“Snap to it, professor. You’re coming with us today. Chief says you can’t sit on your arse anymore and have to join a patrol.”
Aryth’s eyes widened, but he should have known this day was coming. Softly, he cast his gaze at the boys, then stepped toward them and nuzzled their faces. “Is tu mo dhachaigh,” he murmured, his voice crackling like the embers of a dying campfire. You are my home. It meant he would always return to them. It was a phrase he made for Grigori in their vows, but now their home had grown. With a sad smile, he nodded to the hedgehog skittering around their paws. “Frik, you stay with Aphey. He’ll keep you safe.”
There was something aching about leaving them today. A pit in his stomach that seemed endless. Maybe he was just nervous because he’d never joined a regiment on patrol. Logically, he knew they were staying close to Inverness, and Highlanders had an advantage this far north. Everything should go smoothly, he thought.
Intelligence had not warned them that the Imperials were infiltrating Perth.
The scholar’s russet coat shimmered in the intense sun. Try as he might to blend into the foliage of the forest, he was a sliver of flame. The heat bore down on the wolves, making him drowsy, and his eyelids lowered as he scanned the familiar landscape. This was where he’d spent weeks with the love of his life, training to be stronger, faster, to hunt, to defend himself. He wasn’t really a wolf before he met Grigori. The thought occurred to Aryth that today would be miserable if his love hadn’t brought him to Perth all those months ago. He grinned faintly at the memories of their honeymoon.
When it happened, it was sudden and violent. Imperials surrounded them, leaping from a hidden ditch beyond thick brambles and bushes upwind. Their patrol was a mere formality, greatly outnumbered by the soldiers whose claws and fangs dug into Jacobite flesh. Aryth gasped as the warrior beside him clashed against a snarling Imperial, rolling several feet away. Leaving him open to attack. His ears flattened, hackles raising as a wolf much larger than he stalked forward. The male’s dark frame reminded him of a storm cloud on the horizon. Somewhere to the left, he heard his superior say, “Damn sibhse a bhalaich, we surrender.”
But the Imperials were a rogue unit. Far from any other units, and therefore far from accountability, they were changed to craven animals. The large, dark male in front of Aryth sneered and said, “Too bad we’re not taking any prisoners today.” He leapt forward.
This was different from the time Arythmetik was attacked by bandits. He knew he was fighting for his life. He had a chance to react. In a flash, he remembered what Grigori taught him about using his smaller frame and speed against a heavier opponent. He feinted, then zipped to the left, trying to put distance between himself and the threat. Calculations and years of wisdom told him this was a foolish fight. If he could run away, he might survive. The way he soared through the air felt like slow-motion.
Something was wrong.
Instead of landing, he collapsed, a sharp, hot pain suddenly bursting across his abdomen. Aryth glanced back over his shoulder. First, he saw the soldier’s mouth stained with blood. The enemy offered a vile grin, then ran off to attack another opponent. Next, Aryth looked down at the place in his stomach where he felt pain. Before he could see what was happening, he felt too weak to keep his head raised, so he laid it on the ground, breathing heavily.
He didn’t see the open gash, the blood pooling from his middle onto the summer-green grass. He didn’t see his entrails leaking through the wound. He didn’t know how little time he had.
Snarls and growls, roars of pain, then grew quieter and quieter. Eventually, the sounds of the forest returned. Leaves rustled as a faint breeze shook the branches above. The buzzing of insects and chirping birds trilled in a gentle harmony. For a moment, Arythmetik could have sworn he saw himself from above: a sprawled, earthen and russet shape, nestled in the grass and summer blooms, speckled with red. It was a peaceful image. But the sun was getting brighter, and the light was so white it blinded him. That’s okay, he thought. I can wait. Instead of looking around Perth, he found himself pondering memories instead. Random memories, he wasn’t sure why they appeared, but they filled his mind one after another without explanation.
He remembered nervously teaching his first lesson without his mentor’s help. Afterward, he sat across a mushroom-laden log with a beautiful, black and white wolf, talking about science and medicine and the future. He remembered leaping down from a rickety table and slamming an overturned basket on top of a mole. Or was it a shrew? There was raucous cackling. Laughter. A dance. A grand, sweeping ballroom with the smell of spiced meat and the intoxicating aroma of a man in an antler-mask. He knew that day was important. Poetry. An ocean woman. A kiss. He remembered sitting under a tree and reading a book about gods with a man who was always smiling. His sister was always smiling too. Arythmetik never had a sister, but if he did, he imagined she would have been by his side aiding the sick during the drought. He hoped his sons would be that way: always by each other’s side. He remembered crossing a river and slipping against Grigori, brushing his muscular shoulder for the first time. He remembered rabbits on the moon, giggling down at them as they walked through a fearsome corn maze. He remembered Mhairi’s laugh during a less conventional lesson at the castle. He remembered that teaching wolves to read was the greatest joy. He remembered Board of Trustees meetings, Nimue glancing keenly at him, taking mental notes as sharp as her wit. And lying in a bed of lavender, eating heart-shaped peaches off Grigori’s chest…
In the real world, Arythmetik Hardin was still lying in the forest of Perth, his breaths slowly stopping, his emerald eyes closing one final time.
---
Blossoms unfurled in the warmth of Spring, petals caressed open with the promise of sunlight. Even here, in the dark and twisted undergrowth of the Fae Forest, new life grew. Vines, saplings, underbrush, all were resurrected.
At the border of Perth, where the ominous treeline began to clear—to open invitingly and lure the unsuspecting into the realm of the Sidhe—there was sudden movement. He emerged as if from nowhere, as if from the trees themselves, tiny green buds pressed between his paw pads. His head swung low, eyes scanning the forest with an eerie, yellow-green gleam. Bark-colored patterns speckled across the back of his russet pelt, almost like the trees had clung to him when he moved, unwilling to let go. Ears swivelled forward and nose twitched, but there was something empty about his expression. In the distance, tiny, dark shapes floated through the mist, and all around him, the first glow worms of the season lit up the branches.
Suddenly, another dark shape swept past, and the wolf’s head jutted upward. His emerald eyes watched with mild curiosity as a crow landed on a tree branch just above him. Its beady, onyx eyes stared down at the wolf, head tilting intelligently as it hopped a fraction closer. The wolf’s tail swung gently; he knew the crow was there for him, but he did not know why.
Arythmetik did not even know where, or who, he was.
code by claerie
(This post was last modified: 05-24-2025, 11:17 AM by Arythmetik.)
Two weeks he'd been in the Highlands, and already he'd run into someone who had suffered from the Fae Fog. Slept-- for all five years. He wondered if it was just coincidence, or if there were more instances of Fae Sickness here in the Highlands since, presumably, this is where the Fae resided. That was his suspicion, but it would be difficult to research properly -- after all, looking into the topic in the capital was, er, discouraged. Here, it was a little easier. Even still, he was being cautious. Officially, he was here to study certain flora that could only be found in the Highlands, and their comparable counterparts in Rionna. Unofficially, he was researching the Fae Fog. Of course he couldn't say that outright, so it made finding wolves to talk to about it... difficult. But he would find ways around it, he was sure. And even if anyone started to suspect, he'd spent a pretty penny on his new cloak to cover himself and make him less identifiable (especially to hide his blasted little deer tail.. so easy to define him from that.) And happily for him, the cloak came quite in handy as it seemed to mist and rain a lot more here.
He had been trailing the outer edges of the Fae Forest, wary of going too far in but looking for curious plants, like the good Professor that he was. He'd stopped to lounge on a flat rock and eat lunch, enjoying the mist-muted sounds of the wild forest. It was so nice to be out of the bustle of the capital. He let out a long exhale, measuring his breath carefully.
The subtle flap of wings made him realize he'd closed his eyes. Blinking them open he searched the canopy for the source and saw the dark crow land on a branch not too far off -- and to his jolting surprise, a wolf was there below. Arthur jumped to his feet, startled-- when had someone gotten there? He was sure nobody had been here, he was downwind and there had been no scents. It was like he just appeared.
Caution lit in his nerves. He was not of Highlander origins, but his father was, and he was not so stupid as to discount any strange apparitions from the forest. On another day, he would have turned and silently left the area.. but...
He narrowed his gaze to focus. The wolf was familiar.
No, he knew who that was. Only.. it shouldn't be....
Because Arythmetik Hardin was dead.
Or... he was supposed to be.
It was possible that his death had only been a rumor-- things had been chaotic during and after the war, after all. But somehow he doubted that was the case; he hadn't seen nor heard anything of him at the College or anywhere else... Politics aside, the guild typically transcended such things, so he would've expected to hear something to the contrary if he were, in fact, still alive...
Another possibility was that this was a Fae attempting to trick him. But parading as the late professor would be a strange choice-- Arthur knew him by proximity, had admired him from afar, but they didn't know know each other. A childhood friend or one of his dead parents would've been a cleverer disguise.
... and then a third possibility, the very quiet whispers he had heard...a different result from the Fae Fog, something seemingly impossible...
“...Professor?” Arthur breathed, honey eyes wide-- at some point, he had approached the man, as if his limbs were on marionette strings. He stared at him, thinking at any moment he would disappear, vanish in the fog and leave Arthur wondering about his mental health.
A voice, soft and unsure, broke his attention away from the crow. His gaze shot over to the source, eyes flitting and quick like the movement of a dragonfly—otherwise, he was perfectly still. It took a moment for him to process the shape: a timber wolf, thin and feathery, rising from his stone chaise and approaching him with wonder.
There was no mistaking the bobbed tail and long legs. Arthur Locke was not the type of wolf one quickly forgot. However, as the russet male’s eyes narrowed, straining for recognition, he could not place a name. But the scent meant something to him. It meant long days and nights, surrounded by pages, pages, countless words, oceans of knowledge. Suddenly, the crow descended from the branches, landing alongside Aryth’s legs. He didn’t even look at the creature; he could not tear his attention away from the familiar face. Instead, in uncanny tandem, both Aryth and the crow tilted their heads at the same time.
Slowly, Aryth’s lips parted. At first, there was no sound, and his mouth closed gently. Then he tried again, voice hoarse and hollow as if from lack of use. “Professor… Yes, you are a professor.” He knew this, but why did it hurt to think about it? Why did his chest ache with the rich scent of parchment? He remained stoic and without expression as he asked, “Who are you?”
There was something a little bit… uncanny about his movements. Eyes so sharp, body so still. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, moving his weight from one paw to the other, and had he a tail, he’d sweep it gently behind him in an appeasing kind of manner. They met each other’s gaze and simply stared at each other for what felt like years, and yet it was probably only a few moments. There was no light of recognition in his green gaze, but Arthur didn’t entirely expect him to remember. When they’d been at the College together, Arthur was, for lack of better phraseology, a nobody. He was a student for far too long, jumping from subject to subject and never confident enough to settle on a discipline or make any waves. Professor Arythmetik, on the other hand, was the opposite. The two of them had even both tried for Princess Mhairi’s tutor, and whenever Arthur looked back at that he had to laugh at his boldness and undepreparedness. They’d chosen Arythmetik, and it had made sense. At the time, and for a little while after, Arthur had felt a bud of jealousy for the man.
Though, looking at him now, perhaps it was a blessing he had not followed the path that had led the Professor to… whatever was happening here.
Arthur came out of his memories as it looked like he might speak— a failed attempt, followed by a successful, albeit, rasping voice. His slender ears twitched at the sound, noting it, curious about it. “Professor… Yes, you are a professor.” Arthur frowned a little, his pale brows knitting. “Who are you?” he asked, though it seemed a surprise that he asked a question with how expressionless his face was.
Arthur fretted. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to approach this situation. He was also still cautious of this being a fae trick, and was wary of giving out his name.
“I was talking about you, Professor Arythmetik.” he said very gently, wheaten eyes flicking along Aryth's face for any sort of recognition or light in his eyes. "I'm from the same College we both went to and worked at, out paths crossed a couple times," he elaborated, offering who he was without who he was. "You... you've been... gone for a long time," Arthur ventured slowly. He still didn't know what he believed, or how to begin talking to him. "Have you been here, in the Fae Forest? " the more he spoke, the more he seemed to gain the courage to show his curiosity, and his desperation. If he'd been alive all this time, people would need to know. Even though.. he thought he remembered hearing about a funeral...
His brows pulled again. "It was.. I'd heard you'd died, in the war..." he ventured, voice reclaiming it's softness and catching on the word 'died', taking on a rasp of it's own while his eyes remained glued to his face, looking for.. he didn't know what. A clue, recognition, emotion? Anything, he supposed.
This finally brought a frown to the russet male’s countenance. Professor Arythmetik. The words were gentle and warm; it sounded the way a campfire felt. A comforting, welcoming, light in the darkness. The lanky timber wolf continued to elaborate, and with each added detail, Aryth’s heartbeat quickened.
Neither of the wolves knew that he was stirring back to life.
With furrowed brows, Aryth glanced at the damp grass. The crow hopped near his feet, pecking gently at any bug that dared to crawl too close to its companion. This grey male—this other professor—seemed to know him, insisting that he used to work at a college. But he had no recollection of such a profession. And yet, the memories of pages…words…this other wolf’s scent had the images swirling in his scattered mind. And then, finally, a question he knew the answer to: “Have you been here, in the Fae Forest?”“No,” he whispered hoarsely, glancing back up at Arthur. “No, I was not here, I was…in a desert…”
---
Suddenly, he opened his eyes and Grigori was standing there, gazing down at him. Aryth smiled dreamily. “I was just thinking of you,” he said lovingly.
“Were ye now?” he imagined Grigori replying in his characteristic drawl. “Yer always on my mind.”
Arythmetik imagined his lover helping him to his feet. He pressed himself against the bodyguard’s tousled, blond coat. The smell of mint filled his nostrils as he breathed deeply, smiling into Grigori’s neck, reaching up to lick his cheek. “It’s time to go. To return from where you came.” The boys were grown up now, living their own rich, full lives. Maybe they would join the adventure, but they didn’t have to. They could be whoever they wanted to be, do whatever they wanted to do. They could be better men than their fathers ever were. But Grigori was a damn fine man. “We’re old now, there’s nothing left for us here. Let’s have one, final journey.”
Grigori nodded. Arythmetik’s emerald eyes, sparkling with the vitality and joy of Melrose itself, sought his husband’s handsome features. Together, they set out from Perth and traveled south. They walked for days, and days turned into weeks, sleeping under the stars and fishing for dinner from nearby brooks. They would go to the desert, so Grigori could meet the son he never should have had to leave, the son Aryth so desperately wanted to meet. Because he was the last part of Grigori Aryth never got to know. And in their one final road to redemption, cowboy and scholar could revel in the memories of a full life lived together. There was no more war. There was no more doubt, no more arguments or heartache. There was no more pain. There was only love and adventure.
And for some reason, Arythmetik felt on a deep, cosmic level, that their journey to the desert was bringing him home, too. Where he came from.
---
Arythmetik shook his head, confused and rattled. He did not recall the memories of his dying dreams, but he remembered the feeling. “Was it a desert?” he asked himself aloud, and were he fully lucid, he might have panicked. “I was somewhere wide…I was home.” However, he was snapped back to attention when the timber wolf mentioned death. Inexplicably, Aryth felt a hot, sharp pain in his belly, and he winced. But it passed quickly.
Aryth closed the distance between himself and the other, his crow flapping back to the branches above. “You seem like a nice young man,” he offered, his voice warmer than before, but still strangely hollow. “And we must know one another. But it seems highly unlikely that I…died.” He glanced around them. “Is this the Fae Forest, then? Which direction is the College you spoke of?”
As Arthur spoke, the Professor’s gaze began to trail down, as if none of it had meaning.. Or as if he were thinking. Arthur’s own gaze followed, landing on the crow that seemed comfortable at the man’s pale paws. Professor Arythmetik had a crow, didn’t he? At one question he posed, though, Arthur was rewarded with green eyes that lifted back to his face; Arthur mirrored them, lifting his to meet him hopefully.. “No. No, I was not here, I was… in a desert… “
A desert?
It was an answer, but one that didn’t make sense to him. As far as he knew, there weren’t any deserts anywhere close enough to be considered travelable. Unless he meant a desert of a different kind.. Or perhaps it was one of the new lands that had emerged from the fog? “A desert…?” he echoed gently, leaving it open for elaboration. How badly he wanted to press, to rain down ten more questions for Aryth’s every answer: What did it look like? How did you get there? What were you doing there? But he clamped his tongue between his teeth. In his younger days, he may have littered those questions without a thought– but gracefully, over the years, he’d learned. He could see it in the golden Professor’s face: more questions right now would not lead to more answers.
“Was it a desert? I was somewhere wide… I was home.” Home. Arthur nodded attentively, as if it made sense to him. He logged the knowledge away, and hoped he would get the chance to ask about it later. At the mention of the death rumor, the Professor’s posture changed and it looked like he almost winced. Arthur may have stepped forward with concern, but it was Arythmetik who moved closer– so the man remained in his place. “You seem like a nice young man, and we must know one another. But it seems highly unlikely that I… died.” A little more life touched his tones, though there was still an uncanny nature to the way he spoke. The man offered him a small, apologetic half-smile at the comment of the likelihood that he had died. That was true, it was a ridiculous thing to think or suggest. Arthur almost felt stupid for it… and yet. “Highly unlikely,” he agreed amiably. But impossible…? “Is this the Fae Forest, then? Which direction is the College you spoke of?”
“It is,” Arthur answered, glancing around their surroundings. Arthymetik should know the Fae Forest.. He’d been in the Highlands during the war (so the rumors said, as he’d supposedly fleed when Mhairi betrayed the crown). So if he didn’t, in fact, rise from the dead (Arthur still scoffed with embarrassment at himself, even as he also considered it to be a possibility), at the very least he was suffering from amnesia and disorientation. Effects of the Fae he’d seen plenty of times before. “The College is about a week’s walk to the South… it used to be located in the Lowlands, but after the war it was relocated to Rionna, in the Capitol.” his honey eyes flicked across Aryth’s face, still searching for recognition or confusion. He didn’t know how much he knew or didn’t know, and that may have been a lot. “I have a little cabin nearby that I’m doing field research out of, you’re welcome to come rest there while you regain your bearings?” he suggested. “I can make you tea, I’ve found the mix of peppermint and lavender tend to help with… things like this.” He hoped he would accept, because Arthur didn’t feel comfortable leaving him out here seemingly alone (crow aside). Besides… he wanted to hear more about this desert.
Arthur’s agreement put the russet male at ease. His fur flattened ever so slightly, and some faint tension held in his muscles relaxed in response to the timber wolf’s smile. To anyone else, it would have been obvious that the Professor of Ecology was nervous and confused—even suspicious. It was, in fact, impossible for a Lowlander native to Rionnach not to realize they were in the Fae Forest. The twining arcs of the branches were unmistakable; the mist that permeated the soft, mushroom-riddled ground was an omen of Sidhe trickery. But there was no recognition in Aryth’s gleaming, unnaturally intense eyes.
“The war…” he murmured, mostly to himself, as Arthur spoke. Flashes of crowded streets, of coughing wolves dying in sick beds, of the agonizing betrayal that seared as hot and deep as the blade of a knife. Why didn’t you protect your people? Why didn’t you protect your people… The crow’s iridescent feathers ruffled at the mention of the word. It seemed to glare at Arthur for bringing it up. But as usual, Aryth disregarded the crow’s behavior. His gaze never left the honeyed visage of his new companion, and even though he was livelier, he was still…detached.
Not all there.
“Field research? On what?” He shook his head, managing a gentle smile. “Yes, tea. That would be lovely. I appreciate your generosity.” From its perch on high, the crow spread its wings and stepped forward, ready to surveil them during the brief journey.
code by claerie
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2025, 06:43 PM by Arythmetik.)
