a cub, a sacrifice.

gatekeepers

Thoughtlessly she rolls over, shifting aside to make room for him. Her back is warm when he puts his chest to it. She's warm. Smells of nothingness. The fire snaps and chews behind him, giving off a dull warmth that touches his bare shoulders after he slides under her blankets.

It comes easily this time. Came without thinking, even. So many would have walked through the door, felt themselves pulled to disrobe and make themselves at home, and been wary. Resisted. Plenty would have absolutely been afraid of the temptation to disrobe, to lay down their sword.

For Rafael, who has been frustrated and even angered by every single gate he has come through thus far, finds the way through this one without even thinking about it. Finds the pleasure of this warmth, this home, this peace, and does not feel ashamed to let himself have it. No embarrassment stops him from taking off his clothes, or laying down his sword. No writhing sense of unworthiness or distrust.

Just what he has now: a few moments to simply rest, and enjoy this.

He falls asleep.

It's that simple.

--

But it's the cold that wakes him. Fire's gone out. It's pitch dark now. Feels no one in his arms, and nothing beneath him but flat, hard stone. Cold enough to make him shiver. No clothes. No sword. He knows he's wearing his signet ring, but can't feel it. Certainly can't see it in the dark.

primordial wolfman

Last thing he feels, going to sleep, is contentment. Safety and warmth; the thoughtless comfort of sleeping somewhere where he is loved.

--

First thing he feels, waking, is disappointment. Girl's gone. Bed's gone, fire's gone, hut is gone. Dark and cold now. Puts his hand out and finds cold stone. No warmth of another body close by.

Doesn't even have his clothes. Or his weapon. But that's okay, because he has fur and he is a weapon. Wolf pushes up, shifts in the same moment. Thickfurred, heavy-jawed, a direwolf now. He sniffs in the darkness. Seeks his next gate.

gatekeepers

A voice, not far:

"Is someone there?"

Young. Female. Flinching.

primordial wolfman

[SNIFF! gud nose -2diff!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 3 )

gatekeepers

[OMG DER A FIANNA CUB OBBAR DER]

primordial wolfman

Wolf's ears spring upright. He replies at once: a low gruff bark, unechoing in the dark. An answer, a greeting; not a hint of threat.

Then he starts sniffing. Puts his nose to the ground, follows a trail of scent. Pads forward, claws ticking on stone.

gatekeepers

No answer. But motion, sound. The voice comes again, snarling now, on the verge of rage:

"Who are you?!"

primordial wolfman

Four legs swift on stone. Nose keen, senses attuned. He closes in quickly. Intimidating in the dark, perhaps: a wall of rage, an impression of great size, great speed.

"Friend," he whuffs. "Come to find you. Bring you home."

gatekeepers

There's no rage left in her now, but the capacity for it is... palpable. As he gets closer to the scent he can sense it as clearly as the tribal wildness in her blood. Only a cub for now, but as years come on, as she learns to hone her strength, she's going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Is, already.

"I got so lost," she says, gasping the words, shuddering them out. It's so cold here. He can hear the sound of wind; no walls or ceiling protect them. Just this stone beneath them, the icy breeze, the endless dark. "I got so lost," she repeats. "Who are you? What is your name?"

primordial wolf

Truth is wolf's surprised she even got this far. To the seventh gate. Wonders how she passed the others, or if she even passed the others. Perhaps she took some sideroute. Some backdoor shortcut, got so lost. Got so lost.

Wolf closes in. Soon he's there, right there, loping to a trot to a stop. Lowers his head and bumps his muzzle, the broad top of his head against the cub. Rough, physical contact, as though to drive in his realness here in this unreal world.

"Hollow-Cold-Pale Sunrise," he answers, which is the closest approximation in this literal tongue. "Son of Falcon. Here to find you." It's deliberate, this repetition. "Bring you home."

lost ones

The cub shudders at the touch, but it doesn't feel like revulsion. Who knows how long the last day or so has felt to her? In this darkness, alone, every moment might feel interminable.

"Do you know the way out?" she asks. Her breath smells like terror. Her hands are on his face, searching him blindly, stroking his ears and crown, confirming that yes, this is a wolf, this is a creature she can understand.

primordial wolf

Rough fur. Wet nose. Hot breath. Soft, furry ears. Whiskers and an upper lip that pushes back to reveal long teeth. Yes: a wolf. A big, prehistoric wolf, and one of a different tribe, but perhaps in this world it matters less. It matters little.

"No." Wolf does not mince words, does not lie. "But we find together. There will be a spirit. A gate-watcher. Spirit will ask us to give up something. Maybe hard to do. But we will do. Together."

Gives the cub another bump, top of his heart squarely against the center of her chest. Pushes her back a little. Then his teeth gentle on the nape of her neck, pulling her up to her feet as though she were a literal cub.

"Come. We move."

lost ones

He can hear her, feel her, taking in a breath. Deep. It infuses her. The air is cold, so cold, just like her hands, but she takes strength from it now instead of being made brittle by it. Those hands stay on him. He feels a bit of pressure as she uses him for leverage; hands on his shoulders, his back. Pushes herself to standing.

Her hand stays in his fur, fingers tangled in the thick of it. Holds tightly, but not so tight that he feels even a brush of discomfort.

"This is a dead place," she tells him. "I have seen no spirits. Heard no voices. Nothing has been asked of me."

primordial wolf

"Then maybe we not in right place. So we move." And so he does: starts walking, shoulderblades rising and falling beneath his thick pelt. "You stay close. No let go until we somewhere else."

lost ones

She huffs a little breath. "I have walked, and run, until my legs turned cold. There is nothing here."

All the same, bristling as she does under authority, her hand tightens in his fur. Stay close. Don't let go.

He knows she won't.

--

They walk for a long time. Perhaps forever. Unless he counts each step and each heartbeat, he has no way to feel the passage of time. He runs into no walls. Wind comes from everywhere, nowhere. There is no light. If not for the occasional throat-clearing or intake of breath and the tightness of a hand in his fur, he might forget that he is not alone. Sometimes her footsteps seem only the echo of his own.

"Why did you come for me?" she asks, after all that time. He's answered this question so many times now. But she doesn't know. She got lost. And no one knew where to find her. She knew that.

Knew she might die here. Or was already dead.

primordial wolf

They walk. And walk. And walk.

And eventually, walking, wolf shifts. Grows from his near-wolf shape to his monstrous shape, and from there, descends into his near-man shape. Remains there, either for utility or for some modicum of modesty -- naked in the cold and the dark, after all. With no fur to hold to, he and the cub hold hands instead, grips strong with something akin to desperation.

Time loses meaning. Space. They walk, but there's no indication they go anywhere. They wait, but there's no indication time passes at all.

Then she speaks. He's grateful for it: puts some meaning to the passage of time, space. Wolf turns his head to the sound. Slows his pace just a little. Hardly seems to matter if they run or crawl, anyway.

"Long story," he says. Been in the underworld so long he hardly remembers that ancestral life; its words, its ways. "Tell you from the beginning if you promise to believe me."

lost ones

When he shifts, they do not stop walking. But he can hear her breath change, her fear: that he is a mirage. A test. A punishment. Not so. He shifts, and his hand finds hers, and she holds as tightly as she did to his fur. He would be larger than her in his human shape. With her in homid and he in glabro, her hand feels like a small child's and not a young woman's.

"Whatever an oath is worth in this place, you have mine," she says.

primordial wolf

Huff of laughter answers that, as though perhaps wolf doubts anything is worth much at all in this place. Nonetheless he speaks:

"Not from here. Not this place, not even this time. Live a thousand years in the future, across the western sea in a land the Fianna and the Fangs haven't even discovered yet.

"Where I come from, I know a girl. Maybe around your age. Maybe a little older. She's a Fianna too. But kin, not a wolf like you. We're... we belong to each other. Man and woman, wolf and kin.

"Probably sounds insane to you. But things are different where I'm from. There's a war going on, a bad one against the Wyrm. Compared to that, all the rest of the shit you guys fight about now, tribes and claims and all, don't even matter.

"Anyway. I got sent back from that time. Think I'm living a past life now. Don't know why, don't know how. But that girl... she's here too. Sort of. Her past life maybe. The witch in your village. Older than the girl I know and more powerful, but I think it's her spirit in there. Or at least close enough that I wanna protect her.

"When you messed up the Rite for Stalks in Snow, he thought it was witchcraft. Wanted to blame her. Couldn't let him do that, so I told him I'd go investigate. Put myself between him and her, see? Went to talk to the witch. Told her I wanted peace between the tribes. Told her I didn't want to see anyone dead over this crap. Not her, not my tribesmen, not her tribesmen. Not even the one that raised all this hell. So she told me where your people were, and I found them, told them you can't just fuck up a sacred rite and expect everything to be okay. Told your Alpha the same thing, and she told me it was you. That you played a dumb prank on Stalks in Snow and ended up stuck in the Underworld because of it.

"So I told her I'd go get you, to show the Fianna that a Fang was willing to put his own neck on the line for one of yours. And I told her if I got you, she's gotta be willing to punish you for being a dumb little shit, to show the Fangs that the Fianna aren't going to just sit and laugh when one of theirs screws up the Rite of Reawakening.

"She agreed. And then I went back to my elders, and they agreed too. So here I am. To find you and bring you back, so the tribes don't go to war, so the witch doesn't end up dead over a stupid little trick."

Wolf slows a little. Turns to the cub, though he can't see a damn thing. "You're going to have to face the music when you get back. You know that, right? Won't let them kill you or do anything permanently bad. But you do something so dumb, you gotta take your licks like a grownup."

lost ones

The phrase take your licks means nothing to her. Grownup isn't a term she's ever heard. Dumb means mute. Face the music is a mystery. But these things are nothing, comparatively. He talks of the western sea, which she has only seen once in her life and then only as a little girl. She remembers not being able to tell the difference between sky and sea, and what awe and terror that filled her with. She remembers the salty smell of her father's cloak as she buried her face there, hiding from the inexplicable and the powerful. Doesn't know how old she was then, or why they were at the sea.

Cannot imagine a thousand years. Does not know what this world was like a thousand years in the past and could not, by any stretch, imagine a thousand years hence. Or a hundred. Or fifty. She can only barely imagine one year forward. What he says does sound insane, and overwhelming. She holds his hand and he can feel a tremor go through it.

He's a Silver Fang who is mated to a Fianna kin. It's not like this is unheard of. They leave their tribes and their homes and live as paramours and mistresses, but they're never legitimized or acknoweldged openly. They're never married to the Fangs who take them. It's a shameful thing, and a bitter source of fury to her people. Her hand leaves his when he speaks of this woman that belongs to him. Desperate as she is to not be alone here, she no longer thinks so highly of her lone companion. He's one of those, who will fill the belly of one of her kinswomen with bastards while another woman, a proper Fang woman, receives his name and protection.

Doesn't interrupt, though. Listens as they walk, and walk, about her raising hell and fucking up a sacred rite and Stalks in Snow and dumb little shit. Can't feel her hand anymore. Can only hear her breathing to know that she's still there. And when he speaks to her, asks her if she understands that she'll have to be punished.

Hears her take in a breath, as though to speak, but then white light erupts, filling the place so suddenly and so entirely that they are both momentarily blinded. Everything is white. It burns. Beside him the Fianna cub screams and throws her arms up to shield her face, buckling over. His pupils, blown wide open in their search for light, are in so much pain he can feel them throbbing.

Beneath them is still stone. But as their eyes quickly try to recover, he can make out distant pillars to either side, pillars they never ran into. They are in a great hall, a hundred -- a thousand -- times more vast than any throne room he can imagine. The ceilings are lit by that white light, but so far overhead he could fly and perhaps still not touch them. The walls are miles away, but even they are illuminated. And the light emanates from a dais ahead, and a throne that sits upon it. There is a figure there, but to look at it is more piercing than the sun. Male, female -- impossible to say. But pure.

And as he begins to blink away the tears that rushed to his eyes to soothe them, he can finally see the cub beside him. Who is lithe and strong and clothed simply, not unlike the witch or the Fianna pack he met. Dressed more like a boy, though her hair is very long, and a deep, livid red. Her eyes are bright blue.

He recognizes her, though she's younger than the Fianna he knows in his own time by a couple of years. He know her as Firebrand.

primordial wolf

He knew.

Somehow he knew. Or suspected. Or thought maybe, maybe...

And now he knows. It's not some random cub, it's not some wolf he's never met. It's Firebrand. An earlier, smaller version -- a thousand years dead now, yes, but in the here and now: alive. Lost. Found.

Wolf's eyes are stinging. Wolf's head pounds with a sudden, receding headache. Wolf has no time to say anything -- what would he say, anyway? -- before he turns. Turns to the figure on the throne. Steps subtly but unmistakably between the throne and the cub.

Speaks to the cub without taking his eyes from the figure, the blazing creature, the final gatekeeper:

"Come on. Time for us to be tested."

lost ones

Steps between Judgement and the cub, but the cub notices. And steps up right next to him again. Stands as straight and tall and proud as she can, chin lifted, even though she can't look straight at the throne. Neither can he. They have to close their eyes. Hell, eventually even the proud little cub lowers her chin, looking at the floor because her eyes are watering again.

Before they can step foward, a voice booms through the space, so loud that it rings in their ears, resonates through the endless chamber:

WHAT DO YOU HAVE LEFT TO GIVE

primordial wolf

Voice like thunder booms across that impossibly huge chamber. Vibrates through his bones. Shakes the fragile meshwork of his lungs. Wolf grits his teeth against it, narrows his eyes like he's moving against stiff wind. When at last silence falls again he draws himself straighter. Shouts back:

"My thoughts. My memories. My strength. My life. What do you want?"

the lost ones

Silence, for a time, unless light itself can be heard. Somehow even in the silence there is still an assault on every sense. The cub, true to her youth, shrinks slightly behind Rafael as though the light pains her. Judgement pervades this place, trembling in her bones. Neither of them are bad, wrong, or wicked. Neither of them have done anything they deserve to be broken for.

But here they are.

YOUR LIFE

The cub who is not Morgan, not Firebrand, but some version of her, some long-dead ghost of her soul, looks at him then, in shock. "No," she says.

primordial wolfman

Wolf half-turns, enough to see cub out of the corner of his eye. "My call," he says, "not yours."

And turning back, seems to steel himself. Thinks, fleetingly and in a flash, of the witch, the girl, his squire, the Philodox, the Fianna as she is in his time, and not in this one. People who are close to him, or more accurately: people who may, given time, have become close to him. Meant something. Wolf's life is so isolated, an island in truth. Hardly any attachments. Few accomplishments of worth. Just a long history of blood in backalley brawls. Almost makes him wonder why it would be worth anything at all to these beings of unfettered light, these celestial gatekeepers.

"All right," he says, and rolls his shoulders back, straightens up tall. "But I want to know that the cub and the witch get through this alive and well. And I want to know my girl back home is going to be okay too."

the lost ones

Firm but cold hand grabs his forearm. "No," she says, fiercely, on edge, all teeth. "This is mad. There should be another way."

Falters, on that last bit. Should be another way. Not the same as knowing that there is one.

But this gatekeeper does not care for the cub's anxiety. Nor for his.

YOUR LIFE

This time, oddly, it almost sounds like a question. A confirmation.

primordial wolfman

First instinct is to shake the cub off. Bare his teeth, raise his hackles, snap.

Wolf bites it back. That first whiplash of motion is there, but -- he checks it, subsumes it. Twists his arm around to grasp cub's forearm in return, a clasp.

"My life," he says. "You asked what I had to give, and I answered."