an arrow, a confession, a home.

gatekeepers

One moment he is staring into those eyes, telling his truth, and the next, the cloaked figure is gone.

And he is in a trench. And all he can smell is blood. All he can see is the sun beating down on the men around him, all of them in Army green fatigues, boots, helmets, straight out of a WWII flick. Somewhere down the way someone is screaming as a tourniquet is applied. There's a whistling in his ears, just starting.

Someone grabs him quickly by the wrist, simultaneously kicking his boots out from under him, dropping him to the ground. And barely a half-second later a rain of gunfire whizzes through the air where he was just standing.

"ARE. YOU. FUCKING. STUPID?" barks the sergeant with a Desert Storm patch on his fatigues, the sergeant who just yanked him down into the mud.

The gunfire goes on and on. Somewhere out on the field, a shell drops, and the ground shakes, and dirt and debris shower everyone in the trench. He has no helmet, but rocks are falling. Perhaps instinct is what makes him pull that hearty shield over his skull, but it protects him. Nearby a knight in white and green lies dying in the ditch, an arrow through his chest. He's choking on his own blood. A nurse straight out of a Florence Nightingale biopic is on her knees in the mud, trying to assist. She even has the little cap. The arrow is right through the knight's heart, though. His sword is close at hand, but he had no shield.

Down the way there is a Mongol warrior being restrained from charging the field alone by someone in skin-tight... something. He doesn't recognize the fabric or composition of the armor, but it is re-knitting itself from being torn even as he watches. The person wearing it is of no race he can name, with olive skin and slanted gray eyes and dark curly hair, with a broad nose and freckles. They have a weapon attached to their belt that does not exist in his time (either of his times), nor has ever existed as far as he knows.

Green bolts of light hit the Mongol in the face, charring and burning and eating away at his flesh, making him drop to the ground screaming. The futuristic soldier falls under him, trying to shove him off.

primordial wolfman

Every single one of these jumps is disorienting as fuck but this one just might take the cake. Wolf's talking to that doppleganger of the Master of the Challenge one moment. Next he's flung into some insane war: bullets and lasers and arrows, swords.

Wolf has his shield in hand. Whips it up over his head, gasps in the smoke-strewn darkness beneath it as bullets hail overhead. Looks to the side and sees that dying knight. Looks to the other side and sees that --

whoever, whatever it is, with that living armor, with that energy-beam weapon.

Yells at the sergeant: "Who the fuck are we fighting?"

gatekeepers

"JOAN OF FUCKING ARC, FOR ALL I KNOW," shouts the sergeant, back to the dirt wall of the trench, sounding more than a little madcap in his answer. Everything makes sense if you can set aside the logic for a moment. All this chaos, all this death, all this carnage: if you can fix your mind on simply staying alive, your mind won't break in half trying to understand why this is happening, or how you got here.

The sergeant's eyes have a touch of panic to even hear the question, much less try to respond to it. He recovers a second later, as bullets rush over their heads like a swarm of bees, shot like nails into the opposite of the trench. Doesn't even flinch. Just shrinks himself down, clutching at the mud, exhaling through exaggeratedly pursed lips.

"HOO-WEE," he says, as an archer on their side who had risen to fire back slumps over not six inches from his boots. The archer's torso is so riddled with holes that blood pours out of her as water from a colander. Her piercing eyes stare blankly now, her leather-and-chain armor useless. The sergeant is unaffected; they all are. Might try to save each other, might try to fight back, but people die in this trench every few moments and no one reacts. Not a sudden surge of emotion quickly tamped down, even: there is nothing to repress.

"YOU WANNA SCOUT?" he asks Rafael, and guffaws. Not even a madman would poke their head up out of that trench, not with firebombs and shells and lasers and whatever else coming at them in ceaseless waves.

primordial wolfman

Wolf shoots a disbelieving glance at that half-mad sergeant. Bellows back: "Fuck no."

Sitting in the trench. Back to the wet dirt. Half-surprised to find himself still wearing leather-and-mail, that ever-more-mudstained surcoat. At least it's not his best one, he thinks, which is madness in and of itself. Need to move, he thinks. Need to keep moving before he forgets what he's here for, who he is.

Thumps the sergeant in the chest with the flat of his palm to get his attention. "Come on!"

Rises to a bent-backed crouch, then. Keeps under the lip of the trench. Holds his shield over his head -- for all the good it might do -- and starts moving. Direction's chosen at random. Nothing here guides him one way or another, but he moves nonetheless.

gatekeepers

But the sergeant doesn't go with him. Yells at Rafael's back as he leaves. Stops yelling a moment later, in another pelting rain of buckshot. Which is what it is: old American, hundreds of years gone even in Rafael's time. Sergeant isn't yelling anymore. Some part of him doesn't even notice it. Guy saved his life, didn't he? Crazy Desert Storm vet -- or ghost -- who kicked his legs out and kept him from eating it here. But deep in his chest where his heart should be, there's only cold acceptance of the sergeant's death. At least for a moment there.

Bullets, fresh and exciting bullets from the modern era, ping off of Rafael's shield. Which is not sturdy enough, thick enough, to deflect bullets from the modern era, with their hollow points and ludicrous velocity. But ping they do, bouncing off of the shield he crouches under. A surge of unexpected pride goes through him, almost arrogance.

People around him die. One of them from a bullet that ricocheted off his very shield. And for a moment at least, he feels nothing at all. After all: he's alive. His shield protected him.

The trench goes on and on. And he sees even stranger things than before: a Shaolin monk who tries -- and fails -- to stop bullets with his very hands. A woman with a tattooed face wearing mottled furs but holding a discarded laser pistol like she knows what it is, unafraid of its technology though clearly unused to it. She just keeps firing and firing and firing and firing, her teeth gritted and her eyes wild with rage. Someone grabs her shoulder and she shoots them, right in the trench, right in their shocked face, and then goes back to firing at these unseen enemies. Doesn't react. Feels nothing.

And some part of Rafael, crouched under that shield, doesn't blame her. Doesn't see anything strange about that at all.

primordial wolfman

Feels inevitable. All of it. Inevitable, unavoidable, empty. Of course battle rages on. Of course wars never end. Of course allies die, and enemies. Of course you end up feeling nothing in the end. Nothing at all.

Except maybe: the thrill of survival. Selfish, tenacious, willful. Every man for himself. Every wolf too.

Wolf keeps moving forward. Crouched, almost quadripedal -- loping through those trenches. Moves as a man until he realizes fuck it, who's going to care. Space aliens could show up, fire their lasers. No one would bat an eyelash.

Snaps into Crinos. Huge now, taking up the bulk of the trench. Plows through, staying low, only the tips of his ears occasionally showing past ground-level. Moves and moves and moves, tries to call to mind what brought him here. Tries to keep in mind what brings him here, which is not selfish, not uncaring, but quite the opposite.

Lost cub.

Lone witch.

Girl back home waiting for him -- just like some old story.

gatekeepers

Strange how empty it feels. No idea who they're fighting, or why. People die and no one notices. No room for things like loyalty or betrayal. No need for things like happiness or heartbreak. Just survival, in an eternal trench, in an eternal war, where eventually even the sight of warriors from another time or monsters from myth loses the ability to stir. Because you surive. And it doesn't matter. And no one cares.

The mind fades from thinking of whether or not this is a worthy existence, this absence of both love and grief.

--

He shifts and there's a surge of emotion, in that rage, that seems to abate the numbness for a moment. Sword fades into his flesh, but the shield does not. Its straps expand to wrap around his body, shielding his back. Tries to remember the lost Fianna cub, who has no face or name for him to bring to mind, but he tries to remember the witch, too, and she has a face. Older than the one he's familiar with, hair wilder, power greater, but familiar nonetheless. Remembers her feeding him, and soon enough his thoughts turn to the younger woman. The other witch.

And her face. And her smirking mouth. And her eyes. And the way it feels when she's sleeping on his chest. Chasing her through a dark, empty gallery. Making her come. Those pictures and texts from her from London, seeing her 'mum' for the first time in two years. All of it, warm and bright and flowing. Certainly worth fighting for. Certainly worth slogging through the mud to get back to, if nothing else. Even if the war is lost, even if that sweet thrilling taste of victory turns to ashes in his mouth, there's still that feeling. Fragile as life itself, though life only exists because of it.

But then: the way it feels when she cries, or runs from him in fear, or how it felt when she took a breath and submerged under her bathwater and there was that trace of panic. The way it feels now that she doesn't live with him anymore, wants to live somewhere else, away from him, where he doesn't know if she's fed or warm or safe. What he feels when he thinks back to early on, those first fleeting meetings, recalling himself and how she looked at him, what she thought of him. It burns like a slow knife boring into his chest, slipping up under his ribs and searching hungrily for his heart. Even in this form, the sudden pain nearly drops him to his knees.

Following that first blow comes the thought of the future. The way people lose each other. Fading from one another's lives or, even in the happiest sort of ending, dying. This feeling does cripple him, lays him out flat in the trench. It's not clear: it's no vision, no prophecy. Just reality. People die. Everyone dies. And he will either leave her in grief or he will have to grieve her, because this is how Gaia made them. This is how everything is made. Love does not save you from grief. It ensures it.

There is an arrow in his side. A very real, very long, very sharp arrow. He recognizes this hazily, through a thick cloud of mind-altering pain. It shot straight through the shield covering him, opened a hole through thick slabs of muscle and iron-hard bone, and sinks deeper with every step he tries to take, every breath he sucks in. The point comes closer and closer to his heart. It hurts so much less than those thoughts, though.

Comes like light bursting through clouds, that knowledge: this hurts less than grief. It's almost welcome. Might kill him, but it's better than grief. Which he could escape. Which they can all escape. You can just go on surviving until something kills you, and never have to feel this again.

A sudden, searing pain shoots through his chest as he chokes on a new breath.

He's got to get that arrow out of him.

primordial wolfman

Starting to understand why no one gives a damn here. No one knows who they're fighting or why. No one knows who their allies are or if they even have any. No one cares -- not if their allies die, not if their enemies live, so long as they live.

Or maybe not even that. Maybe that's the flip side of the coin. Rush of survival. Release of death. Nice to never have to care again. Nice to check out, withdraw, sever all ties. Nice not to risk getting hurt.

Because it does hurt. When shit goes awry, when your girlfriend's in tears again, when she was afraid of you first time you met. When she moves out, when she doesn't want to come back, when you think maybe she would've never even come back to you at all if you hadn't chased after all. Shit like that hurts,

hurts like the devil,

hurts like an arrow in the side.

Wolf drops to three legs, gasping. Shouldn't feel like this, he thinks. Arrows, primitive things that they are. Should hardly faze him but this one, this one digs deep and keeps going. Free handpaw grabs the arrow by the shaft. He starts pulling but the thing must be barbed, or something -- else it's got a life of its own. Wants to go deeper. Wolf lets out a yell, a groan, a howl; drops to his uninjured side. Wraps both handpaws around the arrowshaft now, one stacked over the other. Pulls. Pulls for all he's worth.

Thinks, too. Focuses his thoughts, fierce as an arrow himself. Thinks of the girl, the girl, the girl. Not when she's angry or hurt or scared, but when she's smiling that secret smile. When she's climbing into his lap, wrapping her skinny arms around him. Telling him,

I like you.

Telling him,

I love you.

gatekeepers

Shaft of the arrow tangles with the strap of his shield. He pulls though, with everything he has. The points of the arrowhead rip backwards out of him, tripling the size of the original wound as he tries to get it out. It yearns for him, almost seems to cry out in longing as he tries to get it away.

Rips out of his flesh. There's a scream. Might be him screaming. Bits of his body hang onto the somehow gleaming arrowhead, but he can't see it. It's caught on the shield. Thunks, metal on metal.

primordial wolfman

The shield. The fucking shield, which did nothing to protect him from this. Flash of anger carves through the wolf. Keeping hold of the arrow with one hand, he tears the shield off with the other, yanks and tugs to loosen the strap from that terrible, demented arrow.

"What?" he shouts at the arrow. "What do you want?"

gatekeepers

Manages to claw at his own chest in his frenzy to get that shield off. Tears it away,

drops it to the ground.

Just a shield then. Arrow stuck through it. Dull arrowhead, a little bloody. Not as big as it felt. Not as dangerous as the now-gaping hole in his side. Shield sinks into the mud as someone run-crawls over it. The shaft of the arrow snaps in half under a boot.

Blood, pumping rapidly out of his fiercely beating heart and flooding from his side, stains that lovely fur of his. Runs down his side. Still feels the pain that transcends pain, the inevitability of profound loss, the sorrow that eventually abates but never leaves. But still feels the rest, too. Girl when she's angry and when she's smiling that secret smile and when she's hurt and when she's sleeping with him or scared and when she's wrapping him around her, holding him to her, and saying tender, yeah?

Liking him and leaving him. Loving him and being,

perhaps more importantly here and now when she is not with him,

loved in return.

--

When his knees buckle again, it isn't mud that receives them. A plain wood floor. Smells like furniture polish and dust in here. The room is tiny. One grimy window. A desk. A typewriter. A tiny balding man in a tweed suit, wearing spectacles, tapping loudly away at the typewriter.

Glances up at the sudden crinos-formed werewolf in his office -- stacked with filing cabinets and papers and folders, some yellowing with age and some still warm from the typewriter -- who is gushing blood on the floor, and then

very calmly,

going back to his typing.

"Name?" he says, his accent giving him away as either a Brooklynite or, at least, the stereotype of one.

primordial wolfman

Just an arrow.

Just an arrow, and just a shield. Neither one alive. Neither one with a will of its own. One trampled into mud. Other snapped in half.

Left with his pain, then. And his tenderness. All those feelings he fought to keep, even if they sometimes threaten to overwhelm him. Drag him under. Kill him.

Wolf lets his head sink down. Hits not mud but plain wood floor. Blinks, jerks his head up again. Unassuming office worker typing at a typerwriter. Tweed suit. Feels like a movie, the 1950s. Man doesn't scream, doesn't go running away, which tells wolf he's not a man at all. No more than that soldier was a man, or anyone else he's met tonight.

Wolf pushes himself up. Stands unsteadily, one handpaw clamped over that pouring wound. Has to stoop so he doesn't put his head through the ceiling, here.

Growls out with some difficulty: "Ra-fa...el."

Coughs too. Fine red mist comes up.

gatekeepers

Clack clack clack clack clack clack

And as he hits return:

CLACK-ding!

Does not look up.

"Vocation?"

primordial wolfman

Wolf's ears fold back. He growls low in his throat. Casts about the tiny room; finds no other chair. Leans against the wall instead, heavily, straining the understructure of the building.

A moment later he shrinks. Not to his human shape, but closer. Easier to talk like this.

"Don't know. Warrior. Killer. Soldier of Gaia."

gatekeepers

No room for a chair in here. Too many file cabinets, bookshelves, all stacked with binders and folders and overflowing drawers of paper. There's not even wall space to lean on: he ends up against one of the tall metal cabinets. It's warm, at least. Like the golden light through the window seems warm, somehow: feels like sunset.

More clacking, as he answers. The man types fast, which is perhaps to be expected. There's another ding after all the clickety-clackety.

"Regrets?"

primordial wolfman

In this form wolf's always scowling. That sloping, brutish brow makes it so. When he actually scowls -- as he does now -- his eyes narrow to suspicious slits. His teeth bare.

"What?"

gatekeepers

Again the man glances up. His spectacles have slipped; he nudges them up again with the thoughtless precision of someone who does this dozens of times a day. Are there days here? Does it matter?

"Regrets," he repeats. Then, cantering along at an energetic and impatient clip: "Errors. Mistakes. Blunders. Offenses. Violations. Crimes. Misdeeds. Transgressions. Wrongs. Peccadillos. Trespasses. Perversions."

A beat of a pause.

"Sins."

primordial wolfman

"I got lots," wolf snaps, ill-tempered because he's wounded. Ornery because he's in pain. Irritated because this punctilious little fuck is typing his answers down like a court stenographer. "Don't keep track. How many questions do you have?"

gatekeepers

Wound is knitting itself. Slowly. Slower than it should. But it's beginning to heal.

"Don't worry about a complete list," says the man. "Just rattle off the first things that come to mind. We all have guilt, Rafael."

Lifts his hand, and makes a little beckoning gesture.

A wooden chair has appeared in front of his desk.

"Have a seat. We'll get through this much more quickly if you cooperate."

primordial wolfman

Wolf eyes that chair with suspicion. At length, he straightens up off the wall. Comes across the floor, heavy in his shifted bones. Drags chair out and dwarfs it when he sits, slouched and huge-shouldered and grumpy.

Blood drips on the floor. Slower now. Words come at the same rate, sins trickled out one by one.

"Probably shouldn't piss my girlfriend off so much," he says. "Or make her cry all the time. Maybe I should look up my dad's family too. Let them know I'm doing all right. Probably should be in a pack. Wolves are supposed to be packed."

Thinks a little more.

"Got a half-brother out there that hates me too. Maybe should try to make peace. Or at least have it out, see who kills who."

gatekeepers

Chair doesn't suddenly grow spikes, man doesn't suddenly breathe fire. Everything's pretty much the same when Rafael sits down.

The man listens, but doesn't type. Tips his head.

primordial wolfman

Silence for a while. Wolf taps fingers impatiently on thigh.

Finally: "Got anything else for me?"

gatekeepers

He puts his hands over the keys of his typewriter.

"Regrets?"

primordial wolfman

Wolf's hands fly up.

"I JUST TOLD YOU," he shouts.

gatekeepers

He shrugs. "You told me a list of things you think you 'should do'. Not things you've done that you regret."

primordial wolfman

Jaw tight. Arms folded. Glaring. Wolf fumes in silence for a long time, thoroughly at odds with this particular -- manifestation. Spirit. Whatever.

"What the hell is the purpose of this question?" he demands at last. "I've given up something that was mine. I've seen through illusions. I've told you the truth of why I'm here. I've crawled through a battlefield that made me want to forget how to feel. And now this contrived bullshit.

"What do you want of me? What's the point?"

gatekeepers

His interrogator folds his hands together. They are not particularly strange hands: normal, smallish hands. A bit calloused, rather dry. A bit of gunk under one fingernail; an overgrown cuticle. Nothing special or remarkable or alien. His eyes are just a normal medium-brown. His graying hair is poorly combed-over, and his suit doesn't fit him very well. It was made for a larger man.

"The rite of reawakening is particular to your species," he begins. "It has had many forms since your kind were created. Gaia herself taught the first rites, which are long lost. Even the spirits of spring do not remember what they originally were. As other sentient species began tracking the cycle of seasons and creating their religions, other, similar rituals were organized to mark the changes they saw. For some, they were mere celebrations. For others, they were believed to actually bring about each phase of the year. No seasonal rite was ever actually necessary in keeping the planet's change on course, save one.

"This one."

With a little cough against his fist, he goes on: "Not in your time of course, nor in the time of the werewolf whose life you are temporarily inhabiting. But very, very long ago, in the beginning, the rite of reawakening was absolutely necessary. Vital, in fact, for the earth to ever escape winter. Your mother, as far as goddesses go, is one of the more blood-hungry ones. And when she is not taking life, she sates herself with suffering."

There's a brief moment, a shifting of his eyes, an ache. "This was not always... quite the way it is now. But that is not important at the moment." He waves one of those rough little hands of his, dismissing the thought that seemed for a moment to moisten his eyes.

"Since its inception, however, this rite has been about sacrifice. One does not step into the warmth and rebirth of spring without experiencing the chill and death of winter. This is the cycle. This is what has to happen. So your people come, year after year and from all over your world, to give up the things you think belong to you, or have them taken. There are standards that mark what we gatekeepers may accept, and great secrecy is employed in order to ensure the purity of each sacrifice. Nothing ruins a sacred rite like insincerity," he says, with a wry little twist of his thin mouth.

His hands unfold. "Now, to answer your question: your very world, your tribes, your names, your day to day existence -- is a contrivance. As is mine. We cannot escape that. One may passively resist the inevitable existential crisis of self-awareness, by several means made easier with every passing generation, but even then: no one can opt out. Not even in death, for there is always a rebirth. Contrived, perhaps, and perhaps even 'bullshit'; but we are all part of the same cycle, eternally. Which makes the fight to stave off that cycle's total destruction seem like madness. But I am digressing again."

A thin smile. "Forgive me. I receive so few visitors."

And all of them have a page in this room. Thousands upon thousands, maybe millions, of pages. 'So few'. For an eternal being, perhaps.

"Rafael," he says, and taps a hard finger down on his desk. "You will remain here until I receive your admissions of guilt, whatever they are. It is the price I was created to collect. It is the sacrifice that is required for our Savage Mother to allow the world to keep turning. And believe me, you will feel better when it is out of you. The concept of confession being good for the soul originated in this very office."

He seems so proud. Like he wishes he had it on an engraved plaque so he could point to it for proof.

primordial wolfman

Wolf could throw up his hands again in sheer frustration. Perhaps would, except the creature -- Gatekeeper, he calls himself -- goes on and on and there's such order in this room, such tight regulation and protocol and bureaucracy, that even his rage seems dimmed. Boxed up, filed away.

Ends up listening. Listening, and realizing: he's learning. Punctilious, fastidious, supercilious little prick or not, this Gatekeeper speaks to him. Explains, in great detail, everything he asked and wanted answered. Wolf's still annoyed when it's over, but he sees that.

Another long silence follows.

"Appreciate that you answered me," wolf says then, perhaps a touch grudgingly. "Didn't think you would. Never been on one of these before. Not in my life. Not in the one I'm borrowing. Don't know the rules."

Fingers tap on knee. Somewhere along the way he's stopped bleeding. Realizes this remotely. Shifts in his seat.

"I don't regret much," he says then. Steadier now. Less furious. "Wolves do a lot of bad things out there in Gaia's name. We're monsters. Lot of times it's necessary. And right. Guilt just holds you back."

Thinks a little more.

"Regret it when I turn that on someone I care about though." Wolf pulls himself a little straighter. He's found something; a truth. "I regret being a dick to the girl. Devon. Could probably name fifty examples but here's the one I remember: that time she almost got ripped to pieces in that alley. I rushed to save her. Was so scared she'd die. But when it was over thought she'd have something over me if she realized it. So I was a dick." Wolf shrugs. "Regret that.

"Regret not going to my father's funeral. I was a kid and he was all I had in the whole wide world. Then he just upped and died. Some sort of stupid accident at work. I don't even know. I was so mad at him. Some distant uncle or something came to take me to the service. I was already at a group home by then. Wouldn't go downstairs. Wouldn't even meet this uncle of mine. He left after about twenty minutes. Never saw any of my dad's kin again.

"I regret that, too." Wolf raises his eyes, level with the gatekeeper. "Not feeling any better," he says. "Just feel stupid for being stupid."

gatekeepers

Clack clack clack clack clack clack clack

He's begun typing again. It fills the small room, almost overpowering Rafael's voice. But the man never falters. Nudges his glasses up and goes on typing, creating the little file that will live in this room for... eternity, perhaps.

Rafael.
Don't know. Warrior. Killer. Soldier of Gaia.
Turning on those he cares about. Being a dick to Devon. Not attending father's funeral. Refused to meet uncle.

Clack clack clack clack clack

And

ding

There's a cranking sound as the page is removed from the typewriter. The gatekeeper says nothing, even in response to Rafael's insistence that he doesn't feel better. He just takes the page, gets up, and goes over to one of the filing cabinets, opening a drawer. There's some pushing and straining as he goes through the overstuffed drawer, muttering a bit to himself, but finally he's able to jam the page into the correct spot. Removes something, too. An envelope. A medium-sized manila envelope in that classic orange-brown color. He carries it back to his desk, seats himelf, scoots his chair in, and then holds the envelope, which has something small and heavy inside, out to Rafael.

"Thank you, Rafael," he says. "It's been my pleasure to fulfill my duty to you." He smiles. "You're my first petitioner in almost two decades!"

He waves the envelope a bit. "There you go. That should be all you need."

primordial wolfman

Wolf sits in his chair. Hardly any space in here for anything else. Wolf thinks this must be a miserable fucking existence: an eternal in a tiny office, behind a cramped desk, typing on a typewriter. Not even a goddamn laptop.

Wolf thinks, then, that gatekeeper could probably have a laptop if he wanted. Could probably have a corner office, a view of the Andromeda Galaxy. Whatever he wanted. He invented confession. So maybe spirit's happy here. Bound by his unfree will to this existence, true, but at least Gaia -- mad, merciful, pitiless goddess that she was -- made him so that he enjoyed his odd little job.

Awarded an envelope, wolf unfolds his arms from his chest. Frowns at the envelope a moment, hesitant. Then he takes it.

"Regret being a dick to you too," he mutters, standing. "But you don't have to add that to the file."

gatekeepers

The man just shrugs. It is what it is. Maybe he'll go back and add it in later. He likes things to be complete.

"Best of luck, Rafael," he adds, and gestures to the office door.

primordial wolfman

Still looks primordial, half-evolved. Slope-browed, stoop-shouldered, lurching about like a silver screen wolfman. Wolf nods to the gatekeeper wordlessly and moves through the door.

Tears open the envelope on the other side. Dumps whatever contents it may contain out.

gatekeepers

Outside, he's in a hallway. A pretty dull hallway. Same old wood floors. Rows of doors on either side. A couple of lamps that flicker occasionally.

Tears open the envelope, and something glimmering tumbles out and falls to the floor. Picked, it reveals itself as familiar, as known. It's warm to the touch.

It's his signet ring.

And sliding it on, it feels like reassurance. That he is who he is. He's Rafael. Rafa. He's a warrior and a killer and a soldier for Gaia. And he is those things, no matter what he does that he regrets. That in fact the regret -- of turning his rage and his ruthlessness on those he cares about or those who don't deserve it, of letting his anger stall him from connection with people that could be his family, of all of it -- is not just something that slows him down, but something that reaffirms the worthiness of who and what he is.

That sinks in, slowly. Back there in that room there is a record of his name, and what he does here, and a short list of things he did that he felt bad about. And by omission, they clarify the things he values, the ideals he holds, the things he cares about, even if he can't name them outside of the pangs of guilt he feels when he thinks of them.

He knows, though, at least for a few moments outside of this particular gatekeeper's office, who he is.

That he's not actually cruel, or cold. Just wary sometimes, because he's been hurt. That being hurt doesn't mean he's weak. That Devon's forgiven him, or she wouldn't love him like she does. That he was just a kid, and his uncle didn't really blame him, and in fact still looks for him sometimes, and hopes that Rafael looks for him too. That his uncle out there regrets losing track of him, and that it wasn't his uncle's fault either -- the system sucks people in, erases their pasts, disconnects them in so many ways. He knows that not going to his father's funeral doesn't mean he didn't care, or that he's hard-hearted or selfish. Knows that the gatekeeper has seen much worse, and was genuinely pleased to meet him, and -- as much as a being lacking free will can -- forgives him, too.

That's what it feels like.

Not just reassurance.

Like forgiveness.

primordial wolfman

Silly that such a little thing should hold any meaning for him at all. A ring, passed to him by a mother he never met. Passed to her by her mother, or perhaps her father; on and on, back a few hundred years or so. Maybe. He doesn't even know. He just imagines these things.

Imagines a link to his mother, who gave him his wolf. Imagines maybe there's an uncle out there looking for him. Imagines maybe girl's forgiven him for all the times he's been a dick to her, because if she didn't she wouldn't love him so. Imagines that even if he's not looking for it, maybe there's forgiveness to be had.

Wolf clenches his fist around the ring. And then he slides it on, crumples the envelope up. Tosses it in a handful wastebasket and moves on.

gatekeepers

He can hear his footsteps echoing down the hallway as he strides along. Hears snippets of conversations behind other doors, hears typewriters clacking. Hears, at one point, a sound like fire engulfing a room, but no one is screaming inside. Hears something that sounds like choirs of angels singing. No matter. All these sounds fade in time, until he finds some stairs,

heads down to the lobby with its chipped tile floors and dozing security guard behind his desk, out into a sunset whose light is so searing that it blinds him for a moment.

--

Blinking at the brightness, Rafael feels his side healed finally. All that remains is a stickiness, a fur-matting stain on his side. Sword is still buckled close at hand. Clothes are still muddy and stained, and spirit is weary. No wonder Garou do this in groups of seven. The price may increase at each gate for that, but at least no one person is slogging through it alone.

Things begin to clear, or rather: the sun sets. It's dark now. Twilight, really, the sky still a dim blue. He can see all the stars. Smell the grass and the trees and the people around him, and the herbs in her garden and the goat tied up out back.

Before him is the door to the witch's hut.

primordial wolfman

Not really her in there, he thinks. Just like it wasn't really the Philodox that met him at the second gate. Or was that the third? He's lost track. Garou do this in groups of seven, but he doesn't have a pack. He barely has a Sept, and that Sept is a thousand years removed from where and when he entered the Rite.

Still, wolf's glad to see the hut. The herbs. The goat, stinking unwashed thing that it is. His spirit is lighter than it has been for some time. Maybe the fifth gatekeeper was right: confession is good for the soul.

Wolf tramples grass, treads dirt. Avoids crushing the herbs in the garden, though. Avoids alarming the goat too, if only because he'd rather not get butted. Gets to the door and knocks, just as he had.

gatekeepers

Door opens to his knock. Symbolic, maybe. All things in this realm are symbolic.

Same dark little hallway. No sunlight filtering in this time, but there's a very low, nearly banked fire in the pit in the center, and a young woman sleeping on the bed he saw before. Older than Devon. Younger than the witch of this era. Her dark hair is unbound and spread everywhere. Her lips are slightly parted. The air is tinged with cold but warmed by that lingering fire; he knows by its liveliness that she can't have been asleep for very long.

He is starting to remove his boots before even realizing it. There's space in the bed. It's for him, and his hands and feet know it before he does.

primordial wolfman

Should be surprised. Should be shocked but he's not. Feels so right. Of course: of course door would open to his hand. Of course it's the same inside. Dark and cozy, banked fire waiting for him. Girl waiting for him. Skinny thing still, not quite the same as the one he knows or the one he met, but still her. Of course he'd remove his boots. Get comfortable.

He's coming home.

--

Wolf's a bit of a mess, if we're honest. Wound's healed now but blood has darkened his surcoat, his leather. Stained his mail. Knows he needs to scrub that off before it rusts. His squire's in charge of that sort of thing. Rub the blood and muck of war off with fine sand. Oil the mail. Sharpen the sword. Repair the shield. Squire's not around, though, and wolf makes do himself. Sets his boots aside, and then the surcoat. Sits on the bed, there in that space left for him, and starts to unbuckle his light armor. The straps, the clasps. The creak of leather as he lifts it off, lets it fall to the floor.

Then the mail, also light. Not the sort of thing you wear into open combat. Thin rings, fragile links; an arrow could easily punch through. Did. Wolf lifts the whole of it off, drops it on the floor. Scuffs it in the dirt with his foot to get the worst of the stains off, then leaves it be.

Underclothes soaked in blood too. He thinks girl might worry, but then she shouldn't. Knows he's a wolf, doesn't she? Of course she does. They're lovers here, too.

gatekeepers

Near the door is a bucket -- a basin, really. There's water inside, no longer hot but it was once. Not quite a dual-headed luxury shower like his bathroom at the mountain house, but there's a cloth, and water, and if he wants to wash he can. Sword's with him, though his shield was left behind two gates ago.

Without even questioning it, Rafael undresses. Not much underneath the surcoat and hose; not exactly boxers and v-necks here. But the armor comes off. The clothes. Down to flesh. He leaves it all, and picks up the cloth, and uses the warm (let's be honest: tepid) water to wash himself. More or less.

She turns over on the bed. Breathes in differently, a bit, but doesn't wake. Not yet.

primordial wolfman

Does the best he can with limited resources. Scrubs the dried blood off. Wets the washcloth, wipes down his body. The sweat, the dirt. When he's clean -- at least in twelve-century terms -- he scrubs out the rag, wrings it, lays it out near the fire to dry. Takes the basin and pours it into the shallow gutter cut into the dirt floor for this very purpose.

Wolf doesn't question what he's doing here. Wolf doesn't care that it's not real. He's tired, through and through, and this is the only hint of comfort he's had all this time. He comes to bed. He crawls into bed, the rushes, the straw. Blankets are rough cloth and animal furs. He moves in behind the girl, wraps his arm around her.

Sighs as he settles. Good to be home.