  Fane brought up his gun, directing it at a naked young man who had appeared out of nowhere. He was built similarly to Bern, wide at the shoulders, narrow at the hips. A wheat-blonde shag fell around his jaws.  “I’ll move him; show me where.” The man’s soft western drawl was thick and rough. He was hiding tears.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” Corbin squeaked, pulling Hana away quickly.

“Yeller.” The blond started toward the firing range.  Fane dropped his gun, flipping the safety. Surely he was hallucinating, and now was not the time to be in charge of dangerous weapons.

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Fyskar: Ch 23

Fearchar and Seonaid stared up in awe at the massive arched gate at the bottom of the mountain passage. It soared to heights Eoin’s memories had not clearly conveyed. They sat in a covered cart waiting as the line of merchants and travellers entered and exited through the pass. The guard in his uniform and Eoin in a pure white shroud rode on the front bench. A gate guard turned from the cart and rode his horse at a gallop up the path toward the top of the mountain.

His guard had initially baulked at bringing Fearchar and Seonaid. With some cajoling, the man had relented. It had been months to get from the Isle of Skye to the middle of Persia. They had taken a ship around Spain and saw the Mediterranean through Egypt and into the depths of the desert.

They rolled through the main street of the city. Eoin’s companions were surprised by the luxury that even the lowest of the people appeared to experience. Clear water ran in channels from the top of the mountain down to free-flowing fountains rimmed with vegetation and shade. The people, upon seeing the guard, were curious but didn’t give the cart much thought. The wheels cracked and rattled on the cobbled road. It made slow progress as people milled about the street, selling and bartering goods.

Eoin clambered his way over the bench to the back of the wagon and dug around in his pack. Vanora ruffled her feathers at his scent so close to her perch. He whistled a low note of reassurance. She stepped sideways and then back, settling her plumage. He pulled from his bag a long length of gold chain, a thin gold necklace, a key, the signet ring, and a lock through which the loops of shimmering yellow were secured. 

“Eoin?” Seonaid crooned softly. The thought still grated at her.

The white-haired man raised an eyebrow for a second and smiled reassuringly. It is how it needs to be, he placated as he looped the chain through his bracers and locked it. It’s a show. It will be all right. He carefully tied the necklace, key, and ring back into his duffel bag, certain to keep it from getting lost. The Fyskar took a large wrapped package from his pack and set it on the bench. He pulled his shroud back on and clambered into the front.

They approached the second gate, this one grander than the last. Seonaid could not suppress her gasp at the staggering beauty. Eoin smirked under his shroud. He remembered that reaction, the same he had experienced on his first approach to the palace years ago.

The men at the gate called to the guard on the cart, and they discussed something Seonaid and Fearchar could not comprehend. Axel creaking, the coach came to a jittery stop. The gate guards surrounded the carriage to look in and were greatly surprised to see Fearchar in a brightly patterned kilt and Seonaid in her matched dress, wrapped in an equally bright tartan. Admittedly, they had never seen a red-haired man before, so that was unusual in and of itself.

They crept to the passenger side of the cart. Eoin threw up a hand, his bracer and chain flashing in the sunlight before they could tug his shroud away from him. The men backed away with a bark of orders. A bar dropped, and the gates opened with a clatter. One of the guards broke away from the group and ran through the gates.

The carriage tugged forward, and Eoin’s heart was in his throat. He fidgeted with the package on his lap. The wood beneath his taping feet echoed under the creak and strain of the pulling donkeys.

Inside the palace gates, Fearchar and Seonaid could not stop staring. Around them, more fountains, more tile, more plants than they could have imagined lent the space a sense of paradise. Birds sang from the trees. Palms waved softly above them, throwing dappled shade around the perimeter of the brilliant courtyard. Honeysuckle bloomed profusely on grates, scenting the air heavily.

The guard pulled to a stop and allowed Fearchar and Seonaid off of the cart while he had a pair of servants take their luggage. Seonaid, taking Eoin’s gauntlet, encouraged Vanora to her hand. 

Eoin eased off the carriage, careful that his shroud did not fall, and took his wrapped package. He worked his hair up under the cover, curling it to rest loosely atop his head. His feet were bare, and the tile was hotter than he would have liked. His bangles flashed at the hem of the white fabric. He pulled the shroud further over his face and bowed his head to look down at the tile. They waited as the cart pulled away. Fearchar and Seonaid stood behind Eoin, bracing themselves.

Footsteps drew their attention to the main steps that lead up to the grand entrance. A tall, olive-skinned man with a severe black haircut followed by a series of guards and servants approached them. The guards spoke quietly with one another. The giant of a man waved the guards to their positions. They circled the group loosely as the royal approached them. Vanora chortled at the noise. The birds stopped calling to each other, and the grounds quieted save for the burble of the fountains. A weight settled heavily in the pit of Fearchar’s stomach. The black-haired royal was immense in size and formidable. He approached Eoin, sudden fear blossoming for the physician.

When the man was but a few steps from the white shroud, Eoin produced what had been in the package, the leather wrap falling to the tile between them. A gold chain dropped away from jewelled bracers. The clatter of beads popped around the courtyard. A pair of red deer antlers, plated in gold, gleamed. The crown in Eoin’s hands was immense in size and detail. Heavy loops of gold flowed around the band. Strands of gold thread, beryl, and freshwater pearls dripped in long cascades from the antlers to create trailing curtains of gold, white, and aquatic blue.

The guards glanced at each other, confused. Their hearts were surely in their throats as their prince reached out and gingerly touched a trembling hand holding the crown while the other went to the bowed head and pulled the shroud from the body. The physician’s tattoos flashed in the sunlight for a split second as white hair fell around his gold torc and naked chest. His great kilt in sky blue, lavender, and white hugged his hips and draped to his knees, his legs and feet bare save for the bangles. The prince looked down on the bowed head kindly and whispered a few words. “Niloofar.” The name resonated through the courtyard loudly. The guards flinched and stood to attention, backing away a step. The prince’s absent physician had returned home.

Seonaid and Fearchar, having seen the prince’s touch, knew Eoin was talking to the man in his void. They waited patiently as the man studied the crown as a method to hide his reason for physical contact. The giant of a man broke the connection and tenderly took possession of the crown.

Mirza’s warm hand cupped Eoin’s trembling fingers, supporting the weight of the crown. “I’m home,” the physician whispered across the connection. “I’m home. Let me be home.”

“You’ve been gone so long, White Bird. I thought you’d made a nest in the underworld.” Husky, his voice slipped across Eoin’s nerves as he reached for the shroud.

Eoin’s mouth ran dry as he closed his eyes against the glare of afternoon on the white marble. Hair tumbled around him, catching the sun. The bright light forced Eoin to blink. He followed the line of fitted pants to the voluminous petticoated robe. Embroidered gold gryphons and spiralling ferns on a bronze ground led to a fitted torso. Black hair had grown to his collarbone. “Mirza,” he sighed when he found the prince’s deep brown eyes searching his.

The slash of his lips pulled into a gentle smile, softening his eyes as he studied Eoin’s face. “It took you bringing back two compatriots, an eagle, and a crown. You told me so many years ago to wait. Please, will you tell me, White Bird?” Mirza dropped the shroud, his fingers trailing momentarily along Eoin’s arm, giving him a second to respond in their private link.

“Fearchar and Seonaid. They’ve taken to me as lovers. He has designated himself as my bodyguard. She is his wife.” Eoin unchained his memories to pour out, giving the man towering over him in the void access to everything he desired to see. “Do you still want me?” A throb of terror burned through Eoin’s nerves.

Mirza waved it all away. “When you left, I gave you my blessing to seek out your own pleasures and indulge in what you’ve been kept from since you entered my rooms. I don’t need to know, physician. Physician. You told me to wait so long ago I don’t even remember now. Tell me, so I can call you by name. Give me your name. You told me to take anything I want as long as I kept your family safe and left your torc. I will not take your name from you, but would you be willing to give it to me?”

“I did, didn’t I? I told you one day I’d tell you why you couldn’t take the torc from me. I told you I would come back to you with who I am. To travel the world twice to find myself.” Eoin smiled up at Mirza. The giant’s breath hitched in his throat. The physician bowed his head to study the elaborate crown in their hands. “My clan is long dead. There’s no one to be a royal to any more other than my sons and my lovers. My name, though, that I still have, not even death can take that from me. Fyskar. They were my clan. They were my love, and my life, my sun and my moon. Mirza, my own name. You’ve asked me for that every dark night I spent in your bed.”

“And every morning, you would leave in the quiet morning, telling me to call you physician, doctor, Niloofar, my servant. You’ve been so much more to me than that. How many more dark nights must I wait for you to tell me who you are?” His tone dripped along Eoin’s bones, sweet as nectar. He shivered. As they stood apart in the world, he pulled Eoin to him in the void, engulfing him, burying his face in white hair. “I never want to wake up to you gone again.”

Eoin folded into him, resting into the familiarity of his hold, breathing in the spice lingering in his thoughts. “My father is dead, and so is my clan. I am no longer Flath. It has taken me too many years to realise I was no longer a prince of my clan when he passed.” Eoin pushed to have distance, to present himself to his prince. Mirza relinquished his hold at Eoin’s insistence, retaining possession of the tips of his fingers. “My name, Mirza, is Eoin Impundulu Niloofar of the Fyskar, and I am rightful Righ of those that are left of my small domain. I am the last king of my people, the last Pictish Laird of the isles. Albin and Callum are Flath and royal heirs to the land of the Fyskar.”

“Eoin.” Mirza’s fingers tightened on his physician’s hands. Eoin absorbed the pure note wrapped around his name in the void before letting go of the connection. “Niloofar.” Mirza lifted the heavy crown from Eoin’s wobbling fingers. The physician dropped his hands away from the immense piece. 

Mirza fingered the drops of gold thread and freshwater pearls. “It is a beautiful crown. I have not had the privilege of observing one of such intricacy closely before. In travels to the edge of our domain, I have seen many headdresses of chiefs and leaders. None have spoken of such wealth or reverence.” He appraised the ten-hand length antlers. At twelve pounds of gold, gemstones, and bone, the crown was a dominant fixture in the courtyard.

He raised it to the sun, casting blue sparks across the tiles. The stones clinked in a soft cascade. Turning to his physician, he did the one thing Eoin had not expected from him. He slipped the ring over Eoin’s head, holding it to allow him to pull his hair into order. The weight settled heavily on his neck when Mirza let go. The antlers swept back from his temples. Eoin had never worn it before and was surprised at the sensation. The threads cascaded around his shoulders and down his back to place him in a veil of jewels. He looked up at the prince, confused. “Righ Eoin Impundulu Niloofar, ruler of the Fyskar,” Mirza pronounced the title carefully in English.

Mirza? Eoin asked.

“Righ, I thought he was a Flath?” Seonaid whispered to Fearchar under her breath. Vanora chattered at her question.

“His father, the last Righ, is dead, Seo.” Fearchar observed the giant.

Mirza turned to Eoin’s companions. Fearchar and Seonaid had the wherewithal to show the royal a modicum of respect. Fearchar bowed deeply, and Seonaid dropped into a practised curtsy. Seonaid glanced to Eoin’s hands, as did Mirza, to watch his translation of the introductions.

“Ah am Fearchar, formerly of clan MhicFhionghain, now of clan Fyskar. T’is my wife Seonaid, formerly of clan MhicLeod, now too of clan Fyskar. We ‘ave come in service a’ Righ, Laird, Duine Naomh na coille, Each Geal, Eoin Impundulu Niloofar a’ clan Fyskar, yer Highness.” Fearchar spread his bow a level farther. Dropping so many titles at once was tricky. 

Mirza glanced to Eoin’s flying fingers for a clearer translation. Explain, please? He asked after the unfamiliar terms Eoin had to spell.

King, overseer of the land, Holy Saint of the Forest, the high priest, White Horse, the conjunction of the soul and the person, Eoin, the White Bird, the Water-Lily of the people of the Fyskar.

Mirza’s eyes rounded at the lengthy explanation. You are a holy man?

To my people, I am. I stand between birth and death, between female and male, between pure and poison. I connect the spirit to the land. I walk the Forest and guide those who have passed on across the River. I am not what you understand as a holy person, that which my sons’ study under. He hedged. Mirza was accepting of Henri’s Huguenot ways and tended to be open to visiting emissaries who practised other faiths. Eoin had never told him, never felt it would matter to him.

Mirza nodded to Fearchar before commanding the guards back to their positions and heading for the palace. Eoin didn’t have enough time to explain what was happening, only enough to move for Fearchar and Seonaid to follow him in. The coolness of the halls was a breath of fresh air compared to the heat that burned across the tiles outside.

“Impundulu! You’re alive!” Amina bustled down the hallway, followed closely by Tau, bearing falconry gauntlets and hoods.

“We heard you’ve come home and brought people with you!” Tau encompassed Eoin in a hug with Amina before remembering their presence in front of Mirza. Eoin slipped his memories into his family, letting them see the quick flashes of what had transpired during his trip and explaining Vanora to them. When they released him, they turned to the bird, Amina wary of the immense creature. She looked to Tau for directions.

Eoin motioned Seonaid forward. Amina, this is Seonaid and Vanora.

“Should I be handling the bird, Impundulu? Is it safe?” Amina turned from Eoin to Tau.

Seonaid stared in fascination between the two. “He told me about you both, but you’re both more beautiful than he expressed. I’m sorry. That’s not- I mean, you’re probably here just for the bird. He’s told us a lot about you, and I just didn’t think.” A blush ran up her ears. 

Mirza watched the interchange in fascination as Eoin worked through translation of Seonaid’s comments and Amina’s embarrassment. It had been a long time in an empty palace since he had seen his physician’s dance or heard his speech with the people he called family. 

A bit of work and a lot of encouragement from Tau had Vanora transferred to Amina’s hand from Seonaid’s. It had taken longer to explain the bird’s fidgety nature around men than for the bird to step up to Tau’s oversized glove on Amina’s hand. Tau helped her back down the hallway, gently instructing her every time the creature shifted.

Eoin turned back to Mirza, his task of seeing Vanora safely taken care of finished. The giant motioned his guards to open his chamber doors and welcomed the entourage into the receiving room. The prince motioned to a set of chairs facing his long, raised bench. He seated himself on his rugs, lounging contentedly into the pillows. Fearchar and Seonaid seated themselves nervously.

Be patient. Eoin put up a pair of hands to still his companions, hoping to calm the tension he was getting from them. The guards were not keen to leave their prince, but with a sharp command, they grudgingly left the room. 

Mirza sat languidly, watching, waiting for the click of the door as it closed. His physician quietly dropped the bar across the entrance to lock it from the inside. Touching a tongue to dry lips, he swivelled to meet Mirza’s eyes. “Eoin.” The prince held a manicured hand to the white-haired man.

Stay, Eoin demanded of his compatriots. He paused for the briefest of seconds before stepping between Seonaid and Fearchar’s chairs to the prince. The black-haired man, disregarding his audience, hungrily watched Eoin approach him. The prince smoothly traced his finger up Eoin’s chain, pulling it carefully to him. Eoin took his hand lightly, his chain in the palm of the prince’s hand. The prince pulled Eoin to stand in front of him. Fearchar’s breathing shallowed. Scarlet swept over Eoin’s cheeks as his eyelashes drifted to hide his expression. Seonaid reached across to grasp Fearchar’s hand hard. The prince pulled the physician closer. Mirza caressed one of Eoin’s legs, encouraging him to rest his knee on the bench, partially straddling him.

Fearchar shifted. The prince’s eye rolled to the side to pin Fearchar to his chair. Fairchar’s heart hammered in his chest as the prince wrapped his other hand around the back of Eoin’s neck, pulling his head down to kiss him. Off-balance, Eoin pressed the heel of his hand into the prince’s shoulder, his fingers pulling at the fabric. The prince’s hand returned to climb up Eoin’s leg, firmly cupping his upper thigh under his kilt. A tremor ran up the white-haired man’s back. The jewels of his crown clicked and shifted in the silence.

A heart beat painfully across the space. Fearchar erupted from where he sat. His short chair scraped against the tile. The prince regarded Fearchar’s outburst for a terse second before releasing Eoin from the kiss. He turned his full attention to Fearchar.

“Laird!” Fearchar called out to Eoin, fury and fire raising his hackles. The prince whispered something demanding. Eoin swung his glazed, unfocused eyes to Fearchar and Seonaid.

“I would ask, Mirza, if you still plan for me to marry your sister, that you do not touch me again. She will know of you and me, and I do not feel that will bode well within the palace.” Eoin pushed back a distance from the black-haired man in the void.

“Would you like that? To be free of my embrace. To have a woman’s company in your bed? You’ve brought your own. My sister will not protest such an arrangement. She grew up in the harem as all my siblings and I did. It is not an unfamiliar circumstance to live in.” Mirza stayed back from his physician’s pacing.

“No, you fool. I don’t want her company.” Eoin turned back to his prince.

“What is it that you want, Eoin? Tell me, and I will give you anything within my power to provide you with.” Mirza reached for Eoin’s fingers in the void.

“You withheld yours when I withheld mine. You wouldn’t even allow those of the palace to use it around me. Tell me your formal name, Mirza.” Eoin turned away from the man but held his hand, though it shook with nervousness.

Mirza tugged at Eoin’s hand until the white-haired man fell into his embrace. “Shahazedah Marduk, fourth Mirza for the seat of Jabal Alnasr,” Mirza whispered tenderly against Eoin’s ear.

“Marduk. Never ask me to marry anyone else again.” Eoin looked up into his prince’s dark eyes. “I prefer keeping your bed warm at night. Let us continue the way we were before I left. Let me be safe in the confines of these walls. I have seen the world twice over. I want my apothecary and to see to the health of the family. Let me be free in my own small way. I am done with the witch hunts, the running, the hiding. Keep your wives, find your lovers when you tire of my talents. I want to grow old in safety.”

Mirza’s heart beat hard in Eoin’s void. He could taste the nervous energy flowing from the giant at the proposition. “You would have me after I bound you to me?” Mirza ran his fingers along Eoin’s gold bracers.

“As my red marks are my bonds with my husband and my wife, so are these gold jesses my bonds with you. I allowed what you did to me, Mirza. At every moment you and I could touch, I held your life in my hands. Even here and now. I can see your heart in my palms, beating with trepidation. 

“I didn’t have to leave the Isle and my grandmother. I didn’t have to travel to England. I didn’t need to take that ship to Morocco. I didn’t have to follow Amina to Egret’s Nest. I could have escaped from Cairo. My decisions have led me here.” Eoin tunnelled his fingers in Mirza’s hair to draw his face closer. He pressed his lips to his prince’s, relishing the flavour of mint and rose.

Mirza softened to Eoin’s persistent demand. “And your lovers?” He pulled back to look over Eoin’s feverish face.

“I promised you one day I would show you what a White Horse could do.” Eoin was losing his logic to the eddies of emotion pushing at his void from Mizra.

“You said it would be dangerous with more than me.” Mizra ran his fingers down Eoin’s chest to brush along the edge of the blue kilt.

“For no one other than myself. It was a moot point until now, regardless. I could not join you in your harem due to social etiquette. I would not bear taking one of your women like they are property just to satisfy my lust and your curiosity. I would not ask you to hide the presence of any child I sired.” Eoin drew his fingers along Mirza’s arms.

“Then why?” Mirza was deeply confused.

Eoin grinned up at the man, his eyes flashing a feral green. “It’s a craving I am left with for the talents I possess and sating that desire? I live on that high, eat and drink it, and I hadn’t tasted it for so long.”

Mirza pulled back from Eoin’s void. “Call them to you, White Bird.”

Eoin held out his hand. Fearchar looked the prince up and down before drawing in a breath and forcing himself to walk to his Laird’s side, without knife drawn. Seonaid stood to follow her husband, furious with the situation.

Eoin grasped their hands in his, never breaking contact with the prince, and pulled them into the void. 

A crashing torrent wrapped around them, heat burning through the whirlpool. Tension flew across their skin, stretching their senses taught. Fearchar breathed in the heavy tug that settled low and throbbed. He tuned to Seonaid’s instant reaction, the rolling bands of electricity rippling up her chest. In the centre of the torrent was Eoin, bending to every push and pull of the flow. Wrapped around him was the prince, holding dearly to him.

“So, you have met my physician.” The giant fingered Eoin’s hair, dragging his scent deep into his lungs.

“Ye’ve captured our Righ ‘n the Laird’s bairns,” Fearchar stated defiantly. Anger flared out from him, wrapped with a burning lust he refused to tamp.

“He said you make for a respectable bodyguard, and your wife is capable with his signs and reading.” The prince stopped gazing at his physician hungrily to truly study the couple. Eoin had allowed these people into himself. The physician must have his reasons. Fearchar backed up a step, pushing Seonaid behind him.

“I will not be your slave,” Seonaid held onto the back of Fearchar’s great kilt, curling the fabric in her fingers.

“I would not dream of calling your wife such a horrid word.” The prince placated Fearchar.

“And yet that is what Eoin is here, is he not? Or Amina? Tau? Callum? Albin? Those chains…those bracers…” Seonaid demanded of the giant. Fearchar dearly wanted for her to stop poking the hornet nest.

The prince smiled weakly. “He is my physician.” He pressed a hungry kiss to Eoin’s neck.

“Call him what you will. That chain is still there. He is still a slave,” Seonaid bristled.

Mirza glanced up at her, momentarily thinking. Dropping his gaze to Eoin’s skin, he ran a hand up the bracer to gather the chain tightly. “I give him freedom and all that he desires, as I give to his children and the families he has brought within these walls with him.” The prince pinched the gold chain in Eoin’s void, the links shattering. In the dimness, they watched Eoin’s bracers, and anklets dissolve into a set of four red bands, one on each wrist and ankle. Fearchar stared at the men, baffled.

Seonaid approached them. “Eoin?” she whispered. She could no longer identify the many emotions swirling around her. “Eoin, are you all right?”

He looked up at her, his glassy eyes glowing against pale skin. Two was his limit, and Mirza had always had more to give than most. These three were too much. The heat, the pressure, the high he was floating on. His flath crown gleamed in the light. “Join me.” His voice cracked, begged. He smiled weakly, falling into the tide swamping them. The wave promised he would never come out of the drowning torrent. This was what he had wanted, to escape into that high and sear away every scarring memory. In the end, he would lose memories to this night, but it would be worth it.

Hands kneaded. Fearchar’s teeth nipped at Eoin’s shoulder. Seonaid’s hand crept down his sides, her fingers brushing the line of his kilt. His prince pressed and teased. Eoin shifted, allowing Mirza more access. His teeth chewed on his lower lip as his head leaned back to the flow of hands across his body and through his mind. The pressure built as emotions rushed and pulsated across their connection. They had fallen under the spell of a drowning White Horse.

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Galaxy Skin – Short

You’re staring off into space again.

“I’m bored. That’s all.” The city was grey. The rain was grey. The dust mixing with the water was sludgy on the window sill. A pigeon hunkered down in its nest regarded me with displeasure.

Bored? The great and mighty Yezer? Bored! Surely not.

“It happens. It’s wet, and it’s not like it was before.” I leaned against the cold glass, my breath fogging the surface, whiting out the evening in a blur.

Call up Gregor, or Naska. They’ll be more than happy to kill something with you.

“They’ve been dead for three hundred years. You know that.”

The voice stilled, leaving me to my small apartment and the reality of my stomach growling. I slid off the window seat and rummaged through the make-do kitchen. A handful of nuts, a glass of tepid water, a couple marshmallows. Not filling, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with a meal, or get down to the road to see what food carts were open in the downpour.

Turning to the view, I found a fingerprint of a little shooting star glaring across my window where I had fogged it. “What are you doing?”

You’ve been down for a while.

“And drawing on my window is supposed to make me happy? That’s creepy.”

Not like I’m a poltergeist. I’m at least not opening all your cabinet doors. Not like there’s enough in here to make an impact. You live forever, and you end up in this – let’s be nice and call it a shoebox. How have you fallen to this, Yezer?

I snorted. How had I fallen to this? How had the world moved on? was a better question. I used to be the wizard in an adventuring group. We took out kobolds, dragons, ghouls. We ended battles and dethroned a king, maybe two if that one guy counted for anything. But gold eventually gets spent, and what use is there for a wizard when technology could handle it all and more? Fireball? Against a tank round? Please.

“Maybe I’m just taking some time.”

Warmth pressed against my back and wrapped around my shoulders. There’s taking time, and there’s being directionless, my friend.

“Friend? When were we ever friends?”

I think it’s grown. I’d like to think a friendship has been growing.

“Why? Because I’m alone, and you think that being around all the time is friendship?”

Then why don’t you show me what friendship is?

“That’s a dangerous idea if I’ve ever heard of one. Befriend the Darkness?”

You have all the time in the world, and so do I. It could be interesting.

“You’re just as bored as I am.”

Maybe. Maybe I just want for you to not be a shell of your former self. I miss your glory days.

“You mean your glory days. The ones when you would decimate villages, upend towns, plunder cities under the cloak of night.”

I didn’t stutter.

It was my turn to still.

You had a job to do, and so did I. You and I, we were two sides of a coin. Now? Neither of us do. Maybe that’s what karma is, or fate, or irony. Probably that last one.

“I was protecting people.”

I was ending plagues.

“You were creating collateral damage.”

I was doing the best with what I had, like what you’re doing now.

“You killed people.”

So did you.

“They were bad.”

And sickness isn’t moral in its decisions. It affects all.

“I had to stop you.”

Why? Because the Darkness would kill your parents? Your niece? Your next-door neighbour? Time would have done that regardless of what say I had in events. It did. And now you’re here in a shoebox, withering away at a desk pushing papers around for someone else.

“You never learned.”

You’re afraid.

“Of what?”

Of that jump in your heart every time I talk to you. That flush across those freckles of yours every time I lean on you. You’re really bored if we’ve gotten to this point.

“It does not!” I backed up into my living space, planting my back firmly against the couch cushions.

Oh, it’s getting worse just mentioning it. Pff. You know, the warmth settled across my knees, and chin, pushing my head back until I was staring at little more than a whisp of dust motes between me and the ceiling, teasing should have been my first method. You’ve been stuck in your shell. Let’s call friendship bunk.

“What are you doing?” Heat trailed across my bottom lip.

Getting you to see me for once.

“What is there to see? You’re the Darkness. You’re a different plain of existence. You’re-“

Not physical?

I swallowed. That wasn’t quite right. Not with the shades shifting in front of me. Not with the warmth. I reached up to where little dust stars shifted back and forth. My hand passed right through. “What are you?”

Three hundred and seventy years, and you finally ask me? What am I? No more good nor evil than you, or the next person.

“The gods wouldn’t have given me immortality for capturing you and locking you away if you weren’t evil.”

The gods wouldn’t have left entire communities to die of disease if they weren’t evil. They gave you immortality because you locked me to your heart, and as long as it beats, I can’t just go out and do what I want, which is convenient to them.

“You can’t seriously think the gods are evil. That’s insanity.”

They aren’t any better than you or me then. They kill. You kill. I kill. They save. You save. I save. Who is wrong? Who in this equation wasn’t right in their actions when they made them?

“Are you going to get off me?” I traced the path the stars took until it dawned on me I was looking at several pairs of eyes.

Sigh. Yeah. The heated weight shifted off me.

“You’ve been making passes at me for four decades now rather than just hissing at me. Does teasing me make you happy?” I pushed hair out of my eyes.

Not when it makes you angry at me.

“Is Darkness your name?”

A pause answered me. I drew myself up and rummaged in my kitchen drawer for the toothbrush and toothpaste. The grey of evening was quickly slipping into the orange and pink neon glow of night. Halfway through my routine of getting ready for bed, heat drew along my hand.

Twiq

“Twiq? That’s your name?” I dragged on my pyjama pants.

Been a long time since anyone called me that. Longer even before you caught me. I thought I had forgotten it.

I flopped on the couch and tugged a ratty blanket off the back of it. Snapping my fingers, the one under-cabinet light turned off. “Still haven’t told me what you are, Twiq.”

Stuck. That’s what I am.

I raised a hand and waited until warmth intertwined with my fingers and heat settled across me. “If you say you’re stuck to me, I’m going to go stand out in the rain, and you’ll be just as cold as me.”

I was a dying doctor who made a bargain with a god of death. Now? I don’t know what I am.

“How are you stuck?”

No one can see me. You can’t even touch me. No one talks to me because you’re the only one who hears me, and for the most part my presence just irritates you.

“I can see you.” I brushed at the stars floating above me, though I couldn’t find anything tangible at the edge of my fingers. The stars flared. “Always thought I had dust motes following me around. But it’s night, and there’s no side light.”

A drop of water plopped onto my cheek. A sniffling hiccup broke the silence. Heat wrapped around me until I was in a warm cocoon. “You’ve been really lonely. I’m sorry, Twiq.”

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Fyskar: Ch 22

Snow and ice dripped from thatch eaves, creating slick, muddy tracks in the melt. Rodney’s birlinn docked on the second day of frost break. Thin sheets of ice dances around the hull, squeaking a thin tune over the thunk of wood and slap of rope. Gulls cried in a clear morning, greeting a pale pink sky.

Eoin studied the improvised basket sitting on a dock post above a pile of bags and trunks. A twirtling chirp protested a sudden gust of wind. He breathed a sigh, reassured that Vanora was well enough to respond to her environment. He had rescued her from the mews the evening before Iain brought a fire brigade to the Daleroch estate and burned it to the ground. Seonaid had not protested the bird’s lodging in their byre. Plenty of the dried meats, root veg, and what remained of the peat had already been packed away for sale to the neighbouring crofts to turn one last coin. Comestibles left at the end were either turned out to the refuse pile or carefully stored to be shipped with Fearchar, Seonaid, and Eoin.

The doctor and the handyman had taken the better part of two days to dismantle the makings of the croft home and disposed of what they would not take with them. Trunks were purchased and traded for to pack away clothing, tools of Fearchar’s trades, and Seonaid’s household materials.

Men gathered around the dock in nervous clumps, avoiding and making eye contact with each other while their wives cried and fussed over a woman in their midst.

“You’d think Seonaid took them on,” Fearchar chuckled next to Eoin.

I think a few of them did. The physician recognized more than one face in the slew of dull coloured skirts who had made the trip up to Seonaid’s croft.

“True. I recognize that look her suiters have. I had that look the day she moved shop from upper to lower Glasgow and the same look was on those men’s faces when I carried her off to here. At least they’ll help us get the bags aboard.” Fearchar waved and walked over to talk to Rodney.

“We’ll be sad to see you go, Doc, but you kept Plague from our village. We cannot ask you for more. If it is time for you to move on to your next village, it is time for another town to be safe from Lucifer’s influences.” Matew from the kirk pressed a packet of dried herbs into Eoin’s gloved fingers. “Seonaid let me know of Widow Magaidh’s passing and that you knew of her. I am sorry you were not informed for her burial. She walks along the golden roads. Please find peace with this news as she has found peace with God.”

Eoin clenched his teeth, thankful he did not have to speak with the parish priest only meaning kindness. The Fyskar regretted never being able to make it to the grave and Walk his grandmother’s spirit to the Forest.

“Aye, men, grab a trunk or a bag and I’ll tell you where to set it!” Rodney called for the gathering’s attention. Soon enough, a nook in the hold was filled with the handyman and prostitute’s belongs. Eoin clung to Vanora’s cage while Fearchar took the apothecary chest and duffle to that storage corner. Other packages of goods for trade took up the rest of the hold. Near midday, Eoin and his lovers boarded the ship heading to the mainland.

A week of travel by cart turned them out onto a London road. Storied houses crowded the cobblestone, casting grim shadows on frozen horse muck. Seonaid and Fearchair stared at the buildings and the peasantry dressed so differently from themselves. A number of more well off men openly huffed and sneered at Fearchar until they noticed Eoin. A bubble formed around the little group. Fear of Plague uppermost in people’s minds tended to force distance.

The little group’s shipment had been sent ahead to a storage house on the wharves, save for a couple handbags of clothing and Vanora’s cage.

“You sent a note to your man, where is he?” Fearchar sidled up to Eoin and took Vanora’s cage from him.

Up ahead. There was a coffeehouse below his lodgings and when not acting as a court ambassador, he said he’d not be leaving far. I can assume I’ll see him there.

“Coffeehouse?”Seonaid sounded out the word.

The drink I share with you, the one with the strong taste? There are shop fronts here that sell it alongside tea. It is often watered down and has no aroma to speak of, but if I can buy the beans before they’ve been put to the pan, I can often make a decent roast of it. Eoin led them past a series of tailors and alehouses until they came upon a soot browned building with a simple sign of a cup above it. Eoin pointed up to it like it would explain everything and walked inside, Fearchar and Seonaid close on his heels.

“Niloofar!” A chirp startled them in the gloom that greeted them in the front room of what was a converted house.

All three swung around in search of the voice to find a man in strange costume clambering up from a bench in the corner. Cups and plates rattled as he knocked his knees into the surface.

“Is this your man, Eoin?” Fearchar stepped forward, blocking off his wife and his employer from the oncoming individual. The man’s clothing resembled the common outfit Eoin tended to wear in private, this however in blood red and set off with bright embroidery about the yoke and sleeves.

Salman, good day to you. Eoin pressed a reassuring hand onto Fearchar’s shoulder to stall him from taking off the guard’s head.

Salman bowed low to Eoin before motioning him to the table in the corner. The physician encouraged his travelling party to join him. Setting aside bags under stools and Vanora at Eoin’s feet where no one would kick over her basket, the group received cups of coffee from the mistress of the coffeehouse.

Who are your people, Niloofar? The guard offered to pour a pitcher of cream into Eoin’s cup.  The doctor waved off the crock.

My family, Salman. They are part of my clan. Eoin had seen fit in Glasgow to go to the seat and file one last motion in the name of the Fyskar: incorporation of Seonaid and Fearchar into his clan. A fair coin, a flash of his deed, and the document had been whisked off into a pile of other paperwork to disappear into registers.

Brother and sister? An aunt and uncle to Albin and Callum? Salman found Fearchar more amicable for the cream.

In a way, but not by blood. Eoin unclasped his mask and set it aside.

Fearchar and I are husband and wife. Doc is our clan head. Seonaid slipped into the conversation.

Salman scooted back to openly look the woman up and down. You understand Niloofar’s tongue?

I learned for other family. Seonaid offered her cup for Salman to top off with cream. The man raised an eyebrow, flicking it to Fearchar then to Eoin.

She does not know your customs, and her husband will take no offence to you providing her food. Eoin sipped at the bitter brew, finding the well water tone beneath it tinny and brash, overtaking the floral note he hoped for.

Customs? Seonaid set her cup down within Salman’s reach and waited. The man eventually poured in the milk, warily eyeing Fearchar all the while.

A bit of a difference between lands in how a man shows respect to a woman, even more so in deference for a husband about his wife is all. Eoin set his cup aside, displeased with the ruined brew.

“I’m getting that someone thinks something’s insulting about Seonaid?” Fearchar tried to push into the conversation.

“I’m still trying to determine what it is.” Seonaid took back her cup and tested it before drinking the lukewarm down completely.

Do they speak Farsi, Niloofar? Salman set down the empty jar in favour of a smaller jar that held honey.

Seonaid pointed to Eoin’s cup in a roundabout way to ask if he was going to drink the rest of it. Eoin snorted. No. They speak my native tongue and English. The physician handed over his cup.

But they speak your words? She was raised with them? Salman blanched at the flavour he had created.

I can’t believe you lasted with this stuff as long as you did. Eoin wrinkled his nose in shared distaste.

Some of the batches have been decent, but that was when we were bringing in water from the fresh snow. Salman returned the expression.

I don’t speak Farsi. Doc speaks the Norman language with his hands, though, which is different from Gaelic and English. Seonaid smiled, pleased with her acquired second cup.

It is not Farsi? Salman’s eyes rounded in confusion.

No? Henri taught me. He was originally from France. The book he taught me from was from there. Eoin cocked his head.

But what I speak in the court is English, yes? Salman slipped his hands beneath the table to stall a shiver in his digits.

Yes, it is English. Henri taught you how to speak with me easier and how to properly greet royalty. Now, why are you shaking? Eoin motioned for Salman to show him.

Salman grimaced. He set his hands out on the table where Eoin could look them over. The doctor peeled off his gloves. May I?

His guard nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Eoin took the man’s fingers and turned them under the dim candlelight at their table. No spot or discolouration of the nailbeds, but the digits were cold against his skin. “How long has this been going, Salman?” Eoin traced the man’s appendages up to his shoulders before settling on the man’s throat.

“About a month back, I noticed it, Niloofar.” He backed up on the bench when Eoin stood, reaching up to the man’s shirt collar and pulling it away from his neck.

Fear, chest. Eoin demanded, probing an enlarged Adam’s apple. Fearchar dug out the apothecary cabinet and set it on the doctor’s bench while the coffeehouse patrons stared at the interaction.

“What is it, Niloofar?” Salman asked in Farsi.

Goitre. Eoin slipped out a small pouch of powdered seaweed from his packets and riffled through them for one properly marked. Drink this.

What is it? Salman took the tiny packet. Eoin pushed a sachet of more of the same label back into its envelope.

Bladderwrack. It won’t fix goitre immediately, but I’ll see that I have a stash stocked up for our return home. Endure it for now and the shaking should stop. Eoin motioned for Seonaid to ask for the coffeehouse keep if he could have a glass of boiled water by which to give Salman the herb.

An evening spent in the coffeehouse helped Eoin familiarize his companions with each other. With sunset, the coffeehouse changed to providing roasted meats and ales for the dockworks. Fearchar secured the upstairs room next to Sulman’s. The guard had one last week of work to secure minor trade from his kingdom with England, separate from Isfahan.

Eoin collapsed on the floor, more than happy to pull a pair of lambskins over himself and leave Fearchar and Seonaid to the beds. The two instead piled on top of him, eliciting a bubble of laughter across their senses.

“You ready to see your bairns, Eoin?” Seonaid’s expression softened when the teasing stopped.

“More than ready.” The boys’ father sank into relaxation, opening his void.

Mirza’s chamber sat in the throws of sunset, bathed in golden glow. Pink halos dressed the edges of brass fixtures. “They will be here any time now, White Bird. You do pace so.” The black-haired giant bent over a series of documents at his desk.

Eoin pushed his own hair up, the weight of it giving him a headache. Pins put too much tension on his scalp and all he wanted to do was scream. You say that, Mirza, but I have not seen them in four months. You say they need tutoring and I give you half an ingot of trust. How am I to know they weren’t sold or kidnapped or murdered upon the road? Why must they be held in Isfahan?

“As I’ve explained multiple times, White Bird, they are perfectly safe with the rest of the children of the palace. All the boys are sent to Isfahan to learn to read and write through the scriptures. It is customary.” Mirza set a scroll aside and opened another.

It is keeping hostages. Eoin sank onto a stool in front of Mirza’s desk.

“My father would disapprove of that word.” Mirza dipped a metal nib into a peacock shaped inkwell.

Disapprove because it is accurate. Eoin jiggled his leg up and down to dispel a sense of urgency from his system.

“It is as we have practised for more than five decades, White Bird. They take those that would inherit my father’s throne and teach them the skills they will need in court.” Mirza set his writing equipment in their holder.

The court uses the children to threaten the outlying kingdoms so that they will not revolt and take over Isfahan. Flicking an irritated hand, Eoin ran across a raised piece of painful skin against his nail. The physician shoved the edge of his thumbnail under his teeth to chew off the tag.

“And it is the way it has been to keep the peace. My father has not betrayed the court, therefore nothing will befall your children.” Mirza sighed, stood, and walked around his desk. Regarding Eoin under dark brows, he snapped his thumb and forefinger. The physician stilled his jittery leg to glance up at the giant. Wariness crossed his eyes as he stood up. Mirza engulfed Eoin, squeezing tight, until the man relaxed.

“You worry too much, White Bird. Breathe for me. They will be here shortly and they will rather a calm father than a flustered physician.” Mirza found the spot at the base of Eoin’s skull that held too many tense knots. The physician lay his head on Mirza’s chest and closed his eyes, trying to do as he was told.

“But what if something happens to them between there and-”

A knock startled the two. Eoin stumbled back quickly and Mirza dropped his hands to find a nonchalant position.

A male voice echoed through the door. “Mirza? Niloofar’s children have arrived. I’ve had them placed in the physician’s rooms. Sarai is seeing to bedding for them.”

“He will be there shortly.” Mirza gave Eoin a broad grin and grabbed his hand to stall him from racing out the door. Putting up a finger, he had Eoin count the guard’s footsteps. Once sufficiently quiet, Mirza let go.

Eoin dashed from the Prince’s meeting quarters for his pharmacy and sleeping quarters.

“Dad!” Albin and Callum greeted him as he tore open the door and threw himself at them. Encompassing them in a bear hug, tears splashed from his eyes onto their bright white hair.

“I missed you so much. I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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Polaris Skies: Ch 33 – Final Chapter

They were able to locate an old map of Florgia, long-forgotten behind a convenience store shelf in Pensacola. It proved to be useful in getting them past Tallahassee and Gainesville. Their anticipation and fear rose as they passed by Ocala on 75. It had been completely decimated from incendiaries. Fear prickled as they wondered if Hana’s godfather would still be in the St. Petersburg area. When they found a closer map of the Tampa and Clearwater areas, their hearts sank. Fort Dade was an island off the tip of the St. Petersburg peninsula, and it was tiny. Surely the science centre couldn’t be there. Where else, though, could Corbin have centred his complex if it was still there?

They hoped and walked. Their aim was a large green belt out near an area called Cat’s Point. They very well may walk for months back and forth through St. Petersburg and the islands to try and find the building. The closer they got, the less faith they had that they would be able to find Corbin Ziphle.

“Oye, guys!” Heinrich called out to the other wolves on the Highway 19 strip. They were dodging in and out of dark shadows. There were still working lights on the streets. Someone had the grid still up and running. It had been rare when they encountered mass electricity in their travels. They had dodged housing when one or two buildings showed the use of solar generators. Self-sufficient farmers tended to own guns and had very little problem shooting at wolves that even thought of harming their livestock. The streetlights in St. Petersburg were eerie, if only for the fact that most of the buildings along the road were boarded up. Some had been ransacked. Others had been left intact. They passed by a couple of malls and a vacated National Guard building without much luck. The buildings were large enough to house Corbin, but no luck.

Heinrich, eager to make the corner that would put them on Pinellas scouted ahead. A boarded gas station called their names. Maybe they’d be able to find a better map of St. Petersburg than the one they had, which had been a broad regional map. They were hoping for one that had the street names listed if at all possible.

With a bit of struggle, they forced their way inside the dim building. Dust motes hung in the shafts of light streaming through the plywood. It had been ransacked and tagged at one point. One of the windows had been broken out and boarded over. Canned food and trinkets littered the aisles. Some of the cans had burst, leaving the space smelling acrid. The group split up to inspect the shelves, seeing if there was anything they could stuff into their bags and if they could find the elusive map.

The wolves allowed the humans to take their shift momentarily. Fingers could reach behind shelves much easier than paws. The women set to work on gathering up nonperishables within the expiration date. They broke into the back office and storage room while the men shifted shelves to locate a possibly misplaced map.

A loud howl of joy came from the back office. The men perked up, curious as to what had set the women off. Sun Hee bounded out of the office with a massive white sheet of paper, and Zola had a medium-sized box gripped tightly against her chest. Hana followed the two with a big grin on her face. The men rushed over to see what the chaos was about.

“Found a delivery and distribution map for St. Petersburg pinned up behind the boss’s desk!” Sun Hee spread the sheet out on the checkout counter between them and the guys.

“They had a bigger one on the other wall, but it’s the same as the one we have now, other than a pinpoint for all of the stations in the greater Florgia area,” Hana supplied.

“What did you find, Zola?” Benj asked curiously. Zola set the cardboard box down on the counter while Hana and Nat navigated the map, trying to make a decent guess at where a massive building could fit in the neighbourhoods, swamps, and sandbars. Yeller and Dietrich split their attention between the two. Zola opened up the box with a flourish. Inside were snack bags of chocolate pieces, all still held tight in a vacuum-sealed bag. The group’s eyes went round. They hadn’t had chocolate since Oregonia.

Yeller was the one who knew he was going to get a can of food flung at his head for what he had to say. “You know chocolate can kill dogs, right? And caffeine isn’t good for the kids.”

“Uhhhh. Why! No! Gah,” Sun Hee protested over the box. Her face turned red as her eyes swam in tears. Nat, Yeller and Benj backed up a step and shoved Deck over the counter. “Up you go.” “She’s your’s.” “Sorry, mate.” The three abandoned Deck to his fate. Sun Hee sputtered and rambled and cried and yelled. There was a long line of confusion that issued from her in no real coherence other than cursing at the world and how everything was unfair and sucked.

A loud thud on the roof startled most of the group outside of Sun Hee, and her tirade, though Deck eased her voice to a low mumble. The rest watched the ceiling, tracking footsteps approaching the end of the building they had entered from. Hairs rose on Nat’s arms.

I smell bird, Sven growled inside of him. Nat nodded, catching the stench drifting through the vents in the ceiling. Cashia shifted and pushed up against Nat, backing him away from their entrance. Nat knelt and put his arm around Cashia’s neck, drawing his ear toward him. “Get Dietrich and Heinrich ready for an ambush. Keep the women safe. I’m going to go as bait. Hana and I are the ones he’s psycho over. He may have others.” He eased a large pocket knife out of his pack and flipped the blade experimentally. He shut it closed and palmed it.

Cashia glanced at him before letting Yeller take over. “Absolutely fucking not, you gammy eejit. You go out there, you die,” Yeller hissed back as Benj knelt next to them.

Nat raised enough to kiss Yeller on the forehead. “I wouldn’t risk you or our children for the world, and I’ll never be able to stand knowing you were at risk because of me. You keep them safe.” Nat ran a hand along Yeller’s reassuringly as his eyes switched to their two-toned look. He pressed his will and love into Yeller.

Deck had gotten the women to duck and cover under the counter and had come around to the guys’ side. “Surely you’re not doing stupid things again!”

Dietrich sat back and watched, curious. It wasn’t exactly a half-bad idea. Nat would be bait, bringing Michael down. Cashia would hold back and protect the women, though Tereza was inside of Nat, and that was a risk on its own. Dietrich and Heinrich would be ready to ambush Michael when he came to get Nat.

“We finish this now. I’ve crossed an entire continent with this bastard hanging onto our trail. I’m tired of it, and I want it to be done with,” spat Nat. “I have a very personal vendetta with him, and I’m gonna make sure he takes it.”

Deck nodded. He wasn’t happy with it, but he understood it all too well. Dietrich shifted and butted his head against Nat’s arm in acceptance. “You’d make a good second in command,” he said softly.

Yeller looked between the two in confused horror. This wasn’t going how he had wanted. Nat leaned forward and pulled Yeller down to meet his lips. Tears and apprehension brush behind the blond’s eyes. Cashia supported him, knowing this was terrifying for him to experience all over again. “Save a bag of chocolate for me.” Nat smiled up at Yeller. As he rose to get up from his crouch, he leaned over and whispered in Yeller’s ear, “I love you.” He turned, slinking toward their entrance hole on silent, bare feet.

Deck and Benj pushed the stunned Yeller around the counter to block off the women. They followed Nat a close distance behind and shifted. The women and Yeller followed suit in shifting. Sylvi rubbed up against Cashia’s side. Cashia turned to her. “Are you all right with this? Your husband is about to go murder himself, again,” he seethed.

Sylvi sat down and wrapped her tail up around her feet. “And your wife,” she agreed with him.

He glanced back at Sibor and Anastasia. They were standing on guard, ready as the third wave. “It would have been better to leave Sven and Tereza here and let me go,” he muttered angrily.

Sylvi shifted her shoulders. “You’ve known Sven and Tereza for centuries. They can be quite stubborn. And they deeply love their mates. I’ve seen Sven go up against bears and other wolf packs before to keep Dietrich and me alive. I’ve seen Tereza stand over you more than once when you took too a hard hit. Nat has merged with them completely, and I do believe they don’t want to see us hurt again. They seem to have found a well-matched host,” she admitted.

Yeller sat back inside of Cashia as his world dimmed to a dark throbbing pain. He didn’t want to be on this side of the counter. He didn’t want Nat sticking his head out of their entry point. He didn’t want to be watching as the world slowed to a pinpoint of light.

Breathe, Ruben. Cashia reprimanded him. Though Cashia said it, Yeller’s heart and lungs tried to crawl out of his throat as adrenaline burst through his system in sparks of numbing pain. The pinpoint of light flashed in his chest as he watched Nat’s feet leave the tile in slow motion, his love’s body dragged up and out of the hole. Chained in deep mud, Yeller tried to rush forward after Dietrich and Heinrich, who charged out of the hole, splintering the boards. Cashia was pushed forward by the women who weren’t going to stand back for long with their men leaving. The distance across the floor increased endlessly, and he was not getting to the exit fast enough.

Nat wasn’t too surprised when he was picked up by Michael. He had expected he would have gotten farther out of the exit before the birdman picked him up, but it still achieved the desired effect. Two other bird men followed close behind, surprised by a pair of wolves launching themselves onto their backs and rending their wings. They plummeted to the earth as Michael pulled himself higher into the sky with his heavy load and turned south out toward the ocean.

Michael’s arms wrapped around Nat’s throat and under his right arm. “Why are you still alive? I watched from the house across the street, you slutty bastard. You couldn’t just have my sister could you, you filthy piece of shit? You left her alone with those wolves while you went and fucked your little boy toy. You couldn’t get enough of my men, so you went and had to spread yourself for someone else?” The man’s arms tightened around Nat, crushing his windpipe. His feet dangled uselessly over fast-moving land. The wind tore at his flesh. “It took months to find your trail again. You thought you were clever, leaving in the dark. Now I’ll finally be rid of you. Then I’m gonna go and gut those mangy mutts of yours, every single one of them. Think I’ll make that gold one into a nice pelt.”

Nat desperately scratched with one hand, terrified, as he tried to flip the blade open in his other hand. Sven and Tereza circled. Nat refused their shift. The sharp edge sprang free of the case. He flipped the blade in his hand and struck backwards, driving the blade deep into Michael’s ribs. The man hissed at the attack, loosening his grip momentarily. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” Nat hissed as he reached for Tereza and Sven. They took his offered hands and swamped his system with energy.

Michael banked hard as nauseating, fear-inducing pheromones dripped from every pore on Nat’s body. Water came into view past the neighbourhoods and greenway. Sticky hot liquid ran along his back and dripped down his stomach as he struggled with Michael’s inescapable grip. Desperately an idea floated into his buzzing mind. Sven and Tereza were mortified but willing.

The blue-green of algae and the smell of fish and seafoam hit Nat with a buffeting hot wind over the coastline. Water was maybe more survivable than land if he dropped from this height. Nat pulled his right arm up and chanced the leader of the birdmen dropping him. He grabbed for the back of Michael’s neck. With all the force in his body and Sven and Tereza’s connection, he pushed into Michael as he buried the blade once more in his ribs until he felt the blade crunch through something other than muscle. The wheeze he heard told him he’d probably got a lung or some other organ, but had missed the heart. Michael’s wings closed up like a parachute with a hole in it. He could feel himself go weightless as Michael let go of him, and they both plummeted. The rocks in the water came up faster than he expected. Sven and Tereza wrapped around his consciousness as they ducked and covered.

Dietrich and Heinrich stripped the feathers from the two men that had come with Michael, clawing their backs to shreds. They recognised them immediately for their smell. They would never be able to forget them or forgive them. The men were some of Nat’s attackers.

Cashia emerged from the exit followed closely by the women in time to see Dietrich and Heinrich tear open the men’s throats. He looked up to find Michael flying off with Nat struggling beneath him. Yeller wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time. “Take care of the women!” He demanded of his leader and his leader’s son. He launched himself out onto the highway and ran because the world was ending.

He didn’t take his eyes off of the struggling men in the sky as he passed by a mile, two miles. Houses flew, turning into deep green trees. A massive white metal complex hidden by the trees flicked in his periphery. A whiff of sickly-sweet honey and brood permeated the area near the building. Multiple rhythmic gunshots rang out from that direction, but it was not as important at that moment as getting to Nat.

He came upon a bridge, and the smell of the ocean hit him full in the face. He swallowed, terrified, as he watched Nat push a blade deep into Micheal’s chest and the birdman’s wings twinged to circle him northwest over a small bay. Nat reached around and grabbed Michael’s neck as he buried the blade again, and the wings snapped at the bones. They folded up as feathers tore from flesh to rain down in a cloud. Michael let go of Nat as he struggled with his wings. Nat wasn’t positioned well, though, as Cashia watched. He was coming in over a rock and sand bar, whereas Michael had made it into a clear blue section of the water that looked deep and smooth. Cashia jumped the road and made for the bay as Nat hit down, his body going limp at impact. Michael struggled in the water, his useless wings weighing him down.

The birdman pulled himself up along the beach as Cashia reached the edge of the water. Yeller swung wide in the shift and smashed a fist into the man’s face. Searing pain radiated up his knuckles and the crunch of bones under his fist told him the bad news.

Michael fell back in surprise, his bleeding wounds gaping. He struggled to draw in a breath around his collapsed lung. Cashia took the shift as Yeller tagged him in and came down on Michael, finishing off his suffocation, puncturing holes in his throat. He held the birdman pinned until he no longer heard him breathing.

Yeller pulled Cashia from seeing red to check Nat’s lifeless body laid out on the rock and sand near the mouth of the bay. They ran down the edge of the beach and out onto a dock. Yeller dove into the water and propelled himself across the water with every ounce of strength he had left.

“No!” he screamed as his hands found the shore. He pulled up to the sandbar, slogged his way across the sinking mud, and slipped across the algae-covered rock to Nat. “No! Don’t! Don’t you die on me now, medeni!” Cashia screamed at the top of his lungs. He skidded to Nat’s side.

“Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, ná bíodh. Don’t do this, mo grá,” Yeller mumbled as tears tracked down his cheeks. He gathered Nat’s body into his arms. His skin was clammy cold. Michael’s blood smeared across his back and his stomach. The impact of the rock had torn at his skin, leaving varying grit-filled bleeding gashes from head to toe. Yeller cradled Nat against his chest. He searched for an errant heartbeat, a stutter of the lungs, any sign that would tell him the man walked in the land of the living. He found silence.

Cashia bore the brunt of Yeller’s heartbreak as his mind went numb. Nat lay like a bloodied doll in his arms. His mind wrapped around Yeller’s poignant pain as his hollow agony surfaced. His chest constricted and refused to allow a full gasp of air. His gut was full of lead and acid. Tears ran in hot streams down his cheeks.

Tereza was gone. Sven was gone. Nat was gone. He howled in misery, mixing his voice with Yeller’s.

Deck and Benj helped Yeller pull Nat’s body back to the mainland. The group collapsed onto the beach in misery and pain. The remainder of Michael’s group had gone down fighting, and there were minor wounds evenly distributed between them all. Yeller refused to let Nat’s body leave his arms. Sun Hee was the next to understand the full impact of what it meant, and her tears poured down in torrents. Zola and Hana followed suit next. Benj and Deck held them gently, fighting with their own emotions.

A warm sea salt gust brushed at Yeller’s hair. He looked up to the horizon. A shift in weight startled him. He watched the texture of Nat’s cold skin change to a thick coat of white fur. Sven’s form lay limp in his arms. A single shallow rise of the chest cavity sent Yeller’s heart into overdrive. Hana brushed a shaking hand along the wolf’s cold head, her cheeks tracked with tears.

Yeller swivelled to the sound of gunshots on the other side of the forest along the bay. He dragged himself up, carefully cradling the wolf’s body. His mind numb and Cashia struggling, he let his feet fall heavily through the woods. He passed a mansion to the other side of the street and deep into heavy greenery where he had smelled the unmistakable scent of Bai.

Nat and Yeller in the beginning.

*Next book is Subgalaxia: Legend of the Bai – Book 4*

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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The Fire in My Blood: Ch 26 – Finally Chapter

NSFW – Erotica

The end of the hallway in the warehouse was too far and yet too close. In the shadowed alcove outside what was our now temporary housing, Sanctus pushed me to the wall, demanding a kiss. I obliged if only to feel his body against mine. The temperature was going up under my skin as I let him go. He smiled slyly and turned to our room. I engulfed him, reaching around to unlock the bolt. “Your eyes are going black,” he cautioned.

He waited until I was capable of letting go, his form pliant; mine – needy. I watched him slip past me into our darkened room. His fingers dragged across my stomach, catching on the waistband of my pants. He tugged me in with him. I closed the door and threw the lock. In the quiet dark, I pulled him to me, hugging him fiercely. “I love you, Jude,” I whispered in his ear as tension finally released from my shoulders. I had not realized how anxious I was for the bond-tie to go smoothly.

“You said some things back there,” he whispered, his hands running up under my shirt.

“I did some things back there,” I helped him pull the offending material off.

“Do more.” He pressed closer to me. Every hard line rubbed against me, and my breath came out hot as a pulse of electricity hit my digits like a steam hammer. I licked my lips and gently brushed his hair from his shoulder. “Why would you ever fall for a Vampire?” I chuckled as I crept a series of kisses down his ear and his throat. A strangled note hitched beneath my lips. I continued my perusal, pushing aside the lapels of his white shirt to continue along his collarbone. Buttons. Lord Hades, they were small, frustrating, and too many in number. Easing one shoulder off to reveal skin down to his navel was proving torturous to both of us. I pulled him up to his toe tips to sate my driving curiosity. He squirmed under my onslaught. I turned to the other shoulder, brushing the fabric down to his elbows. Frustrated, he pushed to have it gone. Setting him down, I helped him slip the fitted garment off, letting it pool around his feet.

“I fell for you before you were Vampire,” he swallowed that admission.

“Sounds like love at first sight, Jude.” I nibbled along his trap, amused with the texture and slim tensile strength built up over months of working leather and canvas. A shiver ran down his spine. He eased his fingers up my stomach to trace my chest and circle my neck, holding me to him, raising up on his toes to meet my height. His breathing was stuttering, and his heart tripped hard against my chest, but everything in his body screamed for me. I slipped my fingers down his sides to trace the line that would lead me to his length, only interrupted by the line of his pants.

“When you told your captain no. That’s when I knew I wanted to know you.” His words caught as I cupped him through the leather, drawing his attention to a single moment.

“I don’t remember anything after seeing you say ‘please’. Honest. But your eyes haunted me for years.” I feathered kisses along the line of his jaw. He bent to my ministrations. I forced him to arch as I pushed too many of his buttons, drawing a sharp note of need.

“Dmitri,” his voice cracked. Now that. That was almost enough to do me in there. I had waited to hear that one pitch for years. It shot straight through me from fangs to toes. I pulled my buckle and belt off, but fell short of getting everything else off when he settled a light hand on my fervent desires. I slowed to take my time until I could feel him slipping. “Got a preference?” I let go to run a hand up his side to pull him closer. Not sure if he shivered at the touch or the tone, but the mewl was cute.

“I enjoyed being on top the last time we got nowhere, but I’m good here too.” His admission was breathy, some of his syllables dropping out entirely. I eased off to let him come down off his rush. He pushed back against my chest as he worked through a formulation, his gaze sweeping the floor to my left. “I don’t-” He clammed up.

“Don’t what?” I loosened my grip on him, giving him the room he was asking for. He didn’t step away entirely, his heat still coating me, his colors shifting through my vision from pale freckles to purples and oranges. Soon he would be a walking star. I wanted to continue exploring, but he needed to tell me things. He needed for me not to coerce him.

“I don’t like penetration.” His voice was tight and small in the bubble we had formed.

“Either direction?” I asked softly. He shook his head, biting on his bottom lip. “Then we won’t.” I rubbed my thumb back and forth over his oblique in reassurance.

“But…I thought?” His power was rolling over me in waves, the type when he was terrified.

“Go on,” I encouraged, sitting on the floor to rest my back against the bed frame. Tugging his fingers, I pulled him straddle me. It was a position he enjoyed, so I would let him have it. His hand pushed into my chest while I kept quiet. The drowning quality of deep water swamped me where his hand rested over my heart.

“It’s not how I learned,” he admitted, unable to look me in the eyes.

“Who taught you, Jude?” My stomach pinched at the idea.

“The people Gemma – “

“That wasn’t love, or lovemaking, you know that right?” I interrupted that train of thought.

He ducked, a tremble running up his backbone. “I know. I’ve talked to Medicus about it. He’s said it too. It’s just. It’s hard to break away from what I’ve been taught are expectations and what I know are boundaries I can have.”

“What I want is for you to be happy and feel safe. Not everyone is into it. It’s not an expectation and never will be.” I rested my arms around his back loosely, letting him melt into my hold as I waited for him to be okay with himself.

“Are you? Into it, I mean.” He brushed a hand through my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear. His eyes were still rummaging through our room, my skin, my hair, everywhere other than my own eyes.

“I have participated in it, and found it enjoyable for myself. I am not you, though, Jude. If it’s not something you like giving or receiving, it’s not, and that’s perfectly reasonable, okay?” I held his hand to my chest over my heart.

He nodded once, though his eyes had yet to meet mine. “Am I broken?” he asked.

I shrugged and shook my head. “No. Honestly, you’re pretty normal. Not everyone likes it. This type of closeness is enough for some.”

He laid his head into my shoulder. His tidal waves eased against my skin, relenting to a soft wash against the shore. “He was right, you know.”

“Who?” I ran a hand down his back to squeeze his ribs reassuringly.

“Medicus.” He finally relented with a deep in-drawn breath and pulled back to sit up. Running a hand through his hair to push it out of his face, he smiled down at me, his eyes lighting like fireworks when they met mine.

“About what?” I skimmed his thighs to watch him come to life.

“You’re a good guy.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose.

I pulled him down, pressing him to my chest as I demanded more than a peck. “That doesn’t make me a chaste angel. I hope you realize that.” I pursued him until his lips were swollen and his power resembled a waterfall.

“Let me up then, devil,” Sanctus teased. I really didn’t want to, but I relented. It was worth my sacrifice. His skin-tight leather fell away from slim legs, and I was a butterfly to a rosebush. He turned to make for the kitchen, but had gone no further than a step before I had him pinned, kneeling under me, while I kissed along his shoulder blades and backbone. I explored his chest, flicking a peaked nipple. He took my hand from my fixation and demanded I wrap around him to show me his speed, his pressure. I played with him, listened to every catch and sigh.

“You were aiming for the kitchen. Looking for something slick?” I growled, resting my head on his lower back, waiting for the throb running through me to settle for a minute. The kitchen and the oil there were a couple steps away, but I was too content with what I was doing to move.

“I was aiming for that before you pounced me, lion. I’m beginning to think you might have a fixation. You might want to let go,” Sanctus teased.

“Hades, I don’t want to.” I was enjoying nibbling just to feel him shiver. He shifted to roll over underneath me. Every damn time. Those cognac eyes. I leaned down and captured his mouth, tasting, dancing with his tongue before moving down his jaw. The line of his throat was alluring, and his eager arch of pressed desire clued me in on a spot to come back to. I kneaded his sides as I moved down his chest and stomach. He flexed under my teeth in surprise. “That tickles, and you’re really warm,” he whispered. It might tickle, but it was driving him crazy, and I wasn’t about to stop something that was making him this squirmy. A soft breath at his tip had him shaking. A light trace along the edge of it with my tongue, and his fingers were tunnelling in my hair. He pulled me up so I would look him in the eyes. “I’m way too close for you to be doing that,” he admitted.

“I’ve barely touched you,” I slowed down, admiring the flush that ran up his body.

“Barely? You’ve finally touched me, damn it!” he admitted, that flush darkening. I kept eye contact as I licked his full length once before relenting, shifting back up to straddle one of his legs, grinding my thigh gently against his weight as I returned to enjoying the softness of his lips. He couldn’t quite catch his breath, and I was more than content to keep him that way.

He moved restlessly beneath me, his fingers dancing magic down to free me from my confines. I pushed at my pants in impatient frustration, tumbling when I got wrapped up in one of the legs. He laughed triumphantly when he took top, and I found myself on the floor looking up at a siren.

He spread his delicate fingers across my chest and smiled, pleased with his momentary victory. Leaning fully into me until we were completely skin to skin, he swamped me in sage and rosemary. I was familiar with the sensation of his power across my hands, momentary glancing touches across small patches of skin as that of mirror-smooth water when he was calm, but to feel him so completely was to hold effervescent electricity to my heart. I clenched my jaw as stars ran beneath my skin, and his power seared through me. I could have gone up and been content to burn out like a comet. He wrapped his hand around our lengths, and I was left in a fantasy world as he pumped us experimentally.

“You’re enjoying yourself,” I bit out, trying to kidnap my breath as it evaded me.

“I was told at one point that I should try making one selfish wish once every day. Maybe it’s a cup of tea, or sleeping five minutes after sunrise. Maybe it’s putting on a clean shirt.” He leaned down until my whole world was that orange-pink colour. “Be my selfish wish tonight, Dmitri.” He kissed me, licking my bottom lip until I relented to his invasion.

I ran my hand up his thighs to trace the line of his butt, to run up to the small of his waist and position him closer to me. “You told me I must be a wizard once. How about a djinn? I’ll grant you a wish.” I smiled under his lips. He was turning me inside out. I thought I was supposed to be getting him flustered.

“Let me get that oil real quick, and I’ll come back to you making all my wishes come true.” He released me.

I looked up at him as he climbed off of me, still trying to get my breath back. “All?” my voice cracked. Traitor.

He regarded my pride under hooded eyes. “You’ve got enough there for all my fantasies and then some.”

Hades says what?

He came back with the bottle of olive oil I had been contemplating. That slickness down my shaft just about put me through the ceiling. I arched into his hand and closed my eyes to let my other senses take in that moment.

I let him take control and lay back to enjoy his slow dance, encouraging him along here and there just to watch him throw back his head in pleasure. He leaned down to trace my chest with his lips to take a momentary break before he had both of us up in flames. As it was, my skin was almost sizzling, and the temperature of the room was rising under his touch. “What’s your thoughts, Dmitri?” he nibbled along my peck. Who was this man? Where was this confidence coming from? I sure wasn’t going to complain, but I was going to need to lift a couple books off Scriba as a thank-you gift for Medicus.

“Thoughts?” I tried to ask, though his movement was diverting what little attention I had left.

“Put me under you, bite me, that whole bit about drawing your name out of me.” His eyes flashed with cunning.

He didn’t need to ask twice. A twist had him under me, his legs wrapped around my back. “Tell me when to stop,” I whispered, finally letting go of my inhibition and enjoyed my fangs sinking into the soft spot above his heart. My name sounded beautiful on his tongue. I drove against him, luxuriating in his flavour and mewling gasps. That waver in his fingers, the tightness of his legs against my back. I could live there forever, skin to skin, where fire and power met.

I’m not sure when he told me to stop, but it was just in time to watch him fall apart in my arms. A pulse, a push, and I was finding my own release against his heat. We both stared at each other, refusing to leave the shelter of our bodies as we drew in ragged breath after breath. “You alive?” I asked, finally withdrawing from his loosened grasp. I shuddered at the sudden cold, immediately wishing to return to what I could only call home now.

“Pull me down from the clouds in the morning.” Sanctus smiled as he closed his eyes to enjoy his afterglow. I left him to his momentary peace and went over to my clothing rack. I pulled a pair of dish rags off and brought one over for him while I cleaned myself off.  He startled at the contact of the cloth on his stomach as I wiped him down. 

“How’s it feel to be co-leader of Urbs Aquarum?” He took the rag from me to finish and let me get to myself.

I sat back on the bed while he laid on the floor for a few minutes longer. “Doesn’t quite feel real yet. You’d think three months after dismantling Rubrum, I’d have gotten my head wrapped around it?” I stared off into space and allowed that dawning realization to sink in.

“What that was felt pretty real.” Sanctus pulled himself off the floor and flopped down on my bed to rest his head on my thigh.

“You okay? No funny heartbeat after that?” I asked, motioning over my own skin where I had bit him.

“Gonna be a bit sore in the shoulders, but I’m good. Maybe a little dizzy.” He took my hand and set it on his hair. Him and having his hair brushed. He had developed a fondness for being a hair mannequin while I figured out techniques for Sam and Abby. Now it was more a habit than a learning experience. I leaned over and grabbed my bone comb off the foot locker at the end of the bed and took up his locks as he told me about his week. Some of it I could have assumed, but this ritual was what brought us home. It let him know he was safe, and it let me know he was safe in my arms. He was home. Even after having disbanded Aurantiaco and Rubrum, after placing new wardens to oversee the territories as expansion, I had stood on eggshells, refusing to allow Jude’s presence to be tangible, afraid he would disappear in the blink of an eye.

“You’re crying. Your stomach still hurt?” Sanctus rolled to look up at me. My tears must have dropped on him.

“Eh, flesh wound. It doesn’t hurt too much anymore.” A smile wobbled on my lips.

“What’s wrong?” He sat up, nervous.

“I was so scared for you, Jude. I didn’t think I’d see you again. I thought I’d be burying your body when I went in there. I still find myself waking up, thinking you’re gone.” I pulled him to straddle me, reassuring myself of his reality. He was warm and solid and there. His chest fell and rose with each breath. Sage and rosemary filled my lungs. His fingers drew along my arms reassuringly. I buried my face in his shoulder and held him, hiding my tears in his hair. He twisted, weaselling his hands under my arms to wrap around my back. Heart to heart, we stayed in each other’s company.

“I love you too, Dmitri. Thank you for staying by me and my messed up self,” he whispered.

“You are you. And I want you for you,” I whispered back. “Now. Can we talk about you being little spoon for once?”

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Subgalaxia: Ch 9

Breathing hard, the three found themselves back on Bern’s beach.  Bern wasn’t ready for it when Ishan barreled toward him, catching him in the jaw with a hard right hook.  It threw the connection and Bern, Fane, and Ishan tumbled back onto the grass outside of the warehouse.

Corbin and Sophia, sitting next to them, scuttled out of the way as they came to, Ishan trying to press the blade in his hand toward Bern.  Fane restrained the knife. “Prince, sh…sh…Ishan…it’s all right,” Fane tried to calm the angry man.

“Fuck that! It’s not all right.  The hell was that, Bern?” Ishan demanded of the man.

“It’s not his fault, Ishan.  It’s not…It’s just…it’s all right, all right?” Fane tried to reassure him.

Ishan looked down at Fane’s sad smile, his pleading face that was begging him to not cry.  Ishan curled around him possessively. “Fane. My god.” The man trembled around him, threatening to strangle him from holding him so close.

“That’s why I need Corbin ta look at his void.” Bern pinned the man with a cruel glare.  “He better be willing to take responsibility f’r leavin’ him like that if he wants his spaceship ta work,” the man spat.

“What do you mean leave him like that?  We’re not leaving Fane strung up in a place like that!” Ishan protested.

“Bern?” Fane directed the man’s attention.  “Don’t make me do that again.”

Bern huffed, angry, his face colouring.  He pushed himself off the ground and stomped back to the warehouse. He let himself in and allowed the door to crash behind him.  That left Fane, Ishan, Corbin and Sophia sitting on the ground.

“You aren’t vaporizing us, so it went…?” Corbin offered kindly.  He really was lost at what was going. He stilled under the falcon-like gaze of the prince.  “Show me those medical reports, now!” Ishan pushed himself off the ground. He pulled Fane up with him, not willing to let go of his hand.  Fane slipped the knife back into his holster and followed Ishan into the building, his head throbbing horribly. 

Sophia led them back into a different room, what looked like an office that had been hit by a category four tornado.  Bern was already in it shuffling through piles of papers in frustration. Papers were spread everywhere. A tablet lay on the top of a rather precarious stack.  She shuffled a few shiefs around, nudging Bern out of the way. “We’re trying to get you to open the portal again, but this time we aren’t calling on the Grey Monster. Instead, we’re going through the door it used to get us through a wormhole to the other side of the universe.  There’s a galaxy that our research is saying has several habitable planets and resources similar to ours.” She brushed through more pages, trying to find a few stacks of papers while Corbin came in with the manila envelope of Fane’s medical history that he handed over to Ishan. Ishan looked it over, recognizing some of the images as the papers he had seen from Zephyr.  Now he really had a better idea of what was going on.  

Sophia looked up excited when she finally found the mound of papers she was after, though it sent a deluge of white rectangles splattering to the ground.  She shrugged and urged Fane onto the only other chair in the room. Ishan eased up to stand behind Fane’s right shoulder to look down on the papers that she was gleefully waving at them.  “The read-out shows in the time leading up to the release of the Grey Monster that there was a high spike of adrenaline and cortisol followed shortly by noradrenaline. It corresponds with the portal development lines here.  Within a couple minutes of the noradrenaline dump, you entered a state of meditation here.” Sophia pointed at another chemistry line on the papers. He shrugged and looked up at her.

“The chemicals balanced into perfect harmony for these hours here.  You hit a spike of cytokines, probably from exhaustion. Several hours after this extensive event you had a high level of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. That combined out only shortly after with norepinephrine, vasopressin, and nitric oxide. Jeez these implants are fantastic.  They even got your orgasm. This was only a couple hours before Corbin, and I pulled you into our time.” Sophia was pleased with her graphs.  

Fane blinked at her as his cheeks, and the tips of his ears burned.  “Do fucking what?” he raised his eyebrows in surprised incredulity.  He was very much over feeling invaded. His heart beat hard and angry in his throat, and the room began to feel like an icebox.

“Here, no see.” She pointed to the wiggling lines without notice of his current discomfort.  “This shows you went through a phase of fear, the fight or flight instinct. That was followed shortly by extreme anger. Then you went into an almost tantric level meditation for a time.  Not quite twenty-four hours later, you went through a phase of extreme joy that led to sexual relief.” She was overwhelmingly jubilant in her proclamation.  Ishan coughed firmly. Fane looked up at him beseechingly. He did not want to be having this conversation. He was very much done with the pair of mad scientists.

“We’ve seen some small marks of your fear levels.  They tended to come in the late night hours. Then low-level meditation in the early mornings and shortly following lunch.” She flipped pages and pointed at mirrored graphs.  

“Night terrors.  I run, stretch, and climb in the mornings, and do shot practice and gymnastics in the afternoons.” Fane supplied the schedule he had maintained at the base that would fit the chemical releases.  

“There are very few markers for happiness in here.” She furrowed her brow as she rummaged through more sheets.  “I don’t see any in here until relatively recently. I’ve got a few small levels here.” She pulled out another paper.  

Fane looked at the dates on the graphs and handed them to Ishan.  “Day I met you and the day of that big VR dragon battle,” Fane mumbled as his thumb tapped the top left graphs on the page.

“The portal began its dilation around here.” Corbin showed Sophia something on his tablet. She tapped at the screen and flipped through some images.  She glanced up at Fane, then furrowed a brow and returned to the image.  She zoomed in on something, spreading her fingers across the screen. “Huh.  Anyways, it started truly forming when you went through extreme fear and anger.  It balanced out at the meditation line, getting stronger. That seemed to help stabilize its growth pattern.  I think it would have collapsed if you hadn’t had that line.  The,” she coughed more modestly, catching Ishan’s warning, “this line is what finally thinned the membrane at the portal enough for the creature to push through.  We’ve got the ring built, but we need you to rebuild the portal membrane. We can push through it as long as it’s thin enough. Do you,” she cleared her throat again, glancing away from the men, “do you remember what occurred for each of those event lines?  Maybe we can replicate it to get the ring to dilate. We need it to jump a wormhole of sorts,” she asked. She was anticipating hearing of them having a lover’s quarrel and a smouldering make-up session that had set up the portal.

Fane leaned forward, his elbows almost on his knees.  He folded his hands together, one thumb rubbing the knuckle of the other.  He bowed his head over his hands and turned to the side, and stared at a set of papers with meaningless graphs taped to the wall next to a bright desk lamp.  Ishan paced to the door and back. Sophia’s heart beat hard in her chest. She looked between the two men and furrowed her brows. This wasn’t some easily remedied lover’s quarrel.

Fane rubbed his face and up to ruffle his undercut and down to rub at the short hair at the nape of his neck momentarily before looking up at her.  “A noble killed one of Ishan’s nieces and her bodyguard, Zahar. Good man, would have liked to have kept him in service. The baron’s men rigged the back compound to blow.  That terror line matches up with the timeline when I went into the heir apparent’s house while it was on fire and pulled her body out. I found half of Zahar’s head blown off.  That high spike was when the bomb went off, and I thought Ishan and I were going to die.” He pointed to a specific high spike on the graph. “He showed me a note that the man had left behind.  He had taken the other twin. I…” He paused, his voice hitching, tracing the timeline and the rise and fall of chemicals. “This is where I found her…and them. She was only a child.” Bile coated the back of his throat again.  Ishan placed a calming hand on his shoulder. Fane reached up to hold the hand at his shoulder.

Ishan spoke for Fane, “Tam was raped.  Fane got her out of the baron’s house and brought her back to us safely.  This spot to this spot,” Ishan spread his finger across the area that Sophia had gleefully proclaimed meditation. 

Fane stepped in with a low whisper, “killing spree. Forty-two men dead, one injured but alive.” Sophia looked up at him, her face going sallow.  Bern and Corbin regarded him with horror. Fane raised an indifferent eyebrow. His soul felt dead at the memory. He had gotten her out, but she had still died because of him, because of the Grey Monster.  Ajay and Shelly were dead. Tears and self-anger rolled behind his eyes. The space swamped in cold, clammy humidity. Sophia glanced around uncomfortably.  

“He brought her and the baron back and came back to his room.  The baron was thrown in the jail we have at the palace. Tam was taken to our private hospital.  I helped get him cleaned up, and we collapsed on his couch for most of the rest of that morning into the early afternoon.  My former bodyguard was put in charge of seeing to Tam while she was being kept in the hospital yesterday evening. I didn’t want to wake Fane, but when a bad storm blew out the already precarious electricity, and I wasn’t sleeping well, I called him to take over his position as bodyguard for Ajay.  We ended up down in the armoury you found us in.” Ishan’s finger traced the gentle slope that led into a hard peak on the paper. It was bizarre to him, seeing Fane’s emotions spread out under his fingertip like some kind of roadmap.

Bern drew in a deep breath, interrupting the group’s melancholy, knowing he was only going to be adding to it.  “As it stands right now, Fane is in nae shape f’r openin’ up that portal a’ yer’s Sophia. He might be strugglin’ so hard to do that because of his void.  I need ta take Corbin in and show it ta him. He should kin what he’s askin’ this man ta do.” Bern grabbed Corbin and Fane both by the back of the neck and launched Corbin into Fane’s void unceremoniously.

Corbin dragged in a stifled gasp as he fell into the chill darkness.  The smell was enough to twist his stomach into knots. The noise in the echo chamber dropped him to his knees.  He covered his ears with his hands, but that did nothing to keep the screaming and bellowing from rattling his nerves.  His eyes adjusted for him to finally look up. He pulled violently away from Bern and fell out of Fane’s void willfully. 

He dashed for the tiny trash can at the door and puked. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand he turned to look at Fane, a haunted expression lingering in his eyes.  Corbin glanced at Sophia and back at Fane.

“Tell me ye’re gonna leave him like that n’ I will drive a wedge a’ madness so hard inta yer void that ye willnae e’en remember yer damn name,” Bern dared Corbin, his mouth set in an angry grimace.

“Whatever you have to do.” Corbin nodded to Bern, puking once more at the thought of what he had seen.  The Grey Monster on the TV had been nothing compared to seeing the tentacles in the void, the smell, the sound, the acid burning flesh.  He was still dry retching when Bern took Ishan and Fane from the room to the commissary where they could get a few changes of clothing.  

Bern showed them around the campus that was the Subgalaxia facility.  He nabbed a key and a bedroom in the second floor of the warehouses’ split between the small three-story mechanic’s shop and the fifteen-story main build hanger.  Assembly of the ship was done in stages, each new part attached outside in what was affectionately called the yard. He showed them across the way to a massive launching system that the Subgalaxia would be docked into that would get them airborn.  Fane followed along mutely, memorizing every face they passed. Taking on the position of bodyguard for Ishan he could manage. It let him cool his nerves, but he still felt tight and strung out from having faced down his own void, becoming consciously aware of it.

Finished with the tour, they returned back to the room they had been issued where they pushed their twin-sized bedframes together and subsequently fell into an uneasy sleep.

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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Polaris Skies: Ch 32

Yeller opened the door to the townhouse as the first rays of the sun cast hot pink and orange streaks on the low clouds. The beginning smell of decomposition wafted into his sinuses. He looked down at the doorstep as Sven rubbed against his leg. They stalled. On the doorstep lay a dead fox, its stomach slit open, and its insides pulled out. Cashia tossed Yeller into the back and took over. Sven’s hackles rose as he bared his teeth. It smelled like bird.

Damn it, Nat hissed. Cashia and Sven made their way around the dead body and back to the group’s townhouse. They found a repeated scene on that step. A cold pit settled in Nat’s stomach. Keep Hana buried deep in Sylvi. We’ll pack Cashia’s clothes and have him shift. We all travel as a pack. Don’t shift to human except out of sight of windows and definitely not out in the open if at all possible. He knows which one of you I am and which one Yeller is, but the rest… Damn it. I had hoped… Nat pushed the command at Sven.

Sven paused in the doorway, rather surprised. Cashia turned back to him, his ears laying flat. What do you mean, brat? Sven barred his fangs at the conversation. Cashia circled back and leaned into his shoulder. Sven walked the rest of the way into the house. Cashia closed the door and shoved a chair under the knob.

“Why the hell have you been hiding for the last month?” Sven wasn’t aware he had spoken out loud. He was more than a measure of angry. Cashia spun back from his approach to the hallway and stomped back to Sven. “Sven?” he bristled, shifting.

“Brother’s got some brains up here,” Sven snipped his teeth.

“I thought I had chased him into a dark hole here, Sven.” Cashia matched Sven’s raised hackles hair for hair.

Dietrich ambled down the stairs to spot the two in what looked to be a potential knockout fight. He had watched Cashia pin Sven more than several times. “Hold!” Dietrich commanded. Sven and Cashia turned to him, both anxious and puffed to twice their usual size. Their tales had gone ridged. “You’re not trying to rip each other’s throats out this early in the morning, are you? You’ve been gone all night,” Dietrich pinned them as they approached. The closer he got, the more his sense of smell informed him of death on the other side of the door. “Your host going to emerge from his isolation, Sven?” he asked as he circled the white wolf.

“Apparently, it wasn’t just for the one reason I thought it was that he buried himself for a month.” Sven tried to calm his nerves.

Dietrich approached the door and shifted for a second to twist the knob and see what was causing the smell. He closed the door and shifted back to his four-legged form. “Why do we have a disembowelled fox on our stoop?” he asked, still trying to suss out the anxiety that was putting his second in command and heavy hitter up in arms.

“There was one on the stoop of the house we were in this morning,” Cashia provided another clue.

“Our vengeful angel,” Dietrich spat. He flicked a glance between Sven and Cashia. “Nat came out, didn’t he?” He sniffed at his heavy hitter and right hand commander. “Is he doing all right?” He sat down. The other two followed his lead.

“Better,” Cashia answered.

“So, will our hosts be able to talk to him soon?” he pressed.

“From what he’s saying, none of the hosts are going to be talking to each other for a bit,” Sven explained.

“Go on,” Dietrich demanded. Sven got up to pace the living room. He bit down on the curtains and yanked them to cover up the windows. Dietrich watched him with agitation, his fur standing on end. His second in command returned to the circle and sat down.

Out you go, Sven tossed Nat out, forcing the shift. Nat looked up in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting it. He was used to reaching for the shift between wolf and human. He had been forcefully shifted into a wolf, but this was the first time Sven had purposefully shoved him into his human form.

Dietrich looked at him, surprised. Deck shoved his way out, clawing and fighting over the top of Dietrich until he took the shift. Deck sat up in his human form. “Nat!” Deck had a hard time keeping his voice down. Feet pattered in the house.

Want out? Cashia asked Yeller. Yeller reached for the offered shift, his much smoother than Deck or Nat’s.

Deck took in his friend’s form after having not seen him in a month. He noted the healed skin, the lean cut muscles. The wounds to his shoulders were massive spots of scar tissue at this point. The bruises that had rattled his chest and back had dissipated.

Dietrich filled in a few lines he had almost missed. Red cross-hatching on his sides, rope burns though faint were fresh on his wrists. There were even lines across his thighs. A deeply bruising bite mark on his upper peck was turning an ugly shade of blue and green. Deck’s eyes snapped up to Nat’s throat and face. A tinge of blue circled his throat like a shadowed collar. “Michael got to you again,” he made it a cold statement as he reached for Nat’s neck, pity smothering his expression. Nat’s eyes went round at the misunderstanding, waved his hands at the statement, and shook his head, stopping Deck from touching him.

Deck turned to pin Yeller with a scowl. “This had better be fucking good.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way, Deck.” Nat dropped his gaze from his friend in embarrassment.

“I’m waiting ’til the count of five for a damn good explanation before I sick Dietrich on him for not keeping you fucking safe for one goddamn night.” Deck pointed at Yeller, seething. Trust Nat to go get himself caught the one moment he turns human. Maybe he’d have a conversation with Sven about never letting him out again if this kept happening.

“I asked him to help me with some of my demons,” Nat rolled the words around in his mouth.

“And you look like you did when I got you out of that fucked up hell hole, and it’s not Michael’s doing?” Deck growled. Nat nodded, his ears going beet red. His friend’s gaze swivelled back to Yeller, eyes burning feral.

“Cashia?” Dietrich’s voice pitched black in the room.

Bounding footsteps and slamming doors announced the emergence of the rest of the group. Hana emerged from the bottom room tentatively. Benj, Zola, and Sun Hee piled down the stairs, flinging themselves at Nat, hugging him fiercely.

Once he extracted himself from the dogpile, Nat sat down and straightened himself out. They took in their fill of seeing their friend once more before gears cleared in their heads. The same set of misunderstandings became embarrassingly pervasive, and Nat had to keep telling them such. Finally, they settled to the floor in a circle to listen.

Dietrich returned to his main question. “Explain in small concise words here: why do we have a dead fox on our porch and Nat says he hasn’t been caught by Michael, and this,” Dietrich pointed more explicitly to Nat’s neck, “looks like he got into a nasty battle of wills with a gorilla?”

“I’m sitting right here,” Nat quipped.

“Shut up, child,” Dietrich snapped.

Sven and Tereza both bristled at the command.

Yeller shrugged, “the fox is Michael’s doing. His scent is all over it. He left one here, and at the house I was in with Nat last night.” Cashia eased up next to Yeller. Dietrich’s expression shifted to that of confusion momentarily. Nat, amused, watched Yeller’s eyes change to their two-toned look. He knew that expression. Cashia and Yeller were both sharing the wheel.

“I’m not a gorilla, hvala. We didn’t want to disturb the household. You know what I enjoy doing and what I do well.” Cashia shrugged in a similar pattern to Yeller, a sly smile making his teeth shine menacingly.

“Ah,” Deck grunted, clearing his throat as his expression went cold. With undue clarity, Dietrich filled in all the intimate blanks for him. Varying looks between the group morphed as their wolves explained Cashia and Tereza’s version of the birds and the bees to them. A few eyes went fairly round, a few were less able to hide the open glance at the rope burns.

Nat swallowed and tried his best to remain where he was sitting. Yeller touched his fingers gently. Nat returned the touch, entwining their fingers as the conversation came back to the fox.

“Sven says the hosts won’t be able to speak to each other much. Why?” Deck drove the conversation forward.

“Michael knows what Cashia and Sven look like. When I was first caught, I sent Yeller running, so he’s seen Cashia’s form. He got all of you out before the birds found you. I was in my human form in the garage until you-” Nat’s heart beat hard. Cashia or Yeller drew a sharp line along the middle of his index finger, snapping Nat out of his sudden darkness.

He swallowed, bringing his mind back on point. “Sven took over when you got me loose. He might have seen you all when we shifted back in the compound, but I have my doubts he’d remember who is who, and Hana hadn’t taken Sylvi on entirely yet. That was back in January. It’s almost April. The women and I hid in the cave while you disposed of Hana’s wings, and you guys did that as humans as far as I’m aware. At that point, we hadn’t noticed them following us. They probably assumed I was dead in the garage.

“We left the cave and walked as humans. Hana couldn’t shift yet, and I was banned from doing so. We didn’t shift all the way ’til that little town in Utah.

“When we got to that trailer and Hana took on Sylvi was about the time we picked up on Michael again. He most likely found Hana’s wings and followed them back to the cave. It was cold and wet that week. We left footprints in the mud,” Nat shrugged, glancing away from Deck.

“We left from the trailer; Hana stayed as Sylvi except for late at night and only in short bursts. I paid attention to the hawks around us when I wasn’t asleep. Michael’s colouring is similar to those red tails that perch upon the powerlines. Those aren’t nocturnal. Birds can see in colour, so I know they can tell our colours apart, but if it’s at night, their eyesight gets worse. So, maybe when you all shifted, they couldn’t tell who shifted from who.

“You all shifted consistently, but again, short duration and not in daylight. I stayed hidden in Sven, and Yeller didn’t shift often.

“I had hoped maybe by hiding – well, I had a few reasons…but still, I had hoped by hiding in Sven and the group staying as wolves for as long as possible and us as humans not showing up, maybe Michael might lose track of who was who. I thought it would keep Sylvi and me safe if Michael didn’t know which wolf he was after,” Nat laid out his thoughts. Deck opened his mouth to speak and closed it, rather surprised.

“You hid in Sven for a month and didn’t come out once to help protect Sylvi?” Benj asked, surprised.

“Not only to protect her.” Nat bowed his head, unable to look at the group. He was still fighting, and not all of his demons were as tightly collared as he had hoped at that moment. “I ended up in a dark place for a while and needed some time.”

Dietrich pinned Cashia with a look that spoke levels of accusation, his eyebrow raising, his lips going flat. It was a look of condescending disgust. It was a look created after years, centuries, of disdainful judgement.

Nat caught that look. He growled, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, allowing the shift enough to warn Dietrich off. Sven and Tereza took notice of the sudden blossom of energy changing from burning embarrassment to inflamed anger. Tereza circled as Sven rubbed against him.

Nat had been depressed and bitter and falling deep since he met Michael and led the group into trouble. Since he learned of Hana’s sister. It got worse after being caught by Michael the second time. He fell off the edge back in Utah.

Sven had tasted quite a few of the man’s emotions since taking possession of him. Tereza had been exposed to less of them. Deep sadness, frustration, indecision, and self-loathing were his overlords for the last month. Contentedness and pleasure were short, infrequent bursts to break up drudgery and tiring terror.

The wolf had lashed out at Michael once in terrified anger, and that put holes in Nat’s shoulders. This though. This was an unadulterated seething rage from the human, not the wolf. It was different from the pure hatred and fear he had of Michael. Something smelled odd about the man, and Tereza was not lost on it. Sweet and enticing. In the recesses of his mind, Nat reached for the wolves. Tereza and Sven could taste the offering he was giving them, and it was intoxicating.

Dietrich’s glare shifted to Nat. “Challenging me, štene?” Dietrich answered the growl with his own.

Cold washed across Nat’s skin. He felt like he could go up against Benj in a ring and not get laid out flat after the first punch. The room pitched into a chill that caused the group’s breath to fog. Nat’s lips peeled back from sharp teeth in warning. “Odjebi, Dietrich. I have his mate, or did you forget?”

Dietrich couldn’t escape the maniacal promise sitting in front of him. His gut twisted at the reprimand as ancient memories trudged up from the depths of his younger years. The white-haired man put off a sweetly cloying scent, that of honey and beeswax with a deep undertone of brood and propolis. He recognised it and the chill in the room; suddenly he was on full alert and wary.

“‘Get it figured out,’ or do you not remember your exact command, Dietrich? ’cause I heard it word for fucking word. It swirled around in my brain like blades in a bottomless whirlpool every time I woke up the last few weeks.” Nat’s skin itched for a shift. He wasn’t going to take his personal failings and his own request as warranted punishment for Cashia’s methodologies. “Never look at him with that thinly veiled loathing of yours. Not Cashia’s fault that winged bastard broke me. I’m just now realising I don’t have to stay that way, and Cashia’s helping me put myself back together in my own time. So, quit looking at him like my cracks are his fault.” He whispered, voice like silk.

Cashia shifted a glance at Nat. One of the man’s eyes glowed green, the other an almost ruby brown. A cold chill ran down his spine. Those were Sven and Tereza’s eyes. Yet Nat was speaking for himself. Had he learned how to share the connection?

Dietrich was the pack’s leader for a reason, though. He was not open to the challenge, even if he heard what Nat was saying. He was not going to take a challenge by a human, let alone one as young as Nat, lying down. He pulled his shift as he pushed Deck to the back and held him pinned. Dietrich’s fangs dripped, and his hackles rose.

Cashia shifted, pressing in front of Nat protectively. The rest of the group scrambled out of the way in a hurry. The wolves warned their hosts of the many battles they had seen of Sven and Dietrich having it out over little things and the times that Cashia had pulled them apart. Rarely did Sven go up against Dietrich to take on the mantle of leader. More often than not, it was to straighten out a persisting misunderstanding grating at one of them.

This was different, though. Sven and Tereza sat under Nat’s hands, ready and willing. They had seen him suffer enough, and he had finally found their wavelength. Sven had watched, as did Tereza, the night before, as Nat fought with his demons and the lengths he had been willing to go to leash his pain.

Nat eased around Cashia quietly, quickly. His finger tapped the dead centre of Cashia’s skull. Nat didn’t physically push, but he could feel the force of the contact radiate through his arm before he rebounded the connection, shoving it into Cashia in that split second. The others cringed in surprise as Yeller tumbled back as a human with the force. Cashia blinked up, startled. Neither he nor Yeller had pushed the shift.

Dietrich spread himself into his largest stance. His eyes darted over Nat, still a naked human, not having reached for a shift. The white-haired man stood in front of him, limber and relaxed. His arms stayed loose at his sides, and his feet were light on the carpet. Nat felt like a rubber band pulled tight. “Zbunjen? This isn’t between you and your second, alfa pas. If you want to keep this up, I’ll more than willingly hold you as accountable as Michael for my month off.” Nat smiled maniacally. Dietrich dropped his growl for a half-second before the rumble came back in full force.

“You don’t need to be doing this!” Sun Hee shouted.

“We don’t have time for you two to be having a cockfight,” frustrated, Benj reached for Heinrich, hoping Dietrich’s son could talk sense into his father.

Sylvi brushed against Yeller. He ran a hand down her back reassuringly. It had been a while since he had seen Nat and Deck have it out. Nat had always been physically weaker than the rest of the men in the group, but he had the stamina to run and fast. He was nimble enough to dodge most of the time, but Deck had laid him flat before for being a mouthy arse about something that was now trivial. Nat could land a couple of punches, but he didn’t have the force to make a decent connection. His best bet usually was tiring out his opponent and taking the punches when they came.

Until now, none of the humans had challenged the wolves outright, at least not someone else’s wolf. Cashia moved into his shift and put himself between Sylvi and the impending fight.

Sven communicated the positions of the pack as Tereza took over the body’s flexibility and energy. There was a tightness in the man’s body as his emotional state pushed itself from his pores and flooded the room with a pheromone.

Nat glared down at Dietrich. His teeth gleamed as he pulled back a hiss. “You wanna meet my demons, bastard? I’m more than ready to share a couple of them,” he challenged. The scent poured off his body, and the other wolves backed up in terror.

Dietrich launched himself as dark shadows flared in the corners of the house, and the temperature plummeted. Nat caught the top of the wolf’s head and twisted him around. The broken man’s hair, in that same instant, turned a ruddy strawberry blonde – his true colours.

Nat pushed with all his might at Dietrich through that same connection he had used to push Cashia into Yeller’s shift. Dietrich’s wolf shift vanished as his back hit the ground hard, forcing air from his human lungs. Nat sat on top of Deck who looked up at him in confused surprise. Nat fought the urge to clip his friend in the jaw for letting his wolf be such a jack-ass.

Sven borrowed Nat’s voice, “you said a long time ago, Dietrich, you smelled the blood of Shamans in this group. Guess what I found.” Nat’s eyes were still two-toned as they glared down at Deck.

Deck’s heart beat hard against his chest as his skin dripped a cold sweat. Dietrich skittered under the pressure, trying to escape the horror sitting so lightly on top of them. His bones had been clamped in ice-cold vices, and his tendons were lit on fire. His insides cramped and burned and flashed with sharp, numbing pain. His throat closed off, raw and swollen. His skin crawled. A sharp crack of pain snapped across his chest. A drowning blackness swamped his senses as hands and rope pulled his body into midnight.

Nat’s darkest fears and emotions flowed through him as he pushed hard into Deck’s head. He forced Deck to see ever-burning memory, every grasping hand that pulled his best friend into a dark abyss. Nat hadn’t even done more than touch his head and sit on him.

Nat pulled away from Deck’s forehead, leaving behind a white patch of hair off the centre of their leader’s widow’s peak. He felt like he had shrugged a few hundred pounds of useless weight off of his shoulders. “I’m not about to usurp your position as lead here, Deck. I don’t have that kind of energy or dedication to keeping every one of us safe. You’ve done that job fine, and I appreciate that. Control your damn beast, though, ’cause I don’t think you want me to do it for you again,” spat Nat as he got off him and returned to sitting where he had been, his vision spinning.

The baffled group glanced at each other mutely. Dietrich looked out from inside Deck, not entirely sure what had happened. His host’s body hurt like hell. Mottled green and yellow bruises crawled across his skin from his throat to his hips before disappearing. Yeller and Cashia saw them for what they were – exact mimics of Nat’s prior bruisings, though much further healed. They’d still be tender for a moment.

Nat’s skin shifted shades, but not in the way it did when he was about to take on Sven’s form. He warmed in tone from pale to a softer peach, and freckling scattered across his shoulders and the bridge of his nose. His vision finally stopped rotating like a Ferris wheel, and he was able to get control of nausea chewing up his gut.

The others in the group crowded close to look over Deck who was still dragging in deep breaths at his body’s soreness and the strangeness of Nat’s colouration. It was Cashia who reached for his cheek to touch the spots, though. “You look like Tereza,” he breathed reverently, almost nostalgically. Nat looked down at himself to see the freckles spreading across the tops of his hands and arms in galaxies. He raised an eyebrow at the change.

A crawling suspicion caused him to twitch an eye. Sven and Tereza stood guard as Nat sifted through questions skimming across his nerve endings. He could taste it. He had to test it, to try. Werewolf? Something curious lay at the edge of his senses.

Nat reached for Yeller’s fingers still skimming the line of his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Cashia,” he apologised for having forced his shift from Yeller’s body, and for what he was about to do. An impression was all he had. He closed his eyes and reached through the connection and kept reaching further into darkness. His mind told him he had reached into Yeller’s skin, but his body had only touched the man’s skin. He grabbed hold of a roughly calloused hand and pulled with all his might, dragging the body to the surface.

Yeller cringed, his skull cracking under the pressure as his bones and muscles shifted under his skin. He was not thrown back into his own consciousness. He became aware, though, that he no longer was the owner of the consciousness. The rest of the group looked at Yeller, startled.

“So, this is you, Cashia,” gently, Nat smiled up at the man in front of him. Tereza circled happily. The man was a bit broader than Yeller. His skin was marked with far more and deeper scars than Nat would have initially suspected from the wolf’s demeanour. His face was older, in his late thirties or early forties. He could be considered ruggedly handsome with a squared jaw and ten-day scruff. His hair was a touch longer than Yeller’s and more of a wheat colour. A broad intricate knotwork of brown tattoos wrapped up both forearms and across the tops of his shoulders.

He looked down at himself and back up at Nat in surprise. Cashia smiled back at him, ever aware the hold was tenuous. “Drago mi je,” Cashia’s voice was low and rough, a river against boulders, more so with his own vocal cords.

Nat sagged with holding Cashia’s shift. He let go of the man’s hand and watched as his shape changed back until Yeller sat in front of the group once more.

“So, you aren’t a wolf, are you?” Deck whispered. The pieces to the puzzle floated into place.

Cashia regarded Nat suspiciously, unnerved at having been dragged into the real world so fully. He swallowed. So, this was the power of this Shaman. It had been so many years. He had forgotten the nuances of their various powers and energy reserves. This had to be why Nat was able to more readily keep Tereza and Sven and even managed to carry Sylvi whereas his host had been slowly imploding under the force of carrying himself and Tereza.

He sat back into Yeller’s consciousness and tried to recoup. It had not only been a strain on Nat to pull him all the way out, but it was a drain on his energy as well. He no longer possessed the massive energy reserve it would have taken for him to regain his natural form.

“In the beginning, when we first found we had been contaminated, we thought we were the wolves. We moved on to realise we were humans sharing space with wolves. In desperation, you all showed yourselves to be self-aware, and yet left us still thinking you werewolves only. You aren’t, are you?” Nat pinned Dietrich with the question. This was one that Cashia could answer, but he wanted the pack’s leader to answer it.

Dietrich was still staring at Cashia in surprise. He couldn’t specify how many years it had been since last he saw Cashia in human form. When he was able to pick his chin off the floor, he turned to Nat’s question. “We are Glendwellers, originating along the edge of the language barrier of the Jakuten and the Tataren. We were kept by the Bai. Those are my earliest memories at least. Everything seems to fade with age.

“When the Red Hare Shamans and White Horse Healers of the Bai died off, leaving us to our freedom, we left the edge of what is now The People’s Republic and the U.S.S.R – forgive me, Russ,” Dietrich took the prod from Deck, “and made our way east. We are probably what contributed to the stories passed along Eastern Europe and the stories that made their way here. We have been called Verefarkas, Pereverten, Wilkolak Vukodlak, Werewolf, though I feel that disregards much of who we are, Shaman,” Dietrich spoke modestly. He was not keen on upsetting a descendant of the Bai, now that he had been identified. Nat didn’t quite have all the power of a pure Red Hare. Dietrich wasn’t about to diss on the power he could throw around, though.

The group went incredibly still at this admission. Nat could taste the shape of the questions his friends asked their wolves as they tried to see them for who they were. Zola’s eyes glowed two-tone momentarily. The others left their conversations perplexed. They still only saw the wolves within them. Deck had an inkling of Dietrich’s form within him, but they had never learned how to see each other as equals in their relationship. Deck knew it was there, but all he continued seeing was the wolf.

Nat pulled himself off the floor and walked over to the kitchen. He ransacked the cupboards while the group tried to figure out who exactly they were sharing space with. He found a couple of cans of green beans and new potatoes. He strained the can of green beans and dug a fork out of the utensil drawer. It was the first time he had tasted food in a month. Sven’s palate was rather repulsive, and he did better sleeping while the Glendweller ate.

Green beans eaten, Nat passed food out to the rest of the group. Having settled a couple of sore points, the friends considered their options now that Michael was making moves at them. They decided to switch tactics.

They stayed in the townhouse the rest of the day, keeping well away from windows and pushing large furniture against the egress doors. They slept off the daylight and put themselves on the street heading down toward Houston as dusk passed into the first hours of true darkness. The moon sat low in the sky, a sliver on the tree line.

Cashia watched Nat closely, as did the rest of the group, when he relented, trusting his body to the shift. He grabbed hold of Sven and Tereza and let their energy flow through him, coat him rather than fight against the invasion. The top half of his muzzle and head flowing across his back and down his shoulders and tail shaded a soft reddish-gold while his underbelly was pure white. He was a bit smaller than Sven’s shift. He looked up to Cashia and cocked his head. Cashia chuckled at the questioning attitude. “That’s not Tereza. She has more black and brown guard hair.” He sniffed at Nat, interested at the sweet smell he put off now.

“Your eyes are still green and red, though, so this must be some bizarre harmonization between Sven and Tereza.” Heinrich circled Nat as Zola opened the door for them to leave. She let Anastasia take over. The pack padded down the road and out the culvert.

“It feels different, too,” Nat replied quietly, his paw fall silent compared to the others. Heinrich bounced back a step before approaching Nat, sniffing at him. “How did you do that?” Heinrich asked. The other humans hadn’t yet learned how to push themselves to the front of the wolfs’ shift. Nat shook himself, not sure how to respond to the question. He had more of a tangible feel for the body, though, than he had before with Sven’s shift. He trusted Sven and Tereza with every cell of his being, and they helped him lead his new body forward.

The group quieted as they crept through the streets of Dallas and out to the desert once again. Ranchland stretched under their trotting paws. Whisking grasses, crickets, and the sharp cry of mice caught by owls disrupted the monotonous walk that put them farther and farther from the city.

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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