what's left to lose, anyways?

Chapter 5: Running With the Wolves

~o:O:o~

"A gift, a curse

They track and hurt

Say can you dream

In nightmares seems

A million voices,

Silent dreams

Where hope is left

So incomplete."

~Running with the Wolves, AURORA

~o: Λ :o~

Altaïr stumbled slightly as he topped the last rise over the grassy hills. He clutched his rifle in his hands, scanning the area around him for Vex as he did so. He had woken in a cold sweat the night before, from a nightmare of the newly crowned Taken Queen and her thralls around him. That dream still made him uneasy. He had found out the hard way that dreams in the Infinite Forest were true, more often than not.

His hand rested on a small pouch at his side as he bit his lip nervously, He had lost his light two days before, and Farid had yet to recover from the loss.

Up here, he was vulnerable to any Hobgoblin or Harpy for miles.

Right now, if he got shot, that would be it for him.

He needed to find Osiris.

"Need often comes about in this strange realms, my son."

Altaïr whipped his head around, leveling the barrel of his scout against the newcomer. His shoulders sagged slightly when he saw who had approached him: Osiris, his former mentor and master, and quite possibly the most powerful Warlock alive.

If the Tower would acknowledge his existence.

Altaïr quickly lowered his gun from Osiris, issuing out an apology as he did so, but Osiris cut him off with the raise of his hand. Sagira was nowhere to be seen.

"I heard you call for her, but I could not reply," he answered simply when Altaïr's questioning gaze drifted to where the Ghost used to be. "Sagira is resting, due to the sudden...change in this world. I could have found you faster had you stayed in one place," he said wryly. Altaïr's lips twitched upwards in a slight smile in response.

"It would be easier had you chosen a safer place to reside, in all honesty."

Osiris chuckled quietly at Altaïr's small joke, before turning and walking down the hill they stood atop of.

"Come," he called to him. "I will show you what you seek."

•》》》~:{Λ}:~《《《•

May 3rd, 1219

1,489 years before Present Day

Masyaf, Present-Day Syria

9:03 PM, EEST (Eastern European Summer Time)

•》》》~:{Λ}:~《《《•

"You will not go. Absolutely not."

Darim could hear his mother's voice through the walls of his room. He lay prostrate on his bed, blankets cast about carelessly around him. The room was rather stuffy, despite the open window and the rapidly cooling desert night. He shifted uncomfortably; he was twenty-three and yet still bound to this household. He chuckled quietly as he shifted yet again. Maria Thorpe-Ibn La'Ahad was never quite ready to let her son go completely, not when he was gone so often on missions issued by his own father. And sometimes by Malik, of whom he still referred to as Uncle, much to Maria's dismay.