flightless bird, american mouth

Kore had not gotten very far in terms of figuring out why she was here. In fact, beyond finding Nabs and her brother, she was still utterly clueless. The final piece of the puzzle appeared as though it would be found with Naomi, wherever she was — if she was.

She shuddered. To have gone through what they had only to be lost again felt like divine punishment for something Kore had forgotten she'd done.

Dreams were already hard to come by in this body, but when she did, it was not easy to make out shapes or context. Come morning, she'd only be left with feelings, not memories. Guilt was primary among them. For whatever reason, Kore's subconscious wanted her to suffer for something.

What she suffered for? Buried in her mind somewhere, along with the rest of it.

This time, she opened her eyes and did not find herself where she had laid down the night prior. The smell of her brother was but a ghost on the wind, and her surroundings felt blurry, as though they were bending the fabric of time itself.

Was she finally dreaming something she could remember?

Cautiously, Kore crept to the edge of a nearby pond. Lily pads were scattered haphazardly across the surface. Somewhere nearby, a frog croaked.

This place felt peaceful.

A haunting, bittersweet thought pricked at her eyes. Maybe this is where she would have gone had she died.

She wouldn't have minded it much. Kore bit the curve of her lip, reproachful. A bit more if she stayed in this form.

She leaned over the edge of the embankment, catching her reflection as it shimmered in the ripples.

Wide brown eyes fluttered back at her. A different face, but still very much ... her. Kore wondered when she'd get used to it. Maybe she never would.

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Rains came and went, a fever that she thought left her delusional until the heat cleared but her paws had not. Each day brought new questions and with nothing familiar to ground her, the turned wolf wondered how much of it was ever real. She had gone mad, one way or the other.

She had become her greatest fear. A burden.

Delusional or lost she was pitied and she hated seeing that look. @Vasiliya insisted otherwise, even if she felt for her situation... whatever that meant in her current state. It was still pity. There was an old woman who looked at her with a burning gaze that reminded her of her mother, but what was she supposed to do? Leave? Die? She had started to believe she already had. Then there was the 'High King'. He tried to be nice, but she was beginning to feel the resentment regardless if it actually burned beneath his smile.

Perhaps that was why she found some relief when she awoke to a different sky.

There was a frog somewhere nearby, something that disappointed her when she felt the twitch of her ears follow. Still a dog. But that had become a new normal, in some weird way. She had gotten better with her legs. She tripped less, though she'd hardly call herself surviving. Runar and Vaska had both tried to show her how to fish, but she wasn't any good at it. Not yet anyway. Without a group to feed her she'd most likely die on her own, but at least she would no longer be a burden.

Naomi shook the sleep from her limbs that made each step heavier than they'd be awake. She wasn't sure how she had gotten here, or where here even was. There were no mountains to go off of, nor the scents she had grown familiar with. She almost thought she was alone until she spotted her across the way. A river divided graced by the stature of a stranger, but there was something familiar that made her freeze. That color. A pang struck her through the chest much like the bullets she used to count, each one offering a sliver of opportunity to live a little longer.

Surely it wasn't...but it was odd. She almost saw the ghost of her in the face of a stranger. Naomi had never prayed to a god and she sure as hell wouldn't start now, but if one existed they must think they were pretty funny for taunting her with the impossible. The bridge of her nose wrinkled, a frown threatening the curves of her lips as the shark turned away to leave spirits and ghosts a thing of her past. She didn't need to be tormented and she didn't want to see the look of another wolf that thought she was mad.

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She had been staring at herself for so long that she could have almost imagined a different face. One from another time when she still had clumsy, sun-soaked legs. It was a wonder that she had ever managed to make the volleyball team in Chicago. As she tilted her face, allowing the light to slide off the mocha hues in her eyes, Kore felt a tiny hint of a smile break her expression. If she could be the vice president of her sorority, play a sport, volunteer, and still manage to find time for her classes, she could handle walking on all fours now.

At least that was the positive she was taking out of this. And she wouldn't have period cramps anymore. That was a major plus.

She glanced up at the sound of something rustling in the distance. While she didn't expect to dream a place this vividly (if this was a dream), she had expected less to meet another wolf of her own imagination. Kore had barely been in this life long enough to conjure images of others she did not know. They seemed to hesitate, and while they were close, she could not see their expression as they moved to walk away.

Kore jumped up, trotting a few feet ahead with clumsy feet. She was getting the hang of it, yes, but in her excitement she tended to lose grace.

“Wait!” She calls after them, feeling slightly pathetic as she begged for them to come back. She hadn't met anyone outside of her brother and Nabs. Anyone new was a puzzle piece closer to discovering why she was here, and what came after. There had to be an after. “I'm sorry! I don't know where I am, pretty much ever — and I've been struggling to do this whole .. thing,” she starts to ramble, hoping that in her seemingly manic speech they turn back. “But I'm friendly! Please—”

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That voice pinned the coywolf's ears back, her nose wrinkling further as Naomi bit back a grimace. It was painfully familiar, but that was chance right? 'Cause shit wasn't fair. The first time there had been a big shift she lost her brother, and this time she lost everyone else. She knew she shouldn't look back, shouldn't get her hopes up, but she had to be cruel. She couldn't chance being wrong.

Naomi froze in her tracks, head slow to swivel back toward the strawberry blonde who stumbled her way forward unnaturally to a wolf of her age. Just like she did. In all honesty, she had missed the first half of her ramble too distracted by how she could see her face without even looking. If Naomi closed her eyes she could see herself back in Grand Rapids, perched against the railing of a city building while her and Kore talked into the night.

An ache burned her chest, something she had been working so hard to bury deep down, and somewhere distant she could hear the beat of familiar lyrics buzz through her mind.
 

---

 
'You gotta say that you're sorry at the end of the night
Wake up in the morning, everything's alright
At the end of the story, you're holding me tight
I don't need to worry, am I out of my mind?

And, oh, it's hard to see you, but I wish you were right here
Oh, it's hard to leave you when I get you everywhere
All this time I'm thinkin I'm strong enough to sink it
Oh, no, I don't need you, but I miss you, come here'

 

---

 
The shark's lip twitched as her brows went from a downward furrow to an upwards one, something overly hopefully glinting in the depths of her auburn turned gaze. She felt pathetic, like she might cry, and it made Naomi wish she could quickly slap herself to snap herself out of the overwhelming wave of emotions that had just crashed over her head and to triple check what she was seeing. But she had to be right, right?

“Kore...?”

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Kore's face was dangled in hopeful suspension, eyes wide and pleading. She didn't know anything about this place. The only people that could have helped her had been separated from her once more, torn asunder a storm. And even then — Eddie and Nabs were in the same situation she was. Confused, lost, clinging onto pieces of their life that had fallen here with them. While she could lean on her brother's playful warmth for a bit, and Nabs was easy to follow — where were they heading? Was this temporary? Was it forever?

Forever. Kore's cheek felt slick against Naomi's, golden curls tinted in red falling against her face as she leaned into her. The feeling of her finger on the edge of the pistol was like a livewire, keeping her from keeling over completely in grief. It was her friend holding her up, it was Kore holding her, holding what little left of this world she thought she'd be able to keep forever. Things had changed. Forever wasn't the same word it was before, and the meaning of it was slipping firmly from her grasp. Kore's hand tightened on the gun. Forever meant what happened after now. She didn't want to spend forever alone.

Her name was like the bullet, piercing Kore's temple once again (should she ever remember that part). There was only a sensation of static. Slowly, she blinked, as though recovering from a fatal blow. Quietly, she asked: “Kore?”

Either the sudden onslaught of a memory in a dream or the odd familiarity, both were stunting her.

She knew her name. How did she know her name? Why did she have her voice?

Blinking some more, she feels herself being walked into a dazed reply, her brain not quite caught up with present reality. “I'm Kore,” her voice stutters out in a half-convincing babble. Both in this world and the last. In the next, too. Was this the next? Was this just a consecutive series of dreams, and she was somewhere bleeding into the cracks of cement?

Her lip trembles, feeling the weight of buried emotion pressing down on her eyelids. Trapped between wanting to run from the feeling and run towards the wolf-shaped Naomi in front of her, she idles in the middle, staring slack-jawed at what came after forever.

“N-aomi?” She manages to choke out, the syllables already becoming warbled with a rapidly approaching sob. Her legs felt like they could give out at any moment now, had she known how to use them well in the first place.

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The shark's breath hitched as if it had formed a physical lump and lodged itself in her throat. Her head swam with a wave of nausea, static— no, ringing filling her ears. The same sound you'd hear after the smoke of a gun. How odd it felt to see a stranger, an animal, and feel a pull of nostalgia like she had known that damn wolf her whole life. There was a muzzle placed squarely on her face and yet all Naomi could see was freckled skin and brown eyes.

She wasn't sure when she moved or how she even managed to so swiftly, but the splash of water sent around her body as she raced forward woke her up. Naomi had flung herself at the wolf, front limbs attempting to grab hold of the other as if doing so would keep her from slipping away. Even if she wasn't really here she could hold the memory.

Not that she ever imagined Kore as a wolf.

Naomi had come to realize she wasn't exactly a large wolf, maybe not even a full wolf based on her more lanky appearance and side comments from the old woman. She knew Kore had always been taller than her, but now it had become painfully obvious. She was maybe only two inches taller, which wouldn't be so unusual had two inches not made a major difference on four legs, but it was her mass that made Naomi feel...small. It wasn't so odd when the wolf wasn't someone you knew— if...if this could really be...

The shark had been stunned to silence, but a dazed, “How the fuck are you here?” still echoed from her throat. It was a question Naomi still challenged herself. A dream, another life, another world? But she hadn't considered herself capable of imagining anyone she knew as a dog. Yet here she was, and oddly fitting at that. Either her brain had found a new way to toy with her or she was really, really, here. Call her delusional, but she'd rather have a moment of delulu than let go and find herself grappling a fucking tree or something.

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She could feel her stomach doing inward flips, coiling over itself as her thoughts tried to rearrange in a shape that made this make sense. It wasn't too far off from what she had experienced so far, but the waiting period between finding the others and Naomi made it seem slightly more unbelievable that she would be here now.

Kore sucked in a breath. She was going to cry. She could feel the tears beginning to build under the rims of her eyes, soft brown eclipsed by a sheen of wet. Attempting to blink away the evidence, she missed the initial cue that Naomi had started running towards her. By the time she was registering what was happening, Kore let out a tiny yelping noise as chest collided into chest.

It hadn't caused her any pain, but the sheer shock of such a momentum-driven leap straight into her had knocked some wind out of her already shallow lungs. Stumbling backwards a few steps, she closed her eyes as the girl she knew — in another dream, almost — melted into her skin. From a distance, Kore hadn't taken much notice of her size. Now, as she burrowed into her as though she were bound to disappear at a moment's notice, it was obvious Naomi was not created exactly the same.

There would be differences in wolves, she thought. It was surprisingly endearing how they presented in her friends. Naomi's coloring reminded her of saltwater and fins. Fitting, for her bite.

A question had been pressed demandingly into her fur, tangled in the embrace and initial reunion. The abrupt impact had unlocked some sort of consciousness for Kore that she did not have before, and after a brief period of shoving her face into Naomi's neck she realized she had to say something.

“I don't know,” she whimpered as her head pulled back, such familiar smells and still so unfamiliar lingering on her nose. Her eyes focused on some vague point on Naomi's forehead, fearing the intensity that would come from locking gazes this close after so long. “I woke up here weeks ago. Everything has felt so muggy. I can barely remember anything. It comes in waves,” she felt her voice still shaking. Adrenaline was keeping her on her feet.

“Eddie is here. Nabs, too. I lost them in a storm but I— I know they're still here,” she continues with a gradually building confidence, despite her shaky tone. Her lip trembled again, and she threw her face back into the small, soft spot near Naomi's nape. “I was looking for you. I didn't give up on you, I swear, I had no idea where to go and this place is so big and I still don't understand how anything here works. I can't believe you're real.” She couldn't help but release a tiny, bittersweet sob that likely would leave a damp spot in Naomi's fur. “You're real.” She willed it into reality.

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