"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
She has been part of the forest for as long as she can remember, the plague of old days having stolen her mother from her. It was lonely at first, and at night when the sky is dark and all those silver stars look so cold, she can remember exactly how that had felt. How her heart had bent and broken, and how, eventually, she had filled those fissures with the gravel of half-truths that still sometimes wound her.
It’s not so lonely, the dark just makes it feel that way.
You don’t need a mother, you have the willows and their reaching branches.
You aren’t alone, see? The wolves will let you stay.
And the wolves did let her stay.
This body feels like home now, small and thickly muscled, dense gray and cornflower blue fur, heavy paws. She likes that she can slip through the forest unnoticed, that sometimes her snarling smile forces gazes away from her, chasing away eyes that wonder about a blue wolf. It hurts less than when invisibility hadn’t been her own choice, when, as a spindly-legged babe with plague-sick smeared across her mouth and over her chest, those same eyes had looked carefully elsewhere.
It is better on her own terms.
Recently though, the numbers of her pack have thinned, and with that loss of security and canid instincts urging her on, she finds her days spent in search of a new family. She craves the company and safety of others, misses the long aroo-howl of a successful hunt, and the distance from that which she used to be. Large and fragile, hooves and flat teeth, way too much swishy hair. So she is both startled and resentful when she discovers a new pack, and it seems to include a horse.
She so nearly leaves them, snarling her displeasure with flattened ears and hackles raised, but when no one seems to notice her fussing, she stays. She blames it on curiosity, that wolves would choose to be with a horse, something so ugly and fragile and imperfect. Do they not understand that they are better than this? She stays to understand, definitely not because she cares.
At first she keeps her careful distance, staying low and quiet and out of sight, nothing more than a lurking ghost or a flash of pale blue and dirty silver. But as the days pass and she watches this boy with his wolves, her wariness loses its jagged edges. It seems like he genuinely likes his wolves, which is something she still absolutely cannot fathom and requires more paws-on exploring. So one morning, as the wolves return to mill around and greet him, ears soft and tongues lolling, she joins them too. She is smaller than the others, and of course bluer, and she is so careful to make sure he notices her, but that he also notices she doesn’t notice him.
It is always better on her own terms.
the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight
Discovering that he could control and influence wolves had been a dangerous (but delightful) discovery for Tamlin when he was young. He had been practicing ever since - whenever he wasn’t pestering his family or pranking various members of Tephra underneath the moonlight when he was nothing but a skeleton.
His influence over the pack in Tephra has dwindled as the pack has gotten used to his presence. Sometimes he slips up and it’s only after he parts their company without a headache or feeling drained that he realizes that they could have harmed them. Perhaps his large, feathered wings help keep them at bay during such times - or they have grown so accustomed to him and his calming influence. He doesn’t make them move to his will, just sends out a stream of ‘we are friends’.
Recently, a blue wolf has joined his pack which is super cool. He wonders if her blue fur has anything to do with the magical waterfall in Tephra and his mind comes up with a hundred options for how she could have been blue (perhaps she had been born into a bed of blue flowers!! Perhaps she was a sky-wolf!) and yet not a single one of them is ‘perhaps she is a blue horse in a wolf’s body’.
She does not respond to his influence like the others, but Tamlin has studied the wolves he’s adopted and he does not pester her.
Although the wolves don’t ever respond to his words, Tamlin prattles on to them almost constantly. This has had the side effect of some of the younger wolves copying him, and grumbling and yipping almost constantly (much to the stallion’s amusement). He enjoys talking to them though, and lowers his muzzle to all those that come over to greet him so they might sniff out any new smells on him today. “Hello friends!! Thorn the Third you’re looking good, soon to be a daddy I bet you’re excited.” As he's greeting the others by their own unique, ridiculous names, he spots the blue wolf - closer than she has ever been before - and maybe he should ignore her but instead he calls out with delight. “Hello! You’re a pretty one, huh? What if I call you… water. No that’s not good. Um. Sky. Yeah! Hello Sky, so nice of you to join us.”
He doesn't move to approach her but now reaches down to nudge one of the youngest wolves, a pup from last year, who promptly rolls over to allow Tamlin to tickle his belly.
She cannot recall another time in her life when she felt nearly as baffled as she does now. Especially when that daft, hoofed beast starts speaking to the wolves she’s been trying to adopt herself into. Thorn the Third? Is he serious? She just stares at him, mouth slightly agape and eyes blank - and maybe it’ll just seem like some really awkward panting, but she snaps her jaws shut when she realizes anyway.
Her eyes wander, a shade of blue so pale they almost look clear, like sun-faded aquamarine stones who let all their color drain away. She is so busy reading the body language of the other wolves around her who genuinely seem to appreciate this boy and his friendly chatter, that she does not notice the moment his attention shifts onto her until the hairs along her spine raise softly in warning.
And then, not for the first time in as many minutes, her jaw drops again and she quite literally rolls those blue eyes in wordless exasperation. Water, he was going to call her WATER. She stares directly at him, trying so desperately hard to see whatever it is these other morons seem to see in him. And maybe, possibly, she kind of gets it as she watches the pup roll over and the boy obliges him with harmless belly rubs.
But it’s a kindness she has never seen before, a sincerity she doesn’t recognize and therefore tries to explain away. Except she cannot come up with a single thing he gets out of befriending wolves, except maybe fleas. Lord knows Thorn the Third over there seems itchy enough. So with those beautiful almond eyes narrowed, she sits to watch him, curling her plush blue tail around her feet.
“Yeah okay Bird, nice to meet you too.”
And realizes just a half second later, that wolves who aren’t horses pretending to be wolves, never speak. So she blinks, freezes, and then yips nonsensically.
the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight
It’s a victory that the blue wolf - Sky - does not run away but rather sits, as though she’s amused by his attempts to greet her. And then she speaks. At first, he doesn’t catch on. He’s too busy focusing on what she said. “Bird! Hey that’s not very ---” And then it clicks. The one thing that he couldn’t make his wolf-friends do was talk. No matter how hard he tried! He was learning what different howls and yips and barks meant through trial and error but talking was just something they could not do.
“WAIT!” His shout alerts Thorn the Third and Tamlin drops his head in a quick apology before his attention focuses on Sky. “You’re not a wolf!” Another pause. “Well, you are, but I’ve got enough siblings to know a wolf shapeshifter when I see one.” These words, he realizes after the fact, would be absolute nonsense to someone who doesn’t know his siblings and how thoroughly wolves were woven into their identities.
He decides against explaining right now, however, and just stares at her with joy and disbelief. The stories about his family would surely already muddle this already confusing situation up even more and he is trying very hard not to ramble and seem like a complete idiot for not guessing that the blue wolf wasn't a real wolf in the first place.
“Sorry about the made-up names, I didn’t realize I could just ask. None of the others complained about what I named them.” He glances over to Thorn the Third and Sparkle Ear and wonders whether they had any objections. Of course not, those were great names! “What is your name? Mine’s Tamlin, but you can call me Bird if you really want.” The insult he felt just moments ago was exaggerated and he finds his smile again - wondering if it’s possible to befriend a wolf he has absolutely no way of controlling.
There are a thousand things running through her mind, a thousand thoughts in a thousand different directions, but the strongest one says run. She stands like she might, that beautiful blue tail uncurling from her feet as she takes a step back, her ears flattening. There is such instant vulnerability in the way he looks at her now, in the way he knows what she had meant to keep a secret. Her eyes flash and her lip lifts in a snarl, but it is fear instead of rage that fuels her graceless, lurching movements.
But then he says the only possible thing capable of making her freeze in her snarling retreat. Well, you are, but I’ve got enough siblings to know a wolf shapeshifter when I see one. She pauses, and there is an almost softness in the way she watches him now, curious and confused and with her hackles settling along her spine. Does that mean he is like her? Or that one of his siblings is like her? It is a terribly corrosive kind of thought, because the very moment she first considers it she can feel the seeds of hope (and belonging) being planted in her chest.
And then he apologizes, and she can feel all that built up armor around her heart fall completely to shambles around her paws as she watches him. No one has ever apologized to her for anything, because no one has ever cared. Whatever puzzle he had seemed before he now seems twice as much, and she finds herself padding up to sit quietly in front of him - much nearer than she had dared to before. There is no snarl on her face, and the only movement of her ears is an uncertain swivel as she warily looks up at him. She thinks she is still trying to decide what to do now, but the decision was made the moment she chose not to bolt back into the woods.
She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it again as a wave of wild uncertainty floods through her. Maybe running would be better, almost certainly it would be easier than this is. But she firms up her resolve and looks up at him with an expression that is bafflingly part scowl and part gentle uncertainty. “My name is Winslow.” The words are a little slow and a little staccato, like she’s taking careful steps over thin ice with every expectation that it will crack and drown her. “Tamlin is better than Bird.” She means it sincerely, because it reminds her of the rain somehow - like if raindrops could speak, that’s the word they would sing when they landed on the leaves and bounced away again. Tam-lin, Tam-lin. Her tail swishes over her paws again. “Are you a shifter like me?”
the devil in my arms said feed me to the wolves tonight
For a moment, Tamlin thinks she’s going to run - and it’s a relief when she doesn’t - instead, she comes closer to sit in front of him. It warms his smile a little, but he tries not to react too much, out of fear of scaring her off. It feels like a win, though, and he feels it lightening his mood and heart.
And he learns her proper name - Winslow - and instantly likes it. Much better than Blue.
When she asks whether he’s a shifter too, his smile fades. Those damn sisters of his and hogging up all the fun. “I wish!” There’s a very evident pout in the way he forms the words, but instead of sulking, he continues to explain. “Some of my siblings are, but I wasn’t so lucky. I was born a wolf, which is a whole thing, but turned into a foal and haven’t been able to make the switch since.” It’s always a bit of a trip talking about that with someone not of his family, it was just part of his history but it certainly was a funny little fact.
“I can just…” He tries to think of the right word for his connection to wolves - the word that doesn’t make him sound like a total ass taking advantage of a whole species. “Well I guess ‘control’ wolves but I all I really do is let them know I’m not food and then after I hung around with this pack enough they didn’t need to be reminded and they sort of adopted me.” Tamlin tilts his head in thought a little bit in thought, his smile growing with a bright laugh when he corrects himself. “Or maybe they just tolerate me but I like to think they care a little bit.”
He smiles fondly over at the pack, who are relaxing all around them now, for a moment - genuine care for them all softening his shining gaze.
“If you decide to hang around, maybe you can meet my sisters! I bet they'd love to meet another shifter.” He sure was - even if he was just a little bit (okay, very) jealous.
