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He did not have the energy or ability to bathe himself. Lannon stood at the river, the same section of gravelly bank that he had visited nearly every day for the past month: there was the curve in the flow upstream, the cut-bank on the opposite side with the small cliff overlooking the water, the low-lying, sandy section where the stream had taken a slow turn over the past several seasons. He had counted in his head as he had undressed and reached fifty-seven before he stood there again, fur and skin bared to the forest and, surely, its inhabitants.

The lynx cast his gaze over the opposite bank while he stood there, arms limp at his sides and held out a bit, muscles still protesting even that small strain. The chill of retreating autumn throughout the night had completely dissipated, and instead began to give way to the lingering humid warmth of summer's approach. Each breeze, each gust of wind, felt like a set of small, soft fingers running through his fur, along his neck and shoulders, his waist, his thighs.

He shivered and blinked, the moment there and then gone. Sulaya still lingered in the back of the mind, as she surely would for quite a while, and as she likely did all around him. As he looked over that opposite bank he expected, and maybe hoped, to see a pair of bright amber eyes watching him, waiting, appraising him as he took his small steps forward towards the smoothly-flowing water. What would she even think? Her, this strange and mysterious entity from beyond the trees, somehow Sulla's daughter and yet at once immensely more powerful than anything Lannon had ever encountered.

"You nearly died," she had told him. Though the mornings had begun to warm up, the water of the river remained cold. "Both during and after. You have given up more than you know. Was it enough?"

Lannon swallowed, his abused nerves and muscles all firing and tensing from his footpaws through his ankles and up his legs. He waved his arm at his side, seeking for the walking stick that he had left sideways on the bank with his clothes; were he to kneel down to grab it, he already knew he wouldn't be able to get back up. Instead, still looking back at it, he swallowed again, pulled in a breath, let it out, and continued into the water.

Gods, was the river always this cold? As he made his way in, footpaws to ankles, ankles to calves, calves to knees and just above, he instinctively, reflexively reached for the strands to change that little annoyance. Still he could perceive everything, the thick cords of Fire from the sun, the little currents of Air on the wind, the pulsing, glowing Spirit radiating from the plants and the animals, but when he reached for them... when he took them close to himself they all just fell away again, passing through his grip like ethereal mist.

So he tried, again and again. The threads, the whispers of magic, bent and twisted at his touch like hanging willow fronds disturbed by a breeze, leaning just slightly towards him before settling back into their original state. That was frustrating - he felt like a novice all over again, trying to reach past his abilities and his boundaries for something that he _wanted_to be able to do, yet did not yet know if he could.

Come on, he willed himself, again reaching for support that was not there. He widened his stance and lowered down a bit, then went further and further... until he had to bend a leg beneath himself and settle into a sitting position. Lannon sucked in a hissing gasp as the chill of the water seeped quickly into his pelt, the surface of the river coming about halfway up to his shoulders with his paws around his knees. Come on. You're a mage. You're the star of the entire school of Fire for the academy. This is literally one of the first exercises. One more try, and one more failure.

...Well, not quite. One of the first exercises is heating a still portion of purified water. Creating a hot spot fixed within the path of a volume of flowing, impure water is... a little higher up. But the concept is the same. And it's a concept I can understand and undertake in my sleep. Could, I suppose. Lannon let his breath out and, with it, gave up his meager, faltering grasp on those threads, if what he had could even be called that. I'll try again tomorrow.

And so he remained where he sat, arms around his legs beneath the water and head just barely above, the cold touch licking and lapping at his neck and chin and sending repeated shivers down through his back. The water flowed around him, pushing and streaming through his fur and against his side and his limbs; he closed his eyes and tilted his head back to let the warmth of the midmorning sun trickle across his short muzzle, his heavy pierced ear hanging down a bit further than the other naked one.

Sitting there cold in the water, body aching and mind thrumming, he let the thoughts and instincts wash naturally over and around him much like the river itself. Images of Sulaya came and went, her bright eyes and smile, her smooth voice, the sheer confidence and mysticism with which she carried herself. "I am his daughter," she had said. The tone to her voice when she had revealed that... suddenly she had become just another person, a huntress, sitting there in front of him. Someone to whom he could reach out, someone he could take in his arms, someone he could hold close for comfort, for companionship. She had to have felt everything with Sulla at least as deeply as Lannon had - save for a few particular things, of course, but it would still be there. She was no goddess that he could see, no otherworldly entity. She was a huntress, given her promised share of strange primordial power beyond anything the lynx knew or could recognize.

And then there was Sulla. Smoky white wolfess, always bare from the waist up, gave way to the stone-and-soil tones of her father, his "true" form still mostly unfamiliar and unknown to Lannon. Even now sitting in the water, a reasonable walk through the trees and brush away from the hut, he could still feel the wolf's presence in his head and his heart. He figured that that had to have been a result of the ritual, in some of kind of seed or beginning at some sort of rudimentary bond between the two of them.

Thinking of Sulla and the ritual led right back to Sulaya again, sitting there drinking his mother's tea and going through the consequences and results with him. The empty shell and the bright life pulsing within, the fragmented remnants of Tul's spirit, peeled away and broken free... and now the lack of support and substance that yawned inside of Sulla's being. The realization hit - have I removed the one thing keeping him stable and sane? What happens when the central portion of his spirit and life-essence is yanked out? - and passed over him, again like a little disturbance in the surface of the river.

She said he would be fine. That he would recover, and he'd return to his full health. Can I trust her? After everything, why shouldn't I?

He turned his head to one side and then the other, focusing himself on that little instinct, the feeling. It came to him like his sense of balance, like the feeling of warmth on his face and the chill in his fingers and toes. Sulla was... back there so many paces, above and behind his left ear. He turned his head, angled his muzzle, perked his ears... now he was over that way, the same spot but at a different angle to the cat's perspective. It was reassuring in a way, knowing that Sulla still rested in bed, still beyond the border of consciousness but there nonetheless.

So that was something. Lannon heaved a sigh beneath the weight of the river, its cold fingers squeezing around his neck and shoulders and chest. What am I gonna do? he thought, paws flattened against the sandy river bottom. How long will it take for me to recover? I have to take care of him, too, until he wakes up - and how long will that take? Nothing like this has ever been performed throughout all of recorded history. Maybe attempted, but never succeeded. What will I do?

The wind tickled at his naked ear and stirred the fur of his cheek, like the gentle brush from the back of a paw reaching out to caress his face. He closed his eyes again and let his head roll to the side a bit, until the chill of the water came up to meet his chin.

"Keep moving forward," he heard Sulaya say then, her breath trickling out over the sensitive fur of his ear along with the wind. "That is the only way for you. One step at a time. You'll get there. And he'll be there, waiting for you."

Lannon opened his eyes again. The wind died back down. Slowly, painfully, he managed to push himself up to his feet and then made his way back over to the bank, arms clutched tight around his sopping self as he went - and once he got there he instinctively reached for the magic again, only for it to yet again fall away from him.

That's right. Silly me. It had become so simple, so routine, that he hadn't even considered that he might need to bring a towel with him this time. So there on the bank, shivering cold and naked to his fur, Lannon waited. The sun hadn't quite reached the point in the sky where he could spread out on the bank and let the air dry him, but neither was there anything he could do to get himself cleaned up right now. So instead he just sat back down and waited there, watching the shadows as they made their slow crawl across the ground, watching the clouds as they made their way across the sky, watching his thoughts as they swirled and mixed in his head.

He looked down into the flowing river and saw, misty and indistinct, only himself there. Just the one lynx, battered and exhausted, tired yet relieved. It was mostly just an impression of Lannon there in the river's surface, the water fairly clear down to a certain distance yet always moving, always shifting, always adjusting. Not at all like it had been in that dream, where he could look down and trace the angle and path of every single strand of fur in Sulaya's pelt when she stood against him.

While watching himself there he kept an eye on the spot just over his shoulder, though no white-furred wolfess ever came into view. After a time Lannon felt as though he had dried off and warmed up enough to at least get his pants back on, so after another few minutes of struggling he managed that, hooked his walking stick under his arm, and started the trek back up to the hut. Travelling up the slight incline proved much more difficult than it had been on the way down, but eventually he made it - and he still had a little bit of Sulaya's tea left in the pot, so he poured the rest of it out, watched the ever-present steam curl and mist up and out, and then sipped it down.

Still holding the cup - it was the one with the new patterns on it, the strange embossments lifted right out of the material itself - he turned and watched where Sulla still lay on the bed, half-covered by the blanket, snoring softly. At least he seemed to have risen above hard unconsciousness and into simple sleep: Lannon tugged himself up and hobbled over to sit beside him again, the warmth of the wolf's body still spreading out through the rest of the bed.

Lannon could still feel Sulaya's presence here, too. Hers and Tul's both. When he looked around he imagined he could still see where they were, then, each of them looking so similar to the other, one on two legs and the other on four. Tul with her soft gaze and gentle beauty, Sulaya with her sassy boldness, her confidence, her... whatever it was that so caught and captivated the lynx's attention and focus. He reached over and rested his paw along Sulla's chest, right at the spot where his ribcage gave way to his belly.

Firm lines of bones right beside soft fur and flesh, though thick muscle lingered just underneath. Lannon pushed down a little further, following the lines of those muscles as they came together and tightened along the abs, down by the waist underneath the covers, up along the side and back towards the ribs. What could he expect once Sulla woke up? Would he be the same half-man, half-beast that he had been for - how long had it been? Twenty-six years? So as long as Lannon had been alive.

How different would I be, were I to suddenly wake up and find myself in a different body, in a different world?

_ _

Sulla needed tending, though. The lynx remained there for a moment longer, then leaned in, brushed his nose along the wolf's jaw, and planted a single gentle kiss to his neck, before he pulled himself up again and hobbled over the kitchen area. Late last night he had prepared a simple infusion in one of the waterskins he had brought with him, a subtle herbal remedy that ideally should help to revitalize the body and muscles after a period of extreme strain; with the herbs still steeping inside the skin he poured himself a portion and then one for Sulla, and yet again tried to use his magic to heat up both of the cups.

Lannon sat there by the table, one in each paw, feeling the wave of embarrassment and frustration roll over him yet again. The infusion felt no loss in effectiveness when cold, but - it just tasted better when hot. To do that he would have to head out back to get some of the firewood and bring it in, and then he'd stoke the stove to a small flame just to reheat the teapot, and... while thinking about it the lynx tilted his own cup back and swallowed, though at the end of it he coughed a few times at a little head of chamomile getting caught in his throat. The patch he had seen in the woods still hadn't grown to maturity, so this had just come from a sackful of some dried portion he had purchased the last time he had been to town.

_ _

Town... he grimaced at the bitterness of the undertone of licorice coming through, once the chalky sweetness of the chamomile passed. Licorice out here was expensive, and as such he had bought just enough for his uses. Father will be wanting to see me. Once Sulla wakes up, I wonder if I could bring him by... no, probably not, knowing how everyone else feels about the tribes. I'll figure something out, though. Maybe I can bring Father out here. Or is that too dangerous, too?

_ _

For a while the lynx busied himself with tracking down a small rag, soaking it in the infusion, and then heading back over to the bed to again straddle Sulla's body - which brought back the same stirrings and thoughts as it always did, despite his exhausted body - so that he could drip it down into the wolf's parted lips.

You'll be fine, he thought. Lannon reached down, herb-tinted water still dripping from his paws, and lightly ran his thumb over the scar that ran the width of Sulla's throat. He could feel the portion of scarred skin, smooth and tight, against the soft fur surrounding it. You'll be just fine. I'll make sure of it.

_ _

~ ~ ~

Day 35

Evening

_ _

The progress is slow, but I know that we are coming closer and closer. I'm worried to discover the depths of what I did and their consequences, but I'm at least hoping the physical, bodily symptoms are temporary. Already I can tell I am recovering the strength in my legs and arms, though exhaustion still comes easily.

_ _

It's a good thing I still have the stag hanging out back. I won't be able to hunt for a while, and Sulla won't either.

_ _

...

_ _

Day 36

Midday

_ _

While I was preparing a lunch for myself Sulla stirred. He did not wake up, even at my insistence, but he is definitely coming closer. I sat there close to him for a while, holding his paw and hoping he could still feel my presence. It's frustrating being unable to use my magic. I feel like a musician suddenly stripped of muscle memory and dexterity: I know what I was capable of and I know how to do it, but my body and my actions just will not, cannot respond properly.

_ _

This makes... three, four days now. I want to say I can start to feel it coming back, that I can hold the threads for just a little bit longer before they dissipate in my grasp. I will get there; I always have before.

_ _

It's just a matter of time. As everything.

_ _

...

_ _

Day 38

Morning

_ _

He woke up.

_ _

~ ~ ~

It happened while Lannon was giving him another draft of the infusion, straddling his chest with the soaked rag held precariously above his parted muzzle. By now the lynx had regained most of the control of his legs and body, though certain actions and positions still strained the muscles and reminded him again of how close he had to have come to death.

It was worth it, he told himself then, while dripping the pale yellow infusion across Sulla's tongue. It was worth it, and it will be. There's no denying that. It will-

_ _

A stir, a movement, a shudder beneath him - then a cough followed by another, and another, and then suddenly Sulla was sitting up with Lannon sprawled out across his lap, legs half-wrapped around his body. Grimacing, the lynx pulled himself back up and scooted back, careful not to squash any important parts underneath his weight while Sulla worked himself back into his own body.

At first Lannon didn't know what to do. He just sat there halfway upright, dripping cloth held in one paw and the other at his side for balance, mouth agape, eyes flicking back and forth across the sleek, clean muzzle of this wolf, this hunter, beneath and in front of him. Instead of bright feral yellow in one and misty, foggy white covering the other, now he looked into a pair of green gemstones, shimmering like fresh moss illuminated by midafternoon sun; Sulla touched at his own face, the short, precise fingers reaching up across his brow towards his ears, the one still tattered and the other full, then down along his cheeks, over his jaw, along his neck. He felt at the line of the scar, frowned, flicked his tongue out to wet his lips, then looked down over himself: he pushed the blankets down - Lannon scooted back to allow him the space - and touched at his body all over. The smooth chest, the flat belly, the steady arc of his spine along his back, the lines of ribs barely visible beneath thick fur, clean and soft and well-maintained after their daily baths.

Lannon brought a paw to his muzzle, trying to hide the quivering in his lip and the twitching of his mouth. Sulla looked down at his own again, spread his fingers, turned each one over, clenched his fists, turned them back over again, and then finally, finally, looked up at the lynx sitting lightly across his legs. Those green eyes trailed from one side of Lannon's face to the other, then up to his naked ear, down its height, then over to the other one. He watched as Sulla followed the arc of the hanging chain, the clean line of the cuff, the pinpoints of each of the studs, and then felt the weight of that gaze, completely different yet wholly the same, when it returned to his own.

Lannon's mouth twitched again, and Sulla's did too. The lynx dropped the rag from his paw, reached forward for Sulla's muzzle, paused when the wolf jerked away... then spread his paw into the touch when he leaned in again, just like when he had first made contact with him.

"Hey there," Lannon breathed. Sulla turned his head to nuzzle into his paw, eyes still holding his own. "Welcome back, beautiful."

In that moment a ghost of a smile passed over the wolf's face, only for his mouth to again twitch and pull downwards. His whiskers dropped forward, his ears flattened, his eyes misted, and then suddenly Lannon felt those strong arms around his body again, yanking him forward. Sulla buried his muzzle in his shoulder and shook with near-silent sobs, his grip around the lynx rhythmically tightening and shuddering with each one. Lannon squirmed to get into a position where he could breathe a bit more easily, and then returned the embrace.

His own complications and difficulties were frustrating enough, but certainly they stood as nothing compared to the what Sulla_,_ suddenly returned after so many years, felt now. Lannon grimaced as the wolf dug his fingers into his sides and lower back, squeezing him close just to have something to hold on to while the pain, the grief, the agony, and everything else shot through his body again and again.

Throughout this, Lannon remained there with him, muzzle on top of his and arms partially around his back, trying to pick through the sounds and grunts and sobs. He had wondered if Sulla would even be the same person, the same creature, once he had come back to himself - but seeing as how he had smiled upon seeing him and how he had immediately reached out... that reassured him, a bit. The lynx brought his arms up from beneath Sulla's and settled them around his shoulders, retreating for a moment to plant a string of little kisses between the wolf's ears. They were so much smaller now, small and soft and warm. The one that was torn had a bit of a stiffness to it, broken cartilage hidden beneath tightly-scarred skin, but still it flicked and twitched when Lannon ran his whiskers, his cheek, his lips over it and then down along the side of Sulla's face.

Lines of tears ran down the sides of his muzzle, cutting wet rivers in the dark fur down towards his jaw and chin. Lannon touched those lines as well, running his lips down the course of one while he found the other with a carefully searching paw, fingerpads brushing lightly over soft fur. Sulla twitched and shook in trying to hold back his weeping, though it was certainly still there. With his muzzle held close to one side of the wolf's, only one of those warm green eyes looked out at him, half-lidded and distant through a fog of gathered tears. That was alright; this was the eye that he had grown used to seeing only faintly though a wall of misty white.

Lannon reached up with his other paw and brushed the pad of his thumb across the corner of that eye. Sulla blinked against the touch but still let him do it, then did so again. His muzzle and shoulders shook with another sniffle, with the reverberations of it vibrating down through his body a moment later. Deep inside of himself, here so close to Sulla, Lannon could feel the torrent of different emotions rolling through him. There was powerful relief and something bordering on ecstasy, right there next to grief, and pain, and a haunting sense of loss. There was regret, so much regret, burning and stinging and digging painfully deep. And then, when he opened his eyes and turned his quiet gaze on Lannon again, there was...

The lynx smiled. Sulla's arms dropped down around his back towards his waist, paws entwining together at his lower back to tug him more closely into his lap. There was gratitude, nestled there between everything, and then something else taking root and pushing its way through. A little, bright, warm bloom, shining and glowing when Lannon bumped his muzzle to Sulla's again.

"I'm glad you're back," the lynx murmured softly, his breath causing the wolf's short whiskers to twitch. Sulla closed his eyes again and leaned in, a slow sigh dripping out from between his lips. "Let's take some time to get you used to everything again. I can barely walk myself, and I'm sure you'll need... some time to..."

Sulla's paws coming up his sides smothered his words in an unintentional shiver. They continued up towards his shoulders and jaw and took hold there, surprisingly firm; Sulla drew Lannon's head away from his own, looked back and forth between his eyes, peered particularly closely at his left one, and then let a faint smile come through again. Then, finally, he leaned in and again closed the distance between the two of them, lips brushing against lips and sealing for one, two, three, many seconds more.

When he pulled away again Lannon had completely lost the thread of what he had been saying. He remained there in Sulla's lap, paws half-raised and mouth half-open, slightly dazed from the kiss. Sulla, still silent save for a few sniffles, smiled again. His tail wagged slowly behind him. After a moment, though, his paws found Lannon's and took them in, the wolf's still larger and wider with somewhat different proportions.

Lannon turned his over and ran his fingerpads in over Sulla's, feeling the soft flesh and slight callouses there. He had been curious what state the ritual would return the wolf to, whether it would be his body immediately before the original transformation, or returned to a more "default" state, or... the lynx chuckled and reached up to wipe at his eyes. There would be time for that later, time to research and study and - learn this wolf's body, all over again.

"Great." The lynx swallowed and took Sulla's paws in his own again. They were warm. "So that's one thing crossed off the list. Next we just have to get you recovered and back to full health, and... me recovered, as well... hey, wait, what-"

To his surprise, then, the wolf gripped his shoulders and pushed him down to the bed, and immediately got to work poking and nosing around his body. Lannon jerked back and forth between laughing, squirming, and hissing with slight pain as Sulla poked at his muscles and other soft spots, likely trying to find where he had injured himself. Lannon wriggled and batted at the wolf's exploring paws and his muzzle, though lightly so as not to erase the bright grin that shimmered on his face.

"I'm fine," Lannon panted, though the movements and exertion did indeed tug at his tired body. "Stop that! I'm - gods, you... come on, I'm..."

He had managed to get his clothing back on after his back this morning; Sulla, however, remained fully nude. Fields of dark fur coursed down his chest and belly, rolling up over the slight, subtle lines of muscles tensing and moving as he changed his position above the lynx, paws braced on either side of his shoulders and knees balanced along his waist. Lannon, half-turned away, paused where he lay so that he could catch his breath. As he lowered his arm it brushed across Sulla's chest, and he lifted his paw up to press his fingers into the warm fur and skin, and beneath that, the steady pulse of his heart and rhythm of his breath.

Lannon didn't need to look down to know what Sulla felt, at that moment. He felt it too, stirring and growing, bringing the two of them closer together - and his paw further down, across the wolf's belly and below. Above him Sulla's eyes fluttered and then drifted shut, and he gave a little thrust of his hips - followed by another, and another. The wet warmth and weight in Lannon's palm, spreading between his fingers, grew and pushed forward with each of those little thrusts, Sulla's breath picking right back up into something more, the little shudders and shivers of strain and tension turning instead to urgency and need, and-

And something in the lynx's shoulder and along his arm twitched and tightened and he grimaced, all of the nerves along that arm firing off at once and then going numb. He hissed and brought it back towards him, bringing with it a notable whiff of strong, male wolf, but - as he held his arm and massaged at his paw, working the feeling back into it, Sulla started as well and came to sit cross-legged before him, worry in his eyes.

It was a nice view, sure - Sulla sat with his back straight, shoulders back, ears perked, and paws folded in his lap; warm reddish-pink, still protruding from the end of his plump sheath, showed against dark fur between his legs - but Lannon could barely keep his arm from falling limp at his side, much less reach out again.

"It's okay," he managed. Sulla reached out and took his arm in his paw, poking and prodding at the muscles and joints. Lannon felt each of those touches come at a bit of a distance, but they still came. "Just a - muscle twinge. I really... pushed myself for the ritual, and I'm still recovering. I'm getting better though. I-"

Then, he realized: should I mention Sulaya? Will he recognize her? Will he remember? How will it... Something else caught his attention then, something in the way that Sulla looked at him and his arm. Still the wolf held it, easily hefting the lynx's limb in one paw while he massaged at still-tense muscles with the other, but his green eyes looked through and past his work, out into his thoughts and beyond. When Lannon reached forward and brushed his other paw along Sulla's cheek the wolf jumped, then gave an apologetic smile.

After a little while the wolf let Lannon's arm slide from his grasp, most of the feeling returned to it yet still locked behind a wall of fuzziness. He worked his fingers, stretching each one in turn and then balling them into a fist. At least the feeling was quickly receding. Green eyes rested on his muzzle, again focused on his left eye in particular.

Lannon scooted a little closer. "I'll be fine. Promise. I'm a - a mage; I can take care of myself." He intertwined his paw with the wolf's. "Are you alright? Is anything bothering you? Anything we can take care of, right now?"

Sulla's throat pulsed in a swallow and he lifted and turned his head, gaze drifting away in a moment of thought. The scar across his throat stretched with the movement, the tufts of fur around its borders pulling and lifting to show the pale silver-pink skin. Lannon reached up and ran the pad of his thumb across its length; Sulla jumped but kept his head angled away, looking down at the lynx from that angle.

Lannon frowned. "Sulla..."

Instead of answering, the wolf lifted his own paw, slid it up along Lannon's arm and wrist, and tightened his grip, just slightly, on his throat. When he swallowed Lannon could feel the scar pulse against his pads.

"Are you - can you..." His fingers slid down away from the scar and settled along the wolf's collarbone. "Can you speak?"

Slowly Sulla lowered his muzzle back down. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips, his eyes flicked from one side of Lannon's muzzle to the other, he reached for and took the lynx's paw in his own again, and then, finally, his mouth twitched, pursed, opened... and he just reached forward to wrap his other arm around the feline's shoulders to pull him in for another hug.

The slow, shaky sobs came again, silent save for the rasping catch of breath in his throat.