The Songbird and the Wolf

[ XII ] Lighting the Way

The Fog swallows him from sight only a few feet into the grey.

Even with that certainty, he does not stop running. Devouring the distance with long, certain strides.

He has no way of knowing what might lie ahead, but knows with a certainty as deep as his bones nothing can be worse than what lies behind.

Quinn presses forward, eventually his sprint slowing to a jog, then a careful walk.

He dares a glance backward every so often, keeping an eye on the distant, fog-plagued horizon. Checking for the shapes of dark wolves, prowling ever closer.

For now at least, he finds none.

The icy breath he releases at that realisation, it comes as a visible cloud from his lips.

The world here smells of ancient pine, dropped needles crunching underfoot with every footstep. A bitter wind whips through him, carrying with it the smell of distant seas, the salt refreshing and familiar.

It is quiet - almost unnervingly so. Only his own footsteps, the howling wind, and the occasional animal disturbed by his journey through the grey.

He has no idea how long he has been walking when the fog finally begins to grey. It could have only been a matter of moments, maybe hours or days.

Here his concept of time is distant, hazy.

Quinn, mostly for his own sanity, leaves that up to an exhaustion that makes his legs feel like lead with each further stride.

After a further mile or so, the fog gives way entirely. On the other end of it he discovers a forest no different to the one he'd been chased through.

Yet when he turns around, he no longer sees the shapes of distant wolves closing in, here the only sound is the thunder of his heart, not the slam of paws against earth.

The forests are empty, and he can't even see the road in the distance anymore.

He doesn't dare hope at first, does not dare believe it to be true.

But the optimistic part of him, the part he he thought long dead stutters in his chest, the arrhythmic patter quickly grows to a pounding.

He stumbles forward, one step then two. Until gravity draws him downward, his knees hitting cold earth.

Quinn does not reach to steady himself, does not attempt to pull himself upright again either.

Instead he leans back, looking skyward.

Toward the first night sky he has seen in years.

Clouds scatter across the dark night sky, but they are powerless to defeat the hundreds of twinkling lights piercing the dark. A crescent moon peers down on him, the brightest, most beautiful moon he has ever seen.

The moonlight bathes his skin and floods his veins, the tension melting from him as the ice thaws in the new Spring light.

Relief is a palpable thing, like if someone were to stab him he would bleed it.

He inhales slowly, cold night air filling his lungs, the sensation invigorating and the chill of it burrowing deep into his bones. The tears come slowly, unbidden and relentless, ice cold down gaunt cheeks.

Quinn drags the inner of his sleeve across his eyes with a snarl, and drags himself to his feet with a grunt.

Where, for the first time he takes a measure of himself.

The wolf notices for the first time he was changed at the hospital.

The clothes no loner the ones he had spent so long in they had become a second skin. So caked in mud, sweat and blood he could barely remember the camouflaged colours of his uniform.