the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight
{drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
This world was strange and different and…unsavory.
It was the only word that Woolf could think of to truly articulate how he felt about this new version of Beqanna—one perhaps more dangerous than the last, albeit quieter, but one where he was given no tools to protect his family. He was placed upon this earth as an anchor—not just a child, but one given a very clear purpose. To close the gap, to stabilize the dynamics between Life and Death so often disrupted by the stubborn souls within his family. So many of his bloodline had been arrogant, reckless, foolish. They had fallen into Death’s trap and then demanded an escape. They had manipulated timelines, pulled back the fabric of the Beyond and the Here until the very threads of it had grown bare.
Bright and he had been a last resort to fix what had been ruined.
They had been placed to anchor those souls to Life and help bring stability to the bloodline—and they had been given great powers to help them in their pursuit. Magic. Powerful magic that had rattled in his bones from a young age, but not without cost. They could use it, but they paid the toll each time. So Bright and he had worked together the entire expanse of their lives to protect the family, to keep them alive. When war had brewed upon the horizon, they had grabbed who they could and pulled them into a safe haven.
(Not that all of them had agreed. Woolf still grew exasperated when he thought of how ungrateful they had been, how hard they fought—as if he was not saving them.)
But now? Now they had finally made their own way back to Beqanna but stripped clean. For the first time since, well, ever, Woolf was but a stallion. He could not feel his family, flung out along the coast and the forests like constellations. He did not feel the pull of them and the desire (nay, the need) to look after them. He couldn’t feel them at all—not even Bright who was as much part of him as his own limb.
It was disconcerting and uncomfortable. Enough that the stallion found his mood darkened, his mouth pulled into a frown as he walked along the edges of the Forest, alone as he usually was. It wasn’t until he saw the mare that he paused, his gaze narrowing as he studied her. In another time, he may have dipped into her mind as casually as he glanced at her (little would he knew that he would not meet a vulnerable, open mind but a magician more powerful, more practiced than he). Now, he was simply left to his own devices of observation and conversation. Like he said before, unsavory.
Still, he was curious enough that he walked up toward her, dipping his head formally.
“Hello. My name is Woolf.”
Woolf
@[Sunday]
