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Day 27

Morning

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Queen Rhowena of Dorian, the rocky coastal highland country of the far southeast. Hers is a name unknown to most outside of the magical practices, largely forgotten to ancient history. This is a great boon. As a Spirit mage - or, rather, a Fire mage with a meager aptitude in Spirit - I must be familiar, however. If there was anyone who had a natural talent in it, it would be Rhowena.

She lived for three hundred years, give or take a few decades. The accounts are sparse and incomplete, and it is hard to know when, where, and who, even, she was when she died and stayed dead. This reason is why I now make sure to write this down in my notes: her methods were similar to what I am now planning with Sulla.

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Rhowena practiced what is called "blood magic", an offshoot subtype of Spirit magic, almost identical in foundation yet drastically different in execution. Where "normal" Spirit magic draws from the inherent energy in all things, blood magic directly pulls from the verdant, concentrated life-force flowing through the blood, of the caster or anyone around them. Rhowena did not develop the discipline but was said to have honed and perfected it, to the point where she, a soldier and warrior as much as she was a queen, kept countless vials of blood from past enemies constantly hidden about her person, so that she could swiftly and effortlessly fuel her arts. A vile, hideous practice, but one nonetheless deserving of respect for its ingenuity and efficacy.

_ _

I shall not go into Rhowena's upbringing or usurpation of the throne of Dorian. This is not relevant to my interests, and I'd benefit little from reciting a history lesson. What interests me is in how she lived for so long - not in the result, but rather in the act itself. It is said her first death came after three decades of surprisingly pleasant and peaceful rule, when she drew herself and her most trusted advisers and servants into the palace mausoleum. Of the eight she took with her only five emerged by her side, and the tales tell that she sat upon the throne for another several decades afterward - some sources say ten, some fifteen, some seventeen - before the process repeated.

_ _

It is known that Rhowena bonded her subjects and advisers to each other and to herself, in a way that some scholars believe either led to or came from the traditional ritual bonding known in Maldeth. These events occurred so far in the past that few specifics are known, and thus much is left to speculation - but there is too much anecdotal evidence about her wielding these bonds as a weapon to ignore. She forged the links knowing the consequences of breaking them, and would intentionally shatter them between her subjects as punishment.

_ _

I did not even think to consider it until the Huntress, whoever she is, mentioned the possibility. I brought a few books with me from the academy, one of them being my own compiled notes on the various sources of Spirit knowledge available. My record of Rhowena is the most complete there, thank the gods, as it's quite a good story. They say that when her army first approached the capital city of Dorian that the standing army and royalty pitched themselves off the cliffs and into the sea below, rather than face the Blood Mistress herself.

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However. None of these anecdotes list a twisting of body as a result of the broken bond. Insanity, rampant anxiety and frantic panic and nervousness that can never be quelled, irrational fears, schizophrenia and hallucinations, sudden muteness and, sometimes, what seems to be a clear separation of mind and body, leaving behind an empty husk with no conscious inhabitant. But no malformations, no twisted shoulders or wicked proportions, no hideous disfigurement - other than those preexisting - or any physical changes, really, self-inflicted wounds and "creative" modifications notwithstanding. Rhowena held such a mastery over the magic that she could break these bonds with no ill effects on herself, a feat never again replicated.

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It would make things so much easier if more than a handful of recognized mages each century could wield or even perceive Spirit magic. Now I have to do all of this research and experimentation myself. All evidence indeed reinforces that Sulla's "condition" occurred with a shattered spirit-bond, between himself as the hunter and his companion. The Huntress at least said as much, and I must trust her.

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Side note: I have begun to become aware of her presence, all around. She named herself the spirit of the forest, its soul, its center. Something like a deity, yet distinctly different. I can trust her.

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Another realization, just come to me: are all hunter-companion pairs spirit-bonded in a similar way? If so, how? Do they all have the capability? Why? There is so much more to learn out here. Perhaps once I have figured Sulla out, I can have him teach me Old Tongue and I'll investigate myself.

_ _

That is the first matter of business: returning him to his original form, the one I've seen in my dreams. I believe it to be a complex yet manageable manipulation of mostly Spirit magic entwined with the other elements, to "coax" the body back to its original state without any alterations the mind. An extension of the fundamentals of higher-level healing magic, drawn out to an extreme scale.

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It will be exhausting, but casting it through a ritual rather than a one-time firing will help lighten the burden. I will need help, and even then, I need a deep well of inspiration - the Huntress reminded me of what happened with Emnis. Emotion of that intensity was not enough to achieve my wants. What can be stronger than desperation?

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~ ~ ~

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It still amazed and surprised Lannon that Sulla let him touch him as he did. Every morning, whether Sulla slept near the hut or out in the forest, the two would meet up at the riverbank and move in for their daily bath, Lannon less intense with the soap and comb now that it had become routine. He would sing his song each morning as well, filling in the words that the Huntress had given him, and Sulla would close his eyes and lean close, swaying softly to the rhythm, lips shifting and pursing and moving as though he, too, wanted to sing. Lannon figured he would know the tune by now, and he always kept his tufted ears perked, yet never heard a thing.

The lynx became more aware of the other hunters out in the forest as well, always watching him as they had since his first arrival, keeping their distance now that he had come so close with the monster, the terror of the night, the abomination. He deeply wished to close that distance, to investigate the specifics of the hunter-companion bond just so he could have a little more to work off of, but there was nothing to be done about that.

Their days were spent hunting and exploring, Lannon telling Sulla about his life at home or at the academy and of his friends and partners, the wolf maintaining his usual silence broken by the occasional grunt or huff or rumble. The more time he spent alongside him, the more Lannon could see the beauty in his being: malformed and twisted as he was, Sulla was still a deadly, efficient hunter, fierce with fang and claw, powerfully muscled and able to utilize that musculature to its full potential.

At night, as the sun dipped down between the trees and faded under the horizon, Lannon would bring Sulla back to the hut so that he could continue his research, and try to coax more information out of the wolf's closed mouth and open consciousness. Fingers of Spirit magic poking and prodding, teasing into that shield in his mind, sifting through what memories he shared with him, the thoughts, the ideas, the preferences and desires and daydreams...

The little lynx Lannon underneath me, arms up above his head, muzzle tilted to the side. His mouth is open just a little bit, hot, tense breaths puffing out as his entire body shakes and lurches with the rhythm. I can smell both of us, my own familiar musk dominating and overcoming his, as he squeezes and clenches on me, legs wrapped around my waist, trying to pull me in even though there's no way he'd be able to fit my knot like this. Were I in my own body, perhaps, but not like this.

_ _

Lannon standing beside me in the river, but I'm myself, alongside him just a head and a half taller. His arms are around my waist, and my head is on his shoulder. I'm breathing his scent, soft and warm, lightly touched by the mossy dankness of the river water. It's cold but I'm so warm held in his embrace, enjoying his presence, his touch, his...

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I'm teaching Lannon how to properly shoot a bow. I can tell he's had instruction but no training, and the bow he uses is a bit different in construction than what we use in the tribe - longer limbs, lower tension, different string. It's been so long, but my body never forgets. Wrapping my paws around it feels comfortable and correct, and it's... nostalgic, feeling the way my muscles move and respond, how my arm automatically adjusts, how my fingers move and shift along the grip. I wonder whatever happened to my knife.

_ _

...and then, deeper down, a bit more. Most of the time Lannon performed these exercises and excursions in the clearing out in the front of the hut, bathed in the warm light of a lantern magical or otherwise. There were hints and feelings buried in there, things that he could tell had not been touched in years. These moments were the most tenuous, the least stable: Lannon kneeling down, eyes closed, with Sulla's head close to his own, cheek to cheek or forehead to forehead, paws resting lightly along his jaw or chin or shoulders. The contact helped, he had found, as the root of the connection lay in their closeness and the ever-growing affection between them. That was what fueled Spirit magic: emotion and passion, and the more he looked, the more he found, the more Lannon's want to help him grew.

It was an exhausting task, for both of them. Afterwards Lannon would often slump forward, muzzle buried in the dense fur of the wolf's shoulder just waiting to catch his breath, and Sulla would remain there around him. Sometimes Sulla would be the one to flop backwards, mouth open and tongue hanging limp, chest rising and falling in slow, unsteady breaths. In those moments Lannon liked to come forward and sprawl across him, his body hardly a noticeable weight atop the wolf; sometimes one of those huge paws would come up and rest along his lower back, heavy and a bit uncomfortable yet not enough for him to push it off. Sometimes they would even fall asleep there, Lannon half-draped over the larger male's body, fingers spread through his thick fur and Sulla's scent strong in his nose, some nights more so than others. Sometimes he fell asleep with his heart pounding and belly full, and sometimes it was a slow, gentle drift away, the wolf's presence warm and comfortable, something solid and resolute out here in the forest.

Such a strange thing, it was. He told Sulla about his plans and formulas for the ritual, though he wondered if the wolf could understand such high magic as this. Lannon explained his need for different plants and colors of chalk, a holdover from before magic was an organized, recognized institution: many things remained from the days of occultism and superstition, unpracticed and unstudied idiosyncrasies not known to have an actual effect. For his ritual, this modified extreme healing, there would be three circles: one to which he would need Sulla's extended limbs bound, then a second for where they would be post-transformation, and then a third around the inner two to keep it bound together. Hellebore and lavender, of course, with acanthus flower and ginseng root at certain focal points about the circle.

Ideally Lannon could wait until midsummer so he could harvest and include the rare shinehold flowers in his ritual, but the more he thought about and practiced the spell, the more he wondered if it was indeed worth the wait. They truly were beautiful - the academy had a book on the rare herbology of the northern regions, one that the young lynx had almost religiously pored through upon his arrival - and he would have loved to find one in bloom for himself, but ultimately disregarded it.

The days continued to pass. Lannon refined, honed, re-refined his ritual, the blueprint drawn in the back of his journal bridging two pages, the outline of the circle on one and reagents and spell on the other. His confidence grew just as his intimacy with the wolf did: no longer was he afraid to approach him during a hunt, no longer did he fear Sulla turning his anger or primal instinct on him. Lannon even reached up one time right after the wolf had torn open the chest of a mountain lion, muzzle and lips and gums sticky and humid with the fresh spill, and had reached in to run his fingerpads along those slimy, greasy lips and to touch those sharp fangs. Sulla had curled his lips back further as though to growl, though only hot breath wafted out and pushed Lannon's whiskers back-

-and then next thing he knew he was pinned against the ground right there, one of Sulla's huge paws on his chest and jaws opened around his head, blood mixed with drool dripping into his fur, along his eye and cheek, into his own opened mouth. That was a strange thing, too, the elation and arousal coming from watching Sulla give in to his instincts and urges, and seeing the pure refined strength of the beast inside. That night Sulla had dug his jaws against the ground on either side of Lannon's head, rumbling and growling, drooling and dripping and panting against his face, thoroughly coating and soaking the lynx's poor fur. He hadn't been able to see, of course, but he could feel Sulla's similar arousal twitching and throbbing above his belly and chest, to be found a few moments later with one paw while the other worked at himself.

It was only fair to give the same attention to the wolf once he himself had finished. The two had had to take a second, early-evening bath that night. Lannon reflected on it in his notes that night, thinking over how their relationship had changed and advanced. Sulla now let him into his mind with almost no resistance, he was so used to the lynx's presence. This and, simply, he trusted him. That was the most important part: the trust and affection, the mutual bond that had started to settle into place between them. Perhaps it was the growing familiarity, or perhaps it was a remnant of the repeated practices of Spirit magic upon the wolf, but Lannon was now certain he had a general sense of where Sulla was when apart from him at all times, and a faint inkling of whatever might go through his head in terms of thoughts or feelings. Just a little something, magnifying and accentuating the sensations of their shared triumph during a hunt, or satisfaction when he made a new discovery in his research and ritual, or in their entwined pleasure on those certain special nights.

He tried not to think about that too much, as it presented probably the most effective distraction from his work when near the wolf, but there was nothing he could do about it. Laying back against Sulla's huge, warm body while Lannon pored and re-read through his notes kept him constantly aware of the fat, plump bundle of flesh and skin and fur off to his side, with the two palm-sized masses hanging loose beneath; crouching down with him in the brush and bushes showed him the raw, feral energy that dictated Sulla's entire being, in the set of his shoulders and angle of his body, in the way he treaded over the soft earth with the grace and silence of a honed predator. Standing beside him in the river and running his paws over and through his fur, softer and straighter by the day, was the worst: it was physical closeness and affection wrapped up in a situation already intimate, with the sheer difference in their height making it seem even more so.

The river still reminded him of the Huntress, though, and her last appearance in his dream. It had felt so real, with her beside him even though Lannon could see only her reflection. Her soft, sweet voice, touched with a big of sass and cynicism despite how she spoke with mysticism and in riddles, and then her bold touches along his body, his back, his waist, his lower belly, his chest, his neck, his shoulder and arm. Sometimes Lannon lay awake at night thinking about that encounter, whether he lay back on his bed inside his hut or outside, or under a tree, or nestled back in the cool humidity of a cave, always with Sulla wrapped around him sharing his warmth.

Again, Lannon could feel her. Sometimes on those nights out in the wild he thought he could see her out there between the trees, golden eyes indistinguishable from the sparkling stars between the treetops, her smoky white fur blending smoothly in with the shifting shadows of the forest. Always present, yet never there.

Before the week's end, Lannon had completed his blueprint for the ritual and gathered all of the reagents, save for the one that the casting of the spell itself would provide. His heart fluttered with both anticipation and excitement at the thought of it, magnified further when he shifted in against the huge wolf's body to sleep that night, nestled beneath the awning of the hut underneath the hanging remains of his dried stag from his first week in the woods. That had been hardly a month ago, yet it felt at once so much more recent and so much further in the past.

The lynx shifted, sighed, wrapped his arms over his chest, and turned his head to the side to nuzzle into Sulla's fur. The wolf adjusted as well and let out a little huff; when Lannon opened his eyes a bit he looked right up into Sulla's mismatched pair, one gold and one milky-white. The wolf held his gaze unflinching for a moment, then licked his chops, swallowed, turned his head a bit, and rolled over to press Lannon more fully against his warm, soft belly. The lynx purred softly and reached up to run his paw through Sulla's revealed chestfur, beneath which his heart beat slow, steady, confident. His paw dropped from there to the wolf's arm, then continued down towards his huge paw, the pads thick, cracked, and calloused.

There Lannon's paw remained, fingers half-entwined beneath Sulla's stretching as far as they comfortably could. The wolf's paw, huge and malformed, halfway between that of a man and that of a wild beast, squeezed back on his. Lannon had told him his plan earlier in the day, and asked for his trust and confidence.

Sulla had given him that little purse of the lips and twitch of the mouth that Lannon had come to recognize as his best attempt at a smile, and then had leaned forward - the lynx braced himself, expecting another instance of huge lupine jaws parting around his entire head - and licked his nose first, then his cheek, and then that spot between his neck and shoulder that never failed to send a sharp shiver up his back.

I trust you, Sulla had said, in those little movements. I trust you, and more.

~ ~ ~

I couldn't help but smile as I watched her, the little feral wolf puppy running through the grass, tumbling over her littermates and parents. She was so full of life and energy, and even then I could feel that energy pouring into and through me. They say that there's no real choice or prediction to the bonding of hunter to companion, simply that it occurs and it feels right - and I knew from the start that she would be mine.

I was proud of her. I was so, so proud. She grew into a beauty, strong and powerful, a prime example of nature's best. Every day I was honored to walk beside her and to hunt with her, and every night I thought myself lucky to feel her sleeping at my side, our bond of trust growing stronger and closer every day. The bonding ritual in the tribe, the highest of holy rites, if it can be termed as such, came and passed without a hitch: the elders sent me into the woods with her by my side, our first unsupervised hunt, our first expedition alone, with no company save for each other.

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The bloodrites, we call this ritual. Personal, intimate, and immensely secret to each pairing, different in execution yet always fundamentally identical. The connection of spirit to spirit, soul to soul, mind to mind. We departed as wolf and wolfess and returned as hunter and companion, as spirit-bonded pair. It was then that I felt the true beauty of nature surging through me, when I held her in my arms and felt that link slide into place and connect. Suddenly I was more than myself. I was both of us in one, together, united, yet still distinctly my own being. There was more there than I had ever imagined, even having been born and raised in the tribe and surrounded by these bonded pairs. Then I understood why they regarded their companions as they did, and why they spoke to them as though they could speak back.

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Some of them did, in their own way. We returned two weeks later, her and myself, knowing each other as we never had before, unable to take a step or feel a thought without sharing it with the other. Two extensions of the same soul, wrapped and bound so tightly together that the seams between disappear. I could not imagine how I had ever survived without this feeling, this awareness of her constantly there, nestled comfortably in the back of my head and my heart. I knew her thoughts, her feelings, her worries, her wants - as she did mine. Always, interminable and unceasing. And I would have it no other way.

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Never could I spend a moment away from her. I knew where she was, always: when we split up during hunts I could turn my head her direction as though I could see her through the trees and vines, and were the land clear, I could estimate the distance as well. Hunting became efficient and deadly, her with fang and claw and myself with bow and arrow. Seek, track, kill, and return. My mother once returned from an overnight expedition with two stags slung over her companion's back and one over her own shoulders, exhaustion and pride both evident on her face. Later she would be named chieftess of the tribe; never was there a woman more deserving of the title.

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I was a Hunter, yet infinitely more than that. Attuned to nature, one with the world around myself and my companion. As I grew I would learn that we held a secret to our bloodline, myself and my mother and her mother before her. An ancient potency, a well of power hidden from the others, even from her own half-brother. He did not share quite the same makeup, while I did.

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I never knew my father. "You do," my mother replied once, with a smirk on her face. She lounged back over her companion, the huge, brutal Stike, beautiful and intimidating. "You have. You have walked together, and laughed together, and hunted together. Your children will do the same with their mother, yet just the same, they will not know."

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My children... it did not matter to me. I had my companion, my sweet, beautiful Tul, and that was all that mattered - and my unified blood meant that our bond could deepen further, so that I could converse with her as one hunter to another. She was the world to me, my soul, my heart. I could not imagine a moment spent without her presence alongside mine, physical or spiritual. We spent every moment of every day together, and yet it still brought me joy and relief to kneel down before the fire at night and to take her muzzle in my paws, to touch her nose to mine and feel her lick across my face. I loved nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and bury my face in her pelt, smelling distinctly of soil and wood and nature and herself.

_ _

We shared our days, our dreams, our hopes, our desires; we shared our meals, our joys, our sorrows. One night - I knew it was coming - we retreated to a cave up in the hills beyond the forest, just the two of us. I could feel Tul's strain and effort through our bond, though I still drew strength and confidence from her, as she did from me. It was a long, rough night, the spikes of her discomfort and pain driving me close to insanity, sweat pouring through my fur and all my muscles tense even though I was doing nothing.

_ _

She had a litter of six, there in the cave on the hill overlooking the forest below. A litter of six, and I buried five of them with my own paws in the hard, rocky earth beneath the dead tree that cast its shadow across the mouth of the cave. One after the other, tiny twisted bodies, purple-grey and furless, eyes still closed, limbs malformed and unrecognizable, their skin cold and stiff to the touch. One after the other in a shallow pit dug with shaking, exhausted limbs.

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I shared her pain, every spasm, every convulsion, every tightened muscle. We shared our grief. One of them survived, and I carried her home in my arms with Tul beside me the next morning. She looks just like her mother. I named her Laya.

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Our joys and our sorrows we shared, our exultations and our grief. We shared everything, and experienced everything together even if we were separate. It was a warm summer morning, once, when I lounged out against a tree while Tul explore the surrounding land - not hunting, not playing, but somewhere in between. A comfortable, pleasant morning, calm and easy. I could feel her though our bond, content and satisfied, Tul playfully annoyed at my laziness, me enjoying the feeling.

_ _

Then, suddenly, it changed. It all changed. The abrupt, intense pain that lanced through the bond nearly blinded me, flooded me with panic. I remember crashing through the trees towards her location, her entreaties for help screaming in my mind, forcing my limbs to move of their own accord. I could feel the sharp metal teeth digging into my own leg where the trap had clamped down on hers; I could feel the snapped sinews, the shattered bones, the pulped flesh, though mine still held firm. Help, she called at once, yet at the same time - danger. Turn back. Danger. Sulla. Sulla!

_ _

I remember a hunter, not one of our own though he was still a wolf. Fur white like fresh fallen snow, eyes a cold, sharp blue like the winter sky. I remember him, and what he did to her. What he did to me.

_ _

That I will never forget.