Moonspear stage 1: denial

There was no reason for him to be here, yet here he was. Gaunt to the extreme, in the way often carried by the old. A well-tucked belly, a face of sunken white, with one eye rimmed in sleepless red. The man looked more skeleton than wolf; moving in the rickety off-balance manner of someone who doesnt know where they start or end. It matched the aimless, empty look upon his face. Yet as he meandered through the no-mans-land beyond the edge of the claimed mountain, occasionally his head would swing one way or another, or he might freeze in place, or those ears might pop up and twitch and turn; as if someone else was present. As if the old man wasn't following the ghost of his dementia to the ends of the earth.

And it was the truth: sometimes when Titmouse stopped he would see movement in the shadows and feel compelled to quake in his skin, tuck his ratty tail tight against his haunches. He trembled where he stood often enough that the little birds of the woods saw no threat to him; a doddering old fool, forgetting his own teeth. While he shuddered before the shadows that he was certain would rear up and grapple at him, a little towhee called from the underbrush - and hopped through the brambles at his feet, curious and hungry.

When it got too close a sharp whine carried from Titmouse, petrified; he did not see the little bird for what it was. He saw teeth and heard the roaring of the tide. He tasted blood on his tongue. There was a building pressure across his throat and — when he could take no more of that remembered fear, he turned to bolt! Limbs a scramble, spidering. The towhee was already gone when the wolf jerked its stooped body in such a way.

He ran as fast as he was able to; haunted by disjointed memory and the halting inconsistencies of his long and tortured life.