Blossom….didn’t know how to feel.

Momma was hurt, so badly that the blood haunted her dreams at night. Even Boone, he had come back drenched in sanguine. There was a healer, but Blossom couldn’t look at Reverie without cringing, remembering all the horror as her blood splattered against the ground.

Blossom Mayfair didn’t know how to feel.

Perhaps that was the problem.

She tried every feeling. No rage, no despair, definitely no happiness. She went through life shellshocked, functioning on bare essentials. Her emotions felt like a tightly wound ball of yarn, or the contained fury of a thunderhead. Then, it happened.

Something in her, that tight wound thunderhead, snapped into bold lightning and howling winds. The fox who had taken the rabbit before her eyes was met with a mouth full of teeth, seizing it by the back of the head. There was something vicious in those dual eyes as Blossom rammed the creature into a tree, again, over and over until it lay in tatters at her feet.

Blood was in her mouth. The Willows seemed to reach for her with gnarled fingers. Blossom wailed a high note of alarm, of despair, and she ran.

Alone, she tucked herself into a crag beneath the high nose of a mountain, and cried until her face was clean, and her eyes ached.

She did not remember picking herself up.

She did not remember climbing through the mountains, trudging on and on until the blood had dried in her fur and the stink of infection began to cloud her own scent. Her eyes were fixed ahead, hollow, yet she was hyper-aware of every sound; every flicker of movement. A creature reduced to instinct.

And the man; Lasher; he whispered things to her all the while. Things she would not remember. Secrets of the stars and the deep hidden places in the earth.

Mae was dying.

Rotting.

It was the scent of blood which drew her from her haze. Fox. Blood. Blood. Blood. Mae's head lowered instinctively, gait slowing to a slinking prowl. Silver eyes sharpened; focused. The fox was dead, and the trail of a wolf led away from it.

She found a girl, crying. A pretty girl, all sunlit and gemstone eyes in two different colors she'd never seen in a wolf's eyes before. And were she not so weak, so torn to shreds and burning with infection, she might have been smitten. Mae opened her mouth to say something.

But no words came.

She stared at the girl. She was such a pretty shade of gold.

Blood reached her again, making her gag with another cry. Blossom raised her head, horror flashing vivid across her face. A girl stood across from her, a painted red shadow of a creature.

Where Blossom was the sun, this girl was the deep swallow of night. Her opposite, dark where she was light, and she began to cry harder at the thought this was a specter of her sin. The murder she had committed all because she couldn’t control herself.

She stumbled to her feet, struggling to stand, chin a tremble.

A-Are you here for me? Because this could only be death, or the devil, come to drag her deep into the earth.

Something in the back of her head stirred. Hello, little cuckoo. A thousand small voices whispered. Quickly, she shut them out.

The man, whispering in her ear. Mae shivered. The girl spoke, and for a moment she didn't comprehend. She blinked silver eyes, glancing around for a few seconds. Then her gaze found the girl again.

Yeah, She said finally. Do you - do you hear it, too? Him. The man. The whispers. Mae felt sick. A wave of dizziness caught her, and she swayed on her paws but did not fall. Her eyes never left the girl.

She confirmed she was here for her.

Blossom fell into heavy sobs, raising her leg to hide her eyes.

I don’t want to die. She finally whispered around the edge of her own paw, tear-stained gaze finding the girl again. She looked at her a long time, before nodding.

S-Sometimes? She didn’t know what she heard. When she’d brought it up once to one of the wolves in the place they had lived for a little while, her and momma and dad, they had laughed. Such an imaginative Little thing, you’re just dreaming dear. If the voices were dreaming, she wanted to wake up.

I don't want to die.

Mae blinked again. She took in a breath, feeling the cold air like claws down her throat. You're not dying, She said, still swaying; struggling to keep her footing. No, this beautiful girl, she was life itself; the sun come down to touch the earth. How could she be dying?

I am, She whispered, and collapsed.

The girl fell.

Blossom screamed, a high, warbling noise that broke in her sore throat as she surged forward.

No, no, no, no-! 

She put an ear to the girl’s chest, listening for a sluggish heartbeat. Her mind felt blank, without any of the knowledge her momma or dad or the nice lady who helped mom had shown.

Y-You’re not dying, n-not yet! Not if i can help it!

Mae might have been content to drift into oblivion right then and there; to close her eyes and simply never open them again. But the girl screamed. Mae flinched. Her eyes fluttered and she whimpered at the contact to her chest. Not dying.

She mumbled something that might have been a faint "Fuck off, lemme sleep" but came out garbled and unintelligible. Already Mae could not quite remember who it was she spoke to. A girl, she thought. Shadowpup? No, it couldn't be...

Mae began to fade.