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Part 1: The Fox
After a very long time the blossoms bloom again, and all the old stories spring out of hiding, and Ionia is not the same as it once was. The mortals are desperate to relive the years before war had been sown on their soil. They miss their loved ones, they miss the flowers. Life may be different but war has always come and gone, these mortals just don’t remember it. The spirits themselves remain unchanged, except one.
They mingle amongst the Ionians, hiding in the cool mist that bleeds in from the coast. To a trained eye they’re almost glowing, surrounded by an otherworldly, twilight haze; fathers and brothers and mothers and sisters and great aunts and people who died too soon and others who took their time, all gathered in the same place. They’re waiting for their loved ones to find their blossom, so they can catch up on all the years they’ve missed.
To an untrained eye there is no one except flesh and blood Ionians celebrating the festival, which is in full bloom just like the flowers. The village streets are clotted with people returning home, vendors selling goods, and performers reenacting all of Ionia’s oldest fables, whether by puppets, shadows, or the musical ache of an accompanying flute. The fable in question is not amused.
“How does it go?” An old man is perched on a stool, picking at a wire harp, his beard long and impressive and tied in three places. “Once there was a young fox, born in the high mountains by Thanjuul’s summit—”
“It wasn’t the mountains,” Talon says, sharp as glass. “It was the coast.”
The old storyteller is unable to hear his correction, and the surrounding spirits shuffle their feet awkwardly. They just want to hear the legend, regardless of how poorly it’s being recalled. The best part of a story is often the voice it’s told with, and this teller has a good voice, rich with color and feeling and age, carving a world out of words the same way a woodweaver sings a home out of branches.
“It’s only the first day of the festival,” Ahri reassures. “They have time to get it right.”
The mortal storyteller is still going, unaware that he’s being talked over.
“One day the snows fell down the mountainside, and the fox was—”
Talon scoffs, disgusted. “What a liar.” He turns away from the storyteller, tossing his head like he doesn’t care, but Ahri can detect bitterness still, hiding in his hunched shoulders.
“Mortals always get the stories a little wrong,” she says. “Mine too—”
Talon spins around. “Everyone in Ionia knows yours!” he hisses.
Ahri takes a step back. She’s misjudged his hair-trigger mood, admittedly unprepared for the sharpness. A mortal walks through her, unaware of her presence. Talon is waiting for her to say something, hands balled into fists at his side. The horns on his head sharpen and his robe shifts colors, from moody blue to nearly black, the stitching on the seams undoing and redoing itself.
“You know,” Ahri tries, “You could always talk to the Eye of Twilight. I’m sure there’s a keeper of stories interested in correcting yours.”
“I don’t want to explain myself to them,” Talon snaps. “It’ll make things worse.”
This seems a little unreasonable to Ahri. “I’m sure—”
“Of course you don’t understand,” Talon tells her, or maybe warns her, since his tone is full of teeth and his eyes flash violet. “There’s no point.” His voice falters for one odd second before he finally says, “this idea is stupid.”
The old man hits a high point in his story behind her. The mortals and spirits that are listening all gasp, collectively. One of Ahri’s ears twitches, swiveling on her head, and that lapse in attention is all it takes for Talon to disappear.
***
He’s very good at that; disappearing. It had taken Ahri a while to figure out where he lurked, and then talking to him for the first time had been harder, and convincing him to come visit the mortals—Talon hadn’t wanted to do that either.
“He will be an akana soon,” Ahri says, “if no one gets his story right.”
“That’s dramatic. Is he not already?” Syndra is also elusive, though not quite to the same degree. She has always gone wherever the wind has taken her, and the wind has taken her to an open plain where she can spin in the sun, unbothered. She had helped Ahri find Talon initially, though only by offering vague clues.
“Yes,” Ahri admits, though in truth she’s not entirely sure. “Sort of.”
“He doesn’t seem to be opposed to it,” Syndra says.
“Need I remind you,” Ahri says, her tails curling in annoyance. “I’m the spirit of salvation.”
“Need I remind you,” Syndra snaps back with a hint of bite. “You are not known to intervene.”
For a moment Ahri stews in her silence. People always tout that part in her stories, about how if a mortal strays she never intervenes. Almost never, she corrects in her head. And Talon is not a mortal anyway. And besides, this is different.
She had first seen Talon between the effervescent trees, their thick trunks laced with light. He had been sitting in the grass, staring up at the moon, which shines on the spirit realm and the mortal world alike, and he had looked—perhaps—unbearably alone. He is an akana, okay yes—technically, but he has no interest in mortals or spirits or anything between the two, and the mortals don’t think of him as an akana. The truth is they don’t think of him at all. His story has gotten buried underneath more popular legends. The Wise Cat, the Fluttering Joy, the Gatekeeper. Ahri herself is one of the most well-known spirits, bound to be remembered for generations while others fall into obscurity.
She has not felt guilt in at least a century. Except in that moment, watching Talon rip up shreds of grass. There’d been an odd pang in her chest, as if somehow she was partially responsible.
If she could, she would find the Eye of Twilight and recite Talon’s story so it could be kept alive. But the truth is that no one seems to know it, not even that last old harpist—not even herself. And Talon is perpetually standoffish and doesn’t seem ready to talk about it. Ahri’s tails flick thoughtfully. Not ready to talk about it yet.
Part 2: The Badger
The Banished Son tramps across the prairie, in a generally sour mood but willing to bear it, because a favor owed is a favor paid, and he relishes a good challenge.
“Y’know how hard it is to find you?” he asks, by way of greeting.
“Go away,” orders Talon. He is cradled in the tall branches of a tree, and he never wants company, especially not Sett’s.
“I can’t,” Sett says, circling the tree like a dog, trying to find a feasible way up. There isn’t one. Talon can climb better than anyone, akana or kanmei alike. And sometimes he even has wings, though those times have been scarcer as of late.
He narrows his eyes at Sett. “Why not?”
“Ahri asked me to talk to you,” Sett says.
“Why?” Talon snaps back. But he knows why. The mortals are three days into celebrating that stupid festival, and Ahri has got equally stupid ideas, and everyone is useless and terrible.
“‘Cause I’m” —Sett gestures to himself, confirming Talon’s suspicions— “half n’ half like you.”
Talon glares down at him from his perch. “We aren’t alike.” He rips off a sturdy twig and drops it. It bounces off Sett’s head, right between his ears.
“Ow.”
“Go away.”
Sett rubs his head. “You’re lucky you’re up there.”
“Lucky?” Talon repeats, tasting venom. His mouth gains fangs. His fingers sharpen into claws and he rakes them across the bark next to him. He has never ever thought of himself as lucky. Sett is an idiot. He is another one of the favorites, whose stories get told over and over and over again at every festival, and each and every time he soaks up the attention like a greedy flower drinking straight from the sun, despite the fact that everyone already knows him. No one knows Talon. It’s better that way.
Sett winces up at him. “My bad.”
“If you don’t go away—”
“Okay.” Sett throws his hands up. “Geez.”
Talon watches him retreat across the prairie, but even victory is bitter.
Part 3: The Cat
Talon would like to say he heard her coming, but he hadn’t. Nidalee is quiet on her toes, or in this case—paws. She doesn’t walk; she prowls.
“Talon.” Her tail flicks restlessly behind her and Talon feels that in his fingers.
“Did Ahri send you too?” Talon asks. He had been enjoying his time sulking, and tying long prairie grass into tight, uniform knots.
Nidalee doesn’t answer, so Talon knows he’s right. Unfortunately there are no tall trees nearby, and Nidalee would be able to catch him anyway, since she’s a climber.
“I’m here to listen to your story,” Nidalee says.
Talon tears his knotted grass in two.
“Or you could talk to the Eye of Twilight,” Nidalee starts, sounding a little rehearsed. “Or someone else in the Kinkou who is trained in spirits—”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Talon hisses. “They’ll all get it wrong.”
The cat sits down in front of him. She licks one of her paws. “What about the mortal storyteller?”
Talon rips up some fresh grass. He can feel himself changing again. It’s only noticeable if he focuses, the ever present undercurrent of restlessness, shifting around like the prairie in the wind. Maybe his horns will change, bend back like a dragon’s or fall off entirely, or his clothes will morph again, as they often do. “The storyteller got it wrong from the beginning,” he mutters.
The cat hesitates. She becomes a woman, sitting cross legged and cat-eyed. She picks three long pieces of grass and ties them together, and when she speaks again her voice is especially delicate.
“Isn’t he the only one that still tells your story?”
Talon hates that she knows. Ahri must have told her. She must have launched into some sob story about how pathetic and forgotten Talon is.
“He tells it wrong.”
“And you’re going to let him be wrong?” Nidalee asks. “I know about you. You like things to be perfect.”
Talon looks down at his hands. Even a nobody spirit like him has a reputation.
“You can enter through his dreams,” Nidalee says, braiding the grass together. “I do that all the time, pouncing from one mortal dream to the next. The veil is thin when they sleep. Especially under the full moon.”
He crosses his arms. “Everyone already remembers you.”
Nidalee flicks her finished braid to the ground, losing interest as soon as it’s completed. “I don’t do it to be remembered. I do it because it’s fun to be untamed.” She fixes her cat-eyed stare on Talon. “Why do you want to be forgotten so badly?”
Part 4: The Serpent and The Guest
Cassiopeia has a wide variety of hairpieces and ornamental fans, and Talon likes to organize them by color and the amount of inlaid stones. He likes things in order because it helps quiet the restlessness in some way, the itching in his bones, a wild disbelonging that offers him no rest.
“Talon,” Cassiopeia says, “you’ve spent enough time organizing.”
“Is the festival over yet?” Talon asks, nudging one of her iridescent combs slightly to the right, in order to line up with the ones behind it.
“It ends when the flowers stop blooming,” Cassiopeia says, “and they are very much continuing in full force.”
Talon scowls at no one. It has been—what, eight, nine days? In the spirit realm time becomes a little muddled, but Ionia seems to be relentless.
“Are you going to leave soon?” Cassiopeia asks, and Talon can’t really tell but he thinks there might be something a little pushy about her tone. He glances at her and her snake eyes are almost glowing in the dimness. Talon likes her shrine because it’s so high up in the mountains you can taste the wind, and she has lots of room because her tail is so long, and there are lots of things to put in order.
He nudges the comb again. “Ahri won’t find me here. She’ll expect me to hide somewhere alone.”
“You are the spirit of unrest,” Cassiopeia says flatly. “No one can expect anything of you except a bad mood.”
Talon glares daggers. His robes change to a muddy blue-gray, and a few scales ripple up his arm before disappearing. He can never stop the changes. They always happen against his will and they never overstay, reminding Talon (bitterly) that he will never settle. He is doomed to whatever feeling hunts him at dawn or dusk, the abject loneliness of never—
“Are you taking visitors?”
Talon blinks, his mood interrupted. He combs a few fingers through his bangs, uneasy.
“Please,” Cassiopeia says at the mouth of the shrine, mostly polite, but with a flicker of her serpent’s tongue. “I’m dealing with a pest problem.”
Talon nudges one of her fans out of order, to spite her.
Yone steps inside. Talon likes him, generally, because Yone prefers to be quiet, and he doesn’t ask annoying questions or bother him. On the rare occasions that they cross paths, he has always been content to let Talon be. But—not today. Talon can see it in his eyes, the weary resignation of someone who has been given a mission. His hair is snowy pale as the mountaintops, and the horns on his head are especially blue, like the sky that touches the peaks. Talon lifts a hand to the top of his own head, wondering if his subconscious will take a fancy to them. It’s happened before.
“Talon,” Yone greets him. “I’m surprised to find you here.”
Talon crosses his arms. “No you’re not.”
Cassiopeia slithers to her collection of ornamental fans and seizes one. She unfolds it with a flick and uses it to hide her smile. She loves drama, so Talon imagines that she might swallow this whole.
“No,” Yone agrees, after a moment. “I’m not.”
Talon waits for him to say something, but he stays awkwardly quiet. Finally after a long, clumsy pause, Yone reaches into his robe and pulls out a folded sheet of paper. “I thought I would read you a poem—”
“No—” Talon cuts him off, putting his hands up. “I don’t care.”
He regrets how he’d sounded, because Yone looks dejected. He has a very quiet sadness about him, almost elegant. Talon has always been jealous of his gracefulness, because his own despair is so ugly.
“Sorry,” Talon adds, bluntly. “I’m not in the mood.” He doesn’t enjoy apologizing because it feels like surrender, and he refuses to surrender to anyone, so he’s not very good at it.
Yone slips the paper back into his robe. “I thought—perhaps we could craft a poem. Together.”
“I’m not a poet,” Talon says, fighting to keep the thorns out of his voice. He doesn’t want to reject Yone too meanly, because he doesn't deserve it.
The spirit offers him a tired smile. “You wouldn’t have to be a poet. I thought maybe I could try and translate your story into verse.”
Talon doesn't trust himself to be nice, so he shakes his head. Cassiopeia flutters her fan and wisely doesn't speak.
Yone considers his next words carefully. Talon can see the concentration on his face. “Do you wish to be an akana?” he finally asks.
“I don’t care,” Talon answers.
“Unrest isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Yone clarifies.
“Of course it is,” growls Talon. Unrest is the opposite of calm, and calm is one of those things that’s beloved by everyone. And Talon hates liars more than anything, so thanks to Yone a big bubble of unrest grows inside him now, and he can feel the claws and the changing. A slender tail sprouts behind him, disappearing just as quickly.
Yone pinches one of the blue ribbons tied in his hair. “I don’t think so,” he says, and his hand wanders up to his horns next. “Is it not just the ache of being wild?”
Talon is silent.
“I don’t know,” he mutters eventually. “I’m not a poet.”
Part 5: The Badger (Again)
Sett finds him at the seashore; one of Ionia’s long coasts, sheltered by tall dunes.
Talon is very good at skipping rocks. He can throw them perfectly—almost perfectly, so that they bounce across the water ten times at least. The trick is finding good, flat stones, and twisting properly when you throw, and being alone so no one can tell that you’re sad.
“You’re somewhere new every time, huh?” says Sett. He hasn’t brought his badgers today either.
There aren’t any trees nearby, so Talon doesn’t bother running. He reaches down for another rock, flat and opalescent. Maybe he can get this over with quickly.
“I told you to go away,” he says, and turns his back to Sett.
“Yeah, well,” —a pause— “apparently I ain’t give it a fair enough shot.”
Talon snorts, disgusted. Ahri’s stupid fascination has only sent him spiraling into gloom, not that he’d ever admit that. He pitches the rock into the sea and watches it skip across the water, fourteen times in total. Sett whistles, impressed.
“Lemme take a crack at it.”
Talon glances over his shoulder in time to watch Sett pick up a bumpy, fat rock as big as his fist. He pitches it as far as he can, which is—grudgingly—very far. Sett is grossly strong. The rock crashes into the ocean like a distant cannonball.
“Almost,” Sett says.
“Did you actually think that would work?” Talon asks sharply. He can’t tell if Sett is playing some joke or actually being stupid. That is not how you skip rocks at all. Not even close.
“I dunno.” Sett shrugs, but he’s got the ghost of a smile on his face, so Talon decides he must have been joking. Doesn’t matter. He isn’t in the mood for jokes, or stupidity, or poetry, or annoying foxes or the damn Spirit Blossom festival, which has gone on for far too long. He begins marching down the shore, following the wavy spill of seafoam along the wet sand.
“Hey,” Sett tries.
“Go away!” Talon focuses on the beach, the sound of the waves. Today it’s not helping much.
“You’re private,” Sett calls out behind him. Following him, like a complete nuisance, because Talon can never just be left alone. Everyone has to meddle. “I get it. But don’t you wanna tell someone?”
Talon turns on his heel, furious. Horns sharpen on his head and he bares his fangs at Sett, newly grown. “I don’t want the mortals to know my legend!” he shouts. “They don’t deserve it!” He clenches his hands into tight fists. “The animals can have it” —Sett’s ears have flattened against his head. Talon falters— “but—”
Suddenly Talon’s sure he’s said too much. He’s never been very good at communicating. Sentences will get tangled or torn up. Sometimes speaking is exactly like stripping off all your clothes and exposing yourself. Talon is not good at that either. He has only ever excelled at being misunderstood.
“What?” Sett asks, remarkably quiet.
Talon glances down at his hands, distinctly uncomfortable. He watches the waves lap against the shore by his bare feet, which shimmer with a few odd scales.
“You’ve heard my story.” He means it as a question but it didn’t come out right.
Sett rubs the back of his neck. “I—uhh, the gist of it, sure.”
Talon crosses his arms, waiting. The sun has just set and somehow he’s cold, despite the summer. The ocean breeze tugs at his robe.
Sett clears his throat. “You uhh—you were—a sick fox in the mountains, and the Kinkou cured you by makin’ you human. But you ain’t like it—”
“I wasn’t a fox,” Talon snaps, growing louder with every word. “I was a marten.” His body adopts the wretched ears to match, and his fangs shrink, and Talon’s sure his eyes are different too, though he can’t tell. “And it wasn’t the Kinkou, it was just some man—and I wasn’t cured,” he’s shouting now, unable to control himself. “I was tricked!”
Sett stares at him, wide-eyed. He has probably never seen Talon lose composure like this before. And just like that the anger has burnt out, leaving ugly, smoking bitterness in its wake. Talon feels very weak all of a sudden, and ashamed, and he sits down on the sand, wondering if it’s better to just pretend that he’s alone. Or maybe he can run away down the beach and pray for wings and then Sett won’t be able to follow him. Everyone says that getting things off your chest makes you feel better, but it’s only made Talon’s eyes sting.
Sett sits down next to him. Talon only hears it, since he can’t bear to look. He is afraid of pity. Then Sett squeezes his shoulder and Talon shoves his hand off, half-heartedly. He draws his knees up to rest his head on them, staring into the horizon. In the spirit realm it glows faintly at night, a line of dreamy color, tantalizingly out of reach. The waves lap at his toes, and Sett is smarter than he seems because he doesn’t say anything.
“I met this man,” Talon mumbles against his knees, “and he said he could make me perfect.” That’s the best he can do. He is not good enough at communicating to put the rest into words. When he’d been alive—mortal—he’d climbed the tallest trees he could find, just to get a better look at the birds overhead. They lived on the breezes and built warm nests lined with downy feathers, and they were so good at talking to each other. Talon’s own den was nice enough, but he doesn’t know how to explain the difference or the subtlety to Sett. Martens are solitary animals, but somehow Talon was still lonely, and even beyond that he’d always felt different—lacking in some way. He could never climb high enough, he could never catch enough prey, or forage enough food, and he could never stop craning his neck to look at the swallows and the gulls, jealousy coiling in his stomach. He wondered what it might be like to connect with others beyond the sharp points of his teeth.
And then—Talon closes his eyes tightly—that human came along. And he was so good at everything; hunting the best stags, the biggest boars that Talon could never dream of catching with his small paws, and somehow he saw whatever it was that Talon was missing. And he—
“And did he make you perfect?” Sett asks, quietly still.
Talon rolls his face against his knees, unable to answer. It’s been a very long time, but the memory is still as vibrant as the moon. He’d gone and tried being human, but it quickly became obvious that he didn’t belong. The oddness was still there. The disconnect. It hadn’t gone away, it’d only changed forms. He felt it in his bones, he tasted it whenever he chewed his human claws, and it became most apparent when someone looked at him and instantly saw whatever it was that made him different, and knew to stay away. They didn’t understand him.
“He only wanted me because I could help him hunt,” Talon finally mutters.
That’s something he’s never admitted aloud. The fact that rotted in his head for a long time. That hunter—Marcus—he’d acted like he and Talon were equals, but in the end Talon was the one that knew the trails, the tracks, and the best ways to find easy prey. Marcus used him. Talon had not been born human, so it had taken him a long time to learn the truth, and even longer to accept it.
He presses his hand flat against the wet sand, leaving a shallow imprint.
“I dunno if bein’ perfect is somethin’ to worry about,” says Sett gently. “Seems like a pit.”
Talon doesn’t want to agree with him, so he doesn’t answer. He might actually be very sad now. Every time he blinks he sees Marcus’s face for a brief second, looking down at him with derision.
“If I were you I’d want the mortals to know what really happened,” Sett tells him, leaning back on his hands.
Talon glances away. The unsettling is churning inside him, urging him to run.
“They don’t deserve to know it.”
“Okay,” Sett sighs. “Sure. But you deserve to have it told.”
Talon doesn’t really know what to say. He rubs his nose.
“It’s too late to change anything.”
“You’re always changin’ anyway.”
“It doesn’t mean anything!” Talon scowls. He snatches a rock off the sand and jumps to his feet. When he looks down he discovers that the stone is too thick and bad for throwing, and the handprint in the sand is already mostly faded. An awful, unfair feeling washes over him, and Talon doesn’t resist it.
He kicks a spray of sand in Sett’s direction and pitches his rock square into the ocean, no skipping.
“Hey,” Sett grumbles. But his ears are tilted halfway. He might be more worried than mad, as if maybe he can sniff out the magnitude of Talon’s hurt. Talon still cannot stand anyone’s pity, so he flees into the dunes.
Part 6: The Fox (One Last Time)
“Alright Talon,” Ahri says at the mouth of the cave. “You win.”
Talon says nothing. He has been sitting in the darkness for a while, listening to the wind whistling between the mountain passes, and this time he doesn’t know how Ahri found him at all. He really doesn’t want to talk to her, or anyone. He just wants to sit in the dark until he stops feeling so terrible, which might take decades.
He waits for Ahri to go away, but she’s still standing at the cave entrance, so Talon begins to think she might be lying.
“Then leave me alone,” he speaks up.
“I will,” she promises. “But you have to come with me first.”
Talon lifts his head off his knees. “What?” His voice cracks, scratchy from underuse.
Ahri hops forward, landing on four legs instead of two. She pads over to Talon, eyes glowing in the darkness, and she pokes his leg with her snout.
“One little trip,” she tells him. “Then I’ll leave you alone, no more meddling.”
Talon rubs his eyes. He doesn’t feel well enough to go anywhere, but he is exhausted and wants this ordeal to be over. Ahri races back to the mouth of the cave and turns around to look at him, her tails fanning out behind her as she waits. After a long moment, Talon climbs to his feet and follows.
***
The festival has been going on for almost a month and the blossoms have yet to wither. Talon tries to avoid looking at them, but they’re everywhere. Miraculously, Ahri hasn’t spoken since the cave. She pads through the streets in front of him, keeping to her fox form, glancing behind her often to make sure Talon is still coming.
They are at the coastal village again. Talon knows it well. After all, ages ago he’d tried—and failed—to call it home. He doesn’t like being here. By now the festival’s atmosphere has lulled, becoming softer in its celebration. Talon follows Ahri past the market street, avoiding performers and the wide-swinging doors of warm teahouses. It’s getting dark, but there are enough flowers to stave off the night.
They turn the corner at the edge of town, where the houses give way to the forest—Talon knows this forest—and sitting on a stump is the old, damn storyteller. He’s tuning his harp, taking breaks to bite into an apple and drink from a carefully balanced cup of tea.
Talon glances at Ahri. “Is this it?”
Ahri doesn’t answer. She sits down and raises her head to sniff the air. Talon’s skin prickles.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asks. The mortal isn’t even performing.
Ahri still doesn’t answer, but one of Talon’s ears twitches—they haven’t changed since the beach—and he glances up in time to see a deer step out from between the trees.
“There you are,” the old man greets it warmly. “You must have liked what I brought you yesterday.”
Talon glances at Ahri again, but she is only watching. He looks back as the doe wanders closer, sniffing the grass. Something has wrapped itself around Talon’s heart, constricting it tightly. He remains frozen, staring at the man as he picks up his half-eaten apple and rolls it across the ground. The deer dances backwards, spooked.
“It’s alright,” the storyteller reassures her. “I won’t hurt you.”
Talon swallows down a lump in his throat. He looks up at the full moon, white as fangs, then back at Ahri. “Why did you bring me here?” he repeats.
“Talon,” Ahri answers, “he’s kind.”
“He’s not!” Talon hisses desperately. “He’s just like everyone—”
“It’s good, isn’t it?” The mortal asks. “I like them too.”
Talon can’t continue. He takes an uneasy step back, trying to catch his breath, since it’s fluttering freely in his chest. He watches the doe eat and he bites his lip to keep it from trembling. When he looks back at Ahri she’s vanished.
Part 7: The Marten
The storyteller looks so old. Any minute might just be his last. Sleep can only smooth out his wrinkled face so much, and his fingers are gnarled like tree branches.
Talon has been standing in the man’s room for a while now, unable to continue or retreat. He’d like to think he’s gathering his courage.
He feels restless. He wants to run. That’s what’d happened once he’d realized that the humans would never accept him. He’d fled back to his old den and discovered that it’d become much too small. Talon could barely get his arm in. And even the animals didn’t understand him anymore—they no longer spoke the same language. Talon had felt a new kind of isolating loneliness. It’d cut deeper than anything he’d known previously.
He thinks about the flash of the doe’s white tail as it’d flown back into the forest.
Talon shuffles closer. He reaches cautiously for the mortal’s shoulder and is surprised to find his fingers connecting. Nidalee was right. The veil is thinnest under the full moon.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Wake up.”
The man stirs on his cot but remains asleep.
Talon tries again, shaking him more rigorously this time. “Wake up.”
The mortal’s eyes flutter open, confused. Talon backs up a step.
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
The old storyteller pushes himself up to sit with remarkable speed, staring openly at Talon, eyes wide as an owl’s. Maybe he already recognizes that Talon’s a spirit. Or he thinks that he’s dreaming. Which might be true, Talon’s doesn’t really know.
“Do you understand me?” Talon asks, to be sure.
The man’s mouth opens and closes. “I do,” he finally says, in that same wise, rich voice, perfect for telling stories.
Talon lets out the shivering breath he’d been holding. He sits down on the edge of the bed, feeling surprisingly weightless, and he begins to speak.