He'd done all he could back there, in the cave. Struggling, fighting, in ways he'd never had to before and in ways he prayed he never would again. Perhaps the most terrifying thing wasn't the shadow-beasts themselves as they clawed and screeched like animals, taking on hideous shapes and moving in inhuman ways, but it was watching Toraj as she scrambled to protect what was dear to her, even if it meant putting herself in harm’s way to do it. That could have been him. So easily, it could have been him instead, and even as he struggled with all the might his two-inch self could muster to save her, he could not pay the price she owed for her actions. Another casualty, ripped to shreds before his very eyes, until she vanished in a flash of sparkling light. His regained size, his campfire, his sword, all of it hadn't been enough. Toraj died. Though Nox also fell prey to the creatures and himself, Nir'wei didn't see it, and only became aware of his absence when the world around them shifted, and there were only three left. Until there were five, anyway.
The field before them was both barren and packed. Its colours drained completely until only shades of muted grey existed, its soil cracked and broken beneath his feet, its sky perpetually covered in rainless clouds while a fierce wind stripped what little heat his pyjamas could hold until shivers wracked his body and the hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. It was, in every sense of the word, dead; Nir'wei stared upon it and, for the first time in his life, he knew true despair, that such a place could exist. The path before them, so long and so winding, seemed to stretch on and on as far as the eye could see and then farther still, across a perfectly flat surface into the horizon - and on it a hurricane made of those filthy black clouds, swirling in a thick foam of storm-clouds. Who would ever want to go there? But then, where else could they go?
It pulled at them. But only one of them had a true body to hold them in place.
"Nir'wei," Greyhide breathed, and Nir looked down to see his wolf, trembling on the spot with eyes fixed firmly on the distant storm. "Nir'wei, I... I don't feel good." There was a shaking to his voice that shouldn't have been there and in a moment, he knelt in the dust of the path, gripping hard at either side of the wolf's face to stare into his eyes, bright and blue and shimmering. Its light and vibrancy swelling and ebbing like the waves on a beach as something pulled insistently on the wolf’s very being. Something was horribly wrong about all of this. The edges of the wolf's fur blurred like he was trying to shift back into his spirit-form, a last-ditch escape for when things turned bad, but he couldn't. Things were different here. That was why Archailist appeared as a flesh-and-blood squirrel, perched on his shoulder instead of floating in wisps of translucent ether.
Almost unconsciously the wolf's eyes tried to turn back to stare at the vortex, but Nir'weis fingers tightened until his nails met skin. "Stay with me, Grey." The eyes that looked at him prickled with tears, and the clenching tightness in Nir's throat was far too real as he blinked back his own and shook the wolf gently between his hands. "Look at me, stay with me Grey. Stay with me!" Was it exhaustion? Fear? Or the maelstrom in the background? There was no telling, but it was all too real as he felt his fingernails squeezing against flesh, as if they alone could hold him in place, but he could feel their mental connection dwindling, the voice inside his head growing quiet, as if distant.
The world dwindled to a pinprick, a snapshot. A nightmare come true in its most horrid form. "You can't go," Nir'wei whispered, choking on his words. He might be tortured, poisoned, corrupted. "You can't." He might die. Gods knew he’d faced such threats before. But don’t take away his wolf. No. His hands squeezed tighter. Never. Tears begun to crawl tracks down his dust-stained cheeks and dribble from his chin. Never. For a moment, he swore he could feel it. His very soul tearing. The pain was excruciating, in mind, in body. Everything that made him, falling apart at the seams, unraveling like a spool of yarn. Yet he couldn't let it pull him away, never. Never.
Never.
Nir'weis head tilted down until his forehead pressed to the wolf's, and in that moment, with a whisper, they both opened their eyes and locked gaze. "You're just as much me as you are yourself." Their first meeting, the wolf scared and cowering in a cage. Their nights alone, staring into the night sky. Wandering the streets. Laughing as the wolf tried to play with Volareons. Hunting down slavers. Befriending a fisherwoman. Nir'weis illness. Greyhide's agony. Greyhide's secret. Nir'weis guilt. He remembered them all, like a life flashing before his eyes, from the very moment they'd first met, to their bonding, the revelations, the mysteries yet unsolved. "To lose you, would be to lose everything." His whispered voice choked as the lump in his throat threatened to crack and drip bile from his lips. Both arms shifted to wrap around the wolf's neck and squeeze him closer. "If you go, I'll... I'll follow you. Wherever it might take us. Together. Until the end, and beyond." At his pledge, he felt the firm shape of the wolf pressing back, and in a rush it happened. Everything he knew, everything he remembered, all of the wolf Greyhide flowed through that bond they shared. And something returned.
Memories that weren't his own. Surreal sensations of himself, looking upon himself. Standing before a giant shadowhound and baring his teeth. Dragging a fresh kill back to the tent, even as his own stomach growled and begged, knowing that there was someone else that needed it more that night. Shouldering the burden of his stumbling body as it bled from the eyes and nose. Pulling him back from a mysterious fountain as it threatened to swallow his mind whole. Staring at the sky and wondering what the future held, reassured by kind words and a gentle hand that it would all work out somehow. Memories, shared experiences, life events, flashing in his eyes, pounding in his skull. "Then I'll stay... right here. I swear. For both of us." It was if, in a single hand, he held everything that Greyhide was, and in turn, the wolf held everything of him. Archailist, enigmatic and unseen, gripped them both, and in return they clasped. Somewhere out there were others that he reached for, and though he never felt their grip back, he clawed for them too, for his memories of them, for everything shard of being he held. Faith, Padraig, Noah and Alison. Qit'ria and little Caza. Kura, Vivian, Kali, Ela. Cold, Myrth, Squeak. Jasper, Malice. Vabina, Traveller. "For all of us."
Greyhide's shimmering faded, as if the wolf slowly came back into focus, his blurry edges sharpening, mute features returning to their former vibrancy. There was something more, though. He, they, felt more secure. As they grasped for everything that held them, both here and to Idalos, they anchored themselves to the one thing that mattered - getting back to them, restoring the world. For the first time in a long, long time, he felt clarity.
Nir'wei finally stood once more, sword still gripped in his hand, and grit his teeth as he stared into the field of corpses. Moments before stone walls fell from the sky, blocking out the creatures and leaving them with nothing but a long, winding path to follow, with two identical doors on either side. Looking up gave no clues where it had come from, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, not until one door opened and two others emerged... and the most bizarre sight came through it. "... Alright then. This is just getting more absurd by the tick." They must have looked a right mess too, with a mute, a tear-stained man with a sword and a naked bloke staring goggle-eyed at a crocodile man and an animated stuffed bear. No point questioning it, they'd just give themselves a headache. "Just do it."
The moment Kes formed the door, Nir'wei reached forward, grabbed the man's wrist for support, and followed him through. And in the blackness that followed, he sang.
"Through fields of greying corpses,
through valleys void of life,
I'll never lose your hand, no
not when the danger's rife.
Through canyons of hopelessness,
o'er the mountains black,
I'll never lose your hand, no
not 'til we make it back.
Through flames and ice and lightning,
through Immortals in the flesh,
I'll never lose your hand, no
not 'til my blood runs fresh.
Through worlds we've never seen before,
'nor we'll never see again,
I'll never lose your hand, no
not 'til we see our den.
Through Emea and Idalos,
through everything and more,
I'll never lose your hand, no.
I'll stay with you... I swore."
