scylla had been good company for a few days, but they'd eventually parted ways, and urias was left to his own devices and his own goals.
in just those few days, winter had finally shut the door behind itself as it left. frosty drafts still ruffled the open grasses, the sun was still distant and anemic, but green was starting to show through the slush. the smell of growing life was almost overwhelming.
he would've appreciated it, if
one: there wasn't a white blur creeping over his vision, and
two: an impending headache wasn't barrelling towards him at a slow but steady speed.
he closes his eyes and cradles his head in his hands and wills the aura to go away. he doesn't know why he even tries— those misfiring neurons in his brain chugging away in a hallucination factory couldn't give less of a shit about convenience. that white cresent-shaped blur grows zigzagging limbs.
perhaps the headache would come in a few minutes. perhaps a few seconds, perhaps hours or days. urias is left helpless, knowing that there is discomfort coming his way, but not feeling any pain just yet. he continues his journey across the flatlands, on edge.

some suicide attempt survivor walks up to him out of nowhere. half his face blown off, no discernable mouth. just a dark and wet tunnel that air whistled to and out of. if he weren't so distracted by the white blur, urias would've gotten his camera out and started recording.
a threat comes from that ruined mouth. torture. what the hell? and who were they? and this man, with barely even a face to call his own, what were his intentions? he's incredulous— like if a shellshocked soldier with his pants still wet from the last time he'd pissed himself were to try and intimidate him.
you've got the wrong person. i have no idea what you are talking about.
briefly, scylla crosses his mind. the cursed forest crosses his mind. did this stranger belong to them? he smelled of another pack, but not of blackfeather woods. there's some blood on your chin. he can't help himself. a smile crashes through his face, but it isn't pleasant.

the disjointed words of the stranger, his destroyed face, they both intrigue him. he comes closer and closer. there is something surreal about seeing gore in broad daylight. instinctually, you would assume that blood and guts were usually spilled in the dark, and that you'd only see them in full relief on hospital trays.
he responds with a sharp and cruel and grating noise. please do. show me the ladies too. ever since he had met her, he would often ask himself what would scylla do, that child soldier of a girl. but she was already fading away in his mind, turning into a two-dimensional skeleton like a coil of magnesium in hydrochloric acid.
well. what are we waiting for?

urias, he responds, intense and sane. urias arlli. he steps in stride with memory— he had expected to find a job sooner or later, but not in the form of someone who should've been dead but against all odds stayed living and breathing and talking. on the other hand, it was rather fitting. his own charon, leading him to a job interview full of teeth and eyes. how's the boss like?

memory's voice is strange and guttural coming out of a mouth that by all means did not look much like one. he wants to talk just to see the breaths spurting from his teeth. the light spray of blood at each plosive consonant. oh? he raises a brow. what is it called? what do you all stand for? in his head, hela looks a lot like scylla— a girl who does not mince words, who has not been afforded the luxury of childhood. (little did he know, that they were sisters.)

nightwalkers. everything down to the name intrigues him. a pack made up of criminals, a sort of black hand— was this the cursed group scylla had talked about?
it was admittedly a bit gauche for his taste (it was like naming a drone citizen-killer) but he could forgive that. it was appealing in its own way, like getting exactly what you asked for. urias, who had worked as a nightcrawler for most of his life, felt that he could fit right in. you'll have to forgive me for all these questions, he draws his brows together, but who is wolfbane?
his instincts tell him that wolfbane is some sort of god-figure, that they are a cult. he wouldn't mind joining a commune like that. though he supposed the real problem was finding out how to leave, eventually.

religion mostly existed to him as some vague, incensy mysticism— miracles, blood, wine, symbols.
but something about this story, about fenrir, tor, and wolfbane, burrows inside his mind and refuses to leave. wolfbane, the outsider. wolfbane, the hated. who had made man and corrupted all of wolfkind. dogs, who were traitors who had grown soft and forgotten their true nature, a sickly sweet perversion.
this was a belief that ate itself. why did they accept wolfbane's blessings when his own creations had led to the existence of dogs? was war that much of a reason to change one's perspective? was the true unity based on mutual resentment of fenrir and tor?
he had asked enough questions. he hums thoughtfully, toying with gods and dogs and wars and humans, and allows memory to lead the way to the nightwalkers.