Barrow Fields und sahn sich nur noch zuweilen im Traum;

perched on the barrow, the wolf faces the sea. she draws breath; there, dancing, almost, is the same scent as was embedded in the coat of the girl she'd walked with, through the mirrored floodplain. soon, she will follow it -- but first she will remain here, in this field that should not be. there are old stories buried here, she can feel it, in the cut of the air, in the gentle prickle against her spine. 

above, dark wings cut through shifting thermals, circling, waiting, veering back toward the ridge. she is not dead yet. 

but how akin to prey she feels! something alien stalked this place once, she knows it. under the veil of night, she imagines the barrows have eyes. she wraith shifts a fraction, adjusting her limbs beneath her before falling completely, eerily still once again. she revels in the feeling, the gentle warping of the mundane, and so is content to perch here, a statue.

Stealing this! 

He found himself drawn to expand outward. Never terribly far from the willows, of course, but far enough away to satisfy the curiosity in him he had buried under literal and figurative pools of blood amidst the Nightwalkers. Part of him vaguely felt regret, abandoning Valour and Clarence, but it was necessary. And it didn't make sense to look back. Here, he could be unapologetically himself. Although currently, himself was slightly uncomfortable with the eerie surroundings he found himself in. The mist coming off the ocean skirting hundreds of strange mounds, like a giant wolf pack had buried their dead here, made him bristle. The sensation of eyes is one he was all too familiar with, as much as he wished he wasn't. This was Wolfbane's lands. He slipped through the mist, amber eyes sharply forward, cautious but unafraid. He knew Wolfbane. Knew the shadows of the dead. And in some way, was grateful for the magic this place held. His eyes settled on a figure settled delicately atop one of the mounds and for a moment he thought she was a spirit, some poor lost wraith. But he drew closer to her and slowly realized that she was, in fact, corporeal. 
"Place is kinda spooky, huh?" He asked quietly as he approached. There was something about this place that demanded quiet, demanded whispers.

kinda spooky, huh? 

her trance is broken, and her muzzle twists to peer back over her shoulder as the stranger comes into sight. lean, earth-toned, and terribly scared. gaze moves over the tattered ear, the dark where once there must have been an eye, the twisted muzzle. features do not shift as she finishes her visual inspection, though her muzzle tilts, auds press forward, as if to say, "and yet, here you are." 

she wonders if he'd won the fight that had cost him his face. or had it been many fangs, and many claws, that sought to tear away his lips, his eyes, time after time? it suggests anger, intimacy, to seek to destroy another's face so completely.

Her eyes travel over him, inevitably on his face. 
He braces himself for the reaction, the scream- after all, he looked a bit like some poor lost soul himself. Give him a stereotypical white pelt and he would be the thing of someone's nightmares. 
Were he a different wolf he probably would use the fear and disgust to his advantage- but as it was, He simply lowered his head a bit in a futile attempt to conceal what Clarence had done. 
The Shewolf doesn't speak, but looks at him, expectantly, and he finds himself slipping into a comfortable silence, lowering his haunches to the ground. 
There is a stillness here, cold and inviting. "When I was a pup...my mother told me stories of places like this." He speaks again after several minutes. "Shadowy places that belonged to the dead, and to Wolfbane." Sure enough, the telltale elegant blue flowers dotted the landscape. It was fitting for a wolf that had himself half convinced he was a demon to wind up in a place like this. "Memory, and you?" He introduces himself, hoping his unusual name isn't misunderstood.

my mother told me stories. gaze remains steadily on him, even as foreign words slip from his maw. she thinks on them, but they fail to conjure up any memories. his question does not receive a reply, as is typical, but after a long moment does she gather breath in her lungs, and then, "tell me. of Volfbane." the words are low, hoarse, and yet more than any other has managed to draw from her thus far. 

eyelids glide over coal-dark eyes that do not shift from the ruined face, the raven perched with eery stillness on her barrow.

There is something distinctly odd about the shewolf in front of him, and he wonders if he isn't talking to some eerie spirit after all. 
He decides he doesn't mind, even if she is. She's beautiful, in an ethereal sort of way, not so sylph-like as Awenfen, but in her own haunted way. 
When she speaks it's as though it takes great effort to do so, and he subdues a shiver when she asks about him. 
"Massive. Bigger than any wolf living or dead. Pelt as black as the night on a new moon. And eyes like a rattlesnake. He's the ruler of the dead, and the corrupter." How could he describe the evil that was Wolfbane? The sacrifices Nix had taught him to make, the altar that stank of blood and rot. The stench of sulfur and and that rasping voice in his mind?  "Tor, the goddess of the moon, was mates to Fenris, the sun. They created the prey, and then the plants, and then the predators, and last the wolves to rule over them all. But Wolfbane, Fenris' brother, was jealous. He wanted to make life with Tor. So he forced her, and man was created. Wolfbane used man to corrupt Fenris creations, turning them against each other. The war was bloody, and eventually, Wolfbane fell. Fenris cursed him and his creations, putting fear in their hearts and banishing them from the forest. And cast Wolfbane to his own realm, a land of Shadow and death. There he waits, with an army of the dead, waiting for his revenge. Waiting for the howl that will summon him." His story complete he returns to silence, ascending to join beside her at the top of the knoll.

there is disgust in his voice, something beneath the words that speaks to knowledge that runs deeper than fables. he offers it freely, his tale, and she is a silent audience. it comes to an end, and she considers his early words again. she does not think places like these belong to any one thing, any one tale. they exist in-between, separate, dangerous if one allows. 

he ascends the knoll beside her, and for a moment her gaze returns to the line of the distant sea. the wraith commits to memory what he has shared. " there is truth in all the stories. " the words are accented, dry, sandpaper against her throat. and yet they come easier in this in-between place, amidst talk of legends with a man with half a face.

Maybe im just a hopeless romantic but I kinda ship them...

The view from atop the knoll is breathtaking and he watches silently as an enormous beast surfaces, sending a plume of vapor as it exhales, a towering black fin cutting the water. The orca is quickly followed by several others, moving as a pack.  It sends a shiver down his spine- if something that big could live out there... She speaks again, dry rasping voice falling on his ears like the rustle of a snake moving through forest debris, and he finds himself fascinated by her words. 
There is truth. He gives a noise of acknowledgement, contemplating the idea. It was a fear that plagued him- where would he go...when he was done with this world? 
"Where do you think we go?" He asked softly. "When we are done here....when we fight the last battle?" 

shapes move, far out and distant, nameless. for a moment, they are silent custodians of the barrows, and then once more he speaks. he whispers questions of death and destinations as if she might have the answers. she does not think of it often, death, it is neither something reverential nor effable, merely an end. " dark, " she murmurs, turning a moment to look to him. 

first the body fails, then the mind, and finally whatever force sees fit to hold flesh to bone. she has seen it in the eyes of prey, the moment life dissipates to nothing. then comes decay, until finally bones lay bare and are made to be taken by the earth. " not worry, we have lived dark before. " she tells him, words dry, and yet certain even in their hoarseness. she imagines it to be a relief, to fade into dark when death comes to claim all that had been important in life.

dark, She whispers. Dark before, and dark after. It was reassuring to think that after all he had done, good and bad, there was no divine punishment. Just Dark. 
He absorbes the words, a comfortable silence between them. He thinks of Awenfen...wonders if she ever found Reiko, if Hime would be brought to heel. It was no longer his concern, since joining the Fae, but still...she deserved happiness...if maybe not with him. 
And did he deserve happiness? Would he ever obtain it? 
He turned to the spectre beside him, surreptitiously admiring her beauty, and for some reason all of his usual suave approaches died at the end of his tongue. 
"Please don't take this the wrong way," he approached, desperately not wanting her to think he was some arrogant pervert. "But you are absolutely beautiful in the moonlight like this."  He still didn't even know her name.

the moment stretches, snaps, passes. the sun has come to sink finally below the horizon, and with the coming darkness does the shadow settle into herself once more. they sit for a moment, two atop the cairn, until once more he speaks, this time of the mundane. everything, muses the wraith, is beautiful beneath the moonlight, all of one's darkness bleeding out into that surrounding; made something, someone else. 

she sits a moment longer, but something calls, low and keening. the sound is odd as it is filtered through the field, not immediately identifiable as any one thing. the wraith rises, a glance to the man with half a face. a dip of her muzzle, a moment, lingering, and then she descends the cairn, joining the other reaching shadows. in a moment, she is lost among them, silence settling. 

the call does not come again.