Roses and Thorns

Mother

One of my teeth, unsteady from a run-in with an unfriendly plow, wobbles in my mouth.

I couldn't.

***

The night is crisp and cold on my pelt, the harvest air sweet as the leaves and crops ready to be torn from the earth at our paws. I feel the wind in my fur and shake myself off, looking up at the distant stars.

Rose presses up behind me. "Guess who's nowhere to be seen tonight?"

We don't even have to say it. The wayward daughter is already gone into the night, free as any spirit or feral.

"She's dating again, isn't she." I say.

Rose nods. "Won't be around aaaaall night. You know how she gets when things first start up." She says 'start up' as if it's some deadly disease and not the beginning of a relationship. She sticks her tongue out to emphasize it. "She probably doesn't remember we exist by now."

"Show some respect. It might work out this time." I wink. "Third time's the charm."

Oh, youngest sibling jokes. How I love them so.

Rose bumps my side. "I'm going to the Pantry. You want to come?"

I look up at the night sky again, and then back to her. The Pantry, warm and inviting, sounds good as ever, but tonight I crave something more than food. I tell myself I'm not going hunting for danger or feral Fauna, but in honesty, I don't know quite what I'm looking for. "I... I think I'm going to take a walk. Clear my mind a bit."

"You keep walking and your legs are going to fall out. Walking alone is for Ivy when she's mopey." Rose pouts, pressing her head against mine. My tail wags, but I refuse to be won over that easily. I spend most of my days around anyone and everyone, so she has no reason to complain.

"Since when do you use words like 'mopey'?" I ask. "Mopey is the least... big word ever. It's five letters long and sounds like a wet noodle."

"I think you mean least sesquipedalian word ever, and I'm scaling my vocabulary down for you commoners." She says, puffing her chest out. "You're welcome."

I shake my head. "See you soon, you big, fluffy goof."

"See you soon." she echoes, and we part ways. I watch her skip into town, and feel a strange sensation of longing in my chest. Usually, she would be off to Alabaster's and I would be heading to the Pantry myself, to speak with Ace or Anassa and enjoy some light drinks together. I exhale through my nostrils, debating a silent choice in my head, and then stumble off towards the forest.

The woods are quiet tonight, with few birds and fewer rodents. Even the bats are hushed, their shrill cries gone silent to allow only the soft hum of crickets to break the silence. I take in the tree air and think about everyone back in the Glade, detached from it all. My sisters. My friends. The town I've come to accept as a large, ridiculous family.

I know it all too well.

I stalk through the icy darkness, feeling the old Eudica itch come back again, but there's nothing to run to this time. I've given it all up for this. It's just the trees and I now, facing outwards towards a world past either of our reaches.

"This is the best place I could have put down roots," I admit to the empty air. "Just hard to believe this is it."

The undergrowth rustles again. I brace myself, looking for Gienah, but see two tall, furry ears disappear into the dark instead. A gray shape flashes across my line of vision, runs across the clearing, and disappears back into the bushes.

"Morgan?" I ask, though the Canira has already disappeared into the underbrush. I stick my snout down into the foliage, calling, "Are you there?"

"Not quite." the underbrush replies. "You may call me the Hunter. As far as you're concerned, I'm not here."
"Sounds like something someone who is here would say." I object, stuffing myself further into the bush. His golden eyes meet mine, his lithe but still intimidating form all bundled up in the bush, and then he rushes out the other side. "Best of luck." I whisper after him, "Hopefully you find somewhere to be."

"Holding conversation with a feral?"

I turn around to see Alabaster standing in the moonlight, the pale moon glint on his fur and his gaze old as time. I remember this from somewhere, I think, but I must admit our encounters have been brief and few in number. "I suppose so."

He circles me, pacing with a slow intensity that reminds me of Shea. I get the feeling he might not appreciate the comparison. "It's a nice night for a walk, isn't it?"

"Yes," I say, "It is."

My nose twitches like a rabbit's. He scents of something I know that Ivy could identify, if she were here, and I have an intense urge at once to comfort him or run away- one of the two. Perhaps both.

"What brings you out here?" I ask.

"Errands." he tells me. "The forest and I go way back. This land moves faster than the rapids, and yet like the rapids, it is bound to the shape of that which contains it. The players will change. The names of the trees will change, and the runs in their bark too. Yet... this land will never change. We will play this game until the day we die."

"You sound as if you're sick of it."

"No, no. I'm just ready to change the rules." His gaze turns on mine for the first time, and his pale amber eyes haunt me, blind me like twin moons. "Let's make this quick."

I am thrust skywards and I feel the piercing of flesh, a wailing escaping my body as I'm bought straight downwards, everything shattering with a quick crack.

***

I remember a face, rimmed eyes...

A hysteria fills me as I look down the dark tunnel ahead.

Numb.

Empty.

A familiar figure appears to me, someone I've known my whole life and yet never met. She haunts the edges of my dreams, watches me from the corners of my vision...

"It's been a while." I tell her, but my voice has left me.

She nods anyways. "Sorry." she tells me.

"Sorry." I echo, and though nothing comes from my mouth, or what must be my mouth, she nods again.

"We're going to be okay, I hope." she adds.

"You think so?"

Something like breath fills my lungs, and my whole body is alight, set ablaze by the onslaught of sensation. Like the river, it washes everything away, and I feel a distant sun sweep over me, surging with memory, with feeling...

I enter the second darkest timeline.