Blackfeather Woods us and them

The sheepdog had developed a series of nervous tics the nearer and nearer they drew to la forêt de tourment, and now she was in its shadow, close enough to feel the foul pulse of its heart as it stroked cold fingers and dirty nails over her naked body. The borders were changed, but she did not see them clearly — for Seelie, the skulls and the blackened blood and the thick, oily ichor of death remained — and her breath came in short, shallow puffs. Now and again, she flicked a feathered hind paw like an agitated cat seeking to shake herself free of some unpleasant sensation, never mind that her paws were clean and untethered. She did not see Maegi’s concerned eye upon her but was briefly brought back to earth by the physical contact of the Melonii princess’ muzzle drawing tenderly against her high-riding shoulder.

“Tell me your name and I will spare you.”

Coelacanth looked at Maegi at last, her eyes sharpening and focusing, piercing through the nightmare and the memory and homing in on the present. Her mouth worked, but for a prolonged moment, she could not speak. When she finally could, it was still more akin to mouthing the words, with soft ticks and hisses where the consonants lay. “Maegi, precious, dear. Find happy. Peace be.” Really, that was all Seelie had wanted for the girl from the very beginning — and yes, of course, she wished Maegi could’ve found it on the island. She wanted that for every soul who found safe harbor at Undersea, but not all wolves were meant to live that way.

There was a buzzing in her ears, tinny and irritating, growing louder and louder; the ensuing misophonia lifted her hackles, but she tried to hold on. “Welcome…Undersea…ever,” she parceled out, working through the pain that drilled holes behind her eyes and the anxiety that crawled like a host of maggots along her flesh.

Apologetically now, “Love, Maegi,” the Aralez eked out feebly, and then the appearance of others stole away her breath and numbed her tongue. It lay in her mouth, thick and heavy, a carving of moss-covered stone. She watched the approach of the puppy with faraway eyes, wondering how something as precious and beautiful as a child could grow up happily alongside the violence that coursed through the veins of every tree trunk — and then a stumbling at the edge of the meeting caused her to flinch abruptly, tufted ears flicking indecisively between being thrust forward upon her skull with a need to know what manner of family the Melonii girl was going home to, and being slicked back against her crown with a need to avoid punishment.

But she knew him immediately.

She mouthed his name — “Mou?” — but could not muster the breath to utter it fully. He looked worse for wear, and her immediate and unfair instinct was that this had been done to him by the Blackfeather wolves — but he did not flinch or turn away from them, looking instead with recognition upon the small girl who regarded her company so raptly. Indeed, the spacy look in his eyes and the sway in his slow, uncertain steps reminded her of his long days of recovery on Wheeling Gull Isle.

He seemed oddly to belong here, and she felt…

She felt…

Well, of course, she was happy that he was being sheltered and provided for. Of course, she was happy to see him again after all this time. It was a lucky coincidence, finding him here, and she was as fond of him as she had always been.

(Wasn’t she?)