Private Objects, Affections

Granite, pale grey. Smoothed down by the flow of water.

He turned the stone beneath his look, watching as firelight revealed its grain. It was unremarkable and unassuming, many of the paths up here riddled with just its exact like, to the countless. And like all other rocks, it spoke not to his touch.

But it had memory, he knew. For something as dull and hard as this tiny pebble, he imagined there wasn’t much but the minute physical sensations. Gravity, pressure, temperature, tremors. It would remember the fire, the warmth of his hand, the vibration of a loud enough shout or whatever would hit it. The pull of the ground as one would eventually toss it away.

Objects remember in the way that people can’t — raw and unfiltered. And they’ve met and been with others, some of whom we know, in a way that neither of us can.

He’d figured it wasn’t his talent to read dead things, only to be told he just didn’t ask his questions firmly enough. And being answered was like those things were happening to whom did the asking, all that seeing, hearing and feeling. What was it like, to be held within a palm? Completely, perhaps with an ardent thought.

You’re too sentimental — You get caught up on things as that in your wander, you end up an addict to it. Waste away, rifling through the highlights of inanimate lives. A touch, a voice, the reflection of someone that’d already faded from memory.

The trees around him were dark and still in the early night, flickering lightly with the orange glow from the flame amidst his tiny camp. At the edge of that light hovered the two horses he had in tow, huddled together and hanging their heads, and behind his back the shelter he’d set up. Just a broad canvas cloth secured betwixt two thick pine trunks with a rope and some stakes for two corners. Long open side towards the fire, for now.

There was no snow in this forest anymore, but it still got dreadfully cold. And busy, potentially, if one wasn’t careful.

He slipped the stone back into the pocket affixed to his belt and straightened, face twisting with weary effort as he reached for more tinder from the stack by the small firepit. Added it in with a toss, raising embers. Heard Svala nicker and shift on its hooves, and when he glanced at it he realized its head was raised. Ears alert at the darkness.

There was nothing to be seen, no other sound beneath the hum of hot air, but all that always meant nothing until it became something. Otherwise not rousing, remaining at a seat with his general air of lonesome graveness, he set one hand on the scabbard of the sword that lay on the ground at his side.

Before Farren could follow Aarno, she ran with the drumbeat of the Fell herd.

Her paws struck sun-warmed earth in time with the thunder of hooves and the rush of bodies. She moved like smoke through the fringes of their formation, weaving through the streaming shadows of antlers and the dappled light of crepuscular rays. Around her, other Bell Keepers kept pace—black wolves all, their eyes silver-bright and eerie from where they glowed in the bracken. They were towered by old growth, trunks stretched upward all around them, bare branches just beginning to remember how to be green again, quietly stirring from winter’s stillness.

And through the woods, hundreds of deer marked for migration with a brass bell tied to their antlers carried the music that bounced off every rock and, tree, and creature. The wild wood knew this sound well. Aged pines and moss-coated knotted hardwoods, tall and grave, long accustomed to watching the Fell people pass.

They traveled the herd through heather and ferns, thickets that were just waking in spring's bloom, their trail ahead a bruised ribbon of trampled greens and kicked-up soil. Beneath it all, Farren smelled the thawing loam, the budding green, the lichen-crusted stones she leapt over, and the cracked bark of trees she brushed past. All of it thick with the scent of waking things.

In the midst, the Fell Shepherds rode high upon their deer, towering above the flow of bodies below. Each bore a staff hung with a bronze bell slung across their saddle or clenched in a callused fist, their deep tolls booming out in slow arcs to signal shifts in the herd like the moons pulling the tide.

Farren’s ears swiveled toward those notes learned after so many years, the low pulses that meant to slow, gather, and regroup. Keening highs for speed or danger flanking. She and her sisters responded in tandem, slipping through the tide of bodies like current through reeds. They were teeth and shadow and wolf-song, stitching up the edges, driving stragglers, snapping warnings at ornery cervine.

But when dusk bled into the branches and the forest turned gold and grey, the toll of the bells softened, stretched long and low as the Shepherds signaled for settling. The herd would rest for the night, bell-touched and exhausted, ringed in by quiet wolves and the dusk songs of the Fell.

But Farren did not stay.

Farren slipped away on silent paws, her parting charioted by the howling sound of her sisters fading behind her like the memory of a dream of another life. She had given her people the day, and now she had her own trail to follow. A thread of scent had been tugging at her—clove oil, stone, and horseflesh.

"And I'll follow you."

The wolf ran with her nose low and her pace steady, cutting through game trails and gullies— she passed a lake of hammered glass and ran through cracked roots and river stones slick with meltwater. The land changed beneath her, more slope, more shadow, more wind, and still she followed.

Into the long night she moved, until— light.

It carved through the dark ahead of her in thin slats, golden and flickering. The scent of charred wood deepened. She slowed, belly low to the loam, and crept forward until the brush parted.

There he was, and she tried to ignore the way her heart bat at the bars of her ribs.

Aarno sat near a fire, the flames painting him in warm strokes, hair tousled, face granite-carved except for the soft give of his mouth. He turned something in his hands she couldn't see.

So she moved closer, a rustle of leaves and brush. Enough to draw his horse's attention, but they knew her scent well on the upwind. But Aarno noted the change, and looked into the shadows, ready for whatever may come his way.

Her maw parted in a wolfish grin, he had little to fear from her. Or did he?

When he looked up, she would be standing at the far edge of the firelight, silver eyes gleaming from the dark. Watching him.

Hello, lover.

The fire caught on something, like a void that’d swallow the light and reflect it back through two pinpricks. Mirrors, silver, a bit of fangs revealed by a grin beneath. He felt he knew it, name and all, but some sense for play bade him pretend he didn’t. So he remained still, staring back in his forcibly languid manner, and when he spoke it was but a mutter. For wolves to hear.

“ Hey. “

Farren snapped her teeth in the empty air, a delighted snarl in her throat at their game.

She prowled closer, the slow tightening of a snare.

When she reached him, she drew in close enough to snuffle at his hands, warm breath teasing his fingers, before she rubbed her shoulder along his arm in a rough, animal kind of affection, slipping behind him, tail brushing his back.

A log fell and sparks danced in the smoke as silver flames consumed the wolf.

What stepped out from his other side was Farren.

She settled beside him like she’d never left. Her boots were still dusted from the trail, her braid tugged loose by wind and motion. Wisps of hair clung to her face, oblivious to the dirt smeared across one cheek. The black bell tied in with the others at her braid’s end gave the barest jingle as she leaned her shoulder against his in quiet, familiar ease.

Her mouth tugged into a tilted, coy smile.

“You waited.”

@Aarno

He endured the suspense, daring a tentative smile at her wolven devotions as she’d rain them upon him. The expression remained as she shifted and settled alongside, shoulder to shoulder. He gave a little weight against her in a lean, lightly, acknowledging.

“ I did. “ Like I said. Tore his look from the fire to her, inspecting her face. The smile.

“ Good day? “

Farren hummed, a happy, confirming sound in her throat.

She folded forward, arms wrapped loosely around her knees, cheek balanced against one leg as she watched him through the firelight. There was so much she wanted to tell him. Things she’d held like warm stones in her chest the whole run back. But she tempered that shy eagerness in an effort to meet him on middle ground, instead of pulling him into her orbit again and again. Letting the silence stretch soft and unhurried between them.

The firelight caught in her eyes like emberic coals, casting her mouth in a wash of red. Her smile returned with a teasing flash of teeth, suddenly hungry for his playful sass.

“A good day, indeed. But better now that I’ve found you.”

She leaned her chin to the top of her knee, voice warm with curiosity.

“How was your trek here? Did Acorn give you any trouble?”

As if summoned by name, her gelding gave an indignant snort from the edge of camp, and she grinned wider, not bothering to look his way with Aarno before her.

@Aarno

The response was so— small? And yet heavy, lead at the end of a fishing line. He didn’t know what to do with it, whenever things went so far beyond expectation. That she should’ve denied him the big story— Weary unease settled in his chest, a weight that was hot and cold at the same time. Embarrassment, humiliation and shame for both.

His look had fallen back to the hot stones around the fire. Lazily, it roused up to the horses as she countered with inquiry of her own, about the trek and the bothersome gelding. He shook his head.

“ No trouble, though he is a ripe little shit sometimes. Hardheaded and borne for whimsy, for a gelding. “ He admitted, looping his hands over his lap. Fingers twining together.

“ Must’ve been pleasant weather and all the Spring wormed up in his heart. Calms the nerves. “ For them, anyway. He had too many words in his vocabulary for that. Mostly to roll his thoughts into, so he might rotate them some more.

“ Our trek was— “ Shrugged, aloof. “ Quiet. “

There was a shift in him like the mercurial shifting of stormy weather, something beasts like her were keen to. And just like that, she was already doubting herself. The things she’d said. The things she hadn’t yet. What had slipped through the cracks this time? What had she missed? Her frustration rose hot and sharp— at herself for not knowing, at him for not telling her. But instead of pulling away, she inhaled and tried leaning into levity, teasing him back up to clearer air.

“Quiet?” she echoed, squinting at him, a twinkle in her eye. “Why do I feel like that's code for ‘brooded the whole way here while that damned horse tried to eat every fern on the trail.'? ”

A determined grin tugged at her mouth, voice curling playful again. “Plus, you’ve got that, 'I thought too many thoughts and none of them behaved' look about you.”

She let her hand drop open between them, palm up on the mossy earth, an invitation to hold it if he so wished. She had missed the anchor of his skin.

“Come on,” she coaxed, tilting her head toward him, braid sliding over her shoulder.. “I want to tell you mine. But you first, for once.”

She was trying. Stars, she hoped he saw that, through all of it, he hoped he saw she was trying.

@Aarno

Brooding. The word raised his hackles, stilled his stare to middle distance. None of the thoughts behaved — A major part of him knew she was speaking in jest, trying to inject some lightness to the lingering strain that’d descended and clung to every fiber. Miasmic.

But the part of him that was angry, disappointed, saddened, brooding, was more powerful. Overruled his smiles and his understanding, restraint in the fidget of his hands. He tried the palms together, as if warming them, then settling to inspect the lines thereupon. Harsh grooves in the firelight.

“ Quiet is what quiet is. No code. “ Lonely, but also liberating. “ So much—“ His mouth twisted, grief or residual disgust.

“ Blind, speechless forest. “ Struggled out, ended it all there for the way speaking it caught in his throat. He breathed out.

“ We should talk about something else. “

The message was clear, and Farren curled her absent hand to her chest, fingers ghosting over her palm as if trying to warm it from the chill his rejection left behind.

Her brow furrowed in confusion, watching his face and sighing with anguish for how quickly this had devolved again, despite her best efforts. She was trying to be honest with him, but nothing she was saying seemed to be the right thing, and failure didn't sit well with someone who made it a point to have all the answers.

So this is what it felt like when someone you loved wouldn’t meet you halfway? It wasn't even like this was her first time feeling that same disappointment— her father, Kevir, came to mind. She just hadn't expected it to hurt like this, that same frustration rising up and striking like a snake.

She exhaled, slow and bitter-edged. “Aarno,” her voice imploring and quiet, “am I missing something here?”

“Because I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being intentionally misunderstood. And punished for it. If what I said bothered you, please tell me. I don't like the way all these thorns feel between us." The fire echoed with the snapping bodies of kindling falling into coals.

@Aarno

She didn’t change the subject. Instead, dove on in. Begun digging and hit a rock, clang, rattling him to attention with an insult. A slow turn of the head as he fixed a look on her face, ignoring that malicious instinct that told him he shouldn’t. Look away, let her figure.

“ What part do you feel I’ve misunderstood? “ He asked calmly, letting his hands fall slack on his lap. “ You asked. I answered. That is punishment? “

His brows drew to a frown, lamenting.

“ You call it brooding. To me it was— “ Let his stare flee into the trees, squinting at the dark and the smoke. “ All the words we said to each other, the entire way. And I haven’t levity to spare for that. “

The fucking silence. No one to talk with, when that was all he'd wanted.

Farren blinked hard as his tone hit her.

What part do you feel I’ve misunderstood?

It was the kind of thing you said when you'd already believed you hadn’t. When you'd made peace with being alone in your interpretation of intention and words. She doubted she could change his mind, stubborn as he was to be so blind to how his resentment manifested. Chipping away at her with his disdain and baleful stares.

“I had... just... missed you is all,” Her joints creaking with the grip she hid in her lap. “And I was trying to be more aware of not speaking on myself first."

A thread of sorrow tugging the edge of her mouth downward, as she turned to watch the fire.

“You’re right though.” But the words tasted like ash. “It wasn’t fair, calling it brooding. I really wasn’t trying to insult what you felt. I was trying to… I don’t know, meet you where you were. Wherever that was.”

Absently, her nails dug half-moons into the palm of her hand. She hated this, the talking in metaphors about silences and thorns, when all of it was just wounds that weren’t healing.

Opening her mouth to say something more, she stopped as the wind shifted.

From the shadows beyond the firelight came a sharp crack, wood splintering or bones snapping, it was impossible to tell. The horses snorted and danced at their ties, sudden and violently unsettled.

Farren froze. All the blood in her body seemed to gather in her ears as an awful smell permeated their campsite.

@Aarno

No answer for the actual question. It was like she’d already condemned him for something, insincerity or worse, and thus electing to blow past what he actually wanted to know. What did I intentionally misunderstand, Farren?

He stared on, growing confused and sad by her response. This keeps happening and why— It all appeared so well-intentioned when she spoke of it and yet, always landed arse-backwards. Trying to solve the wrong puzzlebox, all flawed method. Too dramatic, when all he was trying to do was—

“ I’m not persecuting you. Is that what you think I’m doing? “ When all he’d done was describe the heaviness of the heart and she dared to make it about her, again. So quick to assume hatred, when he wasn’t all smiles and embrace to welcome her. How could he have been, with all these parts of him that she claimed to grieve for had they not been there?

Lies as that must sound terribly romantic. Easy, until the time comes to reap what one has sown with them. Now look upon your harvest that you claim to want so much.

Was his honesty too brutal and complicated? What did she actually want—

“ I don’t— “

The mutter he’d begun died on his tongue. First it was the whiff of a noxious fume in the wind, then the noise. His face crinkled, mouth ironing shut as eyes searched the blackness. The small fire flapped like a banner in a wanton gust come through the forest. And something shambled, not breathing, but barely making the sounds of it. So much air through a rusty sieve.

The horses retreated to the end of their lines, eyes rolling, whites of them flashing. Tense, he reached for his sword.

What the fuck—

A wind like a sickness moved through the trees, thick and slow, dragging its stink like a rotten pelt. The fire guttered violently in its pit, shadows dragging long and snapping as the creature stepped between the trees.

Farren had just enough time to see the shape of it and feel her stomach turn inside out, taking an involuntary half-step in front of Aarno.

It was towering on four cloven legs. Massive and insect-jointed, human in places it shouldn’t be. What should have been the head and antlers of an elk was instead the naked body of a man, skin gray and sloughing, pebbled with postules and bloated with bile-green fluid that pulsed and bubbled in its belly. A pair of arms stretched grotesquely skyward, bone-thin fingers curled and branched like the points of a crown—another set, shriveled against its pockmarked underbelly. From its head hung jagged jawbones that dragged low where the torso's legs should have been, and beneath those, two more twitching arms, hanging like gnarled tusks.

Where the crotch of the inverted body was, there were eyes, two white coals glowing from a hollow space that sucked light like a sinkhole. A seam split it neatly down the middle, pulsing faintly with breath.

The creature just stood there. Watching them, moaning in splintered keens that prickled and burned her skin. Wrong, wrong, this was wrong and unnatural. A creature of blight, twisted and made into a thing of nightmares.

Perhaps it will pass on, if we don't move.

A horrible equine wail rent the air as her horse broke his tether and tried to run. The creature snapped toward it in a lurch that jangled every joint in its body like bones in a bag.

Farren moved before she could stop herself.

Silver fire igniting along the shape of her, reforming limbs into four arms that ended in gleaming black talons, her legs bowing into the strong haunches of a beast. Black fur cascaded over her form, thick as shadow, stopping at the bone-white wolf skull that now masked her face. From it rose a rack of antlers, wide and jagged, glinting with spectral heat.

Her eyes flared silver in the empty sockets— burning like stars.

Blight beast and shroudfiend collided with each other mid-air, the impact sending sparks screaming into the air as the fire pit exploded outward. Coals scattered like shrapnel, hissing in the wet soil. Bellows and shrieks split the trees, the noise so loud it cracked the breath in her lungs. Fur, bone, sludge, and shadow twisted together in a monstrous knot. She tore into it with every fang and claw. Limbs flailed like roots ripped from the earth, tusk-hands dragging across her flanks, spewing gouts of green-black rot where it bled.

@Aarno

Blight. Had to be. Otherwise the salt would’ve worked.

After years of encountering what all of them had, even recently, he couldn’t say he was afeared. So he watched the thing approach in his stillness, rattled and weary, all the way until he no longer could.

The gelding bolted and the creature moved fast. Farren, now something else entire, was upon it before that leap for the horse had properly contacted the ground. A black thunderbolt laid loose in a flash of silver. The impact of two beasts was a dull, resonant thud. A tremor beneath him.

He was on his feet in a scramble. Went to cut Svala loose from where it’d tied itself into a knot around a tree and almost got pummeled in the process, caught in the side by its barrel as it panicked. He hissed through teeth, hands working.

“ Easy, you goddamn— “ In another toss of the head and a buck, it was away and disappeared to the dark. Ribs aching and cursing for it, he bared steel and let the scabbard fall in his wake.