Chapter Text
A rot is spreading across the countryside, and its name is Elias Ainsworth.
Somewhere, a sheep is bleating plaintively. A crow releases a ragged croak. You hear the flapping of its wings to reach a higher branch, a farther-off tree. The whole of creation shies away from you, and why shouldn’t they. Your despair leaks out of you, unraveling the seams of your body and spilling out into a shape that you know must look languid and pathetic. You are not sure if you could stuff yourself back into your proper form if you tried. And while you don’t know what you look like right now, you have an idea. Your hind legs and vestigial hooves feel far away as they drag behind you, so you must be very tall. Straw-dry white hair lies limply across your eyes, which might surprise you if you cared enough to consider it. As for the thorns – of course they’re there, you feel them undulate, recoil, whip and lash anything self-destructive enough to approach you. This is not a form you’re familiar with. It’s different, more slovenly, less cohesive. Her absence has entirely undone you.
Again, the thought of her burns you from inside. Anguish builds in your chest and escapes as a wail. As you reach your claw forward to grasp a tuft of grass, your shadow burns the ground into a sour-smelling scorch of black. Some little living thing, maybe a mouse, wanders into your path – you feel its heartbeat stop and its lungs empty as it melts into dark ooze. It squelches and pops under your palm. Distantly, vaguely, you know what this must look like, but you are far from being able to digest the emotion called “shame.” In fact, this all feels proper. If you be monstrous enough to chase away your wife, why should the lowliest animals of the earth not flee at the sight of you.
You’ve been crawling on your stomach for acres because the effort to stand has been too exhaustive. Stones and sticks and mud and moss cling to your fur, matting it all together. You look stitched together from forest muck. Perhaps “you” is the wrong word to describe Elias Ainsworth. You’re convinced you must surely still be one person, but instead you feel scattered to the four winds. Your body moves on its own. Your vision stings with the sight of her disappearing, a ceaseless loop like a skipping film that replays behind your eyes even when they’re closed. Whatever it is that you are, you are no longer at the helm, and some strange thing is piloting your body in your stead.
Behind you, you hear a sound like rocks tumbling down a cliffside. Something is taking long, heavy strides towards you, and it vibrates the earth with each step. You manage to lift your head slightly before a great force slams you into the mud.
“That’s quite enough of that, you cur,” comes a booming voice. “How much of this land do you intend to pollute?”
A groan wants to leave your mouth, but the stony hand is forcing your maw shut. Your body writhes uselessly, thorns exploring the air for something to latch onto. They find the broad, rough-hewn surface of a leg and start to wrap around it. The voice of your attacker makes a sound of disgust, and a searing pain shoots through you when several of your vines are slashed.
“Now, now, Spriggan, be gentler with the boy. How could you be cruel to such a face?”
Her twinkling voice comes from above. You hear it distantly, as though it’s coming from a long tunnel. Spriggan’s hand pushes you further into the mud before he releases you, and you turn your head to train one eye on the blurry shape of her. There she is, a black dot perched on Spriggan’s shoulder. She swings her legs as she regards you below.
“Titania.” It’s the most respectful acknowledgement you’re capable of giving.
Spriggan’s foot crushes your arm against the ground. “Don’t say her name.”
Titania tsks. “You’re too unkind to our friend. Look at him! He knows not what he does.”
The faerie queen leaps down from her perch and lands before you. Your arm is freed, and now that you can see her, you see that Spriggan has brought many allies. Stocky figures are looming in the trees, their eyes burning with mistrust, spears at the ready. Titania crouches in front of you. Her giant guardian inhales sharply as she takes your head in her hands, stroking the spot between your eyes.
“Little thorn,” she coos, “how unlike you this is. What is it you want?”
Thoughts roll around like stones in your mind. “I want to leave.”
“Wherever to? Where will you slither off at this pace?”
Your chest, your throat, feel seized up. Your words struggle to take shape. “I want to go where she is. I need to.”
Titania exclaims at this, a motherly cluck. She holds your face close to her chest, and glossy black hair spills across your vision. It’s uncomfortable. The heavy blanket of her pity is oppressive. You want to struggle out of her grasp, barely self-aware enough not to reject a creature so powerful.
“I’ve satisfied my curiosity in watching you, I think. Forgive me. So little happens this time of year.” Titania continues stroking your white hair, all the straggly bits that sprout in each direction. “I wanted to see how far you managed on your own, but my, are you slow. You must not want to reach her at all. Are you afraid she’ll rebuff you again?”
She doesn’t mean to torment you, yet it feels that way regardless. You can’t help crying out, and she releases you.
“She’s going to die,” you rasp, your voice breaking.
“All the more reason to hasten your step. Human lives are delicate enough as is.”
“So, please. I need to leave.”
Spriggan grunts and lifts one foot. Titania shoos him away. She folds her arms and sighs. “You’re in no position to do that on your own. You want to find her, don’t you?”
You’ve already made your intention clear, so you say nothing. Strained breaths puff from your nostril. Titania closes her eyes.
“Very well,” she says. Titania pets your hair, and you faintly feel her braiding the blonde strands together. “Forgive me, little one, for my delay and for my pity. I know you don’t want it from me. At least allow me to make up for watching you struggle.”
“My wife has a bleeding heart when it comes to children,” comes a sing-song voice from above.
It’s Oberon, swinging upside down from a blackened branch. You’ve weakened the roots too much for the structure to stay together – the branch creaks and groans, and Oberon jumps down right before it snaps off of the tree. He makes a face as his hooves find purchase in the sludge you’ve left behind, lifting each one to examine the damage.
“Oberon,” Titania says with narrowed eyes. “If you don’t mind, I was about to offer this one my help.”
“Yes, yes.” Oberon rests a firm, brotherly hand between your horns. “You’ve really made a mess of things this time. That’s love for you.” Then he shakes his head sadly. “I can’t abide watching a husband and wife parted this way.”
Titania returns to stroking your snout. “Love, yes. The great motivator. You must love her very much, my child, if her absence leaves you so defeated.”
Love. You open your jaw and look at them both. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.”
Titania laughs. Hiding her mouth behind her hand, she gives you a little pat. “You amuse me to no end, Thorn,” she says. “All things love. You love your wee robin, yes, but you love her in the manner of our kind. It is an unkind love, and sometimes cruel.”
“It’s no secret, wife, how many of your fragile lovers tried to flee from your grasp,” Oberon laughs. He kicks a blotch of black soot, and ashes go flying. “The children of man struggle under the burden of our love. They can’t always tolerate it, you know!”
“What an impertinent wife you have, to spurn your love,” Titania laments, her face in her hands. “Which is why I feel so compelled to help you. Let this be my apology, Thorn. Let me help you chase after her.”
Their two shapes tower over you, and the more they speak the more mocked you feel. What kind of joy must they feel by watching you squirm in the dirt? You’re writhing in your own skin. You want to peel away your layers and disappear, or else fly far away from here.
“You understand, then, yes?” asks Titania. Her smile splits her face. “Once you catch your robin, you must place her in her birdcage and throw away the key. Why, you could even bring her to our realm, and then you’d have her forever! I’d never have to see you make such a dreadful face again.”
A violent shudder works its way down your spine. You don’t know what it is that’s so intolerable about her words. She is put together, she is powerful, she is older and wiser than you – and you are repulsed. Titania casts her gaze down at you as you wriggle away from her, her smile fading, and it’s like a thousand needles raining down on you.
“I am not… like you,” you grunt. “I can’t be.”
Oberon cocks his head, his hands on his hips. “Is it so bad to be like us?”
Your words slosh around in your mind. You are in no state for conversation, but you cannot afford to offend them. “She would hate me. She does hate me.”
Titania scoffs. “As if that matters! Love is better when it is shared, Thorn, but it is clear to me that nothing except danger and death befalls her when she is apart from you. You ought to keep her close, even if she fights you.”
“Especially if she fights you,” adds Oberon. “So what if you earn her hatred? She is weaker than you, and in this world, why, strength reigns above all!”
All you can do is shake your head. Bits of dirt and leaves fall out of your hair. “I’ll not force her to return to me. I only want… I want, her safety.”
“Oh, husband. Can you believe it? He thinks he loves her as humans do.”
Oberon’s laughter is grating. “Then let us see what he shall do when he gets his claws on her!”
The king and queen are laughing now. As they spin about you, you can see Titania’s shadow splintering. Two become four become eight, until there are more Titanias than trees. They scatter from their master, branching off into all directions, and when she opens her eyes they have a faraway look about them. Her pupils flicker, studying something that you can’t see. This must be the power of the faerie queen – to split herself into many fragments, to follow the scent on all the winds and carry herself across the world. When she looks down at you again, you think she can’t possibly see you, but she takes your gigantic paws in both her hands and drags you up, up, until you’re almost standing on two legs. She spins you around, Oberon watching in delight and Spriggan watching in disdain.
“Come, my child, hunt for her on the winds with me!” she laughs, dancing a sluggish waltz with you in your overgrown state. “We’ll ride like the Wild Hunt, across the sky and through the stars ‘til she’s found. I’ll not force your hand – you may seize her or you may set her free. Either way, I’ll not rest ‘til I’ve made us even.”
What choice do you have? She beckons you to wrap your thorns ‘round her many splinters, and because you cannot insult her, you comply. You can’t say that this solution is unappealing to you – you do want to bring Chise back to you, yes, even if she hates you, even if she fights. You have to slough off those unwanted feelings as they come to you. If you cannot hold your physical body together, you must at least hold your resolve. You must prove to them that you are not a monster. And you must prove it to Chise, too.
Titania carries you across land and sea. She peers through the eyes of her subjects, spying into worlds above ground and below. Forests and riverbeds and bridges and basements, all of them fold out before you. Her branches dance and twirl past countries, through villages and cities and borderlands, chasing an ephemeral scent that never gets any stronger. As you continue, her whimsy shifts to annoyance, annoyance into wrath. Your hunt becomes more frantic. She desperately pages through her myriad shadows, not out of any sense of duty toward you, but because she wants to finish something she’s set her mind to. The faerie queen is famously tenacious. Her rancor mounts as minutes drag on and on, and still there is no sight of Chise, no flash of red hair, no glint of green eyes. Your despair hollows you out at the same time Titania swells with rage. She unleashes you, and you stumble backward to sit on your six legs.
“Something,” she seethes, her shoulders trembling, “is blocking me.”
“Surely not,” objects Oberon. He’s kicking his legs from where he perches on a boulder, hooves click-click-clicking on the rock. “What force could block my wife’s mighty senses?”
Titania throws up a defiant palm in his direction, silencing him. “She could not have fled so far that my branches cannot follow. Not in the time she’s been gone. What witchcraft is this, I wonder....”
She paces the black earth in agitation, rubbing her chin and muttering to herself. You imagine this must be how she behaves when she transforms another mortal lover into a donkey. It feels indecent to watch the faerie queen in such an unraveled state, so you turn away and consider what you’ve experienced. As you see it, there are two options. The first is that Cartaphilus has put up a spell strong enough to repel even Titania’s tracking. It seems unlikely. The second option is that Chise has already fled far enough to escape the range of Titania’s influence. The idea that not even Titania can help you makes you feel like your insides have been scooped out. You are more helpless than ever.
The sights and smells forced into your mind by Titania’s branches are still knocking around inside your skull. You raise yourself as high as you’re able without feeling entirely drained. Wobbling a little on your hind legs, you face her again.
“Queen,” you ask. You must force yourself to speak because you are afraid of the answer. “Would you have been able to find her if she was dead?”
Your question distracts her from her pacing. Titania sniffs at you, annoyed. “Of course I could. A body is remarkably easier to find when its soul has departed. The scent is all the stronger.”
Somehow, this doesn’t inspire hope. “Where does the limit of your branches lie?”
She bristles, and Spriggan leans forward to glare at you. “Do not dare to insinuate that the Queen’s powers are lacking.”
“Yes. I am… sorry.”
You mull everything over as best you can. You know that you’re still unfit to be making decisions, or think rationally, but your goal is singular now. You want to get away from the faerie court, to lay down somewhere and let the weight of your excruciation cover you. You want to be left alone. You want to imagine that Chise is not, cannot be, dead. And right now, there is only one sure way to ensure that she’s alive.
“Queen. You have been… a great help to me.”
Titania’s brow twitches. “Have I? After that unacceptable intrusion?”
“I think… it is better, that we did not find her. I think. This has narrowed down my search. I am more confident now. In how to ensure her livelihood.”
Her magenta eyes narrow to fierce, sharp lines. “You lie,” says the queen. “You wanted your wife, I promised her to you, and we do not have her. Do not insult me with placation.”
Suddenly, Oberon jumps down from his seat. He walks up to you and pats you heartily on the feathers ‘round your neck. It’s a jovial gesture meant to make you feel better– even so, you only feel ridiculed. You look down to train your eye on him, and he gives you a subtle wink.
“Wife, I know the look of a grateful husband when I see one! See how he overflows with satisfaction over the fruits of your labor!”
He looks to you to play along. You stare down at him, then look to Titania, then open your jaws. “Yes.”
“See? He is satisfied! As satisfied as your lowly Oberon when you allow him to sleep at the foot of our marriage bed!”
Titania taps her foot a little. She has never looked so juvenile. Her lips purse as she folds her arms. “Well, it did take quite a lot of effort. It was not necessary for me to go to such lengths for those two.”
“Yet you did! Because you are a kind and gentle queen who cannot help but to dote upon her subjects.” Oberon is laying it on too thick in your opinion, however Titania preens at this. This failure must have her all out of sorts.
She whisks her hair behind her shoulder. “I am. And as your queen, I extend my deepest apologies that we did not obtain what you seek. Will you be satisfied if you must pursue her alone?”
You nod. “I think. It must be my duty, as her husband. To retrieve her on my own.”
Her eyes grow wide and sparkling. “How chivalrous! You must be the first to tell me, little thorn, when she is within your sights.”
You offer a deep bow, which turns into you standing on your six legs again. Another promise – maybe you’ll keep this one. Now that you’ve been given leave, you begin the long trudge back to where you came from. You keep your head bowed low, your white hair picking up mud as you plod along.
“Ainsworth,” says Spriggan. You flinch at the sound of your name. His voice is painful, deep and rumbling like two rough stones rubbing together. “This land is our duty to protect. Do not defile it. I do not care what favor you hold among my masters, and I care even less for a loathsome creature of obsession.”
You do not face them. You just lower your head farther, as far as it will go without touching the ground. “I understand.”
It’s nearing dusk by the time your house comes into view.
The silhouette of the chimney makes you think of smoke, which makes you think of food, which makes you question how long it’s been since you’ve eaten. It’s only been one day, hasn’t it? Two? Three is plausible. You thought your state would improve after that humbling disaster with the faerie court, but you feel as miserable as ever. Hunger and fatigue rack your form, so much larger than your normal body, so much more work to fuel. Your hooves drag against the stones, your claws grasp at divots in the mortar. The miasma about you is thick – animals bound away from you into the underbrush. Not that many of the fauna have stuck around. The grass and the leaves have all lost their color, withering and dying and shriveling into formless black shapes. This is where you lost control of yourself, where the string and glue keeping your body together burst and broke open, where a torrent of unbearable pain came out of you in the form of thorns, of claws. Where a plaintive cry ripped out of you, shattering the silence of the late winter air, sending flocks of birds flying from their branches, driving Ruth away with the pitch and the warble of it.
Ruth. As soon as you transformed, he fled with his tail between his legs. While you were driven by the anguish of loss, the church grim was driven by the desire to survive. An animal ‘til the end. Yes, your questions will be answered if you discover what’s become of Ruth. You lift your head and sniff the air, searching for his canine stink. You don’t smell anything. Maybe at the house, then.
The house is in sight now. Only one light is on – the light at the front door. The rest of the windows are black. Did Chise leave any of her lights on before she ran from you? Was the bed still unmade, were clothes on the floor, did she leave a book open on the desk? If the light is on, you should leave it until the bulb burns out. You should leave everything as it is. That would be good. When she comes back, everything must be just so. She would be angry if you tampered with her things.
Perhaps it’s because you are so focused on tracking Ruth’s scent that you do not realize someone is blocking your path. You spot her only a moment before you are struck across the face. The strike is so sudden that it takes a few moments before the pain blooms. You hiss at your attacker. It’s Silky, standing at the end of the pathway with the foulest expression you have ever seen her wear. Her feet are planted firmly to block your entry, and lengths of yellow ribbon are pulled taut in her hands like a cat o’ nine tails.
“Silky,” you growl. “Let me through.”
Her mouth pulls into an ugly snarl, and for a moment you think Silky must have been some sort of malicious spirit in a past life. This is the face of something that cannot stand to have its territory defiled. You’ve attempted black magic in her home, and she cannot forgive it. You should leave, her expression says – in the kindest possible phrasing.
“You can’t do this to me, Silky.”
Silky’s nostrils flare. Her eyes are flinty. Watch me.
“I live here.” You appeal to her maternal sensibilities, her desire to dote. “Please. Not after all I’ve lost.”
She pulls the ribbons tight and raises her arm, and you have only enough time to shrink backward before she strikes you, again and again, stinging you like nettles. You have neither the energy nor the desire to argue, to plead, to beg for mercy at her feet. You simply worm your way backwards, away from the blows that rain down on you. After all that’s been taken from you, you are not permitted even a roof over your head. Must all of this befall you, simply for wanting to save Chise’s life? Why is it that human morality must be so incomprehensibly illogical?
“Wait,” you gasp, lifting your claws to shield yourself. Silky pauses, ribbons raised above her head, and you presume you must look so pitiful that she cannot help hearing you out. “I won’t try to enter. Tell me one thing, and one thing only. Where is Ruth? ”
Silky’s eyes flash. She lowers her stance and shifts her footing toward the house, looking back over her shoulder. The anger drains from her face. Now, she just looks sad. Your chest tightens.
“Silky. Where is Ruth? ”
She looks down at you, and you are entirely unsure whether she intends to invite you inside for dinner or stomp your face into the ground. Silky raises her hand and makes a swooping, downward motion with her palm downturned. You recognize the sign. Ruth has left.
“Where did he go? ” you press. “Is he dead? ”
The corners of her mouth fold into another tight, unpleasant frown. She signs at you so rapidly that you can scarcely identify the shapes of her hands in the fading daylight. You said only one question.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I’ll leave.”
You are too leery of being struck again to turn your back on her, so instead you continue your backward crawl. Silky watches you with her ribbons wound tight in her hands, and you wonder whether your little household spirit always had this capacity for violence within her – or if you just forced it out of her. That must be so. Everything you do is incorrect. Everything is wrong. In the end, you always make things worse. Resentment boils under your skin as you shuffle on your hands and feet, chin to the stones, recoiling from a faerie dressed in a pink bonnet.
It’s as you inch away from Silky that a sharp exhale leaves her. Her ribbons fall to the ground as she rushes forward, the soles of her slippers clicking against the old cobblestones. You angle your face sharply to brace for another onslaught, but she stops a few yards in front of you. She stoops, gloved hands trembling, as she pokes and prods at the missing mortar between two stones. Something is clattering around in there, and she’s trying to dig it out. She makes a little sound of effort as she plucks it out from its slot, and a croak rumbles in your throat when you recognize it. It’s Chise’s stone necklace, the cord snapped from where she tore it off her neck. Your arm moves on its own – you shoot forward to snatch it from her, and Silky, indeed, stomps your face into the ground. You snarl as she grinds her heel between your eyes.
From the ground, Silky looks a hundred miles tall, an incensed tower of pink. How many more times today will you be crushed like some sort of vermin? How much lower can you possibly be brought? Silky’s knuckles twitch from how tightly she holds onto the hollow adder stone. You can’t have it, her glare says. You don’t deserve it. Then she slips it into her apron, swivels on her heel, and storms back to the house.
That stone was all you had left. The last thing that touched her skin before she was taken from you. Before she gave up on you. All at once you begin to moan, a low and pathetic sound. You drag yourself all the way to the end of the bridge, balking when Silky strikes you one last time. This time, though, it isn’t by her own hand. She’s strung up a latticework barrier of thin yellow ribbons to keep you off the property. You look every which way to find a way around it, but her weaving is secure. Silky wants you out.
This is it, then. This is the lowest you can go. You turn your back on your home and continue crawling.
Another pointless day is done and the sky is cloaked in dark blue. Pinpricks of stars poke through the overcast weather. You’ve already been rained on.
You got tired once you reached the bottom of the bridge. You allowed yourself to shimmy down the grass incline and into the creekbed, and for hours now this is where you’ve remained. The water has gone black around you, and little dead fish float around your half-submerged face. You open your jaws and eat one.
A while ago, you heard a car rumble overhead towards the house. You were not so delusional that you believed Chise might return to you by automobile, so you ignored it. Several minutes after that, you heard the car’s boot shut. Now, above you, you hear the crunch of feet against dead leaves and melting ice. A grunt, a cough, and the faint back and forth sweeping of a torch. The cough gives it away. You know that Simon is looking for you before you see his face.
The torchlight strays over the edge of the bridge, and by his exclamation you can tell Simon has spotted you. The torch nearly falls out of his hand, its dim light vanishing into the heavy, dark atmosphere that looms over you. The priest mutters to himself as he slides awkwardly down the embankment. He skids to a halt by your head.
“Elias,” he says simply. “The landlady told me I might find you here. A fat lot of trouble you’ve gotten into, if I’m correct.”
You tilt your head to get a good look at him. At the same time, Simon clicks his torch to a higher brightness to see you better. It renders his face into an unidentifiable black blob. You can’t see his expression, but the tension rolling off of him is a good enough tell. You must look frightening. You face away and settle your face into the weeds.
Simon sighs. “So it’s like that, then.”
He sits and folds his legs in the grass. It must be uncomfortable. His coat is too short to protect the seat of his trousers from getting wet, the ground is cold, and you’ve made the air smell of brimstone. What must compel him to stay beside you if not pity? You don’t want the priest’s pity. Pity from the faerie queen was painful enough. Pity from Simon may actually cause you to rend your flesh from your bones. It’s too bad you don’t have the willpower to do so.
“Listen. I won’t waste your time, Elias.” Simon rests his arms across his knees. “I have to report this to the Church.”
He was right – that wasted no time at all. Simon sounds deathly grim about all this, yet the threat of the Church feels far away. You aren’t confident that you care what happens to you any longer. You exhale from your nostril and turn farther away.
“I mean it, Elias,” Simon says, hoping against hope that you’ll take him seriously if he sharpens his tone. His voice trembles – from anger or self-doubt, you cannot say. “Your actions this time are beyond the pale. The Church will seek a permanent solution to your behavior if you don’t reign it in.”
Again, all you can do is give an indignant huff in response. Bits of blonde hair fall in front of your face, and you do not move to shake them from your vision. When you don’t respond, Simon buries his head in his hands and groans.
“Let me put it into words that you care about. Chise’s appearance here,” Simon says, placing emphasis on her name, “was troublesome enough as it was. Her disappearance is even more so. It’s not something I can let go. The Church has to know. That’s a human life we’re talking about.”
You glare up at him. He makes an exasperated sound.
“My God, Elias, yes, of course I know about Chise. I am not an entirely useless observer, you know! Did you think I couldn’t tell something was wrong when I saw all those crops you spoiled?” He drags his hand down his face. “So you have to understand, Elias. If I don’t report you, my job is as good as gone. And if I get ousted, I cannot say that my replacement will be so lenient towards you.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should care!” he shouts, jumping upright. “Congratulations, Elias, you are incredibly downtrodden and we all feel terribly for you. Why don’t you keep on mucking everything up until the Church drags you away in a cage? Would you like that? Would you like Chise to come back to you being locked up in the deepest prison the Church has to offer?”
You snort. “You could try.”
“Pride goeth before the fall, Elias.”
“Chise is not coming back. So I do not care what happens to me. By the Church’s hand or no.”
“You believe that?” Simon shakes his head. “So you’ve no faith in your apprentice, and no faith in yourself. Why did you take her in if you believed she had no ability to defend herself?”
“Don’t talk to me about her.”
“What else can I invoke to make you appreciate the gravity of your situation?”
“Your Church can do no worse pain to me than what already afflicts me.”
Simon’s face turns beet red. “My Church can ensure you never see that girl again!”
With a splash, you push yourself from the creek by all six legs, your long torso dripping with water and algae. Simon doesn’t have time to get away. You lunge forward and open your jaws as far as they will go, then pause before you can bite down on his windpipe. His neck fits perfectly in the V-shaped bracket of your mouth.
Ten years ago, Simon might have been driven to tears by this. But a decade on, Simon knows better. He understands you more than his predecessors did. He knows that you are capable of more than violence. Most importantly, maybe, is that he considers you a friend. It’s not a feeling you can reciprocate. Still, there is some satisfaction to be had in how unafraid he is. How willing to call the bluff.
Simon takes both hands and uses them to shove the halves of your maw away. He crosses himself quickly.
“I don’t believe that you’ve given up hope,” he says. “Not this quickly. And I don’t believe you want Chise to discover you in this state either.”
Your jaws creak open to give him a crocodilian hiss. It’s all empty threats, and Simon knows it. He smiles wryly.
“I’m going home to write my report. Trust me, Elias, when I say you will be hearing from the Church very soon. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest if you put yourself back together by then.”
The priest slogs his way up the soggy incline – slipping only once – and gives you one last wave with his torch when he reaches the bridge. You stare up at him.
“One more thing,” he calls down. “I’ll be praying for all that sullied farmland. Your sins can be forgiven yet, my friend.”
His footsteps fade, and you are alone again.
What now, you wonder. You consider dropping back into the water, but you realize now that you’re shivering. The frigid night air is seeping through your mats of fur, and you have no desire to be here anymore. You don’t want to be like this anymore. You want your fireplace, and your bed. You want Chise. You want to be someone Chise can accept. Not some dirty hound that spoils farmland just by touching it.
You collapse in the grass and hold your claw out in front of you. Focusing on it very hard, you will it to take its proper shape again. For your feathers to shed, for your legs and your tail and your thorns to recede. If you succeed in this, perhaps Silky will allow you back inside. You could sit outside her barrier and wait for her to have mercy on you. You could start making phone calls and writing letters. You could start pursuing Chise yourself, like you told Titania you would. It all starts with shoving your exploded stuffing back into the seams. Go back, you growl. I’ve had enough of you. Go back.
Your singular claw trembles before you. Gradually, little by little, it loses its sharpness. It’s smaller now, almost the size and shape of a proper finger.