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"Look at you. You look just like her. Can't you see? My, my, what a little beauty..." This voice was felt more than heard, an essence without substance, a timbre without the notes to carry it. The words carried relief yet, at the same time, a deep, piercing grief, a sorrow so deep that it poured out and over from the heart. The rain continued to fall, all around. Around that heart and around the world outside, constant and unceasing, sharp and chill. The voice broke. "Beautiful..."

_ _

"Sulla." This voice was warmer, more familiar, yet at the same time not a voice at all. It was a feeling as well, an implication. A subconscious instinct, of sorts. "Sulla..."

_ _

The wolf hunter with the mossy green eyes held the pup in his arms. His throat pulsed in a forcible swallow, and on his muzzle that conflict raged, for around that one squeaking, breathing pup lay five more, still and cold as the stones outside. "Look. Look, Tul. Look at her."

_ _

The wolfess was tired, yet proud. Failure after failure, tension and stress and worry, nightmare agony and then confidence that she had lost everything she held dear - and then suddenly relief, a ray of sunlight piercing through the heavy clouds overhead. "Lovely," she sent; she did not speak by voice, but rather through their bond, deeper than any pair that come before save for perhaps Sulla's mother. The incremental honing and refining of the blood ensured that.

_ _

It ensured that Sulla felt each and every one of her contraction and spasms, that he shared in both the pain as well as the relief. Sweat beaded on his forehead even now, and the tendons in his neck and shoulders still twitched and tweaked with the remnant tension, even as he held the tiny newborn. Close to himself, shielding her from the pouring rain and the chill wind that swirled around the cave.

_ _

"Sleep you soft, little wolf, sleep you long..." Sulla sang softly, bringing his nose in to the pup's bare belly. She squirmed in his paws. "Sleep you well, little wolf, 'til the coming of the dawn. May a wish, may a dream, may a thought, may a beam..."

_ _

Exhausted, Tul let her eyes flutter shut and sighed softly. She loved hearing him sing. This was a lullaby that his mother used to sing to him when he was a pup. She felt the warmth of Sulla's body close to her own, and the welling relief and ecstasy of the birth pouring through the bond and revitalizing her anew.

_ _

"Sleep you sweet, little wolf, sleep you warm. In my arms, little wolf, never shall you come to harm..."

_ _

Tul adjusted how she lay to find a more comfortable spot, the pain lingering yet dying back a bit. She was content as long as she could be here beside her hunter and, now, her daughter. The outpouring of love and adoration that radiated through the bond for this tiny wolf almost matched what Sulla held for Tul herself.

_ _

"Tul."

_ _

The wolfess opened her eyes and flicked her tongue out over her chops. Every time she looked at him she couldn't help but feel a similar wave of that same love, magnified and reflected back and forth through the bond.

_ _

"Sulla."

_ _

The hunter, grinning, lifted the young pup close to his muzzle. His whiskers twitched with each tiny exhalation of breath, smooth and steady.

_ _

"Laya?"

_ _

Tul closed her eyes again, basking in the warmth of the bond. 'Laya' was the word in their tongue for, simply, 'life'. Flanked by five cold little bodies, warmed only by her hunter and her daughter, Tul let that word take root and blossom out in her thoughts and her heart.

_ _

"Yes," she sent back, sighing softly. "She shall be Laya. Now and always."

_ _

"Now and always," Sulla agreed, again settling her in his arms. He looked out of the mouth of the cave. "I shall wait for the storm the pass, and then I'll lay the others to rest. This tree shall stand as a memorial."

_ _

The two wolves looked out of the mouth of the cave towards the huge tree, sitting on the ridge of the mountain pass. It was a huge, dead oak, bark long since rotted away and heartwood dry and cracked, empty branches stretching out to the sky like so many hands seeking nourishment, that abundant life-water pouring right through their fingers.

_ _

"I can wait."

_ _

~ ~ ~

Lannon jerked awake yet could not move, his entire body sore and aching, his muscles feeling like viscous liquid caught beneath his skin. He tried to turn his head and groaned, the pain echoing and reverberating back down along his spine. It hurt to breathe as well, as though he had opened his mouth and let the sun dry his throat for three days without rest or water.

Speaking of water - he blinked against the soft rain pouring down from overhead, the blue of the sky visible between thin and sparse clouds. It was warm, and looked to be either early morning or just near dusk; he could not tell from where he lay. During the ritual it had not looked like rain, and-

The ritual. Despite himself, against everything his body told him and all of its attempts to keep him down, the lynx jerked upright and looked around. It seemed he still lay where he had fallen immediately after the casting, here along the smooth blue-grey shale with the now uneven and foggy chalk rings of the circles spread around him. His vision swam before him with the movement and the burst of pain, the ache and pressure in the center of his skull growing until he thought his head would burst. Unable to see, cursing beneath his breath, he reached out with a paw, felt cool, wet stone; some fragments of fallen leaves and shriveled flowers; a fractured branch; a round stone... a paw, bigger than his own, limp.

Limp, but... as the pain receded somewhat Lannon managed to open his eyes and look at the form beside him. Sulla, as he was meant to be. Sulla, the hunter, the wolf. Lying there on his back, eyes closed, mouth half-open, every muscle in his body relaxed and natural. Beautiful in his stillness and his silence, and yet... Lannon continued up his arm, fingerpads drawing little lines in the soaked and matted fur. Up the arm to the shoulder, over the shoulder to the neck - he adjusted his posture to reach - where his fingers lay, and...

There it was. Faint but present, the slow, steady pulse of the heart, the gradual in and out of breath. Relief flowed through the lynx, and suddenly, exhaustion began to overtake him again. He flopped down, stones grinding beneath his back and body, and scooted closer to the damp wolf beside him. He smelled of wet dog and dirt and nature, but beneath all of that was the little bit of spice that he had come to recognize as Sulla.

Lannon felt something shift and then lock into place inside of him, not physically but more as an awareness, a spiritual thing. He felt Sulla's closeness to him, smiled through his exhaustion, and rested an arm around the wolf's body again.

Satisfied, relieved, exhausted and wracked with pain yet still content, he nuzzled in against the hunter's warmth and gave himself back over to sleep.

~ ~ ~

"Hey there. I can see you, you know. Oh - here we go... wake up, little puppy. You've got a whole new day, a whole new world ahead of you. So many new things to see and explore and experience. There you are... good morning, beautiful. Every day is a treasure, so long as you are in it. Wake up..."

_ _

"Wake up."

_ _

Again he stirred, this time immediately feeling the not quite plush grip of the mattress beneath him, the thin blanket drawn halfway up his chest, the warmth of the unconscious wolf beside him. The scent of rain hung around the space, quickly identified to the lynx as his hut back in the woods. His head felt a bit better and it no longer felt as though all his limbs were filled with a searing slime, but still he could feel the weight of exhaustion and strain slowing him down.

He was in no rush to get up quite yet, though. Finding that Sulla was on his side facing him, Lannon rolled over so his back was to the wolf's chest, then pushed himself gently back, found Sulla's arm, and draped it over his own body, intertwining his fingers with the larger, limp ones. He thought he felt a faint twitch and squeeze there, Sulla's thumb wrapping in around his palm and holding for just a second.

Lannon closed his eyes again and settled back, feeling the wolf's slow, steady breathing in the fur of his shoulder, so soft yet definitely there, and the gradual rise and fall of his chest against his back. He wrapped himself up close, as cozy as a kitten in a sun puddle, and let all the feelings and thoughts of the past however long it had been wash over him.

Everything else seemed to come at him from across a great distance - the smell of rain and soap clinging to their fur, the walls of this house around them, the gentle whisper of wind in the trees and quiet insects outside. That was something he'd need to get used to, the noise of the world closing in around them even when he had Sulla by his side. All of that felt distant and unimportant past the simple fact of them, together, finally. Lannon could feel Sulla next to him both in this bed and in the same half-conscious sense that he could when using his Spirit magic on him, like he had hollowed out a little pocket in the back of his head and his heart.

Still, though, some of that nervousness and anxiety remained. Gradually Lannon stirred again, managing after a moment to extricate himself from the wolf's heavy grasp and slide out from beneath the blanket. The window had been left open, with that soft breeze coming in and swirling around his sore body, tickling at the overstimulated nerves throughout his being, bringing him acutely aware of his nudity. An evening, two days, a week, longer... it was hard to tell how long had passed since the ritual, or how he had gotten here. His legs wobbled underneath him and he had to prop himself up between the bed and the wall, but from that vantage he saw that his clothing, his journal, his bag, and everything else had ended up here as well.

Lannon himself was fine. The lynx knew this; what he felt was a symptom, a direct result, of pushing himself too far with his magic, something he hadn't done in a long time. He would remain a bit ill and unfit for a few days, most likely; it wasn't anything new. Annoying, but manageable. Sulla, on the other hand, had not yet regained consciousness, and there was no sign that he would. Not with...

His heart dropped. Not with what had happened to his spirit. It hurt to even attempt to draw on his magic right now, with the backlash hitting Lannon almost as soon as he reached out to delve into the sleeping wolf again. A broken shell, peeled back with nothing inside; a fire stripped of its fuel cannot continue burning. And it had been his fault,his doing. He thought he had succeeded, and yet...

"He'll be fine."

The voice made him jump. He turned to see her sitting there by the small table in the other corner, the Huntress clad in smooth smoky white fur, just as she had been the last time he had seen her. At first he thought she was naked, too - those two breasts bared to the world, with the smaller pinpoints of pink trailing down her flat belly; Lannon blushed and averted his eyes, at the same time turning his body to hide his own nudity - but then caught a flash of a loincloth draped between her legs. A loincloth and nothing more.

So, almost entirely naked. Though his mind was still in a hundred places at once, Lannon still felt as though she were doing that on purpose.

"Don't bother, Lannon," the wolfess went on, nonchalant. She rested her muzzle in her paw, elbow on the table. "I'm the one that brought you back here. Both of you. You're a lot heavier than you look, little cat."

Little cat. The words echoed in his head. Unsteady, the lynx stumbled again and then ended up sinking down on the edge of the bed, Sulla's body against his back. "What are you-"

"...And I also made sure to bathe the both of you..." For a moment, golden eyes flashed his way. He felt his back straighten. "You overexerted yourself. Dangerously so. I expected better of you."

He didn't know what to say to that. Lannon looked down, then in another moment drew the blanket over his lap. Something else tickled in his head, then - unless he was sorely mistaken, this would be the first time she had visited him in person.

Then, something came to mind. He looked up at her again. Feeling his gaze, she returned hers again.

"You came close to dying," she went on, without waiting for him. Her presence alone was enough to impart a change in the air. "Not just during, but after, as well. Close enough that I'd say you and Death have an intimate understanding of one another."

It was even stranger in person than it was in the dream, how his ears heard the Old Tongue words, how his eyes saw her lips form those odd lyrical syllables, yet how he could still understand everything she said as well as the things she didn't. Whether this was a trait of his magic, or just something that she did, he couldn't tell.

After a moment his mouth quirked. "After the way you've treated me," he said, "it feels odd for you to scold me like I'm a kitten."

The Huntress held his gaze for another moment. "You almost gave your life, and yet that wouldn't have bothered you too much, would it?"

Lannon looked at his paws again. Even as he held them clasped in his lap, they shook. "I would have given anything to see him better."

"You have forfeited more than you know, Lannon. Was it enough?"

"Will he be okay?"

"He will."

"Happy, and healthy?"

The Huntress peered at her claws. Even from this angle Lannon could see the sharp sunfire-orange of her eyes. "Both, I'd imagine."

"Thank the gods..."

Her eyes flashed. "...No," she murmured after a moment. "The gods don't speak your language. But I'm certain they understand your sentiment."

"If he'll be alright, then-" Suddenly he felt dizzy. Lannon swayed where he sat, then caught himself by dropping his forehead into his paws. "-then it's enough," he managed after a moment.

He kept his ears perked for her response, but none came. After a moment he thought that she had just disappeared again, as she seemed to enjoy doing, before the sound of quiet footsteps crossing the hut tickled at those ears of his. There was some shuffling, the sound of a cabinet opening, the rattle of his metal teapot... the plink of that pot and the water inside suddenly coming to heat, a familiar noise to him after so many mornings using his Fire magic to make his tea.

The world stopped spinning around him. He opened his eyes, blinked against the light coming in through the window, saw the teapot resting on the little trivet on the table where the Huntress had been sitting just a moment ago - and then jumped at a sensation of touch draping down over his shoulders. A scent, half-familiar, washed over him, to be buried beneath his own once she settled his cloak around his shoulders. The edge of the bed creaked underneath where she had braced a leg against it.

Lannon murmured a silent thanks and then pulled the fabric around himself, hiding his naked body. She stayed where she was, half-standing, half-leaning against the bed, her eyes washing back and forth over where he sat hunched over, her tail stirring idly behind her. Lannon tried to hide it but he, too, investigated her just the same: he looked over the faint patterns in her fur, too subtle for the dream images to pick up or maintain in his mind, the way her chest slowly rose and fell, rose and fell with calm breathing, the particular pattern of those pink-fleshed nipples up along her bare belly. He avoided staring at her chest out of an attempt at modesty, but that would mean he'd have to look her in the face again, so he looked away, eyed the waist of her loincloth, followed it in, noticed the slight bulge and soft protrusion at the front over where-

"You'll be okay too, you know," she went on suddenly. At the edge of his vision Lannon caught a faint smirk. "Not that you were interested in that. I've always heard that he, too, was a ceaseless wellspring of love..."

"He?"

"Sulla." She motioned towards where the wolf slept on the bed. "I never knew him. I was quite young, when... everything happened."

"Young? I always assumed you were..." Lannon watched her as she made her way back over to the table. She picked up the lid of the pot, leaned in to let the steam waft and curl around her snowy muzzle, took in the scent, and then without a second thought removed the steaming mesh basket from inside. Instead of pouring it herself, though, she made a little motion with her paw and fingers and instead coaxed the tea out of the spout. He assumed_it was magic, though he neither saw nor felt any manipulation of energy or threads - just as he hadn't when she had heated the pot, he realized. To his eye, to his trained and skilled mage's perception, it looked as though the water just simply _did that, streaming out in a smooth, clean arc towards first one earthenware cup and then the other. She picked one up in each paw and came back over to Lannon, dropping to her knees to give one to him.

Their fingers met for a moment, his brushing over hers. He expected some kind of shock or impact, something to show him that his suspicions and expectations had all been true: perhaps her power would rush into him and he would see another memory, or they would connect and he'd be able to feel her in his mind, or... certainly more than his slight jump of embarrassment, made deeper by her soft smile. She felt, simply, real, originally soft fur somewhat coarsened by the embrace of the forest and outside world, skin and flesh and bone underneath.

It was his mother's tea. The familiar scent, bitter yet rich, flowed into his body and gave him a strength that he wasn't aware he'd been missing.

"I was what?" The Huntress remained where she knelt before him. She lifted the cup to her lips, sniffed again, blew at the surface, then tilted it back and took a sip. Lannon watched her muzzle, expecting the usual curl of the lip, wrinkle of the nose, and then the follow-up sniff to verify that the tea was what carried that taste. She gave none of these. "Some ancient forest spirit given form solely to harass you?"

"Well..." Behind him Sulla stirred and half-rolled over in his sleep. Lannon glanced behind himself. "As I remember, you didn't really give a solid answer last time I asked."

"So ask again."

"Who are you?"

The Huntress turned her teacup slowly between her paws, steam still curling up and wrapping around her muzzle, fingers trailing one after another over the not-quite-smooth unglazed surface. While Lannon watched, little carvings dug into the surface of the cup underneath her claws, though there was no way that she herself could do that: not only did the carvings not follow the patterns of her fingers, but the cup had been fired long ago. A rolling plain, a thick blanket of trees, a snowcapped mountain rising in the distance. A feral wolf running across that plain, running, running, towards the little ball of the sun on the other side of the cup.

The corner of her mouth twitched, her short, foggy whiskers pitching forward for a second. Was that - reluctance that Lannon saw? Hesitation? Unsurety? "I am..." The Huntress swallowed and then, abruptly, met his eyes again, her gaze carrying enough force to cause the lynx to straighten up. A little bit of the tea slopped over the edge of his cup and into his fur; he cursed softly and made to cast a spell to lift the heat and water away, but found he still couldn't.

She did it for him. It was a gentle touch, three fingers coming in to rest over his wrist. No incantation, no manipulation of threads, no palpable magic whatsoever. The tea lifted into a steam through his fur, and took the pain with it.

"I am his daughter," she continued in a small, vulnerable voice. Her mouth twitched again, and she kept her paw on his wrist; her grip tightened, fingerpads pressing in through his short fur, so that he could feel both the warmth and tension in her body. "Generation upon generation of tradition and superstition, honing of blood and inherent power, to culminate in me. He was a work in progress; I am the apex." Slowly she stood up, leaving her embellished cup on the floor near her bare footpaws. Lannon's gaze rose with her. "I am Sulaya, the Primordial."

Primordial. His mouth echoed the word, mind reaching back through his memories trying to find where that sounded familiar. Something from his education in magic, something obscure and hidden... golden eyes rested on Lannon's muzzle. He took another sip.

"So you are a goddess."

She shrugged, reached an arm down, and again _coaxed_the cup to lift from the floor and slide into her fingers. "I am what you make of me. I am everything that came before..." She lowered her free paw and rested it in the headfur of a feral wolf that simply had not been there before. Lannon recoiled briefly, though managed not to spill tea over himself this time. It was one of the four that he always saw with her, the small female with the twisted hind leg. "And everything that shall come after."

Lannon looked from huntress to companion and back. "Do you expect me to bow? To worship you?"

As if snapped out of her little reverie, Sulaya half-tilted her head and gave a little smirk. There was the Huntress he knew. "You don't have to," she said, and took another sip of her own tea. She reached to place the cup on the table behind her, then knelt to bury her muzzle in the shoulder of this companion. "But it would be nice."

"You couldn't save him. You told me yourself." Emotion bubbled up in his chest again. To help calm his beating heart he took a breath, held it, and sipped again. "And I did. If you're a goddess, what does that make me?"

"It makes you something new, Lannon Asaros. Something unprecedented. Goddess or guardian, spirit or otherwise, the truth of it is that my domain is what should be. As a mage - as a scholar, your domain is what can be. What might be. What you can force to be."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Another shrug. The deities in the literature never really did that too often. "You have vastly changed the trajectory of both his life and your own, again, in more ways than you currently realize. You were right: you have done what I could not." Sulaya looked up at him from where she knelt, arms wrapped around the feral. "You have humbled me, Lannon."

He didn't know what to say to that, so instead of answering just knocked back the rest of his tea. The next time he lowered that cup he realized that this one companion was no longer the only in the room, but that the others had come as well. The huge male lounging back in the corner of the room, right in the ray of sun coming in through the window; the other male sniffing around at the cabinets; and then over near the foot of the bed, her ears perked and muzzle up, trying to peer at the lone occupant beneath the covers... Lannon froze.

Sulaya followed his gaze with her eyes. She sat back out of her embrace; the wolf in front of her dropped down to her haunches, then rested her muzzle in the huntress's lap. One paw came down to scratch behind her ears, while the other reached out to where Tul waited.

"Only this one is my companion," she explained, motioning to the one in her lap with a nod of her head. "She was. Her name was Su, our word for-"

"Beauty," Lannon finished. Amber feral predator's eyes flicked up to him as she passed by, some twinkle of recognition showing there. She walked silently; unlike Sulaya herself, he doubted that any of these wolves actually existed here physically.

"Yes. You know Tul already. She was Sulla's."

"Frost." The color of her fur, stone grey dusted with gentle white. Like the gathered frost on the edge of leaves and grass on a cool winter morning.

Tul closed her eyes as Sulaya cupped her muzzle with her paws. The huntress nodded to the corner. "Su was mine, Tul my father's. The one interested in your trash is kitchen trash there is Stike, my grandmother's. He's still around; he's with me when he can be, but his bond with her demands more of his time and attention."

"Stike..." Lannon watched him. Feeling his appraisal, the large, rugged male turned his head and returned the look. Just like Sulla before, one of his eyes glimmered bright yellow while the other bore a thick greyish-white cataract, only the ghost of the pupil showing through it. "Predator."

"The biggest one," with a clear indication to whom she referred, "was Drek. He belonged to my grandmother's mother."

"King." The name suited him. "He looks old."

"Quite old. Stike is getting close. We take care of our companions."

Tul stood between the two of them, tail up and ears perked, though she looked at Sulaya only. "I imagine you do," Lannon murmured. He so, _so_wanted to reach out and touch her, and after a quick shared glance with the huntress he set his teacup down on the floor, scooted forward, propped himself up on the edge of the bed, stretched his fingers out... and passed right through the wolfess, her form parting for a moment like a thin mist around his fingers.

His heart dropped into his chest. What had he expected? Dejected and disappointed he folded his paws in his lap again, shifting so that his cloak settled more fully over his shoulders. Sulla made a noise in his sleep behind him.

"Lannon."

After another second he opened his eyes again. Sulaya, still kneeling on the floor, had moved a little closer and now reached her paw out to him, palm up, fingers partially spread. He looked at the offered paw, looked at her, looked down to the paw... and then rested his in hers. Her grasp was warm and soft, much the same it had been in his dream when she had gripped his shoulder, his elbow, his throat, his waist. This time, though, it was real, it was physical. Her fingers wrapped gently around his wrist and pulled him forward and down, off of the bed; the lynx, muscles still aching and numbed, faltered and stumbled, startling Tul to take a step and a half away from him.

Then, suddenly, Sulaya was behind him, her arm coming down along his so she could entwine her fingers with his from behind. She guided him forward, reaching out towards the feral wolfess with her stone-grey fur and cool snowy muzzle, with her friendly amber eyes and... Lannon swallowed. He could still hear her voice in his head during the ritual, and the sheer _warmth_of her presence and confidence.

You will not fail, she told him. You cannot.

"She gave her being to you," Sulaya explained, her breath warm in his ear. She had leaned over his shoulder close to his ear heavy with piercings, studs and chains and cuff. "She saw - felt - your passion and determination and decided that you should not fail. You owe her much, little cat."

The wolfess brought Lannon's paw forward, fingers spread, and pressed it in against Tul's coat. Short and soft with a touch of exterior coarseness, though it lacked the warmth of a living body. He tightened his fingers in that fur, stroked back, came up towards the back of her head; Sulaya's fingers fell away from his paw. Lannon took Tul's muzzle in his paws and brought her close, peering into her eyes. Her nose twitched, and a second later her tongue flicked out to lap over it.

Lannon swallowed. His throat felt dry again. It took conscious, dedicated effort to keep his paws up on her muzzle like this, the muscles in his arms shaking and spasming with the effort.

"Tul..."

She closed her eyes and nuzzled into his touch. "Lannon."

_ _

Then, abruptly, his entire body echoed those little spasms. He slid his fingers down her head and over her neck towards her shoulders and leaned in, burying his muzzle in the fur of her neck. She carried no scent.

"I'm so sorry."

"There was nothing to be done. It is over. You will come through, and so shall he."

_ _

"Always a wellspring of love," Sulaya repeated, somewhere behind him. "Always for her."

"Always for me. He deserves the same, especially after all this time."

_ _

"I'll-" His voice caught in his throat. He swallowed, tightened his arms around the phantom wolfess, and tried to continue. His shoulders shook, again and again. Here were the tears that could not come after the ritual. "I'll try my best."

"You will. You shall."

_ _

"Lannon." This was Sulaya again. He lifted his head, ears back, embarrassment flooding as he realized she was watching him weep, and then released Tul at the huntress's gentle insistence. The lynx was about to question her when she simply nodded up at the bed.

Before him, Tul took another step back, turned, peered up, and then hopped up, the blankets remaining unruffled, the mattress refusing to sink underneath the weight that was not there. Lannon sat up and leaned back to watch as she padded forward, her body large on the small bed beside Sulla's. She nosed down, found the form of his body under the sheets, nuzzled up towards his chest, his shoulder, his muzzle, her nose twitching with little sniffs.

On his side, one arm up where Lannon had awoken, Sulla provided the perfect little corner for his companion to settle herself. She turned in place a few times and then lay down there, her muzzle close to his, her golden eyes watching lynx and huntress from her spot on the bed. Yet again Sulla stirred in his sleep, blankets shifting, one arm coming up to drape over the feral wolfess where she lay. His touch did not pass through her; his muzzle twitched and he pulled himself closer, settling his chin between her ears.

"She was trapped," Sulaya said, quietly. "The shattering of the bond broke both of their spirits. You did not do what you had intended, yet it still succeeded in your favor: you simply freed the remnants of her being from the grasp of that terrible curse. We draw our transformation from our companions, and with that link shattered, he had nowhere to go. Neither forward nor back but caught in between, everything that he was at that time mixing and melding together. And you freed her, Lannon. You freed both of them."

Tul blinked once, twice, slowly. She shifted how she lay; Sulla's arm came up underneath her head, and she moved to rest her chin over it. "Thank you, little cat. You have done more than you can know. Take care of him."

And then she was gone, fizzling out like the steam from the half-full teapot. Sulla's arm rested down against the sheet where she used to be. He stirred again, sighed, and brought that arm close to his chest, trying to grasp at the presence no longer there. Lannon knew he should have felt relieved, knew that he should feel grateful and accomplished and satisfied, but instead-

Instead his shoulders shook, his chest heaved, his body ached, his ears flattened against his head. He dropped his muzzle into his palms, tears streaming down between his fingers and soaking his fur. The wind blew outside, bringing with it the sound of birds and cicadas, but these did nothing to hide the ugly rattling of his sobs. His cloak fell away from his shoulders, leaving him naked and cold in the middle of the room, each spasm sending a sharp wave of aching pain vibrating out from his stomach and chest, his paws and arms shaking. He tried to straighten up, looked up at ceiling through eyes misty with tears caught and dripping, sniffled, swallowed, let another little sob out. Then his ears flicked with a sound behind him - and Sulaya wrapped her arms around him.

She held him gently at first but then tighter, her white fur sliding in across his own, light tan of dry grass and deep brown of forest shadows. One paw came up and rested over his shoulder from the front, arm crossing his chest, while the other dropped down towards his bare waist. He felt the weight of her chest against his back, the pressure of her chin on his other shoulder... the beat of her heart against him, her steady breath tickling his long whiskers.

"It is enough," she murmured, her voice more a feeling than a sound. "Isn't that what you said? It is enough."

Still shaking, still sobbing, Lannon reached up to his shoulder and rested his paw over hers. She spread her fingers to let his in between, then squeezed tight around him. Sulaya nuzzled in against his neck; he tilted his head and touched his cheek to her muzzle. She nosed in a little closer.

Then, despite himself, Lannon breathed a little laugh, the sound dry and uneven between those sobs. "You - smell like him..."

"You do too." He could feel her wrinkle her nose against his cheek. "Gods. You really do. Ever since I first felt you in this forest, kitten, I've known you were something special. It seems that even I have much to learn from you." Slowly Sulaya extricated herself from him, though instead of detaching completely she drew one paw down along his back, fingers arched and claws bared, slowly, gently trailing down through the fur. Immediately the pain in those spots faded away, replaced with a sweet, deep shiver vibrating up the lynx's back. "Especially seeing how you treated him during your ritual..."

Lannon's ears shot upright again. It was good that he faced away from her. Stike watched him from near the kitchen. "You were-"

"Remember, I see everything that happens here."

"Oh, gods..."

"You've done some rather interesting things with your magic in the time you've been here."

His blush deepened. Such a turmoil of emotions that bounced around in his head and heart right now - he didn't know whether to laugh again or to continue crying. Instead, he gathered his cloak around his shoulders again and managed to half-turn himself around so that he could face her. To his surprise it seemed as though she were lost in thought at that moment, taking a second to perk and meet his eyes. Lannon could not avoid noticing how she looked at his muzzle, then his half-bared chest, then a bit lower, and then flicked back up to his muzzle again.

"Could you, um..." He shifted again. "Help me up? Onto the bed? I'm in no condition to-"

Before he could finish the huntress had obliged, sliding one arm underneath his shoulders and the other beneath his legs. She picked him up with only a little difficulty and rose to her full height, his cloak falling limply open around him and off her arms. It was a little bit of a struggle for her to turn him around and place him beside the still-sleeping wolf, but she managed, and within another moment Lannon had wriggled back beneath the covers again. He wiped at his eyes, coughed again, and returned his arm to its place around Sulla's chest.

"Thank you," he murmured, still facing the hunter. "For everything, Sulaya. I used to think you were - an impediment to my progress, an obstacle to overcome..."

The mattress shifted near his shoulders, and a second later he felt her paw come to rest lightly on his side. "You'd be surprised how many feel that way."

"...like some - impenetrable wall, some tricky goddess in my way trying to block my path."

"Is that what I came across as?"

"But now I see," said with a turn of his head. Lannon hadn't realized that this position meant that he had to look up past all of those little pinpoints of soft flesh along her belly, and beyond her heavy chest to meet her eyes. "I see that you're just... well. Not quite that."

She said nothing. Then, to his surprise, she smirked again. "I am what you make of me," the huntress repeated. "Know that you have one path leading forward, Lannon. You'll be able to find and follow it on your own, but now I'm invested in your journey and where that path will lead you." While she spoke she slid her paw beneath the covers, at once making Lannon shiver with a slight tickle, then jerk with surprise, then blush - and then sigh when that paw found his own and squeezed. "I'll be around, little cat. Go back to sleep. Your tea-" - ping - "-will stay hot until you're ready to drink the rest. I haven't had that one before; it's good."

"It was..." He could still feel the echoes of those sobs in the back of his throat, in his eyes, his nose, his chest. Lannon brought Sulaya's paw up against his chest, wrapped in the scent of her and Sulla, both so similar yet so different. "It was my mother's favorite."

"I can see why."

"Sulaya."

"Lannon."

He was so, so tired. Where had this exhaustion come from? Lannon nuzzled into Sulla's neck again, the wolfess's paw clutched between the two of them. "Stay with me for a while."

"Oh, so now you're commanding me."

"Please?"

Silence for another second. Then, slowly, the mattress slackened and sank - and Lannon felt her form press up against his from behind, her arm working its way underneath the blanket to wrap around his bare chest again. He couldn't see them, but knew the remaining three companions waited around the hut, watching.

"As long as you need," she murmured, her breath jingling the chain of his piercing. It felt heavy in his ear. "I'll be here."

~ ~ ~

"Where are you? Can you make some kind of sound so I know you're there? ...Oh, there you are. No, don't worry. Don't worry. I'm here. We got separated for a bit, but it's okay now. I'm here, and so are you. Here, let me... can you feel that? I'm alive. And so are you. And that's what matters.

_ _

"No, no - don't cry. Come on now, don't cry. It's alright. It was scary. I know. I got frightened too. I panicked when I couldn't find you, and when I couldn't feel you. But we're both here now, together. And we're okay. A little battered and exhausted, but okay. Right?

_ _

"Look. Let's just wait here, you and I, until this storm passes. We've made it through worse, right? So why should this be a challenge? And do you remember the song I taught you?

_ _

"Come on. 'On the crow's call'... that's it. Listen to my voice. 'On the crow's call, on the eagle's cry'...

_ _

"Do you remember how it ends?"

_ _

~ ~ ~

When Lannon next awoke, she was gone. This much he had expected; it was only the fact that he was still in his hut, and still on the opposite side of Sulla's still-unconscious form, that let him know this encounter truly had not been another dream. Her voice, her touch, her words, her breath... what an enigma was this Sulaya the Primordial, spirit of the forest. The young lynx had no idea what she wanted or expected of him.

Once he had managed to roll over and lift himself up, his muscles and body responding at least a little bit more readily to his impulses, he saw that the sun had shifted across the sky towards another evening. Whether this would mark the passing of one day since the ritual, or a second, or three or more, he still had no clue. What he did know was that he needed to get some food into himself, and some water into Sulla beside him. Lannon turned again, watched the wolf beside him, rested a paw on his shoulder... it would take time to get to know him again, truly. This sleek, perfect hunter beside him was simply not the Sulla he knew. Not in body, at least. As for his mind...

"He will be fine," Sulaya had told him, with a certain emphasis on the will. As if to say by my hand, it shall be done. At once "I expected better of you," yet at the same time-

"I'm proud of you, little cat."

Startled, Lannon lifted his head and looked around the hut. A little breeze blew from outside, but still only he and Sulla occupied the space, one smoky-white huntress and her four companions gone, back to wherever it was they went. After a moment he sighed softly, smiled, and moved to get up out of the bed. It was slow going, and painful, but he managed it a little better than when he had earlier: back bent, legs skewed, footpaws stinging with a thousand needles at every step he took, he made his way over to the table, flumped down into one of the chairs, pulled the teapot closer - it was indeed still steaming - and then reached for his journal, where Sulaya had left it. He tugged on the marker for where his last entry had been, scanned through it, found the little stick of charcoal he had been using to write, and poured himself a cup of tea. She had been right about that, too: steam curled up from the newly decorated cup as he poured it, and the rich scent wafting off of the surface told him that it had been brewed to perfection. The fingerpads of his free paw traced over the little patterns in the cup, the hills and trees and fur of the little earthenware wolf.

~ ~ ~

Day 33? 34?

_ _

I'll have to go visit my father, once my body has recovered enough for travel, to figure out just how long it's been. I really should have visited before undertaking the ritual just in case something happened.

_ _

Just my like, though, I didn't need to. As far as I can tell it was a complete success. Sulla has taken the form of a regular forest wolf, though the exertion of the change and likely some other unseen factors means he is still unconscious. I would like to remain unconscious too, truthfully. I overexerted myself during the casting, and lost my sense of self and responsibility. My entire body aches and I have a constant pounding headache, yet at the same time I'm filled with a restless energy that I am currently incapable of releasing. I expect a fever shall begin soon, too, as my body begins to repair itself.

_ _

The Huntress visited me again. This time in person. Her name is Sulaya, Old Tongue for "the beauty of life". I still do not know her purpose here, and she seems content to leave that as the mystery it is. I do believe I am in her good graces, however, which is the most I can ask for a being of at least somewhat godlike powers. She uses a type of magic unknown to me - at first I thought I had burned myself out from the casting, but then reminded myself: had that happened, had I stripped myself of the ability to wield magic as Emnis had following his violent backlash, then I would still be able to see the threads and reach for them. Whatever Sulaya did, involved no manipulation whatsoever. Making a special note in the back appendix to put some more research into this once I return to the academy.

_ _

I suppose I need to start thinking about that too, then. My work here is not done. Sulaya told me I have one path forward, and I can't imagine that path is the same track I took to travel to Solm in the first place.

_ _

That is unimportant right now, however. Right now I need to get up and stretch, find a walking stick, and get some water for Sulla.

_ _

~ ~ ~

It was quite tough going, but Lannon managed it. He had to maintain a much slower pace than usual due to the screaming in his limbs and grating of his bones and joints, but before the sun had fully dipped below the horizon his tall ears perked to hear the low, burbling sound of the river, a beacon of familiarity and comfort in a world suddenly far different. For some reason he felt strange and disconnected, as though he were again a visitor in these woods instead of a resident. That was what Sulaya had told him on her first visit, though, hadn't she?

As the lynx lowered himself down, feeling like one of these old trees over the bank, gnarled and creaking with any movement, he couldn't help but smile and peer around the bank. Over there was where he had seen Sulla that second time, half-hidden among the trees like a living shadow. Back down there was when the wolf had come to wash the mess of a fresh hunt out of his fur, with Lannon approaching and then cleaning the mess for him. Here was where, in his dream, Sulaya had joined him for a bath. He imagined that he could see her reflection even now a bit further upstream, ghostly white fur shining in the glittering water, the spirit of the forest always present, always watching. Always waiting for him to do something new, to continue to surprise her.

The walk back up the hill and through the woods to his hut proved much harder with a half-full bucket of water clutched in his paws, the darkness of the burgeoning night notwithstanding, but still he knew the way: not only was there the muscle memory and familiarity of taking the path so many times, but Lannon also had a certain feeling there in the back of his head, a simple awareness that this was the right way.

Like a lodestone he was drawn forward, and soon realized the truth of this inclination: it put him directly behind and to the side of the hut, instead of forward along the path where he had to turn and double back, as usual. Satisfied with himself, feeling a little stronger for it, the lynx set the pail down at his footpaws and took a quick rest there against a tree before heading in. Part of him had hoped that Sulla would awaken before his return, but logic prevented him from disappointment when he saw otherwise.

As soon as he was inside he dropped his cloak from his shoulders and let his new walking stick, a gnarled yet surface-smooth length of what he thought was maple, rest by the doorway. Look at me, he thought on his way back over to the table, hobbling and shuffling around. At this rate I'll be the magical hermit wise man in all the stories before I hit my third decade. A length of cloth torn from an old shirt and dipped in the water provided more than enough, he thought, so with that in one paw and a smaller cup of water in the other he made his way over to the bed, waffled around with how to properly do this, and then ended up climbing up and straddling the wolf yet again to drip the water into his parted lips.

Exhausted as he was, Lannon could neither deny nor ignore the stir that this position brought him, especially recalling what he had done with it last time. His mind had been elsewhere since then, but there certainly was still a faint throbbing beneath the base of his tail. Admittedly, he did think it a bit of a shame he would no longer be able to enjoy the same huge, formidable werewolf body that he had first known Sulla to have, but... squeezing out the last of the liquid from the cloth, the lynx settled back in Sulla's lap with the sheet between them. The heat, the firm softness, the familiar position... this would likely work just fine, too.

He worked his hips forward and back a little bit, sighed softly at the sensation, leaned in... it was hard to believe the sheer difference in size between the Sulla of now and the Sulla of before. Now when Lannon tilted his muzzle and touched lips to lips, the two fit almost perfectly. He no longer had to use both paws to move Sulla's head into place, no longer sat atop his body instead of straddled it with his legs... and, he imagined, the wolf would no longer be able to lick the back of his throat quite so easily. Still in place atop the wolf, not on his back, Lannon slid back out of the kiss, ran his paws down from his chin to his neck, and then continued further down. That scar remained there, which seemed a little bit odd, but he could take another look at it once they both felt better.

From there he went down across his chest, muscles still there but receded, tighter and streamlined rather than bulging and twisted. Fur soft from his careful and patient attention, mixed tones of browns and greys, soil and stone. Just the two nipples in their regular, expected places instead of Sulaya's six - or was it eight? Lannon had tried to keep himself from looking too closely - though there were a few slight little nubs in line along his otherwise flat belly, down towards his hips. Body shaking from the effort of staying upright, Lannon leaned in again, shifted to the side, let his paw continue down while he pushed his nose into Sulla's neck, reached beneath the blanket where it lay halfway across his belly, and-

And jumped as the cup of water he had gotten fell off the bed and shattered against the ground. The lynx straightened up, cursed at the stinging shock in his arm from the motion, cursed at the mess, struggled to untwine himself from around Sulla's body... cursed again as he tried to use magic to sop it up but instead felt the strands of Water drip through his fingers much like the physical liquid itself.

Lannon sat there atop Sulla's limp body, threw his head back, and let a dissatisfied groan out to the ceiling. Then, slowly, he slid off of the wolf, nearly fell over with the sudden tension and weight on his legs, and moved to clean up the mess.

These next few days looked like they would be the longest of his life.