The Great Alone

 The Harbinger wakes in the middle of a empty room. The sky above him is bricked with moldering stone, and it takes more than a moment for his violet eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

 When he moves he twinges at the sudden effort - the reawakening pain of muscles locked and left to atrophy. Nails, overgrown from disuse, click across the stone floor. He trades one room for another, rock slouching away like a dislocated shoulder, opening pieces of the castle to the gray-drawn sky.

 A noise coaxes his attention and his head swivels, looking from left to right until finally - his gaze goes up.

 “Who’s there?”

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She, too, woke to the feeling of disuse. Lúthien's dark eyes cracked open and her claws tightened their grip on her perch; stone, not bark, crunched beneath her as she shifted. The owl found herself huddled against the archway of an ancient window, tucked away from the harsh breath of Winter. When she inhaled deep to fill her lungs, however, Lúthien, she swore she could scent Spring on the air. Stretching out a stiffened wing, she set about preening the pale feathers. With her mind fogged, flying was not a safe option.

Movement below had her blink toward the familiar patchwork coat of a wolf who made his home among the ruins where she'd been reared as a chick. Lúthien stared at him as he stepped into the open, uncertain as he lifted his crown to bark his uncertainty. “Just me,” she announced herself into the grey, certain that the Harbinger would recognise the watcher who inhabited his trees.


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 “Ah, it’s you.” His own bleary consciousness made his usual air of geniality thin, and his words shared his anorexic tolerance. They were curt. Disdainful.

 The owl was high and frustratingly out of reach, as was her custom. The Harbinger remained where he was, scanning the hollow space. “Do you know where we are?”

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His violet eyes found the owl, who lifted her head. Lúthien was silent as he grumbled in response, her own face void of expression; wolves fascinated her, but she did not lose sleep over knowing the species harboured a natural dislike of her own. She watched him, curious, her eyes wide and glistening with interest as he studied the place in which they'd found one another.

“An unnatural place,” she answered simply, for it was all she could offer. Lúthien was not to know that humans had built such a keep, nor their purpose. It'd been designed to keep things out, a fortress, though nature had largely reclaimed its walls. The owl appreciated the structure from the outside, having no desire to venture within the confines of its rooms. She twitched a tail feather. “You come alone?”


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 “I don’t remember coming here at all.” He replied, swinging his gaze from the pale bird to survey the room once more. Upon further inspection the space was cluttered at the edges, and he inched forward to reveal a vertical block of rotting wooden boxes, their contents long since disintegrated.

 Madmortigan began to walk for the door, legs protesting with every step. “I remember cold. I fell asleep at the Roots and woke up here.” Generally perturbed at being relocated without his permission, he sought to remedy his displacement as quickly as possible. “I need to find the Order.”

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Interesting. She blinked her wide black eyes, fascinated to learn that the wolf had no recollection of ever coming to the castle. It'd been a frequent complaint she'd heard throughout the species that arrived in these mysterious lands, made all the more intriguing to learn that memory blips weren't a singular occurrence among them. The Harbinger at last drew his gaze away and she followed with her own, sweeping quietly over rotten boxes and what remained of their contents strewn on the floor by scavengers.

He did not turn toward her once more, but moved for an opening - one where she knew she wold lose sight of him. “You need help getting out?” Lúthien suggested, offering her eyes and voice from the outside to perhaps direct her companion toward the outside world again.


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 He was loathe to admit the requirement of a fowl’s assistance.

 Striding through the door, the great Harbinger landed in what could only be surmised as a pantry. To him, it was a stone-faced and mocking dead end.

 His voice rose once more, flat but less biting. “If you would. Please, lead the way.”

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While the wolf initially ignored her question, Lúthien maintained her calm and cool watch over him. He moved on through the doorway, disappearing behind a wall and out of her sight. She could hear the clack of his unkempt claws on the stone floor as he assumed his own search, expecting the sound to carry on until it faded deeper into the castle's confines. She'd observed the Harbinger and his kin long enough to understand that they were proud beings; no matter how many times she presented herself to them, they ignored her more often than they acknowledged her. She did not mind. Lúthien was curious but wholly solitary, and had no need for the company of others.

She set about flexing her wing again, preparing to take flight and better map the area in which she'd found herself, when the pied wolf's voice finally responded. Lúthien turned her heart-shaped face in the direction he'd gone again, and considered his acceptance a success for a silent moment before she shifted on her perch. “Listen for my voice,” she gathered into the chill morning air, her dark eyes searching the side of the building for any sign of an opening suitable for her canine companion.


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 Madmortigan swallowed the bitter pill of his pride and followed the bird.

 Neck craned, he went down more than one wrong path in an attempt to heed the owl’s echoing calls. But at last he spilled out into a stoned patio - the remanants of some grand courtyard. The castle itself was edged by cliffs and in the distance he spotted the cerulean undulations of a vast and ravenous sea.

 Sitting down for a moment of rest, the Harbinger looked around before finding the owl once more. “Thank you.” Managing it without malice.

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She soared, her wings silent as her eyes searched the brickwork; the castle was far larger than she'd anticipated. Lúthien called loud enough with the hope of her voice penetrating the dense walls that separated her from the wolf, and circled back to take in her own surroundings. At once she took in the familiar sight of her home in the ruins, the very place where the Harbinger had settled his pack to claim, and although she was puzzled as to this new proximity of the proud structure that shadows their Reclaimed Roots.

When Lúthien caught sight of the raven-white wolf as he entered the courtyard, she veered his way. Gently, the owl landed atop an old wooden post that'd been rooted into the ground with cement, and blinked with satisfaction down at her companion who offered gratitude. “You are Madmortigan, yes?” Lúthien had heard the others call him such, though her interaction with him had been so brief that neither had ever reached the stage of introductions. “I am Lúthien.”

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 He wasn’t surprised to hear his name come from that curved, translucent beak. Though rarely acknowledged, the Harbinger had seen the bird perched at the Roots often. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to believe she’d absorbed some of the group’s inner-workings.

 Gazing out passed the owl’s wooden post, he saw a familiar throng of forest. “The Roots.” His tail wagged, relieved. “Thank you, Lúthien, for the assistance.” He repeated, meaning it more this time.

 “I’m sure we will see each other again soon.” But now, he needed to return to his Order, his family.

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She rather enjoyed his enthusiasm as his violet eyes at last found the familiar reaches of their shared forest. The owl continued to watch him quietly, recognising the sway of his alabaster tail that his kin used to communicate joy or contentment. Madmortigan lifted his gaze to seek her face once more and Lúthien straightened her posture, content to hear her name on his tongue.

The owl had never strived to belong among the wolves, but she had made small efforts to communicate with them. Lúthien had never expected them to like her, but so far they had managed to exist in a shared space together. She hoped to carry on doing so without conflict, for her solitary lifestyle of plucking rodents from the forest floor to eat was not likely to disrupt the more complex workings of the pack.

He seemed done with this interaction, and the bird made no further effort to push for communication. She was glad of the outcome, and so took flight once more to make her own return to the ruins where she would rest to prepare for an evening hunt.


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