There was something peculiar about having left your home for a long period of time. The gnaw of nostalgia could act as a crippling reminder of a past life. For Lucy, the taste of the air that she had believed to be lost, was the only thing that fueled her to return. It had been a year, and the girl had grown into a lean, wild shadow; long enough that she scarcely remembered what the woods used to feel like when she was young. Fleeting memories of fireflies and the companionship of two boys filled her mind was fantasies and before she knew it, she was there.

The length of her strides slowed. Lucy peered upward with brilliant blue eyes and she breathed a shaky breath. A ratty piece of rope hung from around her neck, torn and damaged from her travels, but still marking her with a foreign claim. One paw was lifted delicately, her nostrils flaring with each heavy pant for air, for familiarity. She had truly never been to that portion of the woods, and she was still a stretch from her original home, but she knew. Instinct told the inky wisp that she had finally arrived back home.

Snow blanketed the trees overhead. The fen was wrapped in a serene – almost supernatural – silence. The shadow took a few shaky steps forward, ears propped tall on her crown. She could hear herself breathing, and the faint sound of her own heart beating rapidly in her chest. Each step brought the crunch of snow, but she paid it no mind. Lucy had found home and all that she had left behind.

The pallid brute might have gone unnoticed, had he not verbally announced his presence. His ghostly form would blend well with the snow that littered the ground. Lucy was far too enraptured with the discovery of home to have taken note of the stranger. As his bark traveled through the trees, her ears swiveled and she locked her eyes to his shape in the wood. 

Immediately, the inky wisp stiffened. Her limbs locked in place and her eyes met his, unblinking. Cosmic blue latched tightly to burning gold. The hair along her neck began to rise and her hocks buckled slightly, readying her to spring away should this encounter turn sour. He hadn’t moved yet, and his posture did not suggest that he was aiming to cause harm to the dark girl. Fear still gripped her like a tight leash. She could not find the strength to loosen her figure. Relaxation was a foreign concept to the child. She had grown so used to trauma that she believed it waited around every corner, eager to pull her from her life. Still, logic and reason told her to wait. See what this brute could want before darting to the shadows. 

A single tentative step is all that her body would allow. Her paw sunk into the snow and she tucked her tail against her rump. Lucy attempted to swallow the lump that had risen in her throat. Her eyes remained wide and she clung to her alertness with sharp claws. Quickly, she huffed inward through her nares and captured his scent. He was as unfamiliar as her home. 

The two stood – yin and yang – still and wary. She could not quite understand why her appearance would startle this male as much as it seemed to. His face flashed with disbelief, and she found her mind spinning wildly out of control in an attempt to recall if she had ever met this brute before. His stark white was something she did not recollect well enough. Yet, his eyes burned with familiarity and Lucy would have sworn solemnly that he knew her. Gritting her teeth, she fought the stinging of fear that was rising in her chest. She was furious with herself. How could she not know him?

”I'm Skwol,” his quiet words drifted through the fen. Suddenly, she breathed deeply – not having realized that she had been holding her breath all that time. Her form softened and she blinked. The shadow was not familiar with this pale wanderer after all. This was relieving to the young girl. She retained some grasp of reality for a while longer.

The man then inquired if she had eaten. This question took her aback and she looked to him with a slightly gaping mouth. “I... no, I haven't,” she muttered after a prolonged silence. She wondered why a stranger would inquire this in the midst of a winter chill. Prey would certainly be scarce and it would not be uncommon for wolves to go some time without having eaten. Somehow, his single probing question had struck her as having been issued with only concern. Still fearful, she allowed him to step closer without fleeing. In turn, she took a few crunching steps closer to the wolf with sun-lit eyes.

“I'm Lucy.”

She watched as the familiarity fell from his eyes and he roamed her figure with a searching gaze. The shadow child stood with her frame on display, allowing him to take in the pieces that he wanted. She wasn't much; in the cold, even her ribs pressed against her sides. Lucy was thin, limber in appearance, and smaller than most. She was easily hidden and easily forgotten, but she preferred it this way. It was all that she had ever known.

Life seemed as though it had not been kind to this fellow Skwol, but Lucy knew that pain and was very aware of the harsh realities that faced her. Still, he seemed kind enough, and the sound of her name against his tongue was unfamiliar, but not altogether hostile. She reveled in it for only a moment before the large male made mention of the rope that dangled around her neck.

Instinctively, the shadow shrunk and flattened her ears to her skull. Her eyes were glued to his face, trying to read it for signs of aggression or the hint of tricks. She could not see this on Skwol's features. With a soft breath, the inky girl felt tears prick at the backs of her eyes. She fought the stinging in her throat and shook her head slightly.

“You can? You can take this off of me?” she said breathlessly. As hungry as she might have been, she had never felt more excitement than to know that this man could remove the taint from her body. He could wipe away the remnants of a life that had all but ruined her. For this, she would be eternally grateful.

The murmur of his voice was soft, and though she shuddered away from it, she wanted the rope removed from her neck more than anything. She had carried it from her prison across miles of woodland until she had arrived in the Teekon wilds. Now, she stared at the face of the man who claimed he could remove it from her body. She carefully picked over the details, like they were questions she would attempt to remember at a later time. Dark patches of grey near his eyes and nose, and – of course – the sunlit burn of his eyes. Perhaps it was fate that she should cross paths with this Skwol. She could have happened across anyone. Lucy knew the population of the wilds was more than she could possibly ever acquaint herself with. Still, she could not help but to feel afraid.

The fear was not enough to cause her to turn away from Skwol, and so she bent her head and exposed the top of her neck. The fur stood there, but she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. He instructed her to hold still, so her limbs reacted accordingly. Each leg stiffened under his words and she felt her shoulders lock herself to the ground, anchoring her body there. Heart thumping, she felt his whiskers against the scruff of her neck and she gritted her fangs sharply.

Her visitor tugged lightly at the rope to offer her some understanding of what he would hope to accomplish. She exhaled sharply and nodded her head once. Lucy would permit him to do what he needed to free her from the tassel. Something whispered to her – told her that this wolf may very well know what it meant to be held captive. This was not something that she could speak to, and so she didn't. It was, however, the only reason that she remained there while he worked to free her.

It seemed to take no time at all for the male to shred through the rope around her neck. She felt a small tug, pressure against her throat, and then it was gone. The tassel slunk down to her feet and she opened her eyes with an expression of disbelief. Immediately, the inky girl shook her pelt. It was as if she was attempting to rid her body of any signs that she had been held prisoner. It had not been the first time, though, and while Skwol had given her a moment of reprieve... the memories were still there. Lucy knew that she had been born a prisoner and that she had only clawed her way to freedom a small handful of times. She also knew that it was likely to happen again.

The pallid knight inquired on how she felt. Lucy looked up to him with a timid but thankful expression. Her eyes roamed his face again and she found herself trying to memorize his features so that she would not feel so lost when she was on her own again. The thought shot a pang through her heart and she pushed the thought away for the moment.

“It feels like freedom,” she said with a sigh. As her thoughts began to eat away at the statement, her eyes darted to the left and her ears flickered down. Do you really know what freedom feels like, Lucy?

Skwol nodded and she felt again that he understood on a deeper level. Lucy was still reeling at the thought that she was free from the leash. Her neck had been rubbed raw, but it would not take long to heal. It was not long, though, before the girl was pulled from her thoughts by a question from the pale brute. Her eyes darted to his and she squinted at the first inquiry. How far away? she thought back to herself, nervousness growing with every repeat of the question in her mind. How far away what? How far away did she wander? How far away did she intend to get? Skwol was quick to follow it was a more definitive addition: the devils.

Lucy shuddered a bit against the chill. Her neck craned so that she could face behind her, peering over her shoulder with a soft exhale. “Far enough,” she stated quietly. And though it seemed as if the young shadow was always running from a devil of some sort, she knew that he was referring to the two-legged creatures that had captured her. “I've been crossing land for at least two weeks,” she then added, swinging her muzzle back around to face him. She did not expect that the strange creatures would be able to find them in the wilds.

“You've,” she began but then shook her head softly and restarted, “you know them?” Lucy had not wanted to pry into her companion's life, but the question was eating at her.

The ghoul watched him stiffen at her question and all at once, she felt a pang of regret for having asked it. Somehow, knowing that he had faced the two-legged monsters did not help to calm her or bring any ounce of comfort to her shivering limbs. His larger frame sank as he lowered himself into a sitting position. Lucy followed, inching herself only a little closer to the male. His kindness had done well to bring her to a small level of trust. Their shared trauma was never something she would want to bond over, but she was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Skwol spoke of how he had traveled since before the fall. She thought back to where she had been during the golden months, clenching her jaw at the reminder of the two-legged encampment. She had been surrounded by all sorts of animals – all of them sharing the same fear. Lucy wondered how long they had held him captive and how they had managed to hold such a powerful brute. He seemed so strong; such a stark contrast to her thin and spider-like frame.

“I do not think that they will follow you here,” she finally returned. Her voice was shy, barely above a whisper, but she continued. “I-I was born here.” The admittance of this was akin to drowning. She could hardly breathe as she thought about her home and all that had been left behind. The sweet smile of Rannoch and the calming drawl of Cypress. She ached with how much she missed those two boys, but she also feared ever seeing them again after the turmoil that she had brought into their lives. “There have never been two-legged creatures in the wilds,” she added with a small nod.

“But that does not mean these lands are without monsters of their own.”

Skwol returned her remark on monsters in the form of a question and she winced at what followed. She liked to imagine that she was not quite as fragile as she was. Lucy daydreamed of being stronger than her past and sharper than the memories that terrorized her, but she knew that they were just as much a part of her as the ink in her cloak. The ghoul only wished that she knew how to overcome them. She had thought by leaving – but that had only ended in a fresh, new terror. For a fraction of a second, she wished she could tell Skwol. She wished that she could unburden herself of all the chaos that had ruled her young life and share it with the stalwart ghost; but she wouldn't.

It didn't take him long to retract the inquiry. A creeping smile moved the corners of her lips and she looked up at him with a studying expression. She almost did not want to respond, but she believed that she owed him at least that much. He was, after all, the only peace of mind that had found her in several long months.

“Yes... I have,” she breathed quietly. The fur along her neck pricked and she shuddered softly to lower the goosebumps that had formed on the pink of her flesh. “But some have been through more,” she added after a moment. Lucy had tried using this to ground herself for weeks, telling herself that it could always be worse. It worked well enough.

Realizing that she was getting lost in her own thoughts, the ghoul turned back to Skwol and offered a ghostly little smile. “Where are you staying? In the fen here?”

She liked him. Lucy didn't want to, but she couldn't help herself for being drawn to the kind honesty that was being expressed before her. She knew well enough that she had never gotten anything good out of her attachments to others. Just as he had spent his life running, she followed – hiding in the shadows from anything that might cause her harm. It was hypnotizing to be near someone like Skwol, though. She had been without that of a comforting companion for so long that she did not want their time to end, but the shadow knew that he would part eventually and leave her to herself.

The pale beast stated that he would not be staying in the fen; that he wasn't staying anywhere. She wondered with a pang of fear if he would continue running until he had disappeared from the wilds altogether. Then he asked if this was where Lucy would be staying. She shook her head softly and glanced through the trees. “No, I don't think so. I'm looking for two boys that I used to know,” she explained, feeling almost as though she had told a secret that had never been uttered before.

“Are you traveling alone?” the ink wisp then asked, wondering if he would humor her with an answer.