She hadn’t meant to track him here like this, like a predator chasing prey, like one of his wolves gone completely feral. But when day had found them again and the sun had illuminated even the furthest corners of her hiding places, she had emerged to find his familiar face almost entirely unchanged. She did not understand how he had survived the viciousness of those twisted wrathful beasts, not when she had been driven into every form she could imagine to hide and survive.

Only once had she fought, and the tangle of poorly healed scars at the base of her neck where it hollowed and became shoulder is the only testament to how poorly that had gone. She had been careful not to let herself be cornered into a situation like that again, instead taking to the trees as a falcon or disappearing into deep burrows as a field mouse. For a while she had even lived as a bat in a cave with a hundred others, but eventually the sound of sharp chirps and chittering had driven her to other places.

She’d only thought of him once in all that time. Once when the dark was still new and she could not find him and she’d wondered if he had already fallen. Then the memory of him faded as she disappeared into more basal minds, finding ways to survive in a world not made for it. Losing her sense of self, of sanity, losing her grip on what it meant to live again.

Living was different than surviving.
She had survived, but not without other losses.

But she is certain as she lopes through the shadows nearby, those pale blue eyes a study of wonder as they remain fixed on his face, that if anyone knows how to live it’s him. He’s humming, actually humming, and if she could roll her eyes at him she is sure she would. Except that it is also that same levity that draws her to him irrevocably, his lightness a thing she wants to tether herself to. When was the last time she had been content? Happy? She frowns, though on her wolf it looks more like a grim snarl.

She lopes ahead, a mottled mix of black and steel grey and pale winter blue as she is momentarily distracted by the way he lifts his wings. They are all pale and soft feather, illuminated bright in the warm spring sunshine. Beautiful on him, she supposes reluctantly but does not dwell on it. She darts carefully to intersect his path, pausing as though she is startled to see him there. As though she hadn’t followed him all the way from his home just so she could understand the roots of his happiness. It is happiness, isn’t it?

She sits where she had paused across his path, her tail wrapping around her body to settle over her paws. It is the same way she had sat in front of him on their first encounter, and she does it to will him to remember her. To recall the way she had called him Bird after he had called her Sky, or that she had eventually given him her real name. He is still the only one she’s ever shared that with. Her head cocks slightly to the side, and when she speaks softly to him, made guarded by that desire in her chest to be remembered by him, her teeth flash just shy of a smile that almost curls her lips. “Hello Tamlin.”

the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight

His smile is a match lit and thrown into the tinder of her chest. It is something warm and bright and more earnest than she can possibly fathom, and it is there on his face entirely for her sake, entirely because she is there at all. It creates some kind of war inside her, some kind of nameless tempest as her own pale blue eyes flash with something vulnerable and then darken again with a wariness she drags up around herself like armor.

She wants to be braver than that, than this creature who guards herself against smiles, but her heart stays clenched like a stone fist inside her chest reminding her that she shouldn’t care.

Scolding her, because she does care.

Winslow! He says, and her ears flatten for one uncertain heartbeat because she does not understand why her heart leapt inside her chest at being named, being remembered. Being more than the nameless wolf she had lived as for years, a face easily unnoticed and even more easily forgotten. Yet here he is with it like a gift on his tongue and delivered with a smile that makes those soft brown eyes so oddly endearing.

She stands, needing movement to hide the way he has her feeling so unsteady, but the moment she does there is something in the air that shifts between them, a tang of magic that has her delicate ears flicking back uncertainly. For a moment she does not recognize that this tawny wolf-pup is still her Tamlin, and there is an uneasy snarl that creeps soundlessly across her mouth as she eases a few steps closer to understand.

But this laugh and the way he spins as though he is bounding and weightless, made so by the joy he seems to keep trapped inside his chest, it could be no one else. She frowns and sits, and everything about her steel and powder blue face is a scowl. Her eyes, her brow, her delicate ears - even the crinkle of her dark nose as he looks up at her and speaks with amused eyes that resonate differently on a face so young. A moment ago she had thought him handsome. Now he is a child and this tangle in her chest is something confusing.

She reaches out with a heavy paw to knock him over, letting the gangly weight of his young body do most of the tipping work. With that frown still etched into every inch of her expression, she stands again to reach out and sniff him. He still smells like Tamlin, but a boy Tamlin, a young Tamlin. “I liked it better when you were bigger.” She says, her muzzle in the thick fur of his neck, her breath against his cheek. She nuzzles him, and the movement is born of a kind of uncertainty that has her pulling back again to watch him with a new wariness she wears like armor. “I don’t understand. Are you a child?”

the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight

The frown is so uncharacteristic on his face that she might have frowned right back at him if not for the way his confession had the very opposite effect on her. Her delicate face goes very still, no sign of movement in a mouth that now aches to smirk at him at the realization that this man has such specific magic. “The baby version of animals.” She repeats, and even despite her best efforts, there is laughter dancing in the backs of those pale blue eyes as she works hard again to rein in her amusement. “A very useful skill, I’m sure.” And then, much to her horror, there is nothing she can do to stop that flash of wolfish smile from dancing across her lips - a look of genuine delight and mingled affection.

It’s very good that his next idea is something so profoundly terrible that it wipes the laughter clear off of her face. “And if I don’t?” She asks, wariness like armor she cannot help but to draw up around herself. She doesn’t mean for her tone to sound so suddenly sharp, but his request is something that untethers old, buried fears from someplace deep inside her chest.

Until -

Until she notices the softness in those wide brown eyes, the smile in his voice when he tells her he wouldn’t mind if she nuzzled him again. She blinks, blinks again, and then lets her gaze drop to some meaningless place in the forest beside them while her thoughts unravel like falling raindrops. The easiest thing would be to just turn and leave and make herself forget about him. He couldn’t possibly understand what a request it was for her to change to her born-form for him - as far as she knew, her mother had been the last one to see her that way, and her mother had left her behind.

She stands suddenly, feeling like escape is the only real answer here. But then he stands too, shifting back into that body she had first seen him in, and that undeniable gravity feels like tether stretched between them. She frowns, and if he is clever he will notice that there is some kind of pain in her eyes when they land against his so briefly. But then she takes a breath and hardens her face, and reaches for a magic that feels unfamiliar now.

She shifts without a word, and as a horse she is just as small and unremarkable as she’d always imagined, something slight and refined and plain except for perhaps the transparent horn glittering iridescent from her forehead. It was longer than she remembered, and heavier. As a girl it had been a short, blunt nub. But now it was a long spire with a point that glittered as sharp as any canine tooth. She swings her face back to lock her gaze on Tamlin, and there is something defensive in her gaze, something like a challenge as she dares him to be disappointed by this black and pale blue unicorn. To leave as her own mother had.

She doesn’t mean to let her gaze drift back to his soft, gossamer wings, doesn’t mean to remember his invitation from moments ago that she could touch him again if she wanted. Her breath catches but she doesn’t move closer - doesn’t move at all except to flick her ears uncertainly. “Well?” She asks, and her voice in this form is something less harsh, less growl than her wolf. “Am I what you were expecting?”

the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight

She thinks she might be holding her breath when he takes a step closer, and her eyes are suddenly a mixture of hard worry and wary uncertainty, all trapped inside a blue clearer than any unearthed gem. Not for the first time, she finds herself wondering what he thinks as those kind, curious eyes wander searchingly over her face and up to her horn where they linger just just a moment longer. But, differently than usual, she finds she cares about these quiet conclusions he must be drawing.

Except it is as though he reads her mind, or maybe just that hint of wary vulnerability where it traces fissures of softness into a face otherwise made of stone, because he calls her beautiful in a voice that leaves no room for doubt. Twice. It is a reverence she is so vastly unfamiliar with, and for one single second it hits her like a force, crushing her until she takes one single step backwards, suddenly more doe than wolf. But none of this feels mocking, none of it unkind, and when she freezes again and searches his face, there is only a familiar kind of warmth that draws her back in.

“That is ridiculous.” She says, and she thinks she meant it to be hard or defensive, but again this wolf is more like a doe, and those eyes are something soft and unsure and flooded with thoughts she holds close to her chest. Beautiful? If there was a reflection nearby to examine, in that instant she would do so. She would trace those willowy lines and that charcoal dark of skin not quite soft enough to be velvet, of that pale wintry blue like a frozen glaze over her eartips and her lips and the stretch of leg beneath her knees. She would examine her eyes and wonder what he thought he saw there, examine her frown and likely frown more deeply. She would not look at that beautiful spiral on her brow, like glass or crystal, refracting light and color over the dark skin below it.

He reaches for her and she is surprised by the desire that wells up like a tide inside her, an urgent need to reach back and touch him, breathe in a scent she has only ever imagined. Floral, summery? Or would he smell like his wolves, like the salt of dried sweat from his humid home?

In the next second she knows, because she finds her wolf again. She is bold and unafraid - terrified as she pushes in past that gentle gesture to let her nose rest near the crook of his shoulder right beside his wing. She is so close, so close, and yet suddenly it feels like it’ll never be close enough. “Not so bad.” She says, and the words are cut short, staccato in the breathless way she forces them out past the sudden racing of her heart. “Do you like it? Being the same height?” She meant to turn her head to find his eyes, but instead she is a woman possessed, reaching for the downy softness of that beautiful wing with lips that taste the sunshine on all the nearest feathers.

There is some part of her that knows she is too close, taking too much, but when she does finally turn her face to look at him, she makes no effort to step away. She doesn’t want to be away, doesn’t want distance when she’s still only just discovering what this closeness feels like. Her nose is against his neck, pushing aside the long, flowered strands of red mane to discover the stark paleness beneath, all while carefully not meeting his gaze because it feels too new, too vulnerable. “I am glad you made it out of the dark, Tamlin.”

the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight

It does not escape her notice that as her lips seek and find the feathers of one single, beautiful wing, Tamlin shifts to make it easier to reach more. She pauses a moment, surprised but not hesitant, and feels something indescribable ignite in the pit of her belly. It is all the invitation she needs to explore more of him, to touch her mouth to his neck and his hair, to trace the curve of his handsome jaw only to discover shyness again.

And then his nose is in her mane too, his breath a welcome heat where it lingers just above on her black velvet skin. There is a blush that creeps over her, a literal blush that follows in the wake of skin prickled by the sensation of curious goosebumps. Her coat shifts beneath his mouth, the color at first a deep burgundy so close to the true black shade that it is almost indiscernible until it fades slowly to a sweet, soft pink.

But she is completely oblivious to it as it spreads gently outwards, even stealing into some of the tangles in her mane. Color changing was never something she learned how to control, and like a muscle unused, it was left to atrophy. But now with his lips on her skin and this uncertain ache inside her chest, the ability revives.

“Maybe?” She repeats, and her voice is something smaller than she intends it to be - a whisper too soft to even carry a snowflake aloft. He gulps and it is instinctive now to reach for him, to press her lips to his neck until he laughs and kisses her and suddenly her mouth is a gasp pressed to his warm, beautiful skin.

A kiss.
She pulls back to look at him, and at no moment does she consider that this might look like she is pulling away from him. But she is surprised and confused and dying from this ache inside her chest that is demanding she never know anyone but him. That Tamlin is her mate, even though neither of them are wolves. It does not change this need to be his, or for his heart to belong to no one but her.

Except this feeling is something that chafes inside her chest, and when her eyes find his face again they are filled with the quiet fear of this, of something new. In all of her life, she has never been wanted in any capacity. She has been like a ghost, like the sun or the moon but never both. A thing that comes and goes in perpetuity but never truly stays. “I can’t.” She tells him, though her eyes say something entirely different as they wander his face again, fall to those lips she can still feel pressed against her in a kiss.

But then instead of turning away from him she takes another quiet step toward him. “I don’t know if I should stay or go.” There is a gentle furrowing of her brow beneath her forelock, a frown on her lips that is entirely some kind of fragile uncertainty. “No one has ever wanted me to stay before.”

the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight