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.

She had lingered, spectral, since spotting her son nearby. His journey lay with the living; hers with the dead.

But what of one caught in the space between?

Maegi, too, drifted near the borders. Wolves had claimed this place before; she was unsure whether the same pack ruled still or if others had come to take their place. Not that it mattered. . .she was a threat to no one's claim, even if she did cross the hallowed territorial line.

A streak of white; a gaunt figure stretched in flight—

Her head whipped round and she took chase. Normally, she wouldn't have. But she reveled in the perfection of her spirit-form; no longer limping along, she could rival the wind for her speed, and so she did. . .

And as she began to catch up, the form and scent and feel of the stranger began to coalesce into something all too familiar.

She barked a command to stop, just as she was gaining upon his churning limbs.

Whale-eyed, for whatever that was worth between one good eye and one blank socket, both stretched as open as could be. Time had healed old wounds; he felt them now keenly, as if no time had passed, but where he thought his throat gushed a red ribbon of blood there was only the puckered, pink scar from where his sister's teeth had sliced and torn. As he ran he thought he saw shapes with both his eyes, but one was still gone. Darkness had dominated that empty socket for years now and yet, in this panicked run, the memory of ferns and brambles, of rocky hillsides, of a mountain missing its head, all roused to his vision as if he were truly there.

When the wind called to him, it was like a switch had been flipped that deadend his limbs. Where once he had been flying along the mountainside now he was stopped in his tracks, as if paralyzed. The venom of invisible snakes reaching up through those limbs and through the veins, to his heart, which stuttered. As Titmouse careened to the earth his legs mostly tucked beneath his narrow body; one leg was caught mid-stride and he tripped over it, rolling, and finding himself collide at once in to a pile of rotted leaves, cast down weeks ago by the forest in its first wave of shedding.

For a few moments there was stillness everywhere. The birds did not call to one-another. There wasn't even a breeze across the grass, and then — breathing a heavy sigh, Titmouse's head lifted from the leaves, and he shook his head violently - his ears flopping. The world kept on spinning after that, so he squeezed his eye shut and braced himself against the earth.

It was as if he was preparing himself for something.

At her call, the figure collapsed in a maelstrom of fur and limbs, and she pulled up short, chin raised in alarm. She approached slowly, warily—and why? There was no danger to herself; she was already dead—and upon getting a closer look at the wolf, she gasped.

Mou, Maegi breathed, and bent to examine him more thoroughly.

He was old—well, older, anyway. Old and broken, his bleached pelt even whiter than she remembered, his once sinewy muscles withered away.

But it was him, and a whine escaped her muzzle; she wanted so badly to embrace him, and yet she still was haunted by the last time they had met. His madness, her insistence. She doubted much had changed since that moment.

Then, stillness.

Mou, like a breath against the nape of his neck.

A whisper in his ear.

He craned his head one way then another, and if he saw the ghost he did not speak a word to it; this would not have been the first ghost he'd ever encountered. Not the first hallucination, or the worst by a mile. How often was Titmouse haunted by his past? More and more these days, if he saw anything at all, he barely registered it. His life was one of walking death.

The old man rose up to his haunches and then to his feet. He refused to look at her — he refused to acknowledge this most recent haunting at all — and turning, continued to bungle his way through the halfdark of the woods.

No, no, no. Maegi was dead; she had been dead a long time.

Why did he see her now? He didn't, he wouldn't.

He ran.

Did he hear her? Perhaps not—he was no spring chicken, anymore, and could have gone deaf. But the rapidity with which he departed made her think that it was more than that.

This was outright rejection.

Mou! Maegi called, and then took off after him. 

One fine thing about being incorporeal was the lack of limitations. The piles of leaves to slow paws, the thickly-lined trees to hinder progress—none of this mattered to a ghost, who could slip through the forest without a care.

Still, he was quick in his madness.

Mou, please, just stop, she found herself begging, her voice high and clear where once, it would have been breathless with exertion.

She called to him! Of course she called, and his only answer was a panicked screech, sucking in breath after breath as he ran as hard as he could. The activity brought a little bit of sanity back to him, not that it mattered. Maegi followed him and swept close and he all but shrieked again, wanting to avoid this ghost of Titmouse past. What had he done before to save himself?

You're n-not here, you're not, you're -- dead, d-dead, he stammered and denied her; looking over a shoulder and thinking she would be there following, turning back and - no! Here, before him! His heart hammering.

Nuh, no! No! Titmouse shut his eyes and shook his head violently as if the etch-a-sketch of his brain would be cleansed. His eye opened and, Still here. You need to go! Leave me ALONE!

Running through her if he must! Cantering through the dark and away.

And run through her he did.

She felt the shiver of his solidity, splitting what should be bone and blood and sinew and instead. . .energy. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and she spit his words back at him—

I am dead! Maegi snapped. I did die and you left me alone, Mou! I tried to help you, tried to take care of you, and when I lay sick and dying you were—where?!

Shock in a kettle had boiled into anger, and she was well steaming now.

Where have you been?! she shrieked. Where the fuck did you go?

Death did not bring peace. Not entirely.

This was different from what he experienced every night when he slept, and every day when his mind tilted in to drug flashbacks; different in ways he couldn't wrap his head around. Before she was only a thought, sometimes only a voice, sometimes a feeling and not a face. As he passed through her Titmouse felt cold and then anger, betrayal, heartache each compounding the last.

He could handle tastes of this. The feeling of being rain-soaked and abandoned. The confusion of not knowing where he was. Anger at partial memories, often bloody. But this was all his feelings, all his thoughts, clarified, with the face and the voice of someone who haunted him endlessly! He didn't know what gave her such power over him now - but as her voice called, he sobbed; as she yelled, he quaked; knowing he deserved everything he got.

I'm — sorry wasn't enough. Titmouse sank, crumpled to the earth, shivering and sobbing; afraid, mourning, hurting, aching - and covered his head with his long white limbs, willing her away. P-please, no more, no more.

Pity—that was predominant in what she felt for him, always. Perhaps even above love.

And she pitied him now. Jaes, was he dead or alive? The way he'd passed through her—so clumsy, so mortal—he must still be alive. And gods help him for it.

Maegi shook her head slowly, silently. I've kept looking for you, she said, staring at the spot where his eye should be, cloaked by his long forelimbs. Coward. I've searched because I love you.

There was no reasoning with a crazed soul. Daughter of madness; she should know.

When you're ready to die, I'll be there, she vowed. Cast him one long, lingering look, then turned, unable to bear the sight of this sniveling mortal much longer.