FSE

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Markus’s fingers brushed along the cool, moist walls, feeling where the bricks gave way to natural stone and earth, picking out how this section had likely been added on after the construction of the rest of the manor. The passageways within the Oryon manor back home were small, and close, and tight, and subtle; this one felt almost like a shipping corridor, the foxwolf able to stretch his arms all the way out to both sides and just barely be able to touch the walls, while he thought he could detect shallow grooves within the semisoft earth itself beneath his footpaws.

His ears flicked back to the sound of Rhea’s voice, the strange quality of the space tossing her words all around him: “Can you see alright?”

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Foxes are nocturnal,” he explained over his shoulder. “I haven’t sacrificed any of my night vision by being born as a hybrid, and I-”

-bumped his toe against something jutting out from the ground. Markus gasped, fumbled a bit, nearly lost his step, and then caught himself against the other wall; Rhea slid in alongside him, one paw brushing over his shoulder, coming down his back, and then looping around to take him by the wrist, fingers gently clasping.

“The tunnel curves somewhat,” she said, nonplussed. “During construction this was a servants’ and workers’ entrance. It saw use while the gardens outside the manor were being established and maintained.”

“Gardens?” Markus twitched his paw, testing her grip. Her fingers lightened; he shifted again, the points of contact along his wrist seeming to sizzle with heat, that entire arm feeling warm. He wondered if she were as aware of the touch as he was, but - it’s for helping me find my way, he told himself. I haven’t been here before, and she seems to come here regularly, so it’s only natural… “I don’t recall seeing anything like that, other than the courtyard.”

“You arrived from the wrong direction.” She spoke out into the darkness. Markus blinked, able to discern the shape of her head, her muzzle, her tall, thick ears. An Alenari wolfess through and through, built for the rocky slopes and wind-blasted valleys, painted for the deep shadows in between trees and along bare stone surfaces. Aurelia would stick out here as much as Markus’s mother would against regular foxes. “The rear of the manor, above the wall, looks out over a wide, tended wood favored by the previous rulers, as a way to… well, you’ll see.” Her fingers tightened, just barely. “We’re almost there. The mouth of the cave is covered with old vines, but I’ve cut away the corner so we can slip through.”

“I can see the light coming in. You can let go of me now.”

“The ground is treacherous in spots,” she warned, but did so. The sizzling remained for a few seconds longer. “This area was originally a shallow valley, and over time it’s been filled in with runoff. The earth is naturally soft and soaks up any rainfall or floodwater.”

“I bet it stinks…”

“Sometimes. It hasn’t rained for about a month and a half now, but with summer that’ll change.” Rhea’s silhouette came into fractured clarity against the shafts of warm sunlight that broke their ways through the curtain of vines, little shattered-glass shadows and points of illumination spreading out around the walls and floor. She strode up, ducked her head a little bit - Markus did the same, but found that he didn’t need to - and then turned to push her back against the natural door, leaning it open with the familiar crackling of dried leaves and old wood. “Everything flows back into the stream, which then goes back into the river down that way.”

His next question tickling his lips, Markus raised an arm against the vines to keep them from pricking and tugging at his fur, then stepped back out into the chill of the evening. The air felt a bit drier than what he was used to back home, and he imagined that he could taste the rocky, salty minerality of the nearby mountains, looming over the horizon as though the edge of the earth had been crumpled up.

“So what did-”

But then he did see. Tall trees stood on their own or in little clusters, all of the ground brush and foliage cleared away to leave clean, sharp spaces in between, small buds of wildflowers waving in the gentle breeze close to the ground where they poked up from the blanket of thick, soft clover. The ground squished just slightly beneath his footpaws, recognizing his presence without trying to consume him as he had expected: it felt more like a dense, luxurious carpet than anything, the scent of fresh, verdant foliage swirling around him, for the moment hiding the warmth of gardenia and spice.

He felt like… like when he was a pup, almost, running around the greens and courtyard at the Oryon manor with his brother, playing make-believe, dancing around, pretending he was a character from his favorite story. Lost for a moment, the foxwolf floated forward, following the faint suggestions of trail weaving in between the trees where the clover tamped down, and the short grass in between spread out. The wolfess brushed up alongside him again, and for that moment it was not Markus and Rhea, begrudgingly engaged, but rather just - them.

Us, he thought. It didn’t matter who. Just the trees standing around in this little glade, fairy-tale in its regularity, clearly artificial but lovely enough that he could forget about that. The wind blew again, rustling the leaves overhead, tickling his fur like a gentle exhaled breath.

Rhea rested her paw along a smooth trunk, claws teasing at where the papery bark had begun to peel away. She pursed her lips, thought for a moment; her ears flicked, one angling out towards the rest of the wood, the other pitching towards Markus, following him as he stepped around. Her tail swung, held still as though lifted on a string, then swung again. She tilted her head a little bit, looked at him, looked away, blinked, looked back.

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

And then, it was no longer them, no longer us - and instead just Markus and Rhea again. He looked around the fairytale glade, the magic sapping away, the beauty still there.

Immediately he thought of Lura. “Someone… else?”

“With whom you’d rather be.” The bark peeled easily away. Rhea peered in at the bared wood, rolled the fibrous material between her fingers, then tossed it aside. Silver eyes bounced across Markus’s muzzle again. “Unless I was mistaken, I did smell it on you at our engagement. Another male…” She paused to think again. “Mustelid, it was?”

Wolves… “Yes,” he answered, and found to his own surprise that it was still true. Something nestled deep within his heart strained, and pulled, and tugged - and Markus felt the searing sting of burgeoning loneliness. He missed Lura. And it was his fault, wasn’t it? “There is.”

To his surprise, though, Rhea smirked. Her ears remained up, her tail swung again, and her short whiskers tucked forward. She leaned around the tree to peer at him from the other side. “Ah, there always is, isn’t there?”

The way she said it… Markus paused where he stood by another cluster of trunks. “You too, then?”

The gentle tp-tp-tp of claws drumming along bared wood floated with the breeze. Rhea turned her head again. “There’s… a lioness I met at the local chapel, and…”

“Wait. You weren’t joking about that? Back in the…?”

“You were?” She looked him over. “Hm. Disappointing. Will you tell me about him?”

His heart thumped again. Markus stepped away from the trees, slid his paws into his pockets, and looked down at the ground, where his footsteps left little impressions in the clover behind him. Soft as the breeze, Rhea’s scent wafted around him; he leaned against the same tree, her around the back, him with his tail curling lightly about the trunk.

Then he turned his head. “You first?”

“Hmm.” His ears followed her shifting, as she too leaned against the trunk. Back to back, separated by about a foot of living heartwood, paper bark catching in the threads of his clothing… “Her name is Osa. She arrived from Maldeth last year alongside another - ah, she’s a lioness… and he is Sorrel. He shaves his mane; at a distance you would think he is also a lioness, or a… puma, perhaps.”

“He sounds cute.”

“They both are. They are perfect for one another. She is… loud, and brash, and bold, and he’s shy. Reserved. Quiet. Osa speaks enough for both of them, but Sorrel often communicates with his expressions, and his eyes, and-”

Markus turned his head over his other shoulder. “And you like him too? You want to kiss him on his little lion lips?”

Rhea laughed out loud, the noise like birdsong in the quiet of the wood. “Want to? Markus, I have. Both of them. I was a little… unsure, at first, since - I mean, two of them? Both, at the same time? But they’re open to it, and they’ve welcomed me like nobody else, and… they’re wonderful, and perfect for each other, and…”

She trailed off. Markus filled the silence. “For you, too?”

“...It’s barely been half a year for us. It’s far too early to tell, at that, and then… besides, it’s… there’s…”

“What is it?”

“You know what. I’m already engaged, to you, and propriety won’t allow me to break that.”

Markus’s heart danced again. He blinked, pushed off from the tree, and turned around. Rhea shifted, turned to look at him, then looked away again. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, still leaning back against the tree.

The foxwolf strode around so that she would have to look at him. “Why not?”

But Rhea met his eyes, huffed, and scooted around the trunk. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I certainly hope I would.”

“No, I mean - it’s been explained to you, Markus. Your title is your birthright, by blood. How many people can say that they were technically the Crown Prince of Maldeth?”

“That doesn’t-”

“For only a few years, sure, but still. Not only that, but you bear both Kalla and Oryon blood.”

“And expectations, and responsibilities. Neither of which I want.”

“But you will still carry those out, right? Because you have to.” Finally she, too, pushed away from the tree, and spun to face him. “All of this is yours, without cost or burden, because you were born as yourself. As Markus. Meanwhile I - I am a Thorn. My father is the Viscount, so honorably, gratefully appointed by your mother, Countess Oryon. A borrowed title, which will expire upon his death, should I not marry you. It is what I have to do. And as such, I will.”

For another moment Markus could only stare at her, at her bristling hackles, her splayed ears, her tail sticking straight out. Gradually her fur began to flatten down - and then the laugh bubbled up from inside of him, and her upper lip curled slightly back. She spun around again and trudged along one of the paths.

Markus clapped a paw to his head in disbelief, bustling to catch up with her. “Didn’t you just tell me that you don’t want to go through it?”

“Yes! Of course I don’t! But I will.”

“Just for the title?”

“Is that not what all arranged marriages are for, Markus? All the benefit with none of the investment?” She glanced sideways at him. The path wound back and forth among the trees, following the gentle incline of the filled valley down towards where the stream could be heard burbling nearby.

“I don’t think I see the issue. Why can’t you just - go and be with your lions? Marry one of them instead so you no longer have to marry me? Or both of them. In Oryon we have a Church of Vaska, we could-”

“I fully intend to go through with our marriage, Markus, even though I’d much rather not.” Rhea glanced sideways at him. At least she had slowed to a more reasonable pace, and no longer did her scent bear the sharp spice of simmering annoyance. Not as much. “And I know you don’t either, but still you will. Right? Because you have to. I have to, and I will.”

“Don’t pretend to know me. Why are you going to go through with it?”

“Am I speaking another language? Because it’s what’s right.”

“Because someone else expects it of you? Rhea - what is right for you?”

She stopped, abruptly enough that he bumped into her and stumbled back. Rhea did not budge, instead crossing her arms in front of her chest again; she closed her eyes, took in a breath, held it, and then slowly let it drift back out through her nose. Her fur visibly smoothed with the motion; she wet her lips, swallowed, and then opened her eyes, looking out across the stream - the lake - that unfolded before them.

Markus looked as well. Small, shallow waves lapped and licked against one another and the shore, the soft smacking of the water joining the breeze and sounds of cicadas and birds within the wood. Overhead a puffy cloud passed before the sun, cloaking the colors of the world in a thin veil. The wolfess shook her head.

“I don’t know. Not yet.” She sighed again, glanced over, hesitated, and then held a paw out, fingers up.

Markus looked down at it, then at her muzzle, then down again. Slowly, unsure, he reached out and placed his paw in hers. Her fingers wrapped around him, then turned, slid up in between his own, squeezed.

“I want it to be this. But I just don’t think it is.”

“We could…” There was no sizzling this time. Just a sharp, focused awareness of her touching him, of the warmth of her paw around his own. Markus squeezed back, then pulled his paw away. She let him. “Just be friends, I suppose?”

Now Rhea scoffed. “And now you’re trying to defend the idea to me? You don’t know what you want either, do you, Markus?”

“No. But I have some idea, I think. And you clearly do, too. What’s stopping us from reaching out for those, then?”

“You tell me. If not for that, then - explain it to me. Why are you even here? Why did you come all this way, when I assume everything you want is back in Oryon? Certainly not to be friends with me, your arranged fiancée?”

Markus thought about that, as he had been since first walking through the doors of the Thorn manor. He looked around himself, looked at Rhea, and then strode down towards the lakeshore, until the thick clover and grass gave way to small, rounded pebbles nestled within thin silt. When he turned around again Rhea had already begun to follow him and was barely further than an arm’s length away.

“Truthfully? I… don’t know either. I suppose I thought that… things would just… well, work themselves out.”

“They never do.” Rhea moved to sit down on the shore there, tail wrapping around her legs. She pushed her paws back across the gravel, fingers pressing softly into the shore, footpaws reaching out towards where the water lapped. “If you want anything done, you have to do it yourself.”

Across the lake another breeze blew, dancing over the subtle waves. The cicadas rose and fell, occasionally punctuated by all of those other sounds. At least for a while Markus thought he might be able to forget about all of that, Oryon back home and then the expectations placed upon himself and Rhea here, at his side… he sighed, looked down, and then sat down next to her.

“Will you tell me more about your lions?”

“No.” She nudged him with a shoulder. “You’ll just have to meet them yourself. Will you tell me about your mustelid?”

Again he thought. Distantly, he realized that it felt strange to be here with her at his side, instead of Lura’s smaller, sleeker shape, leaning up against him. “No. You’ll just… have to meet him yourself.”

I hope.

~ ~ ~

The Thorn Manor housed baths further down in the structure, heated water piping in from buried springs closer to the mountains. After returning through the same tunnel, Rhea lightly clutching his wrist to guide him, Markus slid in to unwind and relax for a bit. He could feel the grit and touch of the natural minerals dissolved within the spring sliding across his fur, digging into place as he rubbed and washed using the bar of thick, chunky soap, alleged by one of the servants to have been made by a craftsman down in town specifically on commission for Rhea. So Markus sniffed at it, and decided that this was true enough. It did give a nice shimmering shine to his fur, though he did not appreciate having to pick little bits of herbs and flowers out afterwards.

On his way back to his quarters he requested stationery from one of the servants in the hall, who bowed their head and murmured something about speaking with the master of the house before bustling off. Some minutes later there was a knock on his door and he received what he had requested, and then sat for some twenty minutes at the desk beneath the window, hoping he had one of those little plants like Rhea did, trying to sift through all the different thoughts in his head.

“Dearest Mother,” he had begun, and then “Dear”; “Hello”; “Greetings”; “Mother”... then decided that he should figure out what it was he wanted to even say in the first place… then at the bottom of the page, simply wrote out Lord Lura Strade. of Rowan. And for a moment, looking at the shapes of the letters, connecting those to the sound of the words, it all felt a little bit more real.

What was his original name? Miska Calador… That one looked fake. He wasn’t even sure how to spell it, and addressing a letter to that name would get him nowhere. But - certainly he has moved on by now, hasn’t he? After all the things I said to him, why would he want to hang around for my return?

_ _

“Please tell the little otter fellow not to go anywhere until I come back.” He crossed that out.

_ _

But… was I really so far in the wrong? I-

_ _

And then another knock on the door thankfully distracted him. Foul thoughts sloughing off like the dirt and dust in his bath, the still-damp foxwolf lifted his head, looked over, and then rose to receive his visitor. It was another servant, one he didn’t recognize, come to tell him that “Lady Rhea wishes to see you again, in the courtyard.”

In the courtyard? he thought as he got dressed again. The scent of the soap had changed somewhat as he had dried. What could she want now? We were just out there… but when he departed his room and began out, there she was leaning against the mouth of the hallway, tail swaying. The wolfess looked him over, twitched her nose a bit, pushed away from the wall, smiled-

-and then some hours later he found himself sitting alongside her in her quarters all over again, surrounded by the light perfume of moist soil and verdant plants carefully kept, answering the occasional question from her tutor sitting across from them. It had seemed so simple, her asking if he would perhaps like to come along and sit in on one of her sessions, to learn a little bit of what she does. Why not, Markus had figured, and had said as such, and now he felt like a pup all over again, being told all of these stories and tales of names he half-recognized, not characters but instead people.

Rhea knew more than he did, of course. She was often the one to answer the questions first, and much more fully than Markus felt he could be capable of. Every time she did so correctly - which was most of the time - her tail gave a small little wag, and it tickled at the foxwolf’s rump a little bit, and he found it funnier and funnier until he had to cover his mouth and turn away by the end of the session.

But he liked this tutor. A wide, squat bear, voice low but clear, speech measured and careful… but he was personable. It was clear that he liked what he did, and enjoyed the material, and even if he had to repeat things three or four times before Markus felt like he understood what had happened, he still enjoyed the telling. There was a passion there that went lacking in the one he had in Oryon. Perhaps I shall put in a request, the foxwolf thought to himself upon leaving Rhea’s quarters that afternoon, once I return home.

“Why the courtyard?” Markus asked as they had left; Rhea had tilted her head and looked at him. “When you sent the servant, he said to meet you in the courtyard. And then you were there in the hall.”

_ _

“Ah.” She had nodded. “I wanted to come to you directly since it was such a small matter, but doing so would have been improper. One year, remember?”

“But it wasn’t improper to loiter just outside my quarters?”

_ _

“Well, not… specifically, no.”

The next few days followed at an easy pace. Before breakfast Markus would head downstairs to wake up with some weapon practice, usually on his own, but on the third day one of the off-duty guards came along and taught him a few of the basic forms and stances utilized in the force; then he would take his meal in his room, looking out the window at the grounds down below or, more often as the next week progressed, thumbing through one of the books left on the shelves within his quarters; and then his time was free for himself.

Poking around the manor for other secret passageways, wandering the halls, going down to the city and learning the shape of the streets… Rhea found him again and invited him to come shopping with her one afternoon before dinner. A market was always a market, but the Leyo market carried its own swathe of smells and sights compared to what he had recognized in Oryon.

The clothing here was thicker and darker, and the fabrics most often cut from sheets of pelt instead of woven. Everywhere needed soap and candles, but up here, just barely half a day’s ride from Oryon, these were cast from tallow rather than rendered plant oils; it held the fragrance a little differently, and Markus found that for many of the same scents, he actually preferred these versions.

“That’s the wolf in you,” Rhea teased, tapping a bar that he had just been sniffing. The stallkeep nodded, grinned his thanks, and made the exchange. “By the way, I think I might recommend… rosemary, for you. I think it would complement your natural scent well. Or almond, but only a little bit. Oh, perhaps both?”

_ _

The nearby meat market was infuriating, on a kind of reflexive, instinctual level. The small latitude difference resulted in a climate slightly unkind to the open sale of unpreserved flesh back home, and as such, this was also a new experience for Markus. His eyes danced back and forth across slabs of red and white and off-yellow, some still dripping, the air thick with iron and grease. He remembered that first night, seeing this wolfess slurp the marrow out of the eye of the bone…

“You’re a messy eater,” he commented, trying to keep his mind off his rumbling stomach. “I can’t look at you during dinner.”

“And yet I notice that you still do, repeatedly. And - I’m a normal eater. You’re a dainty eater. That must be the fox in you…” Then she blinked and paused in her appraisal of a slab of - Markus had to check the label - venison. “Oh, gods. We’re having stew tonight. Please continue to not look at me while I eat.”

All she purchased here was a packet of curing salt and a small assortment of spices, after which she led him to a separate, more eclectic section of the market. Markus ended up separated from the wolfess for a period of time, constantly drawn this way and that by some new interest claiming his attention: a sleek pair of otter twins tried to sell him some greasy, resinous incense that they claimed had come from the sap of some ancient tree in Loria; a worryingly slim reptile of some sort - alligator, he thought - wrapped in all sorts of furs and coats silently showed him an assortment of jewelry hand-carved from various bones; then there were books written in some language he didn’t recognize, claiming to be rituals employed in such tasks as finding love, achieving revenge, purifying water, then turning that water into wine.

“Can it be stormberry wine?” the foxwolf asked, not believing a word of it. “If you provide the proper reagents, it can be whatever you like,” was the cryptic answer; he thanked the vendor and went on his way, but soon slowed again.

Masks hung in the next stall assembled from all sorts of different materials: shimmering shell, sleek bone, smooth wood carved and lacquered, naked porcelain, unglazed clay. Foxes and wolves and cats; bears, dogs, even a hyena complete with a thick, scruffy striped mane, and…

“What’s this one?”

This stall was run by another wolfess, apparently Alenari judging by her build and coloration, though she neatly fit into neither category. She seemed to think about her words before she spoke, tasting them first to see if they were the right ones. Her fingers, smooth and dexterous, reached out to brush across the vaguely reptilian mask that Markus had pointed out. “Dragon,” she answered.

Markus’s ears perked. He looked over the angular shape of the snout, the sleek scales slatted in over one another, the sharp pits for the eyes. Two horns had been attached to the top of the mask, likely real horns from some other animal.

“Dragons don’t exist. But I suppose that’s the point of the mask, then, isn’t it?”

The wolfess shrugged, at once inviting, mysterious, and foreboding. Markus had to admire her for it.

“When you believe something,” she went on, still choosing her words with care, “sometimes that is enough to make it real.”

“Hmm.” Markus tapped his chin. “I think I’ll take the wolf. Is that wood?...”

By the time he managed to reconnect with Rhea, the foxwolf had purchased the mask, had it fitted, and ensured that it was satisfactory. Still he could not help but touch and tap it where he held it beneath his coat, fingerpads running back and forth over the smooth, silky surface of sealed wood, feeling the decorative engravings and adornments. Far, far more of a work of art than the one he normally wore as the Ghost, and for so cheap, too.

“There you are,” the wolfess breathed from behind one, one paw hooking within his elbow. Surprised, Markus turned. “Where did you go?”

“I bought a mask.” He showed it to her. “You know. So I can continue pretending to be a storybook highwayman, just like I told you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was worried I’d have to write Countess Oryon about how I lost you in-” She leaned in a little bit. “-this part of the market. She did specifically request that we never leave you unsupervised…”

“She did?”

“That’s a joke. I made that up. Although if she had then Father would know about it, not me.”

“How did you even find me in all of this?”

Markus was sharply aware of her paw slipping back out of his arm. She slowed her pace to keep even with him, gently guiding him through the throng and roughly back towards the manor up on the hill. “I know you’ve started using my soap in the baths. That’s special order.”

“Made on commission, yes, I remember.”

“You know what that means?”

He shrugged. “That you specifically requested it?”

“Sure. Yes. But it means that I’m the only customer for it. Which in turn means that literally nobody else smells like that.” Rhea nudged him again. “Just myself, and now, you too.”

“Well, it’s… it’s nice.”

“Didn’t I just tell you earlier today? Almond works well on you.”

Almond? He paused. Was that really in her scent? “Yes - well - so - what did you end up getting?...”

~ ~ ~

Markus tossed once more, trying to tug the bedsheets up to his chin, having to pull so hard against the tuck beneath the mattress that, for a moment, his claws pricked into the material and tore through it. He cursed quietly, pulled his fingers free, poked around to ensure the hole wasn’t that bad, and then sat up. Outside the window the twin moons shone behind a thin cover of clouds: Little Brother had since peeked his way out from behind his larger sibling, so now two uneven crescents faced each other like an oblong bowl.

Or a pair of eyes…

The foxwolf rubbed at his face. He could feel the mask staring at him from the other room, from where he had rested it atop one of the drawers upon returning from the market. That had been some two days ago, and every night since, he had come back here and stared at it after retiring for the night, feeling as though something there was watching him as he still tried to begin his letter home.

A full two weeks spent here, now, and never had he felt so far away from home. But at the same time this place had begun to open up to him, with the house and the people becoming steadily more welcoming: most of the servants now bowed their heads to him as he passed by, and two or three of the regular guards he had come to be able to recognize. Lord Thorn himself had even called him into his office some three times by now, and simply had the foxwolf sit and pore over documents and such with him, guiding him around, pointing out discrepancies and idiosyncrasies.

And then there was Rhea. Barely half a month and she had gone from strange, standoffish wolfess I barely know to… to what? Certainly some kind of friend. Markus had not missed one of her tutoring sessions since the first, and found himself looking forward to the servant knocking on his door, telling him that Lady Rhea wanted to meet him at some obscure place in the manor, and then step out to find her right there at the end of the hall.

Markus pushed himself out of bed, the silken sheets draping easily across his bare fur, then padded across the room to the drawers. He looked down across the fields and woods outside, trying to find the secret spot outside the wine cellar to which the wolfess had brought him, but then figured that he was on the wrong side of the house for that. He took in a breath, reached out, touched his fingers to the glass… waited until the slow chill of mountain night seeped in across him, and then moved to get dressed.

It was likely past midnight by now. The foxwolf looked up at the sky again, stared back at the moons as they returned from behind those clouds, then continued with the buttons in front of his chest, flattening down his fur as he went. Usually he never bothered with the sleeve cuffs, but tonight felt it appropriate; these he handled on his way into the next room, then pushed the hem of his shirt down underneath his pants waistband, tightened his belt, swiped the coat from where it hung by the door… replaced it, reached for a different one.

And then he finally allowed himself to return the mask’s gaze. The lacquer glittered in the pale moonlight, the little threads of metallic paint flashing their colors: rich blue ringing the eyes, silver highlighting the ears, black near the mouth. House Thorn colors, he realized as he picked it up, and recalled all the tapestries hanging in the hallways. Already he had seen them so often that, now, he had simply stopped seeing them. That makes sense. Markus turned the mask, brushed some bits off the interior, pulled the strap to fit it over his head…

…and the Ghost, out of place, lost, a little bit disoriented, took in a breath through hand-carved wood. It felt naked without a blade, and drifted out of the room, into the hallway, and then down the stairs, step light and airy, pawpads hunched to prevent its claws from tapping across the floor. Most of the servants had retreated to their own beds as well, though the guards never rested - but the Ghost found that already it was familiar enough with the house’s nooks and twists and turns to evade them with relative, if demanding, ease.

The armory was kept locked to the exterior, but not the interior. The shadow danced its way in, moved along the familiar feeling of the training mat, picked up the same saber that had begun to feel right in its paws, and then continued on its way.

Leaving the manor was not difficult. The Ghost simply followed the same exit of which it already knew, creeping down through the cool, still corridors of the wine cellar, free paw brushing along the wall as its eyes acclimated to the darkness in between maintained candles. Then some fumbling for the trigger, a quick, focused push, a wave of shock at the noise of the mechanism… and then it floated down the revealed passageway, this time on its own.

And for once, the Ghost felt lonely. But then the feeling passed, and it stepped out into the cool light of the moons overhead, and it bustled along the stream past the lake, then around to where the treeline gave way to the streets of the city. From there it was all the same as back where the Ghost began, though it did have to clutch its coat a little tighter around itself than it was accustomed.

As the moons danced overhead, along trundled a carriage…

The Ghost took in a breath, sighed, straightened its back, then stepped out into the road and settled into its practiced posture. As expected the sleepy driver tugged the reins, brought the team to a stop, then leaned back to alert the passenger to the situation. No guards followed, and neither was the scene close enough to the gates for the city to know. The Ghost waited, patient, for compliance: the driver listened, nodded, then dropped the reins into his lap and raised his paws.

So the Ghost also nodded, lowered its blade but did not sheathe it, and began to approach - but then the side door to the car opened. An arm came out with it, and then another clutching another saber by the sheath, and then a pale-furred Doriani wolf emerged. He leapt to the ground, grunted with the effort, then brushed himself off and rose to his full height, a good half-head above the Ghost itself.

The wolf was older, but by no means old; perhaps the same age as Lady Azura. He rolled his head on his shoulders, coughed into a fist, ran his claws through the fur atop his head, then drew his blade, tossed the sheath into the open door of the carriage, and took two clean, steady steps forward.

“-what’s another small delay? Already lost dinner by a long shot to that damn storm…” the wolf was grumbling. He shook his head and raised his voice. “I was looking to visit the bathhouses when I arrive to find some action, but this will have to do. Been a while since I’ve had a duel. This won’t be to the death, will it? I have somewhere to be in the morning.”

The Ghost sighed. If anything it most often just had to fend off some hired mercenaries with flashy swordsmanship, and that was that. So now, tonight, it maintained its posture and strafed the other way, gradually coming in closer until its blade nearly touched the wolf’s. Something about wearing the mask gave it confidence and sureness of step, so when the lupine made a small lunge and tap, the Ghost barely stirred in its riposte.

And then again, and again, and again, each time a little faster, a little lower, with a little more force. And then the dance began, footpaws scuffing across the gravel of the road, the gentle metallic ringing of one blade on another, the slick sound of the metal cutting through the air. The wolf dodged the Ghost’s attacks like a river around a stone, seeming to flow with and around the movements, still retaliating with his own in between.

Clash, spin to the side, clash; a duck of the head, a quick readjustment of the mask’s fit, clash; a somewhat graceless scramble in the other direction, a little dance to regain footing, clash; and then confidence returning, leading to a more forceful onslaught. The Ghost bore down on the stranger, plying its tricks and the new techniques it had picked up across this past week, and finally it began to beat back the stranger.

Your riches are mine, it thought, eyeing the gold threading of the wolf’s clothing, the jewelry adorning his ears, his necklace, his rings. The Ghost’s blade met his again, and metal slid across metal until the guards clacked together.

“Oh…” the wolf purred, leaning in close. On instinct the Ghost turned its head slightly away. “You have lovely eyes. Perhaps you should fight - without the mask…”

It moved to leap away again, felt some of the gravel beneath its footpaw skid, stumbled. The wolf saw this opening and closed in, bearing down, clash, clash; the flat of the blade smacked against the Ghost’s other shoulder, then its thigh, then its leg, then its thigh again. It danced to the side, stumbled again, caught some of the wolf’s attacks, returned a few of its own, received another across the upper arm, one on the back of the paw, one beneath its chin - and Markus dropped to his knees there in the road, chest heaving, body stinging, muscles strained. Slowly he raised his paws in defeat.

The wolf crunched forward, sword extended towards his neck. He kept his head down. “Well,” the lupine said, and drew in a breath. He held it, then let it out in a thin curl of mist in the air. “This was fun. I don’t imagine you carry any valuables on you, now, do you? It would only be fair for those to come to me, now, don’t you think?”

Markus swallowed, trying not to breathe through his mouth, trying not to show his exhaustion. Annoyance, frustration, rage boiled inside of him - and it felt good. He motioned with a paw down to his side, waited for the nod of confirmation, and then slowly reached down, leaning to one side as he did so… and then swept up a fistful of dust and gravel, at the same time pitching himself to one side-

-and then, suddenly, he was facedown in the road, one footpaw between his shoulders squeezing his breath out, a surprisingly strong paw yanking his wrist up and back, and the point of the sword poking into the root of his neck. The foxwolf squirmed, grunted, hissed, and spat, impotent rage welling up and simmering up.

“Okay. That’s enough of that.” The blade tickled up across the back of his head - he held still - then slid through fur… and the tension of his mask’s strap tugged and then released, and the lacquered wood fell forward.

The footpaw moved from his back, only to then scoop underneath him and flip him over. He gasped as a larger rock duck in between his ribs, where already he could feel the beginning of a bruise; the foxwolf arched his back, wriggled again, and rolled back over onto his side, only to then feel the cool touch of sharpened steel turning his muzzle upright again.

“Why, you’re-” Above him the wolf frowned, snout curled, ears up, whiskers forward. The sword fell away. “You’re just a kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Markus complained. With the blade gone he swung himself upright, then braced both paws on the ground for balance as the world spun around him. “I’ll have you know that I am th-” -son of the Countess of Oryon, engaged to the daughter of the Viscount of Leyo, just up in that manor there, and…

_ _

And the wolf tilted his head, hackles lowering, disbelief stirring.

And you don’t recognize me. I’m nameless here.

“And I see you’re noble-born like myself,” the wolf went on, poking across Markus’s clothing with the tip of his sword. The small pinprick bites pushed through the fabric, making him wince. He batted the weapon away. “So therefore I can speak freely. What in the world are you doing? Why are you out here, doing this, debasing yourself and your name?”

“I’m just - I’m-”

“And your family’s name? Your House’s name? I see you’re not a child, but you certainly fight like one. Do you have any formal training whatsoever? No? Just sparring with - let me guess - a servant, or a brother? That shows.”

Markus tried to turn to reach for his mask, but the flat of the blade found its way to the side of his muzzle again. He took in a breath across night-chilled metal.

“You certainly don’t need the money from this.” The wolf looked him over once more, shrugged, and then turned his back on him. Markus cast around for where he had dropped his own weapon. “So what is it for? The fun? The action? You want action, you enlist in the militia. Do something real for the people underneath you. It’s your responsibility.”

“I don’t-” With effort he pushed himself upright. One side of his mask was scuffed; he rubbed at it, saw the scratches had cut through the lacquer, and sighed. “I don’t care about what’s my responsibility, I-”

“Then relinquish your name!”

The foxwolf’s ears flattened back. The wolf stood by the carriage, arms out, eyes wide, hackles raised all over again.

“It is not only our responsibility to serve our community and our people, but our birthright. Perhaps you are just a kid, then, if you don’t understand that.” He reached in through the still open door, rummaged about, and then sheathed his weapon. “You don’t care about it? Then you don’t deserve it. So give it up. Name someone else in your place, someone more suitable to actually hold the grace and weight of that noble name. You want to whine about responsibility, that’s the most responsible thing you could do.”

Sword in one paw and saber in the other, Markus scrambled to keep up, but the door slammed behind the wolf. The driver glanced down at the rabid foxwolf, scooted to the side a bit, and reached for the reins again. Markus slammed the heel of his wrist against the door.

“Do you know who I am?”

_ _

“No,” came the muffled response, without a second spent on thought. “I don’t care to know. And neither do you, apparently.”

_ _

And just as it had come down the road, there was the snap of the reins and the carriage rocked back into motion. Markus looked after it, helpless, fuming, a growl rumbling in his chest, the back of his neck tingling… his tail plastered tight around one of his legs. He watched as the carriage rolled away towards the gates of the city, the peak of the manor house still visible from here, then heaved another sigh and stepped off the road.

Just try to let one of the guards stop me, he thought. They know who I am. Hell, maybe if I ‘misbehave’ enough Thorn will call off the marriage himself. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe over dinner tomorrow I’ll strip down naked and dance across the table. Next time Arro comes by for a visit I’ll tell him that I’m breaking my engagement to Rhea so I can marry Avi instead. And they’ll still pay just as little attention to me, won’t they? He kicked at a small rock as he passed by, then immediately regretted it, which only further fueled his annoyance.

What am I even doing here? Why did I come in the first place? I want to go home. Can’t things just go back to the way they were before?