03-09-2021, 04:31 AM
[size=small]They will take you who knows where... [/size]Way Out There—Lord Huron
"WHERE ARE YOU!? WHEREAREYOU!"
Anxiety bloomed in his chest, seizing his heart in a vice-grip at notes of terror. He sprang forward into a dead sprint, ears and head upright as he searched for the lost boy. A name jumped to his tongue, and belted through his lips. “GIDEON!” he cried, crashing through a stretch of shallow water, soaking him from the belly down. But Chehalis didn't slow. He couldn't. His feverish desperation drove him blindly toward his... his son. The ground below pitched upward then, sloping toward a great spire rising high into the featureless reaches of the sky. One foot slipped on a loose bit of shale, sending the flat bit of stone skittering loudly across the stone, echoing in the Empty. Movement ahead caught his gaze—a thickset boy darted between two boulders, vanishing from sight.
"Did you get lost from the mountain, Cheh?"
"For a short time, yes. But then you found me and I wasn't lost anymore."
The world around him—streaks of indistinct color—was slowly fading into grayscale. Towering rocks erupted from the ground, barring his path. He dropped his hindquarters, skidding to a pad-burning halt as his head crained upward, seeking a way through. Worst yet, the voice was growing distant—a mere shadow among ghosts.
"I'm... I'm LOST!"
“NO!” Chehalis snarled, shouldering the stone until his fur was worn, and his flesh torn. The sentinel stones held to their silent vigil.
Suddenly he felt a phantasmal set of jaws latch down, vice-like, on his nape—he hit the ground with a grunt. Bristling with surprise, and outrage, Chehalis' head and teeth snapped around toward his assailant. A pair of liquid gold eyes set against stone-gray fur bore through him with tempered rage, stunning him into shocked silence. The wolf towered over him, casting his tremendous shadow. He leaned in, muzzle brushing Chehalis ear, and spoke with a voice as thunderous as a distant storm, but quiet as a lover's whisper, "You cannot hope to stop the river once the current has turned against you..."
A hulking, inky splotch of darkness appeared over the right shoulder, fire-eyes burning with satisfaction. Another approached on the left; glacial-blues serene, and placid as they peered out from her contrasted features.
His answer was immediate, and automatic. “You can't have her!” he snapped.
The cobra flashed a terrible smile, reeled back, and struck, pinning him by the throat as the fire-eyed shadow drove in to pull him apart. Chehalis' consciousness swam, but his eyes rolled toward his friend (I've always loved you, 'thena, and now I've finally got the chance t'say it...) as the last surge of darkness rose to pull him under...
A warm breeze ruffled his fur, catching in the hollow of his ear, tickling the sensitive fur within. It twitched once, and lay slack against his neck again. A pinched expression belied his restless dreams, beige-dotted brows knit in a fierce little knot, jaw clenched so firmly that a vein in his temple throbbed with each beat of his living heart.
DAD!
Hey scout...
Hi brother!
Chehalis!
Cheh... Cheh.... CHEH!
My love.
“Athena?” he murmured. His nose flared, chest expanding as he drew deeply of the fresh air, of sunlight, and life. But not the pine, not rosebud and hyacinth, something unknown. Something new.
Wake up.
Chehalis' eyes blinked open, staring down the length of his scarred muzzle at the monolith he lay facing. He mustered the strength to lifted his head from his paws, and look up. The stone rose high above, its shadow reaching well beyond him, and he swung his copper-flecked gaze to trace it to the center where a puddle of rainwater had collected, forming a small pond. His jaws parted, tongue lashing across his cracked lips, gooey threads of saliva clinging to the tops and bottoms of his mouth. Gross. How long had he been lying here? He wrinkled his nose, huffed, and shifted his hips to push himself upright. He wobbled on unsteady, foalish legs before they crumpled beneath him. A lance of panic sent anxiety skittering across his skin, hackles rising while one ear swiveled wildly. There was a stiffness in his joints unfamiliar to him which weren't present before.
How long had he been out?
Raw, stubborn determination won out and, when he attempted to stand again, he planted all four paws and waited for the tremors to cease before plodding over to the puddle. The glassy surface mirrored the sky above, and soon his own visage. His heart began to hammer—the face that stared back was almost a stranger to him, but the sight of old scars dispersed across his young features marked him as the same that had fallen asleep in a spot of rare spring sunlight on the... the....
But this wasn't home. Where was his family? Gideon? Athena? The DeMontes? His sons, his daughters—
Chehalis drew deep a steeling breath, and exhaled slowly to release the tension collecting between his shoulders.
He had a son, Gideon. And a family, the DeMontes. And a duty to Silent Moon Plateau. That was it. The rest were flights of fancy, and dreams left to exactly that.
The young guardian slaked his thirst on rainwater, and set off from the stones to find a way home.
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