Our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
CREVAN
Now and then he roams as nomadic creatures tend to do. Maybe it’s the immortality that keeps him from resting peacefully tonight; usually Crevan is content to just curl up beside Sabrina and share her warmth. The female Hellhound is growing on him, not just a pup herself anymore. They synchronize well.
But she can’t replace the past, and she certainly isn’t Merida.
Just like in his dreams, the memory of the fox-shifter haunts him in these restless hours. It’s like she’s there, watching him and all that he does, judging him silently while asking, where is Shiye. The moaning winds between Taiga’s trees were all the same: where is Shiye. Bitter cold and lashing storms in Icicle Isle all moaned in unison: where is Shiye. He wanted to howl and rage that Shiye was gone, gone like his mother before him because living immortally meant living in constant pain.
The seasons flew by after Merida went away. Shiye outgrew Crevan, and one night similar to this one the wolf-shifter saw his son for the very last time. He tries to outrun those memories but they nip at his heels when he goes, driving him on in a frenzy that never ends because his power is able to replenish the broken cells in his body almost as quickly as he kills them off.
On through Nerine, a pale blur that streaks through quiet Taiga, here and gone in a flash across the border of Loess and Hyaline until at last he breaks, pale chest heaving, ribs expanding, into a slow lope through the Forest. The faint sparkle of a fat, heavy moon illuminates overused trails. Crevan slows to a brisk trot, the wicked curve of his nails almost silent as they dig and lift rhythmically while he goes along.
Merida.
The bodily scent of her lingers here. Faint, yet strong enough that he stops entirely to lift his narrow mouth and test the direction of the wind. One of his paws crosses overtop the other as he turns and darts off the beaten path into darker parts of the wood, sinuous and deadly looking as he goes. He thinks of nothing but finding her, and when he does there’s only the black glint of his eyes when he peers out from the shadows to watch her sleep.
@[Merida]