FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Time Together, Time Apart

Part three of seven

---

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Adagiodajiang

_ _

_ _

Sandor eventually managed to get back to the inn, though he had looked for Alyssa first. It had not been hard to find out that she had been searching for him too; at first, he had caught a whisper and a laugh about the "lunatic" on the street who had been shouting and shouting. After that, he had merely asked a passing officer, who didn't seem to recognise Sandor as a mage, which was a relief for passing anonymously, about what was going on and the officer let him know that he had indeed seen a doe-taur.

"You don't get many of them in these parts," the hare guard confirmed, comfortably and lightly dressed, for there was not all that much serious crime in the area, he did not even have a weapon. "Deer-taurs, that is. Nice little thing, though she wasn't very quiet. She seemed very worried, shouting and shouting. I tried to help her but she ran off. I don't think she heard me, poor thing."

"Yes, that sounds like Alyssa," Sandor confirmed, his heart sinking. "I'm so sorry, she was looking for me - it was completely my fault. We got separated and she got left here alone, she didn't know where I was."

The hare's face softened, his long, upright ears twitching a little.

"Ah, well then," he said kindly. "That makes sense, of course, she would have been shouting for you then, I'm sure. It did disturb some but no more than those that have consumed just a little more alcohol than their bodies can handle on a late night!"

He laughed and Sandor smiled, though he privately did not think that Alyssa could ever cause all that much trouble.

"Did you see which direction she went?"

"Hm..." The hare scratched the back of his neck and head. "I'm not sure, perhaps down towards the docks?"

That didn't help Sandor all that much and, truthfully, he could not imagine a reason that Alyssa would have headed down towards the docks. There was nothing down there for her, bar the boat that they had come in on - and even that had most likely departed with travellers too by that time.

He asked a few others if they had seen a doe-taur to varying levels of success. Another fox couple turned up their noses at him, dressed more elegantly than Sandor - kind of like how his mother had used to dress. His stomach twinged with something akin to remorse, though he had not wanted to break his ties with his family, not truly. But he could not abide them treating Alyssa as they did and he did not regret it, not truly, even if he wondered just what that relationship could have been between them all if his mother had been more accepting.

Maybe he should have done more to convince her, to make her see things a different way... He had slowly been a greater and greater advocate for taurs, but it took seeing how Alyssa was treated to really open his eyes, which was not how it should have been. And he had forgotten all about it since the devouring had come upon him, the things that had before, bee so important to him falling by the wayside.

Had Alyssa been one of those things that had been set aside too? He licked his lips nervously, though his mouth was not dry enough for any kind of moisture to settle or ease his tongue and jaw.

In the end, he headed back to the inn, hoping that he would find her there, though his stomach still stirred and churned with a sense of unease. What if Alyssa wasn't there and she was lost in the city somewhere? A splinter of his staff, Kastalia, had been brought along in his pocket, but he was not sure it would be enough to focus his mind with the pills affecting him too. Whereas they controlled the devouring, he would have been a fool, well and truly, to suspect that there would be no side effects to something so strong that it controlled even that horrific urge. His magic was more difficult to reach for when he was taking the pills, when he had had to take one recently, but having a splinter of the staff there would help him channel his magic more effectively. Of course, with the fox's skills as a mage, he didn't always need the staff, but every made had something on which to focus their will and intent.

The staff had been brought along too, but was wrapped up in heavy, protective cloths. He didn't want to use it there and make it obvious to everyone there in Herring Archipelago that he was a mage, not unless it was something that he absolutely had to do. He didn't quite yet know what people there thought about mages and, when he was not at his full strength, he would rather keep it quiet in case he was targeted.

He hated feeling like he had to hold himself back, even if it was only a little.

He slipped discreetly, or so he thought, back up the stairs, avoiding the receptionist, but would have made it all the way up if not for the waiter who called him back.

"Ah - sir! Sandor, was it? Sir, could you come back down here for a moment, please?"

The fox paused, his muzzle wrinkling minutely. He had learned to better school his expressions so that they did not so obviously show his displeasure, but that had been more difficult than he had realised to do. Social norms applied to him more so than Alyssa, considering his status as a high-performing mage. If he did even better, however, oddly enough, things like that would cease to matter again.

Under his breath, Sandor groaned. He hated the politics of relationships...

"Yes?"

He smiled faintly, though was sure that tiredness still showed through in his eyes. The waiter, a black panther with glossy fur and a smart shirt tucked into black trousers, stood up tall, his eyes kind but firm. His trousers narrowed at the calf, tucked into his boots, which completed his smart ensemble, surely benefitting the inn.

"Sir, I'm afraid there has been a complaint."

Sandor's eyes widened.

"A complaint?" He probed. "But we've only just arrived and we've been out for the entire evening. However could there be a complaint about anything at this hour? Are you sure that you've gotten the right room?"

He was a little harsher with the feline than he intended to be, but, well...it felt as if it was deserved. He couldn't ever imagine Alyssa doing anything that anyone would complain about when they were in an environment like that - much less at all! He was the one getting into trouble with things like that, sometimes practising his spells when it would have been better not to. There was still a scorch mark on the wall of one inn that they had frequented a few years back and it had been Alyssa who had smoothed things over there, for Sandor simply had not known how to.

He missed her.

The panther shuffled his weight back and forth, from one hind paw to the other, seeming uncomfortable. His tail lashed lightly, but he was swifter still to school his features to neutrality than Sandor was.

"There was a great deal of noise, some time ago," he said pointedly. "From your servant? I believe they are a taur, a deer taur... After some intense clattering and banging from the room, they burst out, disturbing our other guests and hurtled down the stairs!"

Sandor gulped as the panther's voice rose slightly.

"Oh."

"Yes, indeed," the panther continued. "Your servant tore through the inn at such a pace that her hooves have damaged and scraped the floors! That will all need to be buffed out, waxed and polished, you know. All of this costs money - I hope you are of the understanding too that you are just as responsible for your servant as you are yourself."

Sandor bristled. First of all, they should never have been at all referring to Alyssa as his servant - he had never introduced her as that! He had even put the room under both of their names, only he had been too out of it with seasickness, when they had arrived, to correct the receptionist when she had checked them in. Yet another thing that Alyssa had had to deal with for him...

Secondly, didn't anyone think to stop her and ask her why she was in such distress? He couldn't imagine just walking away from someone that upset! Not that he had not tried to comfort others in the past and had it backfire on him like a spell gone wrong, but, well... Wasn't it the right thing to do to try? And they were just blaming her for messing up their floors when, clearly, they should have been suited to the hooves of taurs anyway!

"I am sure that the quality of your floors is not of our concern," he said, putting on his best haughty tone, emulating his mother. "And it is unfair of you to speak of damages when I can clearly see that there is wear around the corners. If the floors were sealed duly to begin with, then there would have been no risk. With so many coming through, do you expect everyone to ensure their claws do not even touch the floor too? What about the heels of their boots? This was advertised as a taur-suited establishment and yet we were not even given a room on the ground floor."

The waiter stumbled back a half-step, whiskers twitching. Perhaps it was not something that, truly, he should have been getting himself involved in, but sometimes it was too late for that.

"Ah, well, um," he said, fumbling with his words as his tail swung anxiously back and forth. "The thing is, all damages must be paid for..."

"And another thing - Alyssa is not my servant and her name was in the room registration book, just the same as mine," he said firmly. "Are you focusing on me simply because my partner is a taur? Or because I am a mage?"

The panther gulped and took a solid step back, though it was clear to see the frustration snarling in his eyes. The green-amber orbs shone with annoyance, though he knew, however sharp he was, when things had gone as far as he was able to take them.

"I see, sir," he said slowly, as if he was dredging up each and every word from where he didn't want to call them forth. "That... That is understandable, my apologies for the miscommunication."

It was not much of an apology but the fox thought that it was the only one that he was going to get. And he couldn't waste more time on the waiter, even if he had been so crass as to treat his partner as even less than a common servant - more like a pet, if how he spoke of her hooves and her running was anything to go by. Sandor ground his teeth together. What if Alyssa had been chased? Wouldn't they do something about it then and try to help her?

Probably not. He'd have to arm Alyssa with even more to defend herself, maybe some magical spells that could be stored in vials or the fabric of paper talismans, though it was not an area of magic that he was honestly specialised in. Yet he was acutely aware that the handy, swift doe-taur could not carry her bowgun everywhere, for there were some places where it was simply not suitable to take, or else it would be considered a threat.

There'll be something that I can do to help her, I just know it.

_ _

Still, he had to find out where she was and why exactly she had run from the inn at such a pace. Sandor doubted very much that she was being chased if she was leaving the inn; surely, if that was the case, she would have been running to the inn?

Just in case, leaving the panther behind, who seemed satisfied that he had made things clear enough to Sandor, regardless of how the fox had come back at him, he headed up to the room. Of course, Alyssa was not there, though he had not expected to find her there after hearing something like that coming from the waiter, though he had to bear in mind that she may have had the chance to return too.

But, no... The door swinging open, without even a key, revealed their room. He scanned his eyes through their belongings, though nothing, thankfully, appeared to have been touched. It was even more worrying still that the door had been left unlocked, even if it had been closed. What on earth or beyond could ever have made Alyssa flee like that, at such a pace that it was as if she hadn't even had the chance to make sure the door was locked behind her?

Sandor swallowed hard, not wanting to acknowledge the lump in his throat.

"That... That's not like Alyssa..."

It was worse to say it aloud and he lunged for his staff, his breath suddenly tight in his chest, as if it was being constricted by a vine. To hell with the city! They couldn't do anything to him, he was sure, not truly, nothing more than make things a little more awkward and a little more difficult for him, if they knew he was a mage. And Alyssa was more important than anything that silly people could do or say...

They could always leave if things there were too bad. But perhaps that was a bit of an overreaction to things that should have been pretty normal to him, at least by then. Sandor chewed thoughtfully, trying to calm his pounding heart, taking a moment to centre himself, to calm his breath, even taking bigger, deep breaths to make his heart rate slow more and more and more.

Magic was not all about casting spells, after all... It was about his body and his relationship to it, how things played back and forth there. If his mind was not settled, even in the thick of battle, he was not going to perform at his best. That was just one of the reasons that the bandits had almost caught him and bested him back in the forest when they had been travelling to their new home. Even though it had not been all that long ago, it felt like an age that had happened, after which everything had changed.

The staff unrolled from the soft clothes smoothly, the exterior ones rougher and coarser, waterproof to make sure that the wood was preserved and cared for. Reverently, the fox exhaled, feeling more settled than he had in quite some time. Everything was better when he had Kastalia with him. Why, she could have even been considered the other love of his life, even if Alyssa would still always be first and foremost in his life, in his mind and, as always, in his heart.

Taking the staff in hand, he sighed, feeling at least a little comforted to feel it back in the palm of his hand, his fingers curling back around the smooth, worn wood. It would wear, yes, over time, but a staff like that should never break with all the magic that had been flowing through it. He still wanted to care for it, for all that the staff had given him.

Heading outside with renewed vigour and energy, as if he had even had the chance to sleep, he took stock of the street. It had to be nearing midnight, a clock keeping time in a tower not all that far away, though there were still many out on the streets. Whether they were heading back to their respective inns or out to further enjoy the nightlife, it did not bother Sandor, except that their influence and presence might make it even harder for him to find Alyssa.

He rested his hand on a tree that was being grown at the side of the street, the city seeming to make sure that there were plenty of opportunities to see green life and greenery there, as much a part of the city as the people who made it what it was were. But there would be more green spaces and plants that he could use in less populated areas, if he was careful about what he did and where he went...

"Now..." He muttered under his breath, ignoring those that gave him second, strange looks at the sight of the staff in his hand, clearly wondering what the strange tourist fox was up to. "Where are you Alyssa, my love?"

He let his magic flow from him through the staff into the tree, "contacting" the plants. For there were networks and chains of them, roots and passageways, under the ground, stretching through the cavern of the earth in a way that Sandor had learned to tap into. It was as if there was a whole new world down there that he could never have imagined before the ancient evil had sunk into him, changed his psyche, worked itself even well into the marrow of his bones.

He exhaled, eyes half-lidded, making sure to keep a good hold on the staff, though it remained cool under his paw. Letting his lips part, he relaxed, talking to the plants. They did not speak in any words that he could have translated, not exactly, but more sensations and impressions. Even then, Sandor did not know how to read every last one of them clearly and there was still room for error.

He had to find Alyssa.

He felt them...the plants. He sensed the passage of hooves, a skitter and a flurry. Alyssa seemed to have been in a hurry, but even the plants seemed drawn back from him and cut off, pulling away from his mental, magical grasp.

Alyssa had run, but the plants there seemed to know something that he didn't, or at least had not acknowledged for a time. He had had other things on his mind, after all.

Yet it was there, even as he tried to trace Alyssa's path, through the plants, the devouring rising once again. He did not know if it was simply too long since he had taken a pill or if it was him using the plants to sense what had happened there, but it was there and it hungered.

No...

_ _

He held it back and down, swallowing hard, his hold on the plants and their network of communication slipping. The fox trickled one of the broad, round, flat leaves with his fingers, trying to use his sense of touch to bring himself back to the moment just a little more, to remind himself of where he was, who he was, yet it did him no good.

It was like another entity within him, even though Sandor, logically, however sadly, knew that it was a part of him too. The devouring made him want to drool, to claim, to maim, to snap and to tear. It had overcome him before, even if he had only taken non-sapient animals at that time, blocking out the memory. He remembered blood and horror and a sick kind of twisted joy in killing, but...no more than that.

It was that darkness that frightened the fox more than anything else, his chest constricting once more, muscles bunching up, all as if he was slipping into fight or flight mode. For him, he didn't think that freezing up was an option, for that might have at least spared those around him, if he was so very truly afraid of losing control.

He had to hold on. He had to ignore the drool slavering about his jaws, gulping hard, stopping it from pooling in the cavern between his teeth and under his tongue. Sandor growled subtly, drawing more looks from bystanders, but they all should have known that it was a risk indeed to stand there and watch him as if he was a sideshow to be enjoyed, a freak on parade.

They didn't know the risk, oh no. Not as the devouring throbbed and pulsed, yawning and gaping and aching in the pit of his belly. It made him feel as if he had not eaten in weeks, as if he was nothing more than the shell of a fox desperate for any kind of sustenance, but Sandor still knew that not to be true, yes. He knew it to be something else, something other, something that he had to fight. For his belly still was not truly settled after the trip there - and perhaps that was something that he should have considered when it came to the devouring. It was hard to know everything about something that only a few seemed to even understand vaguely, yet he didn't have the time to learn as he went.

It was too confusing, Sandor's hands gripping the staff as it shook in his clenched hands, black nails even scraping in the wood in a way that would have horrified him if he had at all been in his right mind. He hated harming his staff in any way and had spent hours conditioning and treating it, both with physical means and magical means, after any extreme fights that he had been in before, as soon as he could do so for himself.

Fight it.

_ _

He told himself that, over and over again, but it was harder and harder to not look at the others in the streets, the zebra and the stoat and the kangaroo and the field mouse, as if they were food.

"Sir, are you okay?"

It was mocking that they were able to ask him if he was okay, though Sandor should not have snarled in response, even if it was a tiny one, lips barely even pulling back from his teeth. Why did they feel able to ask him if he was fine when Alyssa had practically been tossed out to fend for herself?

They muttered amongst themselves, backing away, though he swung his head slowly back and forth, his expression glazed over, eyes glassy. For he did not see them as they were, but as victims, beings that he could devour, that he could take the life from.

The streets... He thought to himself, lips moving even if the words did not come out of his mouth, thankfully, one tiny saving grace. They are full... Full of life-giving targets. So many bodies. So many beings. And they could all be mine...

_ _

"Let's leave, there's something wrong with that fox."

Yes... Even Sandor agreed with that, even if he didn't want to think that there was anything wrong with him. He didn't want to take into account that the devouring was there and tipping him in closer and closer to those innocent people, wanting to take the life from them, to feel their blood running between his jaws. Yet it was more than that, so much more, the need to absorb them, to take their life for their own. For there was a big part of him, the corruption in the devouring, that hissed at him that it was the only way that he could go forward, the only way that he could continue his life.

By absorbing that life force for his own.

"So many..." He moaned, finally giving words to the devouring, out loud. "So many life-giving bodies... So warm... I can feel you..."

No one heard him, ears twitching but otherwise ignoring the seemingly deranged fox in the streets. They did not care for him, for no one knew Sandor and they didn't know what he was going through, that it was something that he had to change, had to fix, or the world would take harm as a result. He still didn't know how far things could go, would go, but he knew that there was no other option for him.

One way or the other, he had to best the devouring.

He growled, straightening his back and shoving the urge right back down into its box, where it did not belong but where it needed to go. He couldn't lock it in a little box and slam a lid over the pit of the devouring for long, not forever, but he had to do it, because Alyssa needed him. And that was the most important thing of all.

Sandor exhaled softly, settling back into himself, even if he was still salivating, still looking at those around him as if he could latch onto them, take them, claim them, absorb them and their energy until there was nothing left of them at all. If he averted his eyes from them and focused on the lines of the plans under the ground, their networks of communication, walking slowly and steadily, out of the busiest part of the tourist area.

Further from the streets that he had explored and hunted through, for Alyssa, so far, there were greener areas, extending out not in the agricultural area that he had chased the ancient being into but into a grassier, richer area down close to the sea. The grass there was tough and yet soft underfoot, his boots smooshing lightly over it as he flattened it to the ground - but it sprang back quickly, fighting the salty air and the winds that whipped in straight off the ocean.

Settling down into a cross-legged position under a tree with large, overreaching branches, the flowers pink and dotted with red, he ignored the devouring. If it got too bad for him, he reasoned with himself, he could use the pills that he had to recover himself, to come back to himself, before he lost control.

I've always got the pills, he reminded himself, sinking his roots into the ground, growing from his body, finding the network of plants. I can always use them and they will keep me under control. I am in control of myself and everything is okay. I will find a way to fix this, to make things go back to normal, with the ancient being, and...everything will be well again.

_ _

They may have been simple words, the kind of mantra that he had to repeat over and over to himself for it to be true, but sometimes it was those simplest of words that meant the most to him. Like saying "I love you" to Alyssa. It was such a simple little sentence and yet it carried so much weight to it, so much love, so much adoration, so many quiet evenings spent together and lustful nights too.

Therefore, those simple words had to mean a lot to him too, even if he was saying them to reassure himself.

Maybe it would work.

It had to work.

He was in control and he had to remain in control, to forget the life-giving beings back down in the city, away from him for the time being, to ignore that they could give so much power and energy from him. Sandor gulped, but that didn't help all that much, not as he drooled, slopping from his jaws, slavering down to the ground in thick, long ropes. He shook his head, splattering the drool, though he could not spare a moment of his attention for that and wiping it away, not when he was hunting for Alyssa.

The drool was messy, but he sought her, feeding into the system of the plants. They told him that there had been a doe-taur passing by them - that way! That she had fled, that her hooves had beat and beat and beat the ground, leaving small indents in the sod of the earth. Ah, yes, they remembered her being there and they had been marked by her presence too.

With that, he stood and dusted himself off of drool, though some of it just smeared into his clothes, Sandor wrinkling his nose. It was not pleasant at all, though that did not mean that he could go back to the inn and their room to change his clothes. He needed to find her and, with the plants, he had an image in his mind, a sense of where she was.

And he had to find her.

In the back of his mind, the devouring swirled and hungered...

*

Alyssa sat on the ground, her legs folded under her. The hill looked out over the ocean, though was not close enough to the sea to be a dune, so there was still somewhat familiar soil under her. She wrapped her arms around her body, the darkness pulling at her, though she still had some ability to see in the dark: it was twilight and dawn that was the worst for her when it came to being able to see, forever the most dangerous time of day for a prey species.

She sobbed faintly, wondering just how long the tears were going to last. She should not have cried so, she knew that, but she didn't want to hold back her feelings any longer. She had hardly cried during all that time that Sandor had been away, honestly and truly, even denying herself her tears when she used the bath and dunked her head under the water to wash off her hair. Maybe it was time to listen to herself a little more, even if out there away from the city on a hill with the ocean breeze chilling her was not the place for such a revelation, truly, to come to her.

Alyssa parted her lips, shaking her head, the tears drying coldly on her cheeks. It was only the wind that helped them evaporate.

She had not known the other doe-taur, not at all, never seen her before, and yet...she had seemed to be able to hone in on the deepest, darkest parts of her psyche. Guinevere had known about all the things that would make her ache and would make her flee - oh, she should not have left the inn! But the other deer-taur should never have been there either!

It was all so confusing... But was she really the unneeded one? Did Sandor...really not need her?

It was hard to say. It was too difficult for her to get into, even though she rocked back and forth lightly, trying to find any way at all that she could to soothe herself, her thoughts all over the place, whipping back and forth.

What if I've been holding him back for all this time?

_ _

If he doesn't need me...why does he keep me around?

_ _

Maybe there are ways that I could be serving him better?

_ _

Was I too harsh on him when he came back? But he still hasn't told me about what he was doing out there, for he wasn't studying all the time, not at the academy...

_ _

She gulped, the lump in her throat tighter and tighter, feeling like it was cutting off her ability to breathe. No, no... She had to breathe, had to keep breathing. Even if it was just for Sandor, for she wasn't so sure that she was worth even the luxury of breath even more.

How far she had fallen... Or maybe it was Alyssa who had thought that she had, somehow, ascended far beyond her station. She didn't want to be there, not out on her own, but wasn't it always Sandor looking after her? Even when he was away, he had sent so many things back to her of value to make sure that she was okay, that nothing bad would happen to her when he was gone. It made sense in hindsight, of course, just why he had sent her so many expensive things - for she had had to sell a few of them. It only had made her wonder, once he had returned, whether Sandor had been planning to be away for even longer still.

"He doesn't need me," she whispered, only to herself. "Maybe I should just go away or be nothing more than a servant... We can build servant quarters onto the house, but that would be even more expense for me and I don't want that..."

She looked down on herself too much when she had taken so very long to build herself up again, though Alyssa didn't know why she had done that. Yes, she had had to stand on her own, but she was Sandor's assistant and she should not have taken such liberties.

"Maybe she was right about me, really right," she went on, the words those of another, merely repeated. "Guinevere, she got the measure of me, entirely and truly. I don't want to be like that, I don't want to break Sandor... I don't want to be the taur that she says I am."

She gulped, refusing to cry, yet again.

"Alyssa?"

She stiffened, though did not look around. She was too tired, bone-weary exhaustion laid into her bones, holding her down, weighing her in place.

Yet again...it was Sandor. Always her relying on him to find her, to come get her, to help her... It was all the same, the same old patterns coming together again and again.

"Alyssa, I was so worried about you," Sandor said, coming into her line of sight. "Alyssa, can you hear me? Are you okay? Here, let me check you..."

She pulled her wrist gently but firmly away from the fox, however, when he tried to take her hand in his. Maybe that was wrong of her, if she was no more, truly, than Sandor's assistant, but it was not right either for him to reassure her.

In her mind, she did not realise that everything that the deer-taur, Guinevere, had said to her had been a lie. But the ancient being had had her own ulterior motives in breaking Alyssa down, in twisting her and framing her to her own nefarious needs.

"Alyssa..."

Sandor's expression twisted a little as he knelt in front of her. He didn't try to touch her again, respecting her boundaries, though he couldn't keep the worry from brimming over from inside him. It even was enough to drown out and swelter the hunger, the devouring, crushing it in a moment.

"Alyssa, please..." He said gently, trying to surreptitiously check her over, but there was only so much of the doe-taur that he could see when she was lying on the ground in, what was for her, a sitting position. "Please, talk to me. What's wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"

She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, her chin tilted down to the ground as if she was not truly paying attention to him or her surroundings. Or maybe even a little too much attention?

"Everything is fine, thank you, for asking," she said, quietly and levelly. "Did you have a nice time in the city?"

Sandor gulped, ears folding back. He didn't like how calm and quiet she was, as if the real Alyssa had left her body. It would have been better, almost, if she had lashed back and out at him, if she had screamed and shouted. If she had done something to express the negative emotion that he was sure would have been perfectly reasonable if she had done any of that at all. It was not right to be so sweet and amenable all the time, even though he was impressed by and adored how kind and caring she was.

There was more to the doe-taur than merely being there for him, of course.

"Alyssa," he said, keeping his voice as soft and as gentle as he possibly could, holding his hands out before her, the palms facing upwards. "Please... Talk to me. I'm so worried about you, I want to know what's wrong. I'm sorry I disappeared."

Yet he could not say any more than that, or else he would have to reveal so much more, all about the devouring. He didn't want her to think any of that was her responsibility to fix or to look after him because of it - as it was something that she had caused. For he knew more than a little about her, having been with her and around her for so many years, their friendship having grown into a relationship over time.

He knew her...but not all of her.

"Please..." He said when she did not respond, as if she had mentally changed where she saw herself in his life. "Alyssa, I know I've given you no reason to trust me, but I'm begging you, still, to please trust me. I'm sorry I left, I should have come back more quickly, I should have told you where I was going."

"Where were you?"

She said the words quietly, a tiny hint of accusation in her eyes. Sandor clamped his jaws shut.

Damn it. He couldn't answer that question.

"I..." How could he get around that question? He would tell her later, much later, when he had a cure for the devouring from the ancient being and everything was behind them. "I can't say. I had to talk to someone though and I promise I will tell you everything, soon."

She looked at him then, her heart still open to him. For it was not Sandor that Alyssa was bruised against but Guinevere, who had told her so many vile things, vicious things, who had dug into her insecurities and dragged them out into the light for intense, driving scrutiny.

"Soon?" She asked, swallowing lightly, though it did nothing to ease the pain in her throat, aching through her body. "You will tell me...what's been going on? Where you have been?"

He nodded earnestly and, that time, she did not pull away when he took her hands in his own.

"Yes, Alyssa! I promise... You've been so kind, so generous to me, so patient... I don't deserve any of this, but you are the love of my life and...I promise it will all make sense soon. I'm so sorry about everything."

He knew that he had had no choice, not really, for he'd had to try to find a cure, even if there were different ways in which he could have executed such a task. He could have told her what was going on, even if he did not trust that Alyssa would not take it all on herself. And, even then, he feared her fearing him. What if she looked at him with that sheen of terror in her eyes, muscles stiff and bunched up, shrinking away from him? All because of the devouring?

Sandor exhaled softly, his heartbeat racing. It would have been fair, very fair, for her to fear him, because of his urge to devour. She, after all, had been the first that he had looked at with that hunger in his eyes and his heart, let alone his stomach. Maybe because she was the closest one to him, that they had spent so much time together... But there was only so much that he could let his mind run away with there, considering that it was all unknown territory. One day, he would write about the devouring, when he had some mental distance from it and no longer had to concern himself with any fears from his love or even himself.

"You ghosted me twice," she said, though the words did not feel as if they should have been ones coming from her lips, feeling his hands in her own, even though they were cold. "You left me...twice. Will you leave me again? Sandor, I cannot figure you out. Maybe this is it, maybe things are changing between us. Maybe we need to think about things..."

"No!"

Sandor pulled away from her, which, in retrospect, he really should not have done. Alyssa looked at him as if that had been what she'd expected all along, for him to pull back and to pull away, thinking that, perhaps, the fox was already setting things up for them to be separated, for their relationship to either change or break.

It was going to change, but never in a way that Alyssa could have expected or anticipated.

"I don't ever want to be without you, Alyssa," he said vehemently, sliding his paw, laying it flat, sideways through the air. "I mean that, I really do. Being without you was hell and I want to be with you. It's that simple, but I think I'm a simple fox sometimes, I don't need silly things, extravagant things, just you, a place to call home with you."

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, for he had grabbed one thing from their room and luggage before leaving, tucked into his pocket. It was a wonder that the scroll even remained in there and, truly, he did not know why he had not done what he was about to do before. It had never made sense, romantically, but he had known too that he had to do something with it to protect Alyssa. For, while he had that scroll, the doe-taur was under his protection.

She would forever remain under his protection too, for as long as he was alive and around, Sandor vowed it. Just in a different way to before, a way that brought the two of them onto level footing once more, where they should have always been, truly.

"What are you doing, Sandor?"

She was a little suspicious, she could not fully keep that out of her voice, but her heart still warmed for him. Oh, she just wanted Sandor to tell her everything, to be able to give her everything that clouded her mind the clarity of beams of sunshine streaking straight through. She had always loved that, when light had broken through the clouds and illuminated the land, more often than not after a big storm, but she had not seen that for a while. Maybe because it was that very cloud that was following her around, day by day, still not knowing what had caused such an abrupt upheaval in her life, turning everything, even her love life, on its head.

"Here, Alyssa..."

He unrolled the scroll for her and Alyssa blinked, her eyes adjusting to reading it in the darkness. Even though she could read in mostly dark areas, it was still more difficult for her.

"That's..." The doe-taur said slowly. "That's my indenture...of servitude. The ownership your family has over me."

Sandor shook his head.

"Yes and no."

She gulped, stilling suddenly.

"Are you..." She said quietly, so quiet that his ears twitched and the fox had to strain to hear her. "Are you going to...sell me? You can, I know... Yes... But..."

"What - no! Alyssa!"

Sandor had to grab her that time, holding her tight to him, even though he wasn't sure if he was crossing a boundary with her in holding her so tightly against him that she seemed to shudder and gasp for breath.

"No, no, no, my beautiful doe, no," he hissed through his teeth, trying not to let the overwhelming emotion crush him, for he had to be there with Alyssa too. "It's nothing like that, never like that... Oh, has that worry been on your mind too, I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to think of anything at all like that."

He had to explain it to her and quickly too.

"This is not logically owned by my family," he said, trying to explain clearly what he had uncovered. "Your...indenture..." It sounded like a dirty word in his maw and not the kind that he would like to say to Alyssa, at better times. "It is tied to this scroll, this scroll alone."

Alyssa gulped, trembling in his arms. It was good to be close to him again and, even then, he soothed her. The feel of the fox's lightly broad chest against her, how she stilled against him, listening to his heartbeat... It was what she had needed, really, truly, absolutely.

But she still wasn't sure why things between them were changing so much, why they were becoming something else. Was he going to try to send her away? She still couldn't see any reason for him to have the indenture in his hands right there and then...

"What are you talking about, Sandor?" She said, whispering, she was so fearful of the answer, her heart pounding faster than the beat even of his. "This... My indenture... Why do you have it? I thought..."

"Yes, it was in my mother's house, my mother and father's house," he confirmed, resting his hand on her back, soothing and stroking in small circles. "I went back there, one night when I had heard that they would both be away attending an event... They've not spoken to me since, not bar a couple of letters from my father but I think mother keeps him under control, on a tight leash... Anyway, your indenture is lacking in some details. It looks like your mother and my mother, all those years ago, were in a hurry to sign this, though I cannot say why. But it means that there is no holder's name on here, no family name even."

Alyssa peered at it, licking her lips, her skin itching. Everything was so overstimulating, but she was so close to him that she didn't know whether the closeness made her feel better or not. His fur tickled her lightly and, while it felt good, it made her skin itch too, as if tiny sensitivities that she was not aware of were all coming to the surface. But that was not something that she could quite deal with, not at that time.

"What does this mean? I'm sorry...Sandor...I don't understand."

"The default, ah, master, is the holder of the indenture, just this scroll, this piece of paper."

He held it up, backing off from her with a smile, even as Alyssa's heart pounded. What was he doing? Was he going to put his name on it? Yet what the fox did should have been what the doe-taur had imagined all along, for it was so truly Sandor, in every way, that she remembered everything, right then.

He held the scroll up, seeming to give it a long, hard look, his lips twisted slightly in distaste. And then he snapped his fingers, flame leaping from his fingers to the paper, Kastalia near enough to allow him to channel his magic easily and nicely, scorching and torching the scroll.

"Oh!"

Alyssa shuddered and scrambled back, instinctively wary of the flame, her heart pounding. Yet she couldn't drag her eyes from the scroll, how the bright white flames, like the white of Sandor's fur, eating up the paper, a black, scorched line devouring it as it took more and more and more of the scroll.

She tracked it across the paper, seeming to stretch out the seconds that it took to burn up entirely far longer than they actually were, time doing funny things in that moment. But it was burned entirely, the flames fizzling out as the very last scrap of the scroll was eaten away, leaving only the portrait of Alyssa, which had been taken with a manual camera and developed with magic, when she had come of age at eighteen, behind.

No more scroll. No more indenture. There was power to be held in a picture but there was no power to be held in that particular image of Alyssa.

She stared at it, her lower jaw ever so slightly slack.

"Sandor..."

He smiled, ears splaying out in relief as his tail wagged lightly back and forth.

"You're free, Alyssa," he said, simply. "The indenture is gone and there is no way to bring it back, not ever again. "You're free, you're not owned by anyone. You are yourself, you are your own taur. You can do anything and go anywhere that you like in the world, with or without me. Though I hope so very dearly...that you will always be with me."

She stilled, so quiet, not knowing what to think. She'd always known that she was owned by him and his family, but had never known the details of it. She had just not thought that it was important when there was so much good to be had in her relationship with Sandor, that she was happy with him.

Sandor exhaled softly, his shoulders slumping lightly.

"I never thought it would come to this," he confessed. "I never thought I would leave, but I got the indenture before teleporting to you, when I found you again in the field. I had to steal it from my home like a thief...and it was all in her clutter, as if it was truly of no importance at all to her. I've been to many, many places in these thirteen months and now...finally, I can free you. It may not make up for me leaving you, but I hope it sets you in good stead to live out every last second of the rest of your life exactly the way you want to. You should always have been free, Alyssa, and I'm only so sorry that I did not think of this sooner. I needed the magic to get in there, I don't know what my mother might have done with your indenture if she worked out that she still owned you, while it was in her hands and her home..."

He shuddered and shook his head. That had been a lot of words all at once and he was exhausted. He didn't want to explain anymore, even though he knew well enough that Alyssa was owed even more explanations than that. Soon, he would tell her, when all was right with his mind and soul all over again.

"The problem is solved," he said quietly. "The scroll is gone. I never thought of how much of a relief that would be for me, but I can only imagine for you, I hope. I will not leave you again, Alyssa. I will not make this mistake again, not more than these two times already."

That was something that his father had said, long ago. He had called it an idiom. The first two times a person or an anthro did something, they could be forgiven, his father had said. But the third time that someone did something wrong, the same thing, that was crossing a line. Sandor had always remembered that, even though he had not meant to leave Alyssa a second time.

No more, he told himself. It had happened twice, even though he had not planned it. And it would never again happen for a third time.

He would make sure of it.

"You're cold, Alyssa..." His lips pressed together, ears softening, his eyes crinkling at the corners with worry. "Please... Can I warm you up? I don't want you to get cold out here, you've got to look after yourself, let me look after you too."

She didn't know what to make about all of that. It was so much information, all at once, still blinking and reeling in the revelation that she was a free doe-taur, that she would never again have to answer to anyone, even though she knew in her heart that, of course, she wanted to be with Sandor. Of course, she wanted to stay with Sandor, to be his partner, even though she didn't think they could be married in any of the establishments, regardless of the town or the city. There would be an uproar...

She nodded faintly. Sandor immediately took Kastalia between two hands, his fingers sliding comfortably around the wood. He seemed to need it to better channel his magic, which she noticed, even if Alyssa did not comment aloud on it.

I hope he's not too tired, after all... After everything.

_ _

For she still did not know, not really, what the fox had gone through. Maybe it had been something really bad for him to not tell her about it, but that would worry her even more than what had been said and done so far, or so she thought. It could not be solved that night, so she did her best to set the twisting curl and churn of worries in her heart aside for a little while.

His fire surrounded her, keeping a safe distance, though it still warmed through her fur to her skin and she sighed, rubbing her bare arms.

"Perhaps I should have brought a cloak with me..."

He smiled and offered her even more of his fiery magic, flames snapping and dancing, as if little shapes and figures were weaving through. Her eyes tried to follow them but she couldn't pick out anything in particular, even as she grappled with everything that was coming to a head that night.

BOOM!

_ _

BANG!

_ _

"Oh!"

She jumped, heart pounding, but Sandor stilled her, protecting her with his body. But it was not anything for her to fear, not at all, not as a red and then a purple firework exploded above them, shattering brilliant particles out in streaming tendrils. One after the other, more came, some shooting up in a straight line before exploding, others managing a lower altitude as they zig-zagged back and forth, first of all, some squealing. She could hear them from even that distance, but, thankfully, they were far enough from the city and the explosions themselves of the fireworks that Alyssa did not feel the need to shield her ears.

"It's the changing of the year, Alyssa," he said quietly, looking up at the beautiful explosions in the sky. "Everyone's celebrating."

That must have been why everyone was out so late in the Resort City, she thought to herself. That made sense.

She sighed, looking down, the fireworks illuminating her face in bright flashes. She didn't think she had forgiven him yet, even though the weight of not quite forgiving the fox weighed heavily on her. There was so much to go over and go through and, well...she still had the secret of her meeting with the doe-taur, Guinevere, to hold close to her, not knowing who the deer-taur had been or what her true intentions were at all.

Perhaps Guinevere was a spirit, or a manifestation of the worst parts of myself, Alyssa thought to herself, trying to settle down on the cold ground, though the flickering dance of Sandor's fire flanking her on her right side and behind her too helped keep her warm. I don't know. I will have to ask him about it, but I need to think about it first.

_ _

If she told Sandor about it, she was sure that the fox would just tell her that it was not right, that everything that Guinevere had said was a lie, but she wanted to think more critically about things too. She wanted to come to her own conclusion about it, with her own space to do so.

Maybe that was a part of being a free doe-taur? She hoped so. She could only try.

They settled down together, the fireworks show lighting up the sky, even though things were not yet healed between them. And Alyssa still had questions to ask...

"I saw her."

Sandor looked at Alyssa, who had not been so slow to notice where he had run off to, that time earlier.

"What?"

"The doe-taur, the one that you ran off with," she said quietly, so much so that he had to strain to hear her. "Who... Who was she? Was she the one that you had to talk with?"

Sandor gulped, hoping that the doe-taur didn't notice.

"I had something to ask her, yes," he confessed, which he felt he was doing more of that night than he had honestly anticipated doing. "I..." He had to tell her something, a little of the truth. "She is an ancient magical being, one that I learned about when I was away from you. She is a healer and proficient, exceedingly so, at healing. I had something to ask her."

He gave her a strange look, turning to face her.

"Alyssa... You do not think that I was with her, do you?"

Alyssa pressed her lips together, worry tightening around her heart again.

"Perhaps... You have not told me, Sandor, so how would I know?"

"I would never betray you," he said, hugging her tightly, the doe-taur fitting securely into his arms, as she always did. "I have never and will never cheat on you, you are the only one that I want, now and forever, I promise."

She relaxed against him, enough for Sandor to find a little of his old, sly side, the cheekier, naughtier side of his psyche that Alyssa had rolled her eyes at so much before. Well, he had rather a lot liked teasing her.

"Besides..." He said, nudging her obviously and winking, making it quite clear, that time, that he was joking. "If the deer was really my lover, that little time would not have been anywhere near enough to mate!"

"Sandor!"

She gave him a half-hearted shove, but he caught the tug of her lips, as if she couldn't believe that he was saying something like that at that time. But she leaned into him a little closer even then and Sandor made sure that he gave his sweet, dear doe-taur every ounce of touch that she craved from him.

"You know my stamina, Alyssa," he said again, one last tiny tease while she scoffed at him under her breath, good-natured and a touch more playful than she had been before. "And it is only for you."

"...Thank you, Sandor."

She appreciated that, letting his warmth seep into her. Somehow, that was even more warming, to her, than his fire was, stoking a deep warmth in her soul and her heart.

Alyssa sighed. She would have to tell him about the doe-taur, but she didn't know an answer to that conundrum, not at that time.

So it was that Sandor transported them, at the end of the night, every firework having petered out and fizzled away, no longer lighting up the sky. He flew them back to the inn using his magic, though he was not as smooth with it at all as he would have liked to be, their path juddery and jerky as they moved through the air. She clung to him, burying her face in his neck, but trusted him all the same, for she knew that his magic would hold them, even if it was not the easiest of rides.

"Don't worry," he said, pressing her in close to his chest, his staff in his other hand, his stomach lurching as he dropped a foot of height that he had not intended to. "I've got you, Alyssa, I've got you tightly. I'm never going to let you down again, I'm never going to leave somewhere like that ever again, I promise."

She exhaled.

"I believe you. Thank you, Sandor."

She had much to thank him for, but they would have to repair something of their relationship still, even if Alyssa privately thought that there would be work to be done on both sides. For her, that would come in telling him about the doe-taur who had visited her, the reason that she had had to flee the inn.

He, of course, did not tell her that the reason that he flew them back to the inn and through the window, though it was hard to wedge it open and Alyssa had had to help him, was because he didn't want to encounter the waiter again. He wasn't sure what he would say to him, whether there would be any pushback from the inn for how he had spoken to the black panther, or if there would be an apology from them. One thing was sure and that was, if they saw Alyssa, they would surely rebuke her still, for they only saw her as his servant and his pet.

He would correct that and come up with better ways of making it clear that she was her own doe-taur, his partner, all of her choosing.

Yet that would have to come at another time, as their holiday in Herring Archipelago was not yet at an end...

And so much was yet to come.

Continued in part four...