FSE

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Time stretched lazily by and Snow slowly got acquainted to his new body. He flexed his muscles one by one, starting at his paws and working his way up. Sometimes it took a while for his mind to make the connection and get the right muscle to flex. He was trying to get his mind to grips with having a tail when Orwen spoke. "Look, here they come" Orwen pointed out over the open grounds to the castle wall in the distance.

Snow squinted his eyes and suddenly his vision sprinted forward. He could see his brother, the Grandmaster and a soldier bearing the gold burnishing of the Mage-Guard. He realised that none of them were leading his brother. The fools, they could surely see his brother was blind! He thought angrily.

Snow stood up in a rush and if it weren't for Orwen having jumped up and catching him by the shoulder and gripping him across the waist he would have toppled like a tree. His head spun dizzily.

"Calm down, they're on their way here. Sit" Orwen pushed him down into the chair. Snow struggled weakly against him, trying to batter him away. He was about as effective as a fly trying to batter down a door.

"Sit still you stupid oaf! Don't you realise that's the Grandmaster and Lord Ukon coming with your brother!" Orwen growled at him.

Snow relented, if only to get Orwen out of his way so he could see if his brother had not already fallen and been hurt.

Orwen put a paw on Snows' chair and stood behind him. Snow watched in fear as his brother and the others made their way across the ground, ready to push himself up and run to his aid if he were to fall. If it were inside, he would not have been so worried. He knew his brother could memorize the layout of a room by being guided around it once. This however was outside. There could be a rock, or a hole or anything that could easily trip the blind boy. He couldn't understand how the Grandmaster and this Lord Ukon were being so careless and cruel. His brother must be too scared to ask them to guide him by the hand.

He kept his silent vigil until they were almost upon him. He tried again to spring up and go to guide his brother, but Orwen easily kept him in his seat.

"Skye!" he called out, still struggling against his captivity on the chair.

"Snow!" he heard his little brother cry out. He stopped his struggle and watched dumbly with his jaw hanging open as his brother raced ahead of his entourage toward him.

Skye threw himself into Snows' arms and hugged him tight. He took a step back, his white milky eyes seeming to stare straight into Snows. "Close your mouth big brother, you're going to catch a fly."

The Grandmaster, Lord Ukon and Skye broke out in laughter at the thunderstruck look on his face.

"O Snow, I'm so happy! You always said you wished that you can join the wolf pack! Your dreams come true!" Skye jabbered at him. "And I can see!"

"You can see?" Snow repeated dumbfounded.

"Yes child, your brother was gifted with sight when I unlocked his magic. You should be proud of him. Not only can he see, but he is to be my apprentice." The Grandmasters voice penetrated through the shock of Snows brain.

Tears sprang to his eyes and he laughed. "I'm so happy for you!" Skye and Snow said at the same time. Both of them laughing and hugging each other tight.

A scream suddenly ripped through the air from behind Snow. He winced at its loudness.

Unthinkingly he swept his brother up into his powerful arms and spun in place, then raced into the house he had not so long ago struggled out of. An intense feeling of loneliness ripped through him at the same time. It was like someone was calling out to him and a burning need to reach that source of loneliness had taken control of him.

Without thought and without so much as stumbling once he was through the door, he dropped his brother as gently, but as swiftly as he could and raced straight for the bed where the black Wolven lay. The loneliness again tore through him as at the same time a scream bellowed from the Wolvens muzzle. Snow threw himself down next to the bed and gripped the black Wolven tightly across the shoulders. Snow tried to fill the empty lonely void that he could feel coming from it with his physical presence. Immediately the Wolven quieted its struggles and opened its grey eyes flecked with yellow. It stared intently into Snows own.

*

Chris stood in a featureless place. All round him there was only a soft grey. It was profoundly peaceful this grey nothingness that stretched as far as he could see. He looked calmly beneath himself and found that he was standing on nothing. Strangely it felt perfectly normal to him that this was so. Then there was a change. He felt a presence moving. He felt it go past his back and around him. He looked around trying to see it, but there was nothing to see.

He tried moving towards it, but as far as he walked it still felt like it was just ahead of him, out of reach. Then it moved further away from him. The further away it moved the more the feeling of peacefulness receded. As if this presence was taking it away with it.

Chris started running. He realised he couldn't even hear his feet fall. He couldn't hear anything. There was only himself and the presence in this nothingness and it was moving away from him.

Chris ran until his side ached, until sweat ran from him in rivulets. Disappearing into the yawning maw of greyness around him as it was flung from him in his headlong rush. He finally stopped, panting hard, bending over with his hands on his aching legs, trying to catch his breath.

As his breathing slowed and the fiery ache started to subside slowly he again felt the presence move further away from him.

Panic filled his mind and lent fuel to his body. Chris ran until his legs gave out from under him and he fell. There was no impact, he simply found himself lying flat. He had no way to tell up from down or left from right. The only direction to be gathered was from that of the presence he felt, still as far away from him as when he had started his panicked flight.

Chris felt suffocating fear suffuse him.

"Hello!" He yelled out into the greyness, the sound of his voice being absorbed into it. "Hello!" He yelled again louder.

For an eternity he found himself lying there, head turned to the presence begging and pleading for it to come back. Failing that he started berating and insulting it, hoping that it would return to him.

The presence stayed where it was.

A new sensation made itself aware to him. Slowly he turned to look away from the presence, his muscles moving of its own volition. He didn't want to look and the more his head and body turned to the growing feeling of menace, the harder Chris yelled and cried out to the presence he'd been chasing. He felt his eyelids open against his will. He'd crushed them closed in the hope of not seeing what was giving him this overwhelming feeling of gut wrenching fear.

When his eyelids inexorable grinded open, he stared in stunned silence at the slathering hounds charging down on him. Their eyes seemed to be made of flame and their black shadowy bodies seemed so dark as if any light that were to fall on them would be sucked into oblivion.

Their sharp teeth seemed to glint menacingly at him.

Chris opened his mouth and screamed. It seemed to invigorate the hounds and they seemed to shift closer even faster through the empty space. Chris took another breath and screamed what he thought to be his last, but then he felt the comforting presence rush towards him. Just as the dogs leapt, their flaming eyes lustfully locked on his throat. The presence enveloped him in a protective shell of light. He felt a heavy weight across his chest and blinked to look down at it.

His eyes stared into grey eyes that felt like they were boring into his soul. As he stared deeply into them he could see yellow flecks appear and swirl.

He watched their dance for a while until they stopped and became still.

Slowly, other things impinged on his mind. The now yellow flecked grey eyes were set in a white furred wolfs face. No, not quite right, it was one of those wolf men. Its head was perched just above his chest, it's arms thrown over him and holding him by the shoulders.

"Thank you" Chris whispered to it, tears of relief instantly misting his eyes. He knew that somehow this white wolf man had been the presence he had felt in the nothingness.

Another voice intruded into their silent sharing. "What's the matter? Is he alright?" The white wolf man released Chris and stood up keeping one paw on his shoulder. Chris looked past it and saw the old man with the long frost white beard in his colourful robe. Next to him Ukon came into view and then the young blind boy.

"He's ok now" the white Wolven said. "Just a nightmare."

"Who are you talking about Snow?" the blind boy asked. So that was the Wolvens' name Chris thought cheerily.

The old man and Ukon looked at the blind boy. "You can't see him Skye?" the old man asked.

"I don't see anything except for my brother standing there sir" the boy shook his head, his silver hair dancing in the sunlight from the window. Snow looked down at Chris and patted him on the shoulder. He walked over to the blind boy and took him by the hand. Snow guided him to the edge of the bed and placed the boys hand on Chris's arm. Skye gasped. "I see him now."

See him? Chris thought, the boys blind how could he 'see' anything?

"Ahh, I think I know what's going on." The old man said. "Snow, help him to the table. He's bound to be disorientated. Then I'll tell you all what I think it going on." The old man and Ukon seated themselves. Between Snow and Skye, Chris was manhandled to the table. He saw another grey Wolven come in with two chairs. Chris lowered himself drunkenly into one, he felt like his body wasn't his own and it didn't seem to want to work right. When he put his hands on the table and looked down at them, he gasped in shock.

Snow had sat down next to him. He looked at Chris and his shocked expression. He placed his own paw on Chris's shoulder. Chris looked again into the Wolvens eyes.

"Steady now, think about why your here. What happened to us before you awoke?" Chris was held spellbound in the Wolvens eyes. The paw on his shoulder seemed to rekindle the peaceful feeling. Memories slowly started flowing back into his mind like a trickling river swelling with rain. He looked anew at the white Wolven called Snow and realised that it was the big muscled youth who had been in the circle with him. The words of the Wolven who had gathered them after the choosing burned across his inner vision. "What you see is what you will become" it had said.

Snow must have watched the play of returning memories and the realisation come to Chris's mind. He patted him gently and turned his head to look around at the others seated with him.

The old man too must have been watching the interplay between them and only started to speak once Chris also turned his head to look at the others, now seated at the table.

"I think first, we should make some introductions. This young one," the old man gestured at Chris. "has come from a place where all he would know of us is in old tales passed down through generations." The old man turned and looked at Chris, his lips quirked in a tiny smile. "I am the Grandmaster. My name is Arden, though few would consider ever calling me by it. I think most have forgotten it to be truthful." He sighed before continuing. "This is Ukon, one of the Mage-Guard. This is Snow and his brother Skye" he gestured to each in turn. "This is Orwen another of the wolf pack and this is Chris" Everyone nodded their heads to him and he blinked back. "Chris has caused some debate in the council and is a bit of an enigma. I think, Skye, why you cannot see him is because of his unique trait. For some reason he is ..." the Grandmaster seemed to flounder for a word. "Invisible is about the best description, to those with magic. Now, I don't mean that we cannot see him, just that we cannot sense him. I believe for that same reason since you see with your magic Skye, you cannot see him, although I'm not sure why you do see him when you touch him."

The Grandmaster looked around the table. "I need to discuss some things with Ukon and Orwen. Why don't you take him outside and get him used to himself again Snow? You seem to have managed to get over the confusion of finding yourself in a new form rather fast and I'm sure that you and your brother would like to spend some time together as well."

Snow nodded "Yes Grandmaster." He said with stiff formality. The Grandmaster let out another long suffering sigh. "No need to be quite so formal, but go on, out with you."

Snow and Skye both got up. Skye put out his hand searchingly until it found Chris. Between them they helped Chris get onto his unsteady feet and then they headed out through the door into the warm sunlit field outside.