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Day 47

Midday

_ _

I do not know how long she stayed with me. I drifted off to a dreamless sleep, and when I awoke, the sun had crossed the sky and I was alone again, or as alone as I may ever be with this strange half-bond between us. Even though I have not experienced a full bond, I can tell through comparing it with what I know of the spirit-bond through research and memory that it is not at its full strength. As stated before, I must focus and concentrate to pick things up through Sulla's end of the link, and when I send impressions and thoughts over on my own, there is quite a delay, and sometimes I am uncertain if my messages reach their goal.

_ _

Along with this, I cannot tell exactly where he went or what he did there. But he is on his way back now, fast and confident, and it brings me relief to know he is not injured or worse. He can feel my relief, too; I can tell. He is a much more experienced user of this link, and his speed of interpretation and response far exceed my own. It makes me smile; now there's a reason for him poking into my thoughts every now and then, other than my own wandering mind.

_ _

By now I have recovered all of the faculties that I will, following what happened during the ritual casting. My body and mind remain wholly intact, or at least as much as they were beforehand: I had honestly forgotten about the longtime wound in my shoulder, as the constant ache of everything for those few days afterwards had covered it. It is an annoyance, but after being unable to move without assistance, I suppose it is welcome enough.

_ _

After Sulla's departure the other day, I chose to sit down and look within myself to try to force the magic back into my veins. I am using this journal, this research log, to formally and officially state the following: I, Lannon Asaros, principal Fire mage of the Academy of Solm at Maldeth, hereby relinquish all of my positions and titles, as student, assistant, instructor, et cetera. In performing the aforementioned ritual and successfully restoring Sulla's shattered spirit-bond as well as returning him to his original body, I have completely severed myself from whatever source and processes provide access to the domain of magic as a whole.

_ _

My experience seems to be textbook. I am still capable of sensing and perceiving magical energy as always, but when I reach for it and try to grasp it, it evades me. The analogy of a musician suddenly stripped of their dexterity and muscle memory could not be more apt: I know what I need to do, and I know how to do it, but I find I am simply incapable of it. It evades me.

_ _

This kind of burnout is known to have no fix or cure, and yet I still can't help but wonder if there could be some method through Spirit magic. It is too late for that kind of curiosity, though; I should have investigated more when Emnis suffered his own blowback, but there was already so much going on, and then he was gone, away from us with nothing else we could do.

_ _

I say I succeeded in my ritual, but this in itself is evidence that this is not true. Sulla survived, and he healed, and I restored his body - but I should have died. It took the intervention of two other powerful souls, Sulaya as well as Tul, to keep me from tumbling over that edge. Tul is gone now. Not only this, but I failed the properly heal the spirit-wound that was left in Sulla from the shattering of his bond. I can feel it there beneath ours, a tenuous strand bridging a cavernous divide.

_ _

I have thought about asking Sulaya if she can restore my capabilities, but decided against it. She already told me I should have died, doing what I did. She deals only with things that should be. Then, I thought: am I restricting myself, and I going against my own goals and ideals, by sticking to the rules and strictures of some petty goddess? I do recall directly defying her, as one of my first interactions when she appeared in my dreams.

_ _

She told me to go, to leave these woods, and I did not. And now she seeks me out, to comfort me and set me back on my path deeper into the forest. Am I now following her goal, or my own? Are they the same? We have both changed from our time out here, and dealing with each other and Sulla.

_ _

As she has told me, one path remains open to me. I must solidify my link with Sulla and establish a full, formal spirit-bond between us, as his tribe's hunters do with their companions. For this, I must wait for his return.

_ _

~ ~ ~

_ _

Day 48

Morning

_ _

Sulaya said I would start feeling the pull, the need. I have, I think. There is something new here, something that has grown the closer Sulla has come to his return. I can feel him now, so close by yet so far away. He should be back sometime today; I write this first thing in the morning, before heading down for my bath. It is only a matter of waiting.

_ _

On his way along the familiar path through the trees and brush Lannon couldn't help but repeatedly lift his head up and look out, as if he would be able to see the wolf through the dense forest. It felt as though he had one eye covered while he did so; the distances felt muddled and indistinct, and though the bond allowed him a good estimate of direction, he couldn't really tell whether Sulla was right there or still half a day's journey out. He would be here soon, though. Four days without, and soon he would be here again.

Thoughts continued rolling around in the lynx's head as he trudged along the path, the humid embrace of summer settling more fully in between the trees and over his shoulders, already bared with his shirt tucked under his arm. He thought of his mismatched eyes, the one with the splash of fresh moss in the otherwise clear pool, and how good that looked on him; he thought of his one ear bedecked with traditional, formal jewelry, all smooth metal and fine-cut gemstones, and then the single, more barbaric twist in the other, the clasp of bone and amber with the little iridescent beetle caught tight.

He thought of Sulaya, with her broad shoulders and sharp eyes, her gentle yet at the same time firm voice, her unyielding confidence._She did have a pleasant scent, truthfully, and Lannon enjoyed her presence whenever she deigned to grace him with it. _"You wanted me," she had said these past few times - perhaps that meant he could call on her at whim. A smile touched the lynx's muzzle; that could be a fun way to irritate her. Turn the mysterious goddess into an angry little puppy, ears back and tail lashing.

Or... she was a wolf. It was a still tail that signified annoyance on wolves, wasn't it? Lannon thought about that for a moment, pausing with his paw splayed over the smooth bark of a small tree. That had been a difficulty he had expected to face throughout his relationship with Sulla, the different body languages inherent to feline and lupine, but - fate had decided to sweep that problem away, with this little link of theirs. And he already knew the spots in which to touch and nuzzle the wolf, to make him calm down and relax and melt against him.

Sulla knew the same of him, of course. Lannon's smile widened, and as he picked his pace back up he started singing his - their - song under his breath.

"If you ever feel alone, look to the sky, to the sun, to the clouds, to the stars and the moon...

And you will see me looking back,

for as long as you love me..."

Then, though, the quiet burbling of the river joining in with his song, he slowed, quieted, stopped - but the tune continued. A warm, pleasant tenor, soft yet full, a little scratchy, a little... dusky. That was the word for it. Sulaya's tended towards a cool, foggy contralto, but this... she had said it was a song that came from her people, from Lannon's mother learning it from his father, learning it from her grandmother. So it was more than likely that one of the other hunters in the tribe knew it, and Lannon was about to stumble upon another wolf in his spot.

The bond in the back of his head, the little compass that kept a constant tick on Sulla, though, pointed...

"...Ov huru faro za ma, faro za hel..." the voice went on, just half a beat behind where Lannon had been singing his own. The exact same words, in Old Tongue as opposed to his own Common, muddled and mixed in his head, seeming slightly off yet, in a way, more proper for the rhythm. "...faro za pemek, faro za mek..."

_ _

"...soma rura ulal sura ul'lo," the lynx continued as he approached, picking it back up in his own tongue. "arurua da loa io'la ia'le." And on and on will it continue, for as long as you love me.

There he was, standing there in the river turned halfway towards the flow, lower body obscured by the streaming water, dark fur glistening in the wet and warmth of the day. Sulla with his head tilted back, eyes closed, lips pursed... and moving, shifting with the shapes of the words and syllables.

Singing. Soft, sweet, voice higher than Lannon had expected, but beautiful and wonderful. He had had practice, that much was certain, though long years of disuse had still taken its mark.

Lannon paused to clear his throat, then joined in more strongly. The wolf's ear nearest him flicked, and for a moment his eyes flicked open to show the mix of blue and green there. A smile touched his muzzle.

"Aval lu'suhel-suvari..." On flower's petals, from Sulla. "Val rohumu-pashusu'lo..." In morning's dew, from Lannon.

"Aval luu-ala, val lu'shum-rurel..." On song's voice, in memory's arms... Sulla opened his eyes wider and turned to face the approaching lynx.

Lannon couldn't help but smile as well. His shirt was already off, and it took a matter of seconds more to undo the fastening of his pants and drop those as well. For the first time since he had lost his magic, the water of the river felt warm when he stepped into it, wrapping and closing comfortably around his ankles. "O'a ulal lal ia'lo." I will be there.

_ _

Sulla tilted his head and held his arms out. "Faruru hau..." That part, never doubt, was almost identical between the two languages; in Lannon's Common, the never simply took on an extra little syllable.

"Farurua shal," the lynx went on, wading in. He reached his arms out; Sulla did the same. Never fear.

_ _

"Aruru fa lla eo ea..." The wolf's larger paws brushed in along Lannon's, gripped his wrists, and tugged him in towards his chest. He wrapped him in his embrace, strong and confident, familiar and reassuring; Lannon felt his heart beating against his ear, felt the warmth of his closeness, felt the desire and need to have him close to him. For as long as you love me...

_ _

The lynx had to clear his throat again to get the last line out, whiskers twitching, throat working, body suffused with an irresistible electric energy. "Ulal loa se ia'lo io'le," he finished, Sulla's words echoing his own, slightly different, precisely the same. I will love you too.

The water stirred and whispered around them, the two standing as one, Lannon up on his tiptoes to put his muzzle closer to Sulla's, the wolf leaning in, taking the cat's head in his paws, bringing him up, and then kissing him, once, twice, a third time... his tongue sneaking in, flicking across Lannon's, curling up against the roof of his mouth, suckling softly. Four days of separation - did this to them?

Is this what it feels like? Lannon thought, arms finding their own way around the wolf's shoulders to tug him down against himself. I feel like my heart is on fire, consumed by some bright, wonderful flame. There's a brilliant flower there now, taking root and blossoming like it never has before.

"Sulla..." he murmured in a space between kisses. Already he was panting. "Hey there, beautiful..."

"Lannon," the wolf murmured back, in that same warm, pleasant voice. Even without singing it was still music to his tall, sensitive ears. "Shua-eo." My heart. Words that he didn't know yet still understood without an issue. "Oh, how I've missed you..."

It felt exactly the same as when Sulaya chose to speak to him in Old Tongue as well, with the words alien and unfamiliar, yet still registering in his mind and awareness as they were intended. Lannon heard Sulla speak in that tongue, yet still understood the words as though he had given them in Common - and he knew from the wolf's face and reactions that it was the same for him, with his own Common.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward, paws draped around the wolf's waist, nose close to his and feeling the soft, gentle currents of air from his steady breathing. With the forest and the water around them, still he could easily pick out this little bubble of wonderful scent that was Sulla. It had changed, just slightly - or was that only due to the four days apart? "You have a lovely voice."

"As do you. I'm just now remembering my own."

"Remembering?" The lynx chuckled, bringing one paw up over the wolf's damp chest. In his rush he had forgotten the actual soap over on the bank with his clothing. "Just like that?"

"Well... I had a little bit of help." Sulla leaned down and nosed at Lannon's ear - the one with the single bone and amber piercing. Again it clattered, again like stone on wood. "You've met her, too."

Again Lannon chuckled, then sighed and shivered as Sulla's tongue lanced out to flick and turn the ring and its hanging portion, then again when gentle lips came in and nipped at the base. Hot, humid breath wafted out and curled inside his ear. "Well, I - she..."

"I hear my daughter has taken quite a shine to you."

A hundred things jolting through his head at once, and of those, he had no doubt that Sulla could feel the response in his head and body. He braced his paws against the wolf's lower chest and playfully tried to push him away, only for Sulla's much larger, much stronger paws to settle around his waist and pull him in again. "She's - quite a handful." In more than one way. "You remember her, too?"

For a moment that playfulness subsided. Sulla's grip on him lightened and he stirred in the water, turning his head down to follow the trail of bubbles and little waves. Through both his face and the link Lannon could tell that he dug deep in his thoughts and memories, shifting things around, shuffling obstacles aside, trying to search...

"Bits and pieces," he admitted after a moment. Green eyes, one splashed with blue, again fixed on Lannon's face. "Just like with everything else from - before. I can't... I can't recall her name. Just her face, and I knew when she approached me that I had seen her before, even if I couldn't remember."

"What does it feel like? Remembering what happened when you were - um..."

"When I was - apart?"

"Yeah."

"Like a dream. A terrible, awful dream, from days past and fading." Those big paws slipped away from Lannon's body and came up between them, Sulla spreading his great fingers and looking between them. "She tried to kill me once, then. The scar on my throat, she-"

"I know."

"She told you?"

Lannon reached up to touch at the spot where that scar used to be. Now there was only smooth, soft fur. "She told me."

Sulla frowned. "What else did she tell you?"

A pause. Up above the breeze stirred again, no longer pleasantly cool but rather stirring and shifting the humid warmth beginning to gather beneath the canopy. "She tried to save you, and couldn't. But I could. She didn't like me at first, or my presence here, or... well, anything. She wanted me to leave you alone, as all of the - the other hunters had been told. To let you continue on your way through the woods, in pain, never finding your way out, never finding completion. As though it were... punishment."

Punishment. Sulla's lips echoed the word, again slightly different in his dialect than Lannon's. "I..." He swallowed. "I can vaguely remember. Again, little... shards and fragments. I hurt a lot of people, didn't I, Lannon? When I was..."

Rumors of some great, terrible monster, terrorizing the villages at the edge of the woods. A story from my childhood, the parents in the village telling their kittens to behave or else the Beast will get them. Then the things that Father told me, that first day I had returned from Solm... I left them out of my journal, but I knew I would never be able to forget.

_ _

Seven from Grane, quite a journey east along the border of the woods. Two from right there at home, one Madam Kay's new apprentice, the other the leatherworker's daughter. Twenty-three from Wella, barely two days to the northwest. I remember travelling there with Father for the farmer's market, where he'd buy the delicious little stormberry candies and share them with me. He always said he wanted them for the color - they're the best, richest source of cobalt-blue dye available here - but even when he bought the berries themselves, they had all gone by the time we returned home.

_ _

Twenty-three. Wella's population ballooned for the market season. I wonder if those twenty-three had been visiting. And then all the other, smaller, nameless villages near the forest...

_ _

Sulla's muzzle bumped in against his shoulder. Lannon reached up and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, feeling his slowly, slightly-unsteady breathing.

"You weren't yourself," he murmured. "You were - there was something wrong. I don't blame you. Nobody should."

"I was myself," the wolf rumbled back. "It feels like a dream, but I remember doing it. I remember making the decision to do it. It felt - right. It felt proper. I was just so terribly..."

"Angry."

"Wounded. Lost. All that I had ever lived for had been taken from me, stripped away in a - a blink of an eye." He straightened up again and rested his paws on Lannon's waist. "Did she tell you what happened?"

Lannon's mouth quirked, trying to pull down. He felt the pressure on his eyes, the itch in his throat, the tightness in his chest. During the ritual, so close to completion, feeling his strength and ability waning... was that when it would have happened? When the world swam around him and he felt the breath trickle out of his body, again and again?

"You did," he managed, voice breaking. "When I was... it was you. You who told me."

To his surprised, Sulla shook against him not in a sob but in a quick little laugh. "I trusted you that much, even then?"

Lannon pulled far enough away that the wolf would be able to see his scowl. He had trouble keeping it up, though, with a smile trying to push its way through. "What do you mean, then? You treated me like you were a feral puppy, all talk, trying to be scary, but I just needed - to..."

Lips on his ear, fingers digging in near the base of his tail, Sulla's body leaning in over his, tugging him against him... Lannon's breath again shuddered out between parted lips, and he shivered in the wolf's grasp.

"...Yeah," he went on. "L-like that, but... I couldn't just - swing you around. I had t-to..."

Sulla trailed down from the lynx's ear towards his jaw and throat. "You had to be a lot more deliberate and focused in your... points of contact, so to say." He pulled away and, for a moment, Lannon saw him swirl his tongue around in his mouth. "For some reason I remember having my teeth inspected..."

In an attempt to change the subject, since he could feel the blush warming his cheeks and ears and making his nub of a tail twitch: "How does it feel?"

"What, the teeth? I don't know; do it again and I'll tell you-"

"No! No. I mean, the..." It took a moment to shift his mind back on track. "You know. Everything. Being back, as - wholly, completely yourself."

Sulla gradually released Lannon, this time letting his paws trail in to slide over the lynx's. Broad, dense lynx fingers held in sleek, powerful wolf's.

"I know what you mean, Lannon," he replied, voice quiet, "but I can't truthfully answer. I'm not wholly myself. That's the way the bond works, we-"

"Become a part of each other. She told me."

"Yes. You've felt it too, haven't you?" A little smirk, there and then gone beneath a flash of questioning. He wasn't _actually_sure.

So Lannon held his gaze and nodded. "Ever since the ritual. But I didn't realize it until just the other day, after you had left."

"You realized something else then, I understand. I felt it as well, through this link."

Even just thinking about it sent another pang of loss through the lynx's chest. He curled his fingers in between Sulla's, feeling at the differences in shape and size and the little cracks and crags that came from so many years out with nature. Sulla was about as old as his father. Yes," he said. "My magic. It's been - I've..."

"Taken from you, just as Tul was from me?"

"Yes. But, no, but... well. I wasn't going to put it that way." The lynx heaved a sigh and dropped his paws from the wolf's. "Didn't you say your people don't really recognize magic as an established institution?"

The older male smirked, though it was just a small shadow covering his shared pain over Lannon's loss. "Considering I just regained my voice two days ago? No, I don't think I did."

"Well. There's still much we don't know about it, and... pushing too hard, or improper preparation, or any number of other factors, can cause either a dangerous blowback-" Something that used to be an arm, black and shriveled, charred like spent firewood. Fragments of glassy ice glittering in the sun, melting to a thick, sticky brownish-red, bits of white and yellow clinking to the stone tiles. A portion of heavy, solid rock where the lower half of the leg used to be; the rest of the leg is still in there, as all the nerves constantly fire off, all at once. "Or - um... in my case, a complete block or removal of the ability to use magic at all. It's gone to me."

"I'm sorry." Sulla leaned in and again bumped his nose to Lannon's. "I know it was your world. I wouldn't be here as I am now, if not for you and your skill."

He really, truly was. Lannon could feel that much through their little bond as well, nestled right there in the back of his head, misty and indistinct yet still enough for him to pick through. The two remained where they stood for a moment, half-wrapped together and relaxing in each other's presence; then the lynx extricated himself, nodded over to the bank, and a moment later returned with the soap and comb.

A little flash of memory and some associated impression tingled along the link, but it wasn't enough for him to grab and identify before it was gone again. Grinning, Lannon hefted the little bar in his fingers.

"Do your people use soap?"

Sulla let out a half-suppressed puff of laughter. "'Do my people use soap'. Huh."

"Gods. I can see where your daughter got her sass from."

"I do like this scent." The wolf lowered his head down as Lannon started to work it into his fur, other paw cupping some of the water from the river to help. He held the comb in his teeth. "This is from your village?"

"Mhmm."

"Mm."

Again the sounds of the forest filled the gap, Lannon resuming the same methods and routine that he had taken on every morning prior to the ritual as well. The lather in Sulla's dark fur, running his fingers through the matted strands, bringing the comb to follow, trailing down from his chest to his firm, tight belly, around his waist to his lower back - the wolf rather liked the feeling at the base of his tail, and then this time Lannon lifted it up and drew back along towards the end as well. Then around to his front again, with the smaller lynx standing up on his tiptoes with his muzzle sideways against Sulla's shoulders, comb and claws running back and forth through his fur, one paw down near his belly and one up by his throat.

His mind wandered throughout it, tugged back and forth by the knowledge and scent and presence of this very wolf before him. Lannon looked out across the slowly shifting water of the river, eyes directed towards the opposite bank and the wall of trees past there yet not quite seeing either of these.

"Sulla."

"Mm?"

"Why did this happen?"

Sulla knew what he was thinking. "I don't know," he answered, with a little huff. One of his large paws came up, wrapped around Lannon's wrist, and guided him down along his chest. "I didn't know with Tul, and I don't know with you. Nobody does. Fate decrees that some things must happen - the gods decide that there are some things that simply should be." Mismatched eyes focused in on Lannon's muzzle. "You can't tell me you don't want it, kitten. I know you'd be lying."

The lynx grinned. "What do we do about it?"

"Well, there's the obvious, but I'm... reluctant to put you through that."

The obvious. He meant, going through the process to establish and seal the bond, as they did for hunter and companion. Other than the brief, fragmented bits of thought and memory that had floated over during the ritual, Lannon had no idea what that would encompass - and it was his understanding that it was supposed to be that way.

It's a deeply personal process, he remembered being told. Had that been Sulla, or Sulaya? Or maybe even Tul, who had told him? The closest thing we have to something holy. No one hunter may know what transpired during another's bloodrites.

"Why?"

Here Sulla seized the lynx's wrists, nearly forcing him to drop the soap and comb. Startled, Lannon looked up into those eyes, blue and green, malachite edged in azurite. "Lannon, my heart... I was not the first hunter to have a bond severed, and I certainly will not be the last. You saw what it did to me before-"

"But that was due to your - bloodline, was it not?"

"It was. I was an anomaly, something new that hadn't been seen in ages. Something didn't want me to die, whether that was my own force of will, my desire for vengeance, or just the wishes of the gods." The wolf swallowed, pausing his speech. "But now that that's no longer an issue, and now that I'm... 'back', so to say... you don't know what happens to those of us unbonded, do you?"

"No."

"We can return to the camp and tribe, but most of the time it's in seeking a ritual killing, to properly reunite us with our lost companions. Some of us undertake the responsibility ourselves, not to be found for... weeks, months. Years. Some disappear into the forest and never return." He shrugged. "The broken link rots us from inside. I can feel it now, even with what we have developing."

Lannon felt a little bit of it too, through that link. That, and the closer he looked, the more evident it was in Sulla's eyes, his face, his voice. Such a pleasant tone and timbre, yet it carried untold exhaustion and pain beneath it.

"It's..." Sulla lifted his head again, though this time looked out across the trees instead of the sky. "I've seen it happen before. I watched one of my uncles decay to nothing under a shattered bond. At once we feel the restlessness and constant nervous energy of a bond needing to be made, as I do now and as you soon will - the nearly irresistible pull, the intense inclination and desire to see it done. But at the same time it's dreadfully painful, and we tug back against that pull since we know it will lead only to ruin."

Lannon looked up as well. Sulla had lost himself in those thoughts and memories, the effort of sifting through broken and shattered pieces evident on his face and through their link. Blue-green eyes twitched back and forth, scanning through scenarios and long-past dreams instead of seeing the trees out in the forest. A moment later, though, something startled him and he returned his gaze to the lynx.

"Caught so between either resisting that inevitable doom," he went on, "or obeying it, the body deteriorates. The broken spirit cannot keep up. Hunger and thirst go unnoticed, basic functions fail... we become a husk of what we once were, little more left to us than those wounded spirits. Some die; some don't. All because of this bond, this promise, intended to tighten and deepen our oneness with the natural world around us."

"I had aimed to fix that," the lynx explained, again returning his paws to the wolf's chest. The bar of soap squirmed in his grasp. "I wanted to both restore you to your original body, as well as mend that awful wound. I know it's still there. When I completed the ritual and sat back and saw you there, I thought I'd..."

"Killed me?" Again Sulla smirked, this time with considerably less humor than before. "Not even a cut across the throat could do that. Now that I'm in this body, perhaps, but I'm still here. I feel like I'm being pulled in a hundred different directions, though, Lannon - this shattered bond makes me want to head out into the woods, to find Tul's resting place and curl up there and let nature take me. And then I feel just like I did all those years ago, the ache and itch and restlessness of a forming link digging into every piece of me, pulling me to that spot out north..."

"That's where it happens? The bloodrites?"

"I suppose there's no point in hiding it from you, as you will feel the pull more and more in the coming days as well." The wolf sighed and reached for Lannon's paws, this time taking the soap and comb from him. The lynx felt those big arms wrap around him, again accentuating just how different in size the two were even with Sulla no longer in his huge, twisted body. Careful, gentle fingers began working at the fur of the lynx's lower back, soap first, comb second, soap again, then claws. Again and again, working their way up to his shoulders, down along his arms, in towards his back again... "I already feel the pull as intensely as I did when I first bonded with Tul. Left too long, it becomes a vile sickness."

"Will you be okay?"

"As long as I have you with me, yes."

"Can we just-" Lannon twitched as the wolf hit a good spot, then leaned forward and braced himself against Sulla's body. His paws, fingers and claws flexing and working, kneaded at his hips. "-leave now? I mean, it seems like we don't have much of a choice in what we need to do."

Sulla slowed in his ministrations. He bent down partially to dip a paw in the water and wash the soap off of the comb; doing so put his eyes perfectly level with Lannon's. "Could you confidently lead me to the altar, without any guidance whatsoever from myself or anyone else? Right now. Can you tell me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where we need to go?"

He could not. Lannon blinked and swallowed; Sulla smiled, leaned in for a kiss, and straightened up again.

"Could you turn around, at least? It'll be easier to reach your lower back."

Lannon noticed that Sulla kept the soap and comb both in the same paw, resting over his shoulder as the lynx bent forward. The other paw slid back, fingers dragging along the line of his spine, then turned and curled beneath the underside of his tail. He gasped and squirmed - and shot a glare backwards. The wolf grinned.

"You can't tell me you don't want it, kitten," he repeated. "I know you'd be lying."

~ ~ ~

_ _

Day 48

Evening

_ _

...and some die, some don't, he told me. From what I have gleaned from Sulaya and the other sources, it seems that Sulla's "strengthened bloodline", whatever the specifics of this may be, is what directly led to his aberration. I know I could ask, and I shall, but for now he is resting. I notice that he sleeps before I do and wakes up later.

_ _

This began before his original departure. I can only assume it is a result of this bond-sickness setting in. Do they have a word for it?

_ _

I am trying to avoid hypochondria in assuming that any small nuisance that comes up for me is part of my own bond-sickness, but I cannot hide it: I am excited, I am eager, to explore this relationship with him further. Each of us have lost so much, and after everything he and Sulaya have told me about the link and its strengths and effects... personal interests aside, it will be a fantastic research opportunity.

_ _

How could I have thought I no longer had a purpose here?