Barrow Fields sky underground

In a way, he felt young again. He ate when he was hungry. He slept when he was tired. When he was lonely, he howled and hoped that someone willing would answer.

But he didn't get lonely anymore. Not in that same, gnawing way he used to. The independence suited him better than it had even when he was fresh-faced an idyllic. He did not have to put on a happy face for anyone, nor account for anyone else's needs.

So there was plenty of the deer left when he'd eaten his fill. He left it where it had been felled, chest cavity open, all the best organs gone. And the panther, bloodied and satiated, retired to some softer brush a few dozen meters away.

He shut his eyes and slept, and was soon hidden amongst the brush, covered by a thin blanket of freshly fallen snow.

@Tusakruŋa pspspsps

she should return to the sea. it was easier there. it wasn't as quiet—the wind didn't howl there, but the earth did shake, and the water thrummed in that white-noise way she liked. maybe she would find her mother there.

the girl scampered among the dunes. they seemed to have grown since her last visit—they were taller now, and white, and sometimes when she punched at them they caved in, but they didn't smell any different. she knew from the warmer months not to dig them up, because there was nothing there really.

still, runa sniffed and prowled, and found the sour notes of death behind the cold. her stomach churned; she followed the scent, and when she came upon a larger mound she was tempted very close. there were bones here, and the flesh was cold but she could pick at it; although, not even the crows were interested in this odd-shaped thing covered in cold.

she circled the carcass once, twice, thrice—sometimes tugging at it, but not able to get much.

A strange feeling woke him, not too terribly long after he'd fallen into fitful sleep. His eyes blinked open to snow and brush, and he laid still a long moment, flicking his ears to remove the muffling sheet of snow.

The rest of the world was muffled, too. Even the paw steps that seemed to crunch in italics rather than bold.

Dutch lifted his head to watch a dark little wraith skitter around his kill. Close enough to catch her scent, mangled by the cold as it was. Sea salt. Rot. Something else that felt dark and seething. He recognized her at once — but as who or as what, he could not quite place.

Something about her, though, burned its way through all the layers of apathy and grief. Suddenly, he did feel lonely — if lonely was a synonym for hungry, for restless.

He rose without thinking, taking long, slow strides toward the shadowy apparition. Not quite hunting her, but not quite not hunting her either.

as she gripped a piece of the carcass and braced against the earth, she felt the snow crunch and she sank elbow-deep in to the white. tugging, tugging, a little thrashing, a pause; it sounded as though something moved beyond her, and so she froze there with her teeth sunken in to the frozen flesh, listening.

a beat, the thrumming of her active little heart; but she didn't hear anything else, and was hungry.

tugging again, cutting away some piece that gave way to something large and awkward, dropping in to the snow and off of the body. she licks her lips, flexing her sore jaw. movement—this time unmistakable.

runa lifts her head, and those tall tall tall ears poke like horns overtop the rounded, snow-packed body.

dark eyes linger upon the gray man.

The panther paused when the little wraith lifted her head. He saw that she was young and lean, uniformly dark. Her eyes arrested him — he found himself startled by the desaturated look of her irises, though gray was not an uncommon color for eyes.

"Eat it," he told her, regaining control of his body. He came no closer. Not yet.

But he watched her, something fierce and aching in his chest, and lower in the pit of his stomach as well. His thoughts churned. For months, he'd lived on principle, searching endlessly for answers he could no longer muster the energy to care about. He'd kept going because it was the right thing to do, because it was what the man he'd been would have done. The man that he wanted to be.

Now a step removed. The man he wanted to want to be.

Looking at her, he found the situation far simpler. The man he remembered as a man that he wasn't, and the things that had mattered to him mattered to the panther no more.

Now he wanted this.

The girl.

he made a sound, and she watched him. her ears were forward, her eyes transfixed.

he did not move, but he watched. after a long drawn moment, she moved to grab at the flesh again but she did not look away. days of ranging alone along the coast—and being accosted every so often by strange men—had left a lasting impact.

as she worked at the flesh, though, the girl had to look away. she blinked, and he had not moved closer or anything, and beyond that the meat was a struggle for her to work on, and would require all of her attention. she would listen in case the snow gave way to him, but... hunger won out.

strips of skin came free eventually, and she gnawed on the frozen flesh, making small animal noises around the slapping of her tongue, and click of teeth. tug, tug, rip—thrashing then, she stopped paying as much attention to the man as she worked.

His hunger seemed echoed by her own, though she had a clear outlet for her needs. Frozen flesh, hard and frostburned though it might be, was still something which filled one's belly.

I could hunt for her, the panther thought, searching still for a way to feed the part of himself that felt most needful. That was a start — but he feared that, if he moved now, she would flee from him. And if he turned away to track down a gift of hot, fresh blood, he would never see her again.

He wished he were a man, with a moon-shaped trap to catch her in, like he had seen out in the plains.

"I can bring you something fresher," he told her, lowering himself to his belly in supplication. To try and appear friendly, though his gaze was still intent, and his body still strung tight with readiness.

she could not get much, but it would have to be enough. it took too much effort on her part to cut away at this frozen thing. it was like trying to cleave pieces off of a glacier; her teeth ached from the cold of it, and as virile as she was in her youth runa was not a strong creature. she was willow-thin, her belly tucked and concave.

he made more noises and so she stopped tugging. panting heavily out of her long face, and looking to him with a sidelong glance, as a doe might spy a buck; uncertain, but not really afraid. he moved to lowed himself, and she found this curious.

he had not chased her. he had not tried to play the toothy game like the other man — the memory of which made her flex her weight on one wrist that boasted a raised scar — so, she drew a little bit closer.

tasting the air. studying what could be found between them.

he smelled of the sea, and of pine, and seemed as alone as she was.

He was not sure if she understood him. It was this that pulled a name to the forefront of his mind, and he ached again in a different way, though one he was equally unaccustomed to feeling, these days. Grief for his shadow girl, long since long to him, punched a hole through his chest.

"You are still hungry," he said with certainty, as — whether she understood or not — his words seemed to entice her.

Dutch shuffled forward on his belly. Another few inches or so, just to broadcast that he wanted her closer.

"I will feed you, selkie girl."

He tried to speak kindly. Once upon a time, a girl similarly dark, and similarly silent, had warmed to him with kindness. He did not remember how he'd done it, but he remembered with painful clarity the way it'd felt.

This was not her. Perhaps they did not even look very much alike. Still — he missed her. He'd been missing her the longest.

she remained skeptical, and froze as he adjusted; when he moved a little closer she tensed, and when he relaxed it took a few more moments before she did too, although not wholly.

reaching with a curious nose, she sniffed after him. he spoke more, the tone inviting in some way but sad, too. why was he sad?

maybe he was sick.

withdrawing after this, runa coils herself together like a cat-loaf and appears disinterested—but she hasn't run, and it is clear by the training of her ears that she is still focused on him.

a shiver runs up her spine, and the wolf puddle shifts.

No, he decided, she did not understand him. Not wholly, at least. Part of him almost preferred that, but certainly, it would make convincing her to come quietly more difficult.

He waited until she'd made herself vulnerable. This, too, was a kind of conversation, and Dutch supposed he'd always been chatty. He crawled closer, with not a single thought toward whether or not she was sick, young and thin and alone as she was.

He only wanted to touch her. To breathe in her scent where it was still warm from her skin, and recapture a piece of something that had been stolen from him. To tuck her against him, or under his chin, to feel her like a silent shadow at his side or at his back. To see her eyes lamplike in the night when he woke from a strange dream.

He crawled closer, closer, watching her carefully for signs she might spring away.

His tail began to sweep the snow behind him, though not with the same vigor that had once propelled it. She smelled all wrong, but somehow, almost right.

he wormed his way closer.

something about that was off-putting. she was still trying to determine if he was injured, but all she could smell between them was the sea, the carcass, the snow—and he was not antagonizing her.

deeper than her misgivings, there was a sense of power as she sat up a little straighter.

winter breathed around them, and she immediately hunkered down again, and shuffled a little closer... wanting warmth, and seeing that he was not a danger, perhaps she could find it between him and the carcass.

It seemed that he had succeeded in conveying to her that he meant no harm. He allowed his own forward progress to halt, waiting now for her to decide how close she wanted to come. Any nearness, however, was welcomed by him. He laid sphinxlike at first, watching her attentively, but soon shifted to lie on a hip. He yawned at her, showing off pink gums and healthy teeth, a grizzling whine broadcasting his want to have her nearer.

It was hard not to be impatient after all this time. Nearly two years, he thought, since his shadow girl had gone away. What had become of her? He still wondered often, more than for anyone else. It hurt too much to think of his seal hunter, most assuredly dead. It hurt to think of his wife, gone from him forever. But her —

Sometimes he liked to think that she was out there with her family. That it had been a good home for her after all, to have followed Cen. Sometimes he worried that she was unhappy or mistreated with him.

On his worst days, he imagined that she was alone. That she'd come looking for him and hadn't found him.

He remembered telling her that lost loved ones could be found in the Deepwood on the equinoxes. He hadn't been there for either of them. Perhaps she hadn't, either — but he wondered. He never stopped wondering.

"What is your name?" he asked the girl, no longer expecting an answer.