Chimera Fields long intervals of horrible sanity

Just then, an insistent burst of autumn wind struck heavily from the south, buffeting the young wolf’s haunches in a northerly direction. He moved with it, stutter-stepping a pace or two. His spine curved as his hindquarters fell slightly out of line, the wild fur along his nape and shoulders whipping wildly, and then straightened as he continued to walk without any real aim or purpose. He no longer cared about finding Scimitar and Eshe — the thick miasma of apathy had stolen away even his fiercest impulses. He wanted only to sleep. Over and over, his battered mind transmitted messages of empty reassurance, hiding all memory and acknowledgement of trauma out of necessity alone.

It was the figure that stopped him in his tracks.

Cypress’ initial reaction was wariness — he was upwind of the strange wolf, whose burly musculature and heavily-muscled framework appeared strikingly familiar. It trigged a sense of curiosity and confusion within him that he swiftly stamped down. Truth be told, he’d spent so much of his time lately denying the things he’d thought of or seen that the denial was now an involuntary, irrevocable response — and so it came to pass that disbelief was his next reaction. Whoever this wolf was, he could not be Rannoch or Scimitar, because they were both dead. The weary raven called to mind the sodden, sanguine field — and in his mind’s eye he saw not only Scimitar and Eshe lying dead and broken, but Rannoch and Lucy as well. The vision did not leave him — he turned to look over one shoulder, and when he glanced back, there were Allure and Shrike in contortions of violence on the bloodied earth, and Kjalarr and October beyond them. “Dead,” he muttered to himself in quiet confirmation, his voice like leaves rustling hollowly over a stinking battleground. “All dead.” One ear fanned uncertainly out to the side.

It was time to leave. Allure would be upset that he had left without her — no, no; she was dead like the others, wasn’t she? Cypress jerked his head around to glance behind him once more, blinking his lantern yellow eyes, but all he saw was the evidence of his own tracks: damp earth where his paws had melted away the frost. He swung his head back around, staring blankly at the wolf who matched him in height but whose broader shoulders triggered a slew of memories that could not be real. He killed them, too — and waited impassively, suddenly disinterested.