One would never know that the bloodline I am descended from branched out and created the pup that bounds towards me. She is light to my darkness, a sort of shimmering creature that the muted light seems attuned to. For a pup, she moves not with uncontained exuberance so much as floats. There is something fitting about her with Iromar as her backdrop. My emerald eyes stare hard at her as she nears, thoughts turning sinister.

How easy would it be for me to snatch her? To swoop in just Blackthorne had once done, sans a horde, and to abduct the ghost girl. To restart the cycle that led my paws right back to this spot. The thought becomes so strong it as if part of my body moves instinctively, head falling down, eyes staring blankly at her, watching the scene unfold but not really. Because I did not move, my muscles locked in place, frozen as I fought the sudden wicked turn of my mind.

It was his doing. All of this was his doing. I came here in search of ghosts that I could grasp between my jaws. Tear them up, swallow them, forget them finally, and instead I am given a ghost girl that could have been me or Whisper or Idrisa. I can see their faces, shock, fear, tears. They are interposed upon the girls.

The illusion breaks the moment she speaks. I had missed her searching gaze, so stuck in my mind, fighting this urge. She breaks the spell and I jerk my head up and back, a hiss of air whistling between my clenched teeth as I blink rapidly down at her. Stranger-wolf. Her words are haunting. All too knowing. My ears spin back, my back legs twitch with the need to back away from the girl. I don’t know what I want to do – snatch her, run away from her, I am a conflicting array of emotions, of urges and feelings.

It comes to me who she reminds me of. The crazy witch wolf of Blackthorne’s. The eggs. The bloodied yolk. She bows her head to him twice, acknowledging her own secret information. ”Yes. You are.” My words come out sharp but blunt, a sort of spitting anger in them at this child who invokes too much in me. I shouldn’t have returned.

I turn abruptly, spinning on my thick haunches, but another voice captures me. My heart clangs in my chest so hard I think I can hear it too. Did the clanking of one’s heart make such noise as it sounds in my head? Could they hear?

Slowly I turn my gaze over my shoulder, eyes skipping across the wraith-like girl with her clever and cryptic words, to land on Whisper. Her shock is mirrored in my own face. My jaw opens, intending to say her name, to breath it. She interrupts me, thankfully, by apologizing to the ghost child. Sidhe. A strange name for a strange kid. Whisper was always kind though, even as a pup, never ignoring another for the sheer sake. She was so different than me.

I am torn between leaving or staying now. Whisper reminds me of something I was, or had hoped to be. Sidhe reminds me of the thing I am now or what I am becoming. Or will become, or can become… so many confusing things bounce in my head. It is all I can do to keep my attention on them, so unnerved as I am. ”I…”

The word comes out gruff from my throat. I huff a deep breath out through my nose, chest rising then falling. ”I don’t know why I came back.” I admit it then. Not everything but enough for them to make some assumptions maybe. My gaze flicks down to Sidhe then quickly back to Whisper, wondering if the girl is as witchy as the other wolf. If her strange pale eyes could see like Beltane’s. ”You look well.” The words sound surprised, soft, forlorn.