***** Author's Note *****

Happy NaNoWriMo! I'm already a day behind. Whoops. I'm gonna try! So hopefully that means more YRWYS for my lovely readers!

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57

A canopy of broad leaves and vines lay interwoven across the open sky as Zathra walked. He wanted to look up and take in his surroundings, but for some reason, he could do very little to alter his course. It carried him, almost like he was floating, weightless as a cloud.

He could feel the earth under his feet, damp and soft, while the smell of detritus rose to his nose with each step disturbing the old leaf litter. The air itself was heavy with chill humidity from how the forest shielded the morning dew from being burned away. There didn't seem to be any breeze though, so fog lingered towards the peripherals of his vision. Everything was so hazy, but his ears were keen, taking in the creaking language of the trees, the scuttling of rodents, and the coarse sound of his own breath like an unusually deep rattle. He wondered briefly, why could he taste the tang of metal. It slipped across his tongue from some unknown source simultaneously making his mouth water, but also filling him with the strange urge that he needed to vomit centered at a single point in his flank. The point pulsed with heat, but there was nothing he could do to examine it. His head was stubbornly unwilling to follow his mind.

The path along Zathra's involuntarily travels took him up along ridges of rock, under twisted gnarled roots, and through the thick overgrowth. Occasionally he would pause and swivel around to check the area, but all he could see was a sea of green. At least, for a moment, it seemed green. His eyes blinked by themselves, and when open again the foliage had turned dull shades of blue and yellow, while his ability to look into the light became easier. Was that what it was like to see with eyes unbothered by daylight? It was all very peculiar. Another blink and the world shifted back to its original greens leaving him more confused than anything.

What, Zathra wondered to himself, am I doin' 'ere? Where's Bar and the lass? His recall seemed impeded by other thoughts; simple-minded thoughts that were mainly concerned with the idea of finding water, though he was not particularly thirsty. Why can't I control my own body...?

There wasn't much to be done aside from going along for the ride; but the more he pushed trying to turn in one direction or another, the more Zathra started to feel disconnected from whatever was carrying his consciousness. He could swear he was starting to hear faint whispers, perhaps not actual words, but like a hum of something soft and warm. Was something drawing him deeper into the forest against his will?

Before too long Zathra found himself carried to a stream bubbling up cool water and he drank deeply, as if it might wash away the sickening taste of blood that was filling his stomach. Normally, blood didn't bother him, which made it all the more strange that it was making him sick now. But even the stream water couldn't wash away the taste, only serving to make him more ill. He wretched and heaved, expelling the water, and with it came a flood of blackened bile, and... bone fragments? Even some partially digested chunks of flesh splattered upon the ground. All together the mess left behind was foul. Yet Zathra couldn't remember when his last meal had been, and he certainly hadn't choked down bits of bone, to his best recollection. Things were becoming increasingly bizarre.

Once his gut finally calmed down, Zathra became acutely aware that the humming whispers were growing. From the corner of his predatory eyes, he spotted a tiny bit of movement, like a figure cloaked in green passing between the trees, but his eyes wouldn't focus on it, no matter how hard he tried. There was something odd about the figure; just their presence made his skin prickle uneasily, like when one realizes there are hunters that hunt other hunters. Whatever it was he could sense was stifling with unmatched influence. Just being within range of spotting the figure felt dangerous and wrong. His eyes submissively averted against his desire to examine the mysterious figure and started to turn around to the side. That's when Zathra saw a half-grown warg creep out of the bushes just behind him.

Like lightning splitting the sky, Zathra's entire composure was set on edge. He could feel magic ripple through him in preparation for the beast to come for him, and as he did so, his body seemed to come under his control again! Adrenaline coursing through his veins, Zathra was not keen to lose another limb to the beasts in this eerie forest. A film of blue light started to cloud across his vision the moment he willed his body to strike, and he felt his arm shoot forward at the warg pup, taking it across the beast's cheek before it could move away.

As Zathra's claws hit, the pup yelped and dodged away in surprise, as if it hadn't been expecting him to attack first. A tear through the pup's ear, and multiple gashes lining its face drove it away from Zathra, cowering and disappearing back into the underbrush. it seemed strange that it retreated so easily, but that wasn't what caught Zathra's attention. He stared in curious confusion through the mist of blue that filled his vision as his magic was pulsing, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It was difficult to see clearly, but the size and shape of his arm made it abundantly clear, it was not an orcish limb he had used to strike out at the warg pup.

Stretching out from his shoulder, as the mist started to fade, Zathra began to make out the long coarse fibers of gray fur that covered the foreign appendage. A great big paw, the size of his own head, terminating with thick razor-sharp claws settled to the ground under him. Causing the orc to stumble back, or it would have if control over the body hadn't ebbed away. Once more, he seemed to not have command of his own body, and yet, he knew now, this wasn't his own body. Somehow, it seemed he was seeing from the eyes of the gray warg that had eaten his arm!

I must be dreamin'. Tha's all... Zathra thought silently, but it felt more like he was trying to convince himself of that fact, more than he actually believed it. No dream he'd ever had felt this real with every sense as tangible and observable as when awake. The only difference was he was inside someone else's body and they were in control; at least until he had exerted magic over them. If he had been the master of this entanglement, Zathra's eyes would have shot open wide with realization. Was this some sort of internal experience of what his magical influence felt like to those on the receiving end? Had something caused his magic to grant him access to see through the eyes of the warg? Previously, the magic had only given him glimpses into the minds of others, never anything so perfect and clear, nor lasting, as this.

Zathra could feel the beast shake itself, as if trying to rid itself of his presence, but the movement of their shared body made pain shoot into their flank at the same time. He grimaced and grit his teeth through it, before pushing a trace of magic into the warg; it was a tiny probe, questioning just how much he needed for his own influence to supersede the beast's. The haze of blue light grew around his vision once more, this time leaving just a small tunnel of vision clear at the center.

A press to turn around slowly tempered the warg's resistance, and it relented without much of a fuss. Zathra pulled the opposite direction testingly, and it rotated back. His eyes darted around, trying to recall where he had seen the figure in green through the trees, eager to find out exactly what it was with his newfound domination of the beastly vessel. As if heels had been jammed into the warg's flank, it started moving forward.

Through each of its own senses, Zathra could feel and observe the world around him, taking in the smells in a way that was beyond comparison to even his natural, though keen, orcish senses. There was still a faint hint of human and orc that teased his nose in the opposite direction he guided the warg, which he could easily identify as his own, Barbaurak's, and Alaesia's scents. It seemed he was backtracking along the route they had taken through the forest. There was also the unnerving stench of olog, undoubtedly the Reaper, and his little pet, Frogblood, but it was coming from a different angle, where Zathra, himself, had led them back to the den site. It was only when the mane on the warg's neck started to bristle that Zathra knew he was on the right track for the figure cloaked in green.

To his surprise, the warg's mind pushed back hard against him, as it seemed to realize his intent. It reeled away, ignoring the pain in its side and overcoming Zathra's thin force of magic for a moment before the orc doubled down, halting the beast before it could flee. The warg's hesitation to trail the green figure made Zathra pause as well; what could possibly frighten a beast of this size so much that it wouldn't even dare follow? It made no sense, yet it took an immense amount of magic to urge the beast to continue, so much so that their joint eyesight was now nearly blinded by the film that overcame its vision. If the beast couldn't see where it was going, then perhaps that meant it wouldn't give him any more trouble, Zathra reasoned, though in doing so, it made it particularly difficult for him as well. He would have to rely on the warg's other senses to navigate which was disorienting at first, but he slowly got the hang of it.

However, the strange thing was, there was little in the way of scents or even sound to go by. The forest's natural environment was just as he would expect, without a hint of any other entity having passed by; no new or unexpected scents beyond the dirt and leaves, no rustling or snapping of twigs, even the humming Zathra had heard earlier was hushed and distant. There was not even a shift of movement to pinpoint beyond the blue haze in his eyes. But the silence was far more telling anyways; the warg's mind seemed to be trying to warn him to pay close attention just as much to where the creatures of the forest fell silent, as where they went noisily about their business. And there was a distinct hush surrounding Zathra as he pushed the warg onward, feeling its heart beginning to pound.

"Poor beassst," a crackling voice cut through the stillness, echoing around from every direction all at once. Immediately the warg's mind slammed against Zathra, roaring, howling, fighting with every ounce of instinct it could muster, urging him to flee as the voice rattled on, "Ssseen-ed bett-er daysss, have not you? Old n' gray. Led assstray. Come to throw your life away?"

Shrakh! Zathra cursed, which resonated in the warg's throat as a desperate growl. Something lashed around the warg's paw, crushing and gripping like a snare. The more Zathra and the warg fought against it, the binding tightened, unrelenting. Whatever was speaking held no physical form that Zathra could see or sense; it was all encompassing and bearing down upon his mind as much as the warg's physical form.

Its voice brightened and coalesced into a single point that orbited its captives ominously, "Oohh I sssee not just warg, and not just me, orcish ssscum makesss usss three!" More coils were crawling up around the warg's legs as it kicked and struggled against the entity's grip. There was a venom in the voice as it spat uncanny recognition of Zathra's incorporeal presence, "Maim-ed be my creaturesss, plunder-ed be my woodsss, infessst-ed be my landsss! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME, TAINT-ED ELDON! LEAVE! BE GONE! FLEE!"

The twisting grip bore down, upon the warg's body and Zathra as two brilliant yellow eyes filled their blue-misted vision, driving Zathra's magic from the warg's mind. The tether holding Zathra to this strange vision severed violently, knocking him forcefully away. A wave of feral adrenaline flooded the warg's body, and it started snapping and clawing as hard as it could once free of the orc's influence. It wriggled and writhed, breaking through the snares around its legs, but what became of the beast, Zathra didn't witness, as the images faded to black in his mind.

***** Translations *****

Shrakh - Shit

Eldon - Elf-bred (begotten by elves)