a price, a shadow, a truth.

primordial wolfman

Once again world that he lives in, breathes in, cares about slips out of his grasp. Grey dampness on his face is his first awakening back to that other world. Wolf blinks, and blinks again.

Finds himself standing in the midst of nothingness. Solid ground beneath his feet, but even that seems colorless. No landscape to speak of, no terrain to see. No forests, no rivers, no mountains, no grass.

Just him. Heavy boots and light leather armor beneath that fine surcoat, getting dirtier and less fine by the hour. Sword at his hip now. Shield at his back. And a grey world before him.

Wolf starts forward. Nothing to see in any direction, so he picks one and follows it.

lost things

There is a wall. He nearly walks right into it, but for the fog swirling away from his footsteps to reveal the stones seconds before contact. Goes up so high he cannot see the ramparts; goes on so far in either direction that he cannot see the edges. Only, to his right, a distant faint glow, a golden orb only partially obscured by the fog.

primordial wolfman

Wolf tries to climb that wall first. Digs his fingers, toes, into what holds he can find. Grunts and strains his way up a yard, two, maybe three. Finds no end to that wall, only fog and stone and more fog and more stone. Drops off, lands in a heavy crouch.

Looks left. Looks right. Growls to himself, under-breath, and trudges toward that distant glow.

lost things

Sees the lantern.

Sees the conical hat the carrier wears, how it arcs backward and droops. No, not a hat: a hood. A cowl, even, cloth covering much of the bearer's face. Long robe, sleeves concealing hands and draping towards the floor. Grime along the hem. Dark, dark purple robe. Nearly black. Holds a tall rod, lantern dangling from its curved hook.

A wind Rafael cannot feel makes the lantern sway. The bearer who holds it, stoop shouldered, lifts one arm.

Exhibits one long-fingered hand, thin as bone, and as pale.

Points one of those fingers at Rafael's left hand. The signet ring he wears there. The ring he wears in 2015,

which does not exist in this other time.

--

After pointing, holding it for a long moment, the bearer of the lantern turns its palm upward. Waits, in silence.

primordial wolfman

What does that ring matter anyway. Relic of a dead wolf, related to this wolf only by the thinnest of blood-ties. Never really a mother to him. Not even a memory.

Still something in him clenches down, balks. Wolf wants to refuse. Scowls at the silent creature, scowls at the pointing hand. His own hands have curled into fists, the ringbearing one pressed close to his midsection.

Then, abruptly, he blasts an exhale out. Pulls his glove off and removes the ring. Tosses it at the creature.

lost things

The ring is tossed. And the ring lands, as gently as though placed, in the creature's palm. Four long, skeletal fingers with dark, faintly tipped nails close around the ring, sealed in by one gnarled thumb.

The fog rolls in between them, closes him off. The light from the lantern remains, as the fog clears again. Before him is a simple wooden door in the gate, standing open into more fog. The lantern hangs on a hook by the door. No one else is there.

primordial wolfman

Wolf wants to curse the creature when the toll is collected. Wants to beat down the door when it is revealed to him.

Settles for a muttered invective, a good old-fashioned modern-day fuck! Walks up to that door, lifts the lantern in one hand, pulls the handle open with the other.

lost things

Rafael swears, but he walks through the open door. Takes the lantern with him, though, and the light continues to burn just as steadily, protected by the glass that surrounds it,

until he leaves the door behind. It slams shut behind him with a noise that sounds thunderous in the emptiness around him. The lantern becomes a torch in his hand, and suddenly the air is damp and the breeze is real. It is raining. The ground is mud beneath his feet. The fire on the torch dances wildly, trying to escape the water falling onto it.

Nothing is gray anymore. The night that descends on him is starless and moonless, everything an inky indigo surrounded by black. One of the shadows that is his new landscape rises up, hulking against the barely-visible horizon, lurching towards him at a profound speed.

primordial wolfman

Wolf's led a sheltered sort of existence when it comes to the supernatural. Doesn't cross over into the Umbra very often, and doesn't often seen a need to. Has only been on a handful of quests that took him away from the familiar. Has only taken a moonbridge once, maybe twice.

This reminds him of that. That sense of terrific, disorienting speed without any sense of acceleration: as though he's not the one moving. As though the world itself was moving to meet him, spinning beneath his motionless feet.

Wolf braces for impact. Can't help it; it's only instinct. Closes his eyes and throws a shielding arm up at the last instant.

lost things

Nothing hits his shield. He feels an impact, certainly, but nothing as large as what he saw coming towards him. It's like absorbing a wave that hits his shield, washes over it, diminishes.

When the shield lowers, the torch's light flaring and jerking around once more, he sees three other shadows, all more massive than the first, coming towards him.

These have claws. He can see them, long as his own forearms, arcing against what little he can see of a horizon. These ones howl, gnashing teeth he cannot see. The torch does not illuminate them at all, no matter how close they get. Or how quickly they come.

primordial wolfman

They don't look friendly.

Maybe that's an oversimplification. Maybe that's prejudice. Wolf's not the terribly trusting type, though, and everything he's learned in his short, war-strewn life tells him to fight first, ask questions later. Or never.

Wolf reacts. Drops his shield. Throws his torch at one shadow. Rips his sword from its sheath and throws it at another. And the third shadow:

that one he lunges at. Bursting out of his skin and into his fur, teeth bared.

lost things

The torch goes right though the shadow, hits the mud, a puddle --

but does not extinguish.

Rafael drops his shield to the mud as well. Throws his sword, which goes as harmlessly through the shadows as the torch did. Just as harmlessly as Rafael himself does, when he lunges,

landing on the ground with a mouthful of dirt, paws splayed.

Now seven shadows loom over him, surrounding him, and he can hear their hungry growling. Sword and shield and torch all lie within his reach. But the light from that torch only seems to make the shadows lurch higher, seem larger, their fangs and claws turning to tentacles, barbs, bayonets, everything dripping with the poison of his enemies. And his enemies are many, and they surround him, and he is helpless.

Or so it seems, by what little light he has.

primordial wolfman

It's like going down a flight of stairs and missing a step. It's like stepping off a curb only to find there was no curb at all. There's a memory in your bones, your muscles; you're not aware of it, but it's aware of you. And the world. And how you move through that world. It calculates, it modulates, it rectifies your movement -- and once in a while, it expects one thing and gets another.

Wolf expects to slam into the shadow. Expects to bear it to the ground, tear into it with his teeth. But he passes right through. No resistance. No satisfying impact. Just a sudden wild disorientation of passing through what should have been solid matter

followed by the jarring, equally disorienting THUD of slamming face-first on the ground.

Wolf rolls onto his back. Seven shadows over him now, not three. There's no time to think, and so he acts: grabs that torch, sees those flaring shadows. Snuffs the fire out against the ground, the dirt, the mud.

lost things

The sky is still indigo. The ground is still black. The shadows still loom, but

they are only trees, a passing owl, a bit of tiredness in his peripheral vision.

And above him there are so many stars. Such a full, bright moon. True lights. The endless enemies never were. They were only illusions.

Rising, Rafael sees that he is on a road. Fenceposts, which he once saw as enemies, and milemarkers, which were his foes: they suggest he walk towards that horizon, leaving the false flickering lights of humankind behind him.

primordial wolfman

Just him. Just him and his harsh, panting breath. Smell of acrid smoke.

Takes him a moment to get back to his feet. He doesn't toss the torch away. Might be useful again later. Shrinks back to his human form. Crams the dead torch through his belt, at his back, awkward, more club than lighting implement at this point. Picks his sword up, his shield. Slides one into sheath and slings the other over his back. Starts forward again.

There is a road at his feet. Wolf's a simple creature, doesn't overthink. If there is a road, then there is a destination. No one builds roads to nowhere. So he follows it: step after sure step, onward.

lost things

There is no sign of a lost cub. No word of her in all the silence he has faced. No matter: he is a silent sort of wolf. And this is not only the spirit world, but the underworld. Near him, in some pocket realm like this one, both the Fianna and the Fangs perform their own rites of reawakening. He may never know how similar his footsteps are as he walks into the darkness.

He lifts the torch but finds: it never was a torch anyway. Just a stick, the sort of thing a small child might pretend is a sword, but Rafael could snap it in one hand. It is no tool; it was as much a lie as its light was. Nothing to rely on, there.

so he walks on, shield at his back and sword at his hip once more. The road becomes more dry, but soon there are no fenceposts. The sky lightens, but only a little. Soon enough he sees another figure, like the first one: the long robe, the conical hood, the cowl. This one holds a staff, leans on it in fact, but carries no lantern. This one's robe is not that deep, near-black purple, but a bright sky blue.

primordial wolfman

Wolf's scowling again. Starts up minute he sees that cowled figure. Nevertheless he presses forward, draws near.

Calls out: "All right, what'll you have of me this time?"

lost things

No bony hand this time. The figure reaches up, removes its hood. Golden hair spills out. Pale blue eyes stare at him from beneath dark brows. But the hair is lightly curled; the lips are softly glossed. This is not Fair Sky. Avery lets the cowl and hood fall around her shoulders, her eyes open and clear.

"The truth."

primordial wolfman

That takes him aback. Not the words but the sight of her, the golden-haired Master of the Challenge, here in this strange otherworldly world.

Some of his aggression goes away, replaced by caution. He doesn't know if it's really her. He thinks maybe it's not.

"Okay," he says warily. "About what?'

lost things

The wrinkle of her brow, now seen in two incarnations, is so familiar now. The tip of her head, the curiosity in her eyes.

"Why are you here? This rite is for seven. You are one."

primordial wolfman

"Two," he says. Corrects. "I've come to find another. That's why I'm here."

lost things

This creature tips its head the other direction, birdlike. "Who?"

primordial wolfman

"A cub," wolf says. "Don't know her name. She wasn't supposed to be here either. Came to make mischief for my tribesmen. Got pulled into the Underworld. Hasn't found her way out yet.

"I'm here to find her. Bring her out with me."

lost things

"That one," says not-Avery, frowning, "was disrespectful. We have taken from her what we were due. She will not find her way out. She has been taken."

primordial wolfman

"Maybe she was disrespectful. She was also young and foolish. Hadn't even passed her Rite of Passage yet. She's a juvenile, not fully accountable for her own actions. Probably didn't even fully understand her actions.

"You've taken the form of a Half Moon. That means you care something for justice, right? You must see it's unjust to exact such a price."

lost things

"She has been taken," is all he hears in answer. That head-tilt. That emptiness. That not-Avery-ness.

"What will you do, when you find her?

primordial wolfman

Wolf shrugs.

"Yell at her. Tell her what trouble she's caused. Get her out of here."

It's not the Master of the Challenge before him. Can't be. Wolf doesn't know that wolf well, but what little he knows tells him she's not without emotion. Not without empathy, and sympathy, and kindness. Anything but. This creature before him: it knows absolutes, it seems. Deals struck and transactions made. Doesn't bend, doesn't bargain.

Still: "Must be some way to get her out. Taken doesn't mean kept."

lost things

There is no way that this is Avery, Master of Challenges. This thing may take her form, but it is no more the Philodox he has met than those shadows were true foes. Whatever this creature is made of, it is not warmth, flesh, blood, understanding, or justice.

"You speak the truth," it says, or confirms. "But what do you lose, if you fail?"

primordial wolfman

"The hope of peace," says the wolf, "between my tribe and hers."

gatekeepers

This strange judge before him takes a step to one side, thoughtful. Pacing, only. Turns, takes another the other direction. "Is all hope for peace gone, if you fail?"

primordial wolfman

"I don't know. Probably not; not forever. But right now, maybe."

A beat.

"There's another reason."

gatekeepers

She stops.

Looks at him with those clear, endless eyes. The skies off a salt flat, eternal and alien and so sunbleached they almost lose their blue.

She becomes less like the Avery he has seen, the Fair Sky he has met, every moment.

She waits.

primordial wolfman

"There's a woman," says the wolf,

and god doesn't that sound like a cliche. Doesn't that sound like the beginning of every stupid story ever. Wolf grimaces at himself. Shifts his stance, one hand falling comfortably to the hilt of his sword.

"A witch," he amends, "trusted by none here, whose soul might be an echo of someone I know. Peace between the tribes might keep her safe."