Fic: Back Together

It was early morning, not yet dawn but getting there. Mother Moon was sliding toward the horizon and Child Moon was ahead of her. The Palace lit the bay softly. Skywise slouched in a tree limb and moped. Why did I stop Rayek, anyway? What point was there? Tam and me are so different now–the world's so different–that it just as well could've been erased. And without the wolf blood–

"Fahr?" Skywise nearly jumped out of his skin. Cutter had just…materialised…behind him. How did he do that? Right…But was it him or Cutter? "Fahr, what's wrong?" Cutter's concern was genuine.

"I…I don't know." That much was true; it was hard to explain why he felt so…down. "I–a lot of it has to do with…all this," and he spread his arms to indicate the mountainside, the human village, the Holt, and the bay. "Thinking you were dead…losing my wolf blood…learning you weren't…Redlance and Nightfall's cub…the humans…it's a bit much," he finished.

"I know." Cutter smiled and put his arm around Skywise. "We all thought you were dead. The possibility that you were alive gave me a reason to live. If Rayek had laid a finger on you or Leetah, I'd have…" He looked away "…Well, I don't like to think about it. And, thank the High Ones, I didn't have to."

"Would you have–?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Skywise couldn't think of anything else to say.

"And you and Leetah haven't aged a day and–"

"Don't worry too much about that, brother. You were always older inside, anyway." Skywise joked, but he couldn't quite comprehend what had happened. Everyone has face-fur now! Picknose built himself a troll empire with just Oddbit and…"Can't trust my nose anymore, that's the weirdest thing," he said. "First thing I noticed–smells weren't as sharp. But it's more than that. Before–well, you know how it was." He didn't have to explain to Cutter what it was like to smell before sight, to scent a trail invisible to the eye. "Now–I don't know how the Go-Backs do it. It's like having the entire world go blurry; I can still smell, but everything's…indistinct and I have to be nearly on top of something before I smell it."

"And you won't age or die," Cutter said. "That's the weirdest thing. No matter how I thought I'd live and die, you were always with me to the end. Even…" He trailed off.

"Even then?" Skywise asked.

"Yep. Like I said, the thought that you might somehow, somewhere, be out there was all that kept me going sometimes."

"I'm not exactly used to it myself, to be honest. I'll live forever, like the stars…and that's the other thing! The stars are wrong now! Do you have any idea how confusing that is?"

"No," Cutter said, and he muffled a snort at Skywise's expression. "Don't get mad at me like that, Fahr. I know how much the stars mean to you, but I have other things preoccupying me at the moment."

The eastern horizon had taken on a distinctly purple cast. Dawn was coming–Time for humans to awake, and Wolfriders to sleep.

"I missed you, Tam."

"I missed you, Fahr."

"Well," Cutter said, "I'm going back to the Holt–Leetah will be mad if I'm not. You should, too."

"I will, soon. But I–just go on. I want to sit here awhile." What was that Cutter had said, that first night? The wind's old and young. It changes and stays the same, I guess, no matter how the seasons turn. You and the wind, Fahr.

"Me and the wind, Tam," he chuckled. "Me and the wind."

Down below, the day had begun in earnest. Skywise turned back toward the Holt, and fled the day.